A Faerie's Farthing

Chicken or the Egg?

2009-11-18T07:27:00.000-08:00

Since Darwin is all the news with the 140th anniversary of the book that drives creationsits bonkers, I simply had to post this:

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The answer is the egg. By evolution's mechanisms, whatever laid the first chicken egg had to be not-quite-chicken itself. Thus, the first chicken egg laid represented an evolution.

Ergo, the egg came first.

;D

Bonny Bonnaroo!

2009-02-03T16:08:00.000-08:00

Wow! The lineup looks amazing this year! I went in '07, but skipped last year; the excitement just wasn't there. But this year is looking fantastic!

Blackwater = Pinkertons = Strike Breakers?

2007-10-11T12:45:00.000-07:00

Yeah, okay, it's been over a week now since Congress held hearings on the role of Blackwater in security operations in Iraq; what can I say...I'm a slackard. But I've finally gotten around to diarying it, because some of the questioning definitely deserves a much wider audience. If you missed the testimony, I must say it was damn fascinating. I transcribed my favorite exchanges from the hearing and present them here to you.

There were quite a few highlights, e.g., "I'm not a lawyer" is the new "I can't recall." But it wasn't all fun and snark. Let's jump straight to the testimony that gave me this diary's title. Representative Jim Cooper (D - TN) brought up some very compelling points about just what Blackwater might and might not do within their business model.

Rep. Jim Rep. Jim Cooper: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Prince: in the charter, or by-laws, of your corporation, either the holding company or Blackwater, does it say explicitly that it will only work for the United States of America or its entities?

Prince: No; it doesn't. If I could clarify: anything we do for any foreign government - any training of anything, from law-enforcement training to any kind of aviation training, tactical flying, any of that stuff, all of that is licensed back through the State Department, another part of the State Department.

Rep. Jim Cooper: But you're the owner of the company, the CEO. If limitations like this are not in the charter and by-laws, isn't there a risk, should something happen to you, that different management, in order to maximize profits, might seek contracts from any number of other foreign countries? Like if Vladimir Putin offered a lot of money, why would you want to turn that down as a business entity?

Prince: Because you'd be violating federal law and the whole place could be shut down very very quickly.

Rep. Jim Cooper: But you're assuming a state department license would apply.

Prince: It does

Rep. Jim Cooper: But you're a regular, private company; you can...

Prince: No; no, Sir. I'm sorry; we have to have a license to train...

Rep. Jim Cooper: I'm not talking about training other people's private police. Say you took some of your former, people who are former navy seals, special forces, whatever, and they're working for hire; what prevents you in your current company charter or by-laws prevent hiring out those people to foreign governments?

Prince: U.S. Federal law does.

Rep. Jim Cooper: Which law?

Prince: Defense Trade Controls Act. Any training, any security services, any export of any weapons, any equipment you'd use to do that kind of job, requires a license. On top of that, this idea that we have this private army in the wings is just not accurate. The people we employ are former U.S. military and law enforcement people. People that have sworn the oath to support and defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic; they bleed red, white and blue. So the idea that they're going to suddenly switch, after having served, honorably for the U.S. military and go play for the other team? Not likely.

Rep. Jim Cooper: But these independent contractors are employees; they're supposed to do what they're told and is your omission of this key bit of information from the charter and by-laws only due to the fact that it would be redundant? If it's assumed, why don't you go ahead and put it in the charter and by-laws that these people, this company, will only work for the United States of America and its entities? Why wouldn't that be a nice addition to the charter and by laws?

Prince: That wouldn't make any sense, because we have NATO allies helping in Afghanistan, helping the United States' mission there, and there might be opportunities for us to support, provide them with training, or aviation support, or logistics or construction or a lot of other things that allies need. Especially as the U.S. is trying to build capacity around the world, there's a lot of countries that need help building up their police departments, giving them more counter-terrorism capability...

Rep. Jim Cooper: There are 26 NATO allies, so you could work for any of them?

Prince: 26 NATO allies, but more and more the U.S. Government is doing "FID" missions; Foreign Internal Defense. We’ve done a number of successful programs for them, working for the U.S. Government, where they hire us, we go in and we build that capacity. We train them and provide the equipment. All of which is licensed by the State Department. When we apply for that license, it goes to the State Department and they farm it out to the relevant part of the DoD to control and authorize that licensing. What's the curriculum going to be, what tactics, even down to which individual in which country is going to be trained so they can do a check on them. So that is all controlled by the U.S. Government already, Sir.

Rep. Jim Cooper: On your website, it says you were contracted to enhance the Azerbaijan naval sea commando's maritime interdiction capability. Is Azerbaijan a member of NATO?

Prince: No; but that was paid for by the U.S. Government.

Rep. Jim Cooper: Let me ask another question.

Prince: It's part of their regional engagement policy; I don't make that policy, Sir.

Rep. Jim Cooper: Wouldn't it be nice to put in your charter and by-laws that you only work for U.S., or U.S.-approved entities? Why would that be harmful to your company?

Prince: We would be happy to do that, but it's absolutely redundant because we can't work for someone that's not U.S.-approved.

Rep. Jim Cooper: Redundancy is a small objection to making sure that you're a loyal U.S. company. Let me ask another question: what if a large company inside the United States of America wanted to hire your company for services, say to break a strike or other purposes like that. Is that allowed in your charter and by-laws?

Prince: That's not something we've even explored.

Rep. Jim Cooper: But it would be permissible under your current company charter? It's a new line of business, possibly, that might be very profitable.

Prince: That's not something we're looking at, not part of our strategic plan at all, Sir.

Rep. Jim Cooper: I know, but you're a mortal human being. Your company would allow it according to its current charter and by-laws?

Prince: Well, I have five boys that I'm raising; so one of them perhaps will take over some day.

Rep. Jim Cooper: Why not put it in the charter and by-laws? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I see that my time has expired.

Kinda breathtaking when you stop to think about it. I don't know if Prince was being obtuse or what. But he was awfully reluctant to come right out and say he would rule out the possibility of Blackwater being hired out as local goons. To be used against American citizens on American soil. He wouldn't rule it out; instead we got flippant comments about how one of his sons might eventually take over. Reassuring...NOT!

Equally damning was this exchange with Rep. Bruce Braley, highlighting the very loosely defined accountability structure in which Blackwater operates:

Rep. Bruce Braley: I want to start by asking you about a statement you made on page three of your written statement you shared with the committee where you wrote the company and its personnel are already accountable under, and subject to, numerous statutes, treaties and regulations of the United States. And then you went on and attached to your statement a list of existing laws, regulations and treaties that apply to contractors and their personnel. Is that the document that I'm holding up in my hands?

Prince: Yes, Sir.

Rep. Bruce Braley: Is it your testimony, today, under oath, that all Blackwater employees working in Iraq and Afghanistan are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act and the War Crimes Act?

Prince: It is my understanding that is the case; yes, Sir.

Rep. Bruce Braley: Let's look at this document. I want to ask you: this document, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, applies in the time of declared war. You would agree that there has been no declared war on Iraq or Afghanistan?

Prince: No; but I believe it's been amended to include contingency operations.

Rep. Bruce Braley: Is it your understanding that a "contingency operation" would apply to what's going on Iraq and Afghanistan?

Prince: I'm not a lawyer, but my layman's understanding is yes.

Rep. Bruce Braley: Alright. And then it says "to persons serving with or accompanying an armed force in the field." Do you see that?

Prince: Well, I don't have that in front of me, but if you're reading from it...

Rep. Bruce Braley: I'm just reading from the document you provided to us. If that's what the Uniform Code of Military Justice provides, you would agree, based upon your own description of the activities of your company, there are times when your employees are not serving with or accompanying armed forces in the field?

Prince: There are times when U.S. Military units are actually embedded in our motorcades.

Rep. Bruce Braley: But to answer my question, there are times when your employees are not serving with or accompanying armed forces in the field, isn't that correct?

Prince: Sir; I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not going to give you that level of detail. If you want a clear written statement as to the company opinion. I'm sure the State Department can answer what their opinion is on that. But we've looked at it and we feel comfortable that our guys could be brought under investigation with those ruling legal authorities over their heads.

Rep. Bruce Braley: And then let's look at the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, Section 3261 - criminal offenses committed by certain members of the armed forces and by persons employed by, or accompanied by, the armed forces outside the United States. You would agree that there are circumstances where your employees would not meet that definition based upon their service in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Prince: I believe that was changed, yet again, to include any U.S.-funded contract.

Rep. Bruce Braley: Well, that's the definition that applies to U.S.-funded contracts from the statue.

Prince: Again, I'm not a lawyer, Sir. I'm sorry.

Rep. Bruce Braley: Then let's look at the War Crimes Act of 1996, which applies if the perpetrator is a U.S. national or a member of U.S. Armed forces. You would agree, based upon your testimony today, that there would be circumstances when some of your employees would not meet the definition of "perpetrator" to be covered by the War Crimes Act?

Prince: Again, I'm not sure, Sir.

Rep. Bruce Braley: Well, you testified that you hire some third-country nationals. They would not be U.S. nationals, would they?

Prince: Yes; correct.

Rep. Bruce Braley: And they would not be members of the U.S. armed forces.

Prince: But they are serving in a U.S. DoD contingency operation.

Earlier in the testimony, someone had asked about these third-party nationals and Prince replied that they only did guardwork and never left those stationary posts. Guard work, huh? Like guarding prisoners, the Oil Ministry, what? Do people on guard detail not occasionally misfire and maybe kill civilians? Of course they do.

The overarching point of the hearings, imho, was the question of accountability and whether or not Blackwater's obvious lack of it is helping or hurting our cause in Iraq. The obvious answer, of course, is "hurting it" which, thankfully, then begs the question of why our soldiers, who have been pulling guard and security details since time immemorial and are unquestionably accountable for their behavior, aren't doing these jobs we're hiring Blackwater to do. This is when I fell in love with Representative Diane Watson of California:

Rep. Diane Watson: Let me say this: I am really concerned when it comes to privatizing the various struggles that we are having in a war zone.

And I'm looking at a book here that says, "Blackwater: The rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army." That is really disturbing to me, because I feel that every young man and woman...every man and woman in the military ought to be paid for their service. And I think you're making a good argument for the amount of money that you have been paid, your organization. And I think...my question is: do you feel that we ought to continue on with privatizing the kinds of duties that our military should be trained to execute?

Prince: Ma'am, the United States Military is the finest, most powerful military in the world.

Rep. Diane Watson: Absolutely.

Prince: Bar none.

Rep. Diane Watson: And they should be paid accordingly.

Prince: It's designed for large-scale conventional operations, what they did to Saddam in '91, and then again in 2002.

Rep. Diane Watson: Well, then there's something wrong with the design and that's my point. I think you responded and I hear you clearly. You are providing a service and I commend you; let me just continue on. You are providing a service and those little voids, Mr. Chairman and committee members, ought to be filled by the young... the people who volunteer.

We have no draft; these are volunteers. And why should they put their lives on the line for this country and not be compensated so their families back at home don't have to go on welfare and are living in housing that is substandard? And I am just infuriated, not with you, but with the fact that our State Department and our Department of Defense cannot see their way...and they talk about "we don't have the money, saving money." This war is costing us a trillion dollars. You have been paid over a billion dollars and will continue to be paid so that you can buy the helicopters that are shot down.

And so my question to you: are we going to have to continue to privatize because we are not training to do what you do and would it not be better to hire you to train our military to do the kind of guarding of VIP personnel; whenever there's a coterie, you have to guard them. When people from the State Department come, you have to guard them because we say that our military is not prepared and not trained to do that.

Prince: Well, Ma'am. I'm happy to say that we do a significant amount of training for the U.S. military every day at our couple of facilities that we have around the country.

Rep. Diane Watson: But you're saying that you fill in a specialty area.

Prince: It's a specialty gap, a high-end [indiscernible] security

Rep. Diane Watson: And my question that I throw out to all of us is why can't we train these people who are willing, who have courage to go into the military, but then we have to bring on a private firm to do the job they should be trained to do and pay them 3 or 4 times more than we pay those who choose to serve their country by fighting in-theater?

Prince: The military could do that, but the U.S. military can't be all things to all people all the time.

Rep. Diane Watson: Why not?

Prince: The tyranny of shortage of time and distance. You can't have an anti-air missile guy also be doing PSD missions and knowing how to be an aviation mechanic; it’s too broad of a base of skill requirement.

Rep. Diane Watson: So, they need more people?

When she piped up with "Why not?" I was done for. And I just loved the exceptionally subtle way she established that our "all-volunteer" army needs more people; why would we need Blackwater otherwise?

Believe it or not, there was even cause for a celebration on the R side of the aisle. No; Issa was the same, bloviating asshat he's always been and always will be. And McHenry is the same old laughingstock. Nor did Westmoreland say anything with more intellectual gravitas than your average 2nd grader's essay. But Rep. John Duncan (R -TN) may have just proven himself the last proper conservative in Congress:

Rep. John Duncan: Our committee memorandum says using Blackwater instead of U.S. troops to protect embassy officials is expensive. That's putting it lightly; Blackwater charges the government $1,222 per day for the services of a private military contractor. This is equivalent to $445,000 per year - over 6 times more than the cost of an equivalent U.S. soldier.

This war has produced some of the most lavish, most fiscally excessive, most exorbitantly profitable contracts in the history of the world. And it seems to me that fiscal conservatives should be under no, feel no obligation to defend this type of contract. In fact, it seems to me that fiscal conservatives should be the ones most horrified by this. And I notice in the table that Blackwater's contracting has gone from 25 million in 2003 to 48 million 2004, to 593 million in 2006. If we are going to be there another 10 years, as some have said, I surely hope that we're not going to continue to see these types of ridiculously excessive increases in the contracts that are being handed out.

I also notice that Blackwater is a subsidiary of the Prince Group, of Prince Group Holdings, and that another one of the holdings of that firm is Presidential Airways, an aviation company that has held a contract with the U.S. Air Force Air Mobility Command. Mr. Prince, can you tell me what percentage of Prince Group Holdings comes from federal contracts of all or any types?

Prince asks him to repeat the question.

Rep. John Duncan: Can you tell me...I don't know what all companies are in...I don't know all the companies that are in your Prince Group Holdings. Apparently, there is a Presidential Airways. I don't know how many other companies there are. What I'm wondering about is how much of Prince Group Holdings comes from federal contracts of any and all types.

Prince: Most of Prince Group Holdings come from federal contracts. blather blather blather

Rep. John Duncan: When you said most; does that mean 100%? Rough guess: what percentage?

Prince: Rough guess? 90%

Rep. John Duncan: Do you still have a contract with Presidential Airways with Air Force Mobility Command?

Prince: Yes, Sir.

Rep. John Duncan: And rough guess: how much is that contract each year?

Prince: I don't know what the exact number is, Sir. It's for 8 aircraft right now; I don't know what they price out at.

Rep. John Duncan: What other companies are in Prince Group Holdings?

Prince: There's a long list; I've got a manufacturing business that has nothing to do with federal stuff. Appliances, parts, etc.

Prince was, naturally, very defensive of Blackwater's work, citing umpteen cost matrices that'd been worked out to justify their "competitively bid" prices. But the question remained: why can't we just pay our military to do these things? Dare we hope that rummy's Faerieland Strike Force army has finally been declared a disastrous experiment?

Backwash

2006-07-11T22:23:00.000-07:00

Backwash is...that last sip of psuedo-beer at the bottom of the bottle. Backwash is...what's left when the glass is 2/3rds empty. Backwash is...the 23%who will never abandon Herr Chimperor. Ladies and gentlemen, Backwash:

Rollins' Love Letter to Coulter Transcript

2006-07-02T13:17:00.000-07:00

I love, love, love this video. It is a smackdown of Annie that only Rollins could ever deliver. Since videos tend to be somewhat ephemeral on the internets, I thought it a good thing to transcribe the text:

Dear Ann:

You used to be fun; at least funny. At least gently and amusingly insane, but girlfriend, you’ve changed! The thousand-yard stare you’ve acquired in the last couple of years says lonely nights, too much wine and insecurity about the future of your career. Where to now, my sweet fascist? Another one of your silly books? More hilarious appearances on Hannity & Colmes? Bill Maher has to be tired of you by now.

You’re anything but stupid and by now , you must see the writing on the wall. You’ll never have a real place with the Beltway in crowd, as they see you as a northeastern, hickoid, pro wrestler, Nascar type with a degree from Cornell. I mean, really, Ann; where can it go from here? Ann, I think I have the answer, in fact, I know I do.

I want to hire you, Ann. I want you to come and work for me. I want you to be my “Ann Friday,” my housekeeper, beekeeper, floor, chimney and minesweeper, my window-washing, grocery-buying, dinner-cooking, obsequious, submissive concubine-domestic.

You will laugh at my jokes, celebrate my victories and lament my failures. You will praise my friends and vow great harm upon all who oppose me. You will treat me like a god, a guru, a mentor – and the best night in the sack you’ve ever had. You will carry my bags, wash my cars, walk my dogs and turn your savings over to me. You will massage Susan Sarandon’s aching shoulders, whip up vegan delights for Hanoi Jane Fonda, and loofah Barbra Streisand’s stretch marks.

But most of all, Ann, you will just shut the fuck up.

I can offer you a life of obedient servitude on my compound; in your time with me, you will learn much. You will learn that America is made up of people from all races, walks of life and sexual orientation and that it’s all OK. You will learn to be patient and kind. You will learn the meaning of the word “respect” and memorize every line of Caddyshack. You will listen to The Ramones, Black Sabbath and the Brides of Funkenstein. You’re a figure of fun and I plan on having fun with that figure. You will learn who your daddy is, that’s for sure.

But mostly, Ann, you will just the fuck up.

Come on, Anne, ya fuckin’ psycho; let’s do this!

Henry

Tags: Coulter, Rollins, Henry Rollins

The Annotated Colbert

2006-07-01T03:55:00.000-07:00

No; this story will not die. So There. And why should it? Colbert's performance at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner is still just as ballsalicious and snarktastic as ever. Besides; the more we blather on about it, the more people come to realize the preznit got owned.

To that end, I've been sharing it with lots of people and found myself having to explain some of the references. I've run into a similar situation regarding Pink's "Dear Mr. President;" not everyone is familiar with the "hard work" reference. So I thought it'd be fun to have an annotated Colbert for those who don't live, eat and breathe political news. Naturally, I can't claim to speak for him; any editorializing or snark is a product of my warped mind. But I have tried to identify the inspiration for said snark accurately. Without further ado, Mr. Colbert:

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Before I begin, I've been asked to make an announcement. Whoever parked 14 black bulletproof S.U.V.'s out front, could you please move them? They are blocking in 14 other black bulletproof S.U.V.'s and they need to get out.

Wow. Wow, what an honor. The White House correspondents' dinner. To actually sit here, at the same table with my hero, George W. Bush, to be this close to the man. I feel like I'm dreaming. Somebody pinch me. You know what? I'm a pretty sound sleeper -- that may not be enough. Somebody shoot me in the face. Is he really not here tonight? Dammit. The one guy who could have helped.

By the way, before I get started, if anybody needs anything else at their tables, just speak slowly and clearly into your table numbers. Somebody from the NSA will be right over with a cocktail. Mark Smith, ladies and gentlemen of the press corps, Madame First Lady, Mr. President, my name is Stephen Colbert and tonight it's my privilege to celebrate this president. We're not so different, he and I. We get it. We're not brainiacs on the nerd patrol. We're not members of the factinista. We go straight from the gut, right sir? That's where the truth lies, right down here in the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up. I know some of you are going to say "I did look it up, and that's not true." That's 'cause you looked it up in a book.

Next time, look it up in your gut. I did. My gut tells me that's how our nervous system works. Every night on my show, the Colbert Report, I speak straight from the gut, OK? I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the "No Fact Zone." Fox News, I hold a copyright on that term.

I'm a simple man with a simple mind. I hold a simple set of beliefs that I live by. Number one, I believe in America. I believe it exists. My gut tells me I live there. I feel that it extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and I strongly believe it has 50 states. And I cannot wait to see how the Washington Post spins that one tomorrow. I believe in democracy. I believe democracy is our greatest export. At least until China figures out a way to stamp it out of plastic for three cents a unit.

In fact, Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong, welcome. Your great country makes our Happy Meals possible. I said it's a celebration. I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.

I believe in pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. I believe it is possible -- I saw this guy do it once in Cirque du Soleil. It was magical. And though I am a committed Christian, I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be you Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe it's yogurt. But I refuse to believe it's not butter. Most of all, I believe in this president.

Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias.

So, Mr. President, please, pay no attention to the people that say the glass is half full. 32% means the glass -- it's important to set up your jokes properly, sir. Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32% means it's 2/3 empty. There's still some liquid in that glass is my point, but I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash. Okay, look, folks, my point is that I don't believe this is a low point in this presidency. I believe it is just a lull before a comeback.

I mean, it's like the movie "Rocky." All right. The president in this case is Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed is -- everything else in the world. It's the tenth round. He's bloodied. His corner man, Mick, who in this case I guess would be the vice president, he's yelling, "Cut me, Dick, cut me!," and every time he falls everyone says, "Stay down! Stay down!" Does he stay down? No. Like Rocky, he gets back up, and in the end he -- actually, he loses in the first movie.

OK. Doesn't matter. The point is it is the heart-warming story of a man who was repeatedly punched in the face. So don't pay attention to the approval ratings that say 68% of Americans disapprove of the job this man is doing. I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68% approve of the job he's not doing? Think about it. I haven't.

I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message: that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound -- with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.

Now, there may be an energy crisis. This president has a very forward-thinking energy policy. Why do you think he's down on the ranch cutting that brush all the time? He's trying to create an alternative energy source. By 2008 we will have a mesquite-powered car!

And I just like the guy. He's a good joe. Obviously loves his wife, calls her his better half. And polls show America agrees. She's a true lady and a wonderful woman. But I just have one beef, ma'am.

I'm sorry, but this reading initiative. I'm sorry, I've never been a fan of books. I don't trust them. They're all fact, no heart. I mean, they're elitist, telling us what is or isn't true, or what did or didn't happen. Who's Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was built in 1914? If I want to say it was built in 1941, that's my right as an American! I'm with the president, let history decide what did or did not happen.

The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change; this man's beliefs never will. As excited as I am to be here with the president, I am appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media that is destroying America, with the exception of Fox News. Fox News gives you both sides of every story: the president's side, and the vice president's side.

But the rest of you, what are you thinking, reporting on NSA wiretapping or secret prisons in eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason: they're super-depressing. And if that's your goal, well, misery accomplished. Over the last five years you people were so good -- over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew.

But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!

Because really, what incentive do these people have to answer your questions, after all? I mean, nothing satisfies you. Everybody asks for personnel changes. So the White House has personnel changes. Then you write, "Oh, they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!

Now, it's not all bad guys out there. Some are heroes: Christopher Buckley, Jeff Sacks, Ken Burns, Bob Schieffer. They've all been on my show. By the way, Mr. President, thank you for agreeing to be on my show. I was just as shocked as everyone here is, I promise you. How's Tuesday for you? I've got Frank Rich, but we can bump him. And I mean bump him. I know a guy. Say the word.

See who we've got here tonight. General Moseley, Air Force Chief of Staff. General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They still support Rumsfeld. Right, you guys aren't retired yet, right? Right, they still support Rumsfeld.

Look, by the way, I've got a theory about how to handle these retired generals causing all this trouble: don't let them retire! Come on, we've got a stop-loss program; let's use it on these guys. I've seen Zinni and that crowd on Wolf Blitzer. If you're strong enough to go on one of those pundit shows, you can stand on a bank of computers and order men into battle. Come on.

Jesse Jackson is here, the Reverend. Haven't heard from the Reverend in a little while. I had him on the show. Very interesting and challenging interview. You can ask him anything, but he's going to say what he wants, at the pace that he wants. It's like boxing a glacier. Enjoy that metaphor, by the way, because your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is.

Justice Scalia is here. Welcome, sir. May I be the first to say, you look fantastic. How are you? [After each sentence, Colbert makes a hand gesture...Scalia is seen laughing hysterically.] Just talking some Sicilian with my paisan.

John McCain is here. John McCain, John McCain, what a maverick! Somebody find out what fork he used on his salad, because I guarantee you it wasn't a salad fork. This guy could have used a spoon! There's no predicting him. By the way, Senator McCain, it's so wonderful to see you coming back into the Republican fold. I have a summer house in South Carolina; look me up when you go to speak at Bob Jones University. So glad you've seen the light, sir.

Mayor Nagin! Mayor Nagin is here from New Orleans, the chocolate city! Yeah, give it up. Mayor Nagin, I'd like to welcome you to Washington, D.C., the chocolate city with a marshmallow center. And a graham cracker crust of corruption. It's a Mallomar, I guess is what I'm describing, a seasonal cookie.

Joe Wilson is here, Joe Wilson right down here in front, the most famous husband since Desi Arnaz. And of course he brought along his lovely wife Valerie Plame. Oh, my god. [looks horrified] Oh, what have I said? I am sorry, Mr. President, I meant to say he brought along his lovely wife Joe Wilson's wife. Patrick Fitzgerald is not here tonight? OK. Dodged a bullet.

And, of course, we can't forget the man of the hour, new press secretary, Tony Snow. Secret Service name, "Snow Job." Toughest job. What a hero. Took the second toughest job in government, next to, of course, the ambassador to Iraq.

Got some big shoes to fill, Tony. Big shoes to fill. Scott McClellan could say nothing like nobody else. McClellan, of course, eager to retire. Really felt like he needed to spend more time with Andrew Card's children. Mr. President, I wish you hadn't made the decision so quickly, sir.

I was vying for the job myself. I think I would have made a fabulous press secretary. I have nothing but contempt for these people. I know how to handle these clowns.

In fact, sir, I brought along an audition tape and with your indulgence, I'd like to at least give it a shot. So, ladies and gentlemen, my press conference.

Net Neutrality Vote Thursday

2006-06-20T09:12:00.000-07:00

Okay, people. We need to heed Christy's words and light 'em up. It looks like the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006 (COPE Act) is due for a vote in the Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday. Christy has all the Senators' contact info, as well as the great coverage of Misener and McCurry. And while you're calling, also encourage them to sponsor the Dorgan-Snowe Net Neutrality.

We all know what's at stake here; I won't bore you with any details. Suffice it to say if you want to continue enjoying the wild and wacky internets, you need to call. And get everybody else to call. If you need that extra incentive, Ted Stevens sits on this committee. UPDATE: More details at this comment - the committee's schedule and more information on the bill itself. Apparently, it isn't just that Ted "Tantrum" Stevens is on the committee; this is his bill altogether.

: p

What you may not realize (I didn't) is that America has been here before; this fight is nothing new.

Once again, history repeats.

Beginning in the Progressive Era, there was extensive criticism of the reactionary political trajectory of the commercialized and concentrated newspaper industry, but there was little sense that any change was possible (5).

Such was not the case with radio broadcasting which emerged in dramatic fashion between 1920 and 1922. If only due to the physical scarcity in the number of channels available, it was recognized by all comers that the federal government would have to determine who, among the plethora of contenders, would be permitted to broadcast and, conversely, who would not.

...This opposition, which I term the “broadcast reform movement,” existed for less than a decade but played a central role in the debates over how best to structure U.S. broadcasting in the early 1930s. Although crushed unmercifully by commercial broadcasters, these reformers generated an impressive critique of the limitations of an oligopolized, capitalistic media industry for the communication requirements of a democratic society, a critique which has aged very well.

Aged very well, if at all - if specific dates and "radio" weren't in there, McChesney could just as well be writing about net neutrality today. There's a lot to be gleaned following the fight over allocation of radio airwaves.

The networks were the big winners. Thirty-seven of the forty clear channel stations went to network-affiliated stations. By the early 1930s, NBC and CBS affiliated stations accounted for seventy percent of U.S. broadcasting when hours broadcast and power levels are factored in (13). Advertising went from non-existence on a national basis in 1927 to the point where the networks accrued $72 million by 1934 (14). The other side of the coin was reflected in the equally dramatic decline of the non-profit broadcasting sector, from well over one hundred stations in 1927 to less than one-third that total by the early 1930s. Moreover, almost all of these stations operated with low power on shared frequencies. By 1934 non-profit broadcasting accounted for only two percent of U.S. broadcast time (15). For most Americans it effectively did not exist. *The FRC defended its practice of showing preference in granting licenses to commercial broadcasters* unequivocally in its Third Annual Report (16).

In 1930, a coalition of national education organizations organized as the National Committee on Education by Radio to keep the airwaves accessible to public broadcasting. The group's leader, Joy Elmer Morgan, had this to say:

Private monopoly in industry is bad enough; monopoly in the agencies which control the distribution of ideas is infinitely worse. It strikes at the very roots of free democratic government.

That is no understatement - and given the broader scope and power of the internets, the stakes are that much higher. Please, call the Senate Commerce Committee. If they give you guff about not being a constituent, just remind them that you don't get to choose your Senator's committee assignments and can't help the fact that you are not directly represented on this committee. But as the Senate Commerce Committee's ruling do not only affect the sitting Senators' respective states, you are making your opinions known. It is YOUR Senate Commerce Committee, no matter what they might say.

If you haven't checked it out already, Save the Internet has lots of info for sharing, as well as graphics for your webpage to spread the word. And now, for something completely different, John Perry Barlow channels a bit of Mr. Joy Elmer Morgan, God rest his soul:

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.

Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions.

You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.

You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don't exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract . This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different.

Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.

We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.

We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.

Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here.

Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge . Our identities may be distributed across many of your jurisdictions. The only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule. We hope we will be able to build our particular solutions on that basis. But we cannot accept the solutions you are attempting to impose.

In the United States, you have today created a law, the Telecommunications Reform Act, which repudiates your own Constitution and insults the dreams of Jefferson, Washington, Mill, Madison, DeToqueville, and Brandeis. These dreams must now be born anew in us.

You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants. Because you fear them, you entrust your bureaucracies with the parental responsibilities you are too cowardly to confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat.

In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and the United States, you are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of Cyberspace. These may keep out the contagion for a small time, but they will not work in a world that will soon be blanketed in bit-bearing media.

Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere, that claim to own speech itself throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another industrial product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish.

These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in the same position as those previous lovers of freedom and self-determination who had to reject the authorities of distant, uninformed powers. We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts.

We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before.

Davos, Switzerland

February 8, 1996

Big Oil's Fingers In So Very Many Pies...

2006-06-18T07:22:00.000-07:00

Not that I've professionally done the first thing with it, but I have a degree in biology, believe it or not. So, naturally, I take a healthy interest in scientific news stories. Given the release of An Inconvenient Truth, and the contentiousness inherent in the global warming debate, it was with quite an interest indeed that I read this recent AP article.

I can't even say why it caught my fancy; it's a perfectly respectable piece about the ice cores taken from beneath the Arctic Ocean and what they tell us of the geologic record. But something about it just seemed odd; I suppose seeing the North Pole described as a tropical paradise will do that to a person. So I decided to make my own expedition of sorts and look into the groups and organizations sponsoring this research. Shall we explore the layers of sediment below the fold?

Reading the article, we learn that this exercise was undertaken by a group identified only as the "Arctic Coring Expedition." Layer 1, if you will. A few moments with google leads us to layer 2, an organization called ECORD, whose website then points us to the third layer, the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program. This is where things get interesting, starting with the history of the organization. The IODP has two predecessors - The Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) and before that, the Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP):

The Levingston Shipbuilding Company laid the keel of the D/V Glomar Challenger on October 18, 1967, in Orange, Texas. The ship was launched on March 23, 1967, from that city. It sailed down the Sabine River to the Gulf of Mexico, and after a period of testing, the Deep Sea Drilling Project accepted the ship on August 11, 1968.

Over the next 30 months, Phase II consisted of drilling and coring in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans as well as the Mediterranean and Red Seas. Technical and scientific reports followed during a ten month period. Phase II ended on August 11, 1972, and ship began a successful scientific and engineering career.

The success of the Challenger was almost immediate. On Leg 1 Site 2 under a water depth of 1067 m (3500 ft), core samples revealed the existence of salt domes. Oil companies received samples after an agreement to publish their analyses. The potential of oil beneath deep ocean salt domes remains an important avenue for commercial development today.

But the purpose of the Glomar Challenger was scientific exploration.

Are they reminding us or themselves, I wonder? Digging into yet another layer, IODP has a nonprofit managing company, IODP Management International, Inc. (IODP-MI).

IODP-MI serves as the central management organization for IODP, receiving advice from Science Advisory Structure (SAS), and working in consultation with vessel/platform operators referred to as “Implementing Organizations” or IOs. IODP-MI's job is to translate the scientific priorities of the international scientific ocean drilling community into annual program plans.

IODP-MI has offices in Washington, D.C. and Sapporo, Japan and is responsible for program-wide science planning, and oversight of engineering development, publications, education and outreach, site survey data management, and core sample repositories.

I'm sure you can guess where I'm going with this...some of the main players at that Washington, D.C. office have ties to the oil/energy industry:

Manik Talwani, President & CEO - received a Master’s degree in Physics from Delhi University in India. Following that he received his Ph.D. from Columbia University and served as professor of geophysics there through 1982 and as the director of Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory (now the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory) from 1973 to 1981. He left Lamont to join Gulf Oil Company to serve first as director of the Center for Crustal Studies and then as chief scientist. When Chevron acquired Gulf in 1985, he left Gulf to accept the appointment at Rice and simultaneously he founded the Geotechnology Research Institute at the Houston Advanced Research Center where he served as its director until 1998.

...Hans Christian Larsen, IODP-MI Vice President for Science Planning - received his scientific degree in geologically applied geophysics from University of Copenhagen in 1977. He served as a researcher in the Geological Survey of Greenland before being promoted in 1984 to be leader of the department for basin analysis and petroleum exploration. During his tenure as department leader he established major co-operative projects with industry.

John Emmitte is their Contracts Officer. I'm still trying to confirm iformation on him, but it seems like his past lies on K Street, where he worked as director of Grants Management for the lobbyists at the Propane Council. And to think we've just begun our explorations!

It turns out that IODP's science is guided by yet another acronym, SAS. I suppose this is layer five, but it's hard to keep track.

IODP-MI submits an annual IODP Program Plan for review and approval first to the executive committee of the SAS, called the Science Planning and Policy Oversight Committee (SPPOC), then to the IODP-MI Board of Governors (BoG), and finally to the Lead Agencies who give final budget approval.

...IODP science planning is provided by the Science Advisory Structure (SAS), which involves many scientists and engineers on eight standing committees and panels. IODP-MI Sapporo works very closely with the SAS by managing the submission and review of drilling proposals, assisting SAS committee chairs, and organizing and maintaining public records of SAS activities.

According to the IODP's directives, "educational and/or research organizations, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and for-profit companies ineligible for membership." According to their committee rosters, though, the rule doesn't seem so cut and dry; besides the fact that IODP actually has an "Industry-IODP Science Program Planning Group," the eight committees of SAS all seem to be fairly crowded with oil interests. Here's a list from just three of the panels - Industry Group, Environmental Protection and Safety, and Engineering Development:

John Hogg - ConocoPhillips

Andrew Pepper - Hess

Martin Perlmutter - Chevron Corporation

David Roberts Rockall Geosciences Ltd.

Kurt Rudolph - ExxonMobil

Yoshihiro Tsuji - Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation

Yasuhiro Yamada - Kyoto U, Petroleum geology

Robert Bruce - BHP Petroleum

Akito Furutani - JDC

Masahiro Kamata - Schlumberger K.K.

Barry Katz - Chevron

Jean Mascle - Geosciences Azur

Sumito Morita - GSJ

Jerome Schubert - Texas A&M U, Petroleum engineering

Craig Shipp - Shell Internat'l E&P

Dieter Strack - Private consultant, Petroleum geology

Mark Alberty - BP

Masafumi Fukuhara - Schlumberger K.K.

Leon Holloway - ConocoPhilips

Yoichiro Ichikawa - JDC, Ltd

Yoshihiro Masuda - U. of Tokyo

Haruya Nakata - Geothermal Energy R&D Co., Ltd.

Roland Person - IFREMER

Peter Schultheiss - GEOTEK Ltd., UK

Axel Sperber - Private Consultant, drilling technologies

Mitsugu Takemura - JAPEX

And so it goes, panel after panel. One of the organizations involved, IFREMER, has a name that says it all: The French Research Institute for Ocean Exploitation. At least they're being honest, I guess. So what does this all mean? I'm not sure. This doesn't seem to be a case of buying science; the article does the fossil fuel industry no favors, citing greenhouse gases as responsible for an Arctic tropical paradise:

First-of-its-kind core samples dug up from deep beneath the Arctic Ocean floor show that 55 million years ago an area near the North Pole was practically a subtropical paradise, three new studies show.

The scientists say their findings are a glimpse backward into a much warmer-than-thought polar region heated by run-amok greenhouse gases that came about naturally.

...Millions of years ago the Earth experienced an extended period of natural global warming. But around 55 million years ago there was a sudden supercharged spike of carbon dioxide that accelerated the greenhouse effect.

Scientists already knew this "thermal event" happened but are not sure what caused it. Perhaps massive releases of methane from the ocean, the continent-sized burning of trees, lots of volcanic eruptions.

So, if they're not there to skew the science, what is the skinny? Like Deepthroat said, "follow the money." IODP is funded by its four "international partners." Some of these members are entities from Japan, one of them is an international consortium. And one of them is our very own National Science Foundation. While it's always possible the scientists in league with the oil industry could manipulate the scientific reports, it seems to be more a case of yet another taxpayer subsidy to Big Oil - we are, it would appear, sponsoring their exploration exercises.

I wish I could say I was shocked...

Keep Your Jesus Off My Penis

2006-05-20T15:55:00.000-07:00

I'll keep my penis off of you...

I don't tell you how to pray, so don't tell me how to screw:

This is one of the best. videos. ever.

ericschwartz.com

Thank You, Harry Taylor

2006-04-07T11:14:00.000-07:00

If you haven't heard of Harry Taylor, you're missing out. He stood up at shrubya's recent North Carolina appearance and proceeded to tell everyone "I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington."

Show him some love?

Ode to Truthiness

2006-04-01T20:02:00.000-08:00

At his March 20th appearance in Cleveland, shrubya actually entertained unscripted questions, which is entirely newsworthy in itself. The fact that he was challenged on the rationale for war in Iraq makes it especially newsworthy; Keith Olbermann's treatment of it makes it delightfully so.

A gentleman in the audience kindly pointed out that none of the reasons given for war - including that "Iraq was sponsoring terrorists who attacked us on 9/11" - turned out to be true. Naturally, shrubya claimed to never have claimed any "direct connection" between Saddam and 9/11. Olbermann demonstrates otherwise, naturally.

He calls shrubCo out on the preferred tactic of word association, but you don't even have to get into that; the claim is even more overt. In the 2003 SOTU speech cited by Olbermann, shrubya says that "Saddam Hussein aids and shelters terrorists, including members of al Qaeda." If Saddam were supporting Al Qaeda who attacked us on 9/11, how would that not directly link the two of them? Especially after saying things like this:

"They're both risks, they're both dangerous. The difference, of course, is that al Qaeda likes to hijack governments. Saddam Hussein is a dictator of a government. Al Qaeda hides, Saddam doesn't, but the danger is, is that they work in concert. The danger is, is that al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam's madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world."

"Both of them need to be dealt with. The war on terror, you can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror. And so it's a comparison that is -- I can't make because I can't distinguish between the two, because they're both equally as bad, and equally as evil, and equally as destructive."

But none of this is even the real point here. This little excursion off the reservation yielded an even finer gem. In his response to the gentleman's question, shrubya had this to say:

I don't think we ever said...at least I know I didn't say that there was a direct connection between September the 11th and...and...and and Saddam Hussein."

...I was very careful never to say that Saddam Hussein ordered the attacks on America.

My mouse-fu is strong; the "and...and..." is not a typo or a cut 'n paste catastrophe. I think it's very telling that he stuttered then, not that the comment doesn't speak volumes in and of itself. Suddenly, Mr. Make the Pie Higher is concerned with linguistic precision? As if. You can almost see the thought bubble: "Hey now! If there's one thing I know how to do, it's lyin'! You think I'd be sooo dumb as to say that?"

Yes, Georgie; that and so much more.

Tags: Bush, Iraq, Al Qaeda, impeach, neocon

wing tip to Bob Johnson!

Mary Carey on the GOP

2006-03-18T17:28:00.000-08:00

"I actually get hit on more in Washington D.C. by republicans that are drunk than I do by porno fans in Vegas."

You simply can't make this stuff up. Crooks and Liars has the video.

Tags: Bush, family values, GOP, Mary Carey

Thank You, Ken!

2006-03-16T23:18:00.000-08:00

Fascinating exchange between Matthews and Mehlman. Matthews actually mentions shrubya's free-fall ratings and Ken responds by saying, "well, maybe or maybe not, but let me state my talking point now, Chris."

The best part, though, is his commentary on what they're looking for in a candidate for '08 - someone like shrubya! They are working overtime to become the minority party once again.

You're doing a great job, Kenny boy!

Tags: Bush, RNC, Mehlman, Chris Matthews

Hearts and Minds

2006-03-11T20:41:00.000-08:00

Once again, Steve Clemons has very interesting friends.

This picture is from a Carnival celebration in Portugal. Trust me; you want to read the accompanying text.

Tags: Bush, diplomacy, Portugal, carnival

Agreeing on Definitions

2006-03-10T21:44:00.000-08:00

Crooks and Liars has a great, if not older, post up about a graphic from Fox News. It's from summertime, when shrubya was considering O'Connor's replacement. Across the bottom of the screen, it reads: "Fox Facts - Bush nominee will interpret constitution faithfully."

Is it any wonder the country's state of political discourse is so polarized? It seems we can't even agree, as a society, on what constitutes a fact. Heckuva job, Rupert.

Tags: Fox News, propaganda, strict constructionist, culture wars

(Inadvertent) Truth in Advertising

2006-03-10T16:43:00.000-08:00

North Carolina's got itself a live one: Congressional Candidate Vernon Robinson. He recently pulled this ad from his website and rightly so. It's a veritable smorgasbord of hatred and bigotry. I have to give him credit though - it's an exceptionally clever ad. The end is especially amusing. Too bad it's so repulsive. The ad rather begs the question of "Has it come to this?" Does the Wingnut™ Brigade now feel so emboldened that they no longer have to hide their true agenda?

Naturally, the issues he carps on are all the wedge issues you'd expect - gays, immigration, prayer in schools, etc. The one that really stands out to me for its lack of intellectual honesty is how the right gets its knickers all atwist over the objections to "under God" being in the pledge of allegiance, mentioning God on our currency, etc. Do they not realize those notions weren't added until the '50s?

"Political correctness run amok" is how one senator is describing a court's ruling that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional.

A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is an unconstitutional "endorsement of religion" because of the addition of the phrase "under God" in 1954 by Congress.

...Citing a concurring opinion in a Supreme Court decision, the 9th Circuit said, "The Pledge, as currently codified, is an impermissible government endorsement of religion because it sends a message to unbelievers 'that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community.'"

The court said the 1954 insertion of "under God" was made "to recognize a Supreme Being" and advance religion at a time "when the government was publicly inveighing against atheistic communism" -- a fact, the court said, the federal government did not dispute.

Unfortunately, though, it's not just the fundies; some members of Congress called the ruling "nuts," and "stupid" among other things. The Senate passed a resolution in support of the pledge 99-0. The squatter in the White House even had the DoJ look into it.

Pray, tell, what about this position is conservative? What is strict constructionist about including religion in the national pledge? How many more blatant contradictions like this will it take before people realize that this group is dead serious about installing a theocracy?

Just like they only support state rights when it suits their ~~masters~~ interests, the legions of the far right are really only strict constructionists when it comes to civil rights and government regulation. Other than that, they're open to all manner of creative interpretation. To wit: money is equivalent to free speech, companies deserve the same civil rights as citizens, Florida needs to stop counting votes right this second, etc. Taken to its logical extreme, strict constructionism should preclude the entire bill of rights - they're only amendments, after all. Women's suffrage? An obvious afterthought.

But maybe we shouldn't go giving them ideas...

Tags: Vernon Robinson, theocracy, strict constructionist, religious right

Picture of the Day

2006-03-10T12:03:00.000-08:00

This is just golden:

Predicting Sunspots

2006-03-08T19:40:00.000-08:00

Things that make you go hmmmm...

Based on previous research by Mausumi Dikpati, NOAA scientists recently found a more accurate method of forecasting sunspot cycles. The specifics of how these sun cycles affect earth's climate are still up for debate, but some interesting patterns have been observed. For example, a series of unusually cold periods in the planet's history corresponds with low sunspot activity cycles. According to Dikpati's findings, we're in for a doozie:

The sun occasionally hurls hailstorms of energized particles at speeds of up to several million miles an hour. These can threaten astronauts' health and the electronic gear on which they rely.

Now, scientists say they have devised a more accurate way to forecast the onset and relative strength of the sun's stormy "seasons," or sunspot cycles, which peak roughly every 11 years. Some liken the approach to seasonal hurricane forecasts on Earth - but with potentially much higher accuracy.

...Until now, sunspot forecasts were based mostly on statistics drawn from historical cycles. The new approach incorporates the sun's basic physical processes that underlie the cycles.

...For the record, the team's research indicates that the next sunspot cycle will be 30 to 50 percent stronger than the last one, not weaker as others have forecast. The cycle will start late in 2007 or early in 2008, six to 12 months behind schedule, and it should peak in 2012, the researchers say. In testing their model against the past 12 solar cycles, the team reproduced "forecasts" with better than 98 percent accuracy.

Interestingly enough, 2012 is the end of the Mayan calendar:

The turn of the great cycle is conjectured to have been of great significance to the Maya, but does not necessarily mark the end of the world. According to the Popol Vuh, a sacred book of the Maya, they were living in the fourth world. The Popol Vuh describes the first three worlds that the gods failed in making and the creation of the successful fourth world where men were placed. The Maya believed that the fourth world would end in catastrophe and the fifth and final world would be created that would signal the end of mankind.

The last creation ended on a long count of 13.0.0.0.0. Another 13.0.0.0.0 will occur on December 21, 2012, and it has been discussed in many New Age articles and books that this will be the end of this creation or something else entirely. However, the Maya abbreviated their long counts to just the last five vigesimal places. There was an infinitely larger number of units that was usually not shown. When the larger units were shown (notably on a monument from Coba), it is expressed as 13.13.13.13.13.13.13.0.0.0.0, where the larger units are evidently supposed to be 13s in all larger places. In this age we are only approaching 0.0.0.0.0.0.13.0.0.0.0, and the larger places are nowhere near the 13s that would match the end of the last creation.

This is confirmed by a date from Palenque, which projects forward in time to 1.0.0.0.0.0, which will occur on October 13, 4772. The Classic Period Maya obviously did not believe that the end of this age would occur in 2012. According to the Maya, there will be a baktun ending in 2012, a significant event being the end of a 400 year period, but not the end of the age.

Some people believe 2012 is the end, though, a notion which runs eerily parallel to the Christian end-times mythology. Curious stuff.

Tags: Mausumi Dikpati, sunspot, Mayan calendar, Maya, 2012

The Cafferty Show

2006-03-05T14:07:00.000-08:00

Why doesn't it exist yet? He is one of the few news anchors worth watching, if you ask me. But see for yourself.

You Don't Say!

2006-03-04T15:43:00.000-08:00

Here is a very interesting tidbit from Lou Dobbs, who has been all over the Dubai ports deal. Sure it's fun to watch him make fun of shrubya's goon squad, but the highlight is the snippet about the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act.

Things that make you go hmmmm...

Tags: patriot act, spying, civil rights, stepford senate, Dubai, Bush, UAE

WHIG: The Sequel

2006-03-03T02:24:00.000-08:00

With all the sabre-rattling over Iran, it should come as no surprise that the U.S. is now establishing a special office solely to deal with Iran. But even they aren't foolish enough to make such obvious comparisons to the Iraq campaign; this one is called the "Office of Iran Affairs." Sound familiar? It should:

The U.S. State Department is creating a special office to deal with foreign policy changes related to Iran and to promote a democratic transition in the Islamic republic, State Department officials said Thursday.

Traditionally, Iran has been dealt with as part of a larger grouping of Persian Gulf countries, but the officials said the new Office of Iran Affairs reflects a growing concern over actions by the Iranian regime and the need to devote significantly more personnel and resources to Iran policy.

...The office will deal with Tehran's support for groups on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations and Iran's alleged human rights violations. The office also will be involved in issues related to Iran's nuclear energy program, which the Bush administration fears is designed to develop nuclear weapons.

Just replace "Iran" with "Iraq" and it's just like we're back in 2003. Even scarier: not much else about the plan, if they can be said to have one, is different from before either.

The U.N. watchdog group, the International Atomic Energy Agency, wants Tehran to take action to prove its nuclear energy program is intended for peaceful purposes. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered the Islamic state to end its voluntary cooperation with the IAEA.

The creation of the Iran office comes on the heels of an announcement last month by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of a $75 million State Department initiative to support democracy in Iran through intensified cultural exchanges, increased programs for democratic advocates and expanded broadcasting into the country.

When asked directly whether the office is being created to promote regime change in Iran, the senior official said the office is being created "to facilitate a change in Iranian policies and actions."

Iranian Chalabis, propaganda, "regime change" - it's the Iraq blueprint all over again. Since they seem to have so much confidence in these already tried and failed plans, can we take this to mean they truly do believe things are going well in Iraq? Did that experience actually give them confidence in their cockamamie schemes?

Speaking of cockamamie schemes, this one does have an added twist that I think explains a whole lot about shrubya's insistence on the Dubai ports deal:

Several new positions are being created worldwide for the new Iran office. In addition to beefing up Washington-based staff working on Iran, a regional center will be built in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to focus on neighboring Iran with four new foreign service posts and four local employees to do outreach. There will also be officers stationed in Germany, Azerbaijan and Britain to deal with Iranian expatriates.

"Frankly, there is an imbalance between Iran's role in the world and its impact on U.S. diplomacy and the resources we are devoting to the portfolio," the senior official said. "When you consider the fact that you have the terrorism problem, proliferation concerns, human rights, democracy issues and regional development, two officers is not enough. In order to pursue our broad agenda concerning the country, we've got to have more people doing it."

I've got a bad feeling about this...

Tags: Bush, Iran, Dubai, port security, Office of Iran Affairs, United Arab Emirates, impeach, neocon

Republican Study Committee's Warped Agenda

2006-03-02T00:16:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of Barry Welsh:

RSC TOP TEN

1. Make the Tax Cuts Permanent, including the repeal of the marriage-tax penalty and the death tax and pass fundamental tax reform.

2. Pass Budget Process Reform, which includes budgeting for emergencies with a rainy day fund, instituting a sunset commission for federal programs, instituting a constitutional line-item veto, and making the budget resolution carry the force of law.

3. Pass another Deficit Reduction Bill in the form of budget reconciliation, to reign in autopilot spending, which has risen from 25% of all federal spending in 1963 to 54% today, and is expected to reach nearly 60% in 2014.

4. Pass Ethics Reform that requires transparency and earmark reform that permits Members of Congress to strike earmarks on the House floor.

5. Pass the Marriage Protection Amendment, to ensure that marriage, the union of a woman and a man as husband and wife, is not redefined by activist judges.

6. Pass a Balanced Budget Amendment to put our fiscal house in order.

7. Offset all emergency supplemental spending with spending reductions and offset all new programs with simultaneous, equivalent reductions in, or eliminations of, existing programs.

8. Defend the Sanctity of Human Life, which includes banning all human cloning, passing the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act, promoting ethical adult stem cell research, and preventing federal funding for destructive embryonic stem cell research.

9. Pass Protections for Religious Freedom, such as the Pledge of Allegiance, the Ten Commandments, and religious expression in the public square.

10. Pass legislation that stops the raid on the Social Security Trust Fund and allows Americans to own a Personal Social Security Account.

People of Indiana - let Mr. Pence know your thoughts, won't you?

Tags: Mike Pence, Barry Welsh, Republican Study Committee, theocracy

Slackers, Inc.

2006-03-01T22:29:00.000-08:00

I just now got around to watching footage from Coretta Scott King's funeral. All I really should say is "watch it. now." But I'll add that if you don't, you will regret it. I also must say that the Maya Angelou segment is not to be missed.

Incorrigible as I am wont to be, I will also add that I really don't get all the Wingnut™ hystrionics over the proceedings. They talk and talk until they're blue in the face about how "inappropriate" some of the more political speeches were - including Reverend Lowery's. Let's ignore for a moment the week-long fetish that accompanied Reagan's funeral and all the attendant paeans to conservativism.

The most astounding thing about this apoplexy the right had over the political musings is the narcissism inherent in believing they are fit to make such judgements. Why do they feel entitled to define the norms for a culture they couldn't begin to understand? If you watch the video, the audience clearly applauds Lowery. Heartily. With cheers. Who the hell do O'Bierne and all the other hand wringers think they are to say that something obviously resonant with the audience members is "inappropriate?"

Do they ever stop to think about the things they say? Don't answer that.

Tags: Coretta Scott King, Katie O'Bierne, Reverend Lowery, frosen chosen

Sumbawa Rediscovered

2006-02-28T00:57:00.000-08:00

Despite shrubya's onslaughts, science doesn't seem to be faring so poorly this year. First, they found new species in Indonesia; now they've uncovered a "lost kingdom" that was buried by a volcano.

Scientists announced today the discovery of a small "kingdom" on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa thought to have been obliterated by the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history.

The eruption of the volcano Tambora in 1815 killed 117,000 people in Southeast Asia, including those believed buried under ten feet (three meters) of pumice and ash in the recently discovered village.

The team, led by University of Rhode Island volcanologist Haraldur Sigurdsson, hailed the discovery as the "Pompeii of the East."

..."[The Tambora discovery] gives us a window of the culture at that time that we couldn't get any other way," Sigurdsson said.

...The design and decoration of the artifacts suggest that the Tamboran culture was linked through trade to Vietnam and Cambodia, Sigurdsson said.

...Peter Lape, an anthropologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, said the discovery should add insight into a part of the East Indies before it came under the influence of Western colonists.

"[The Dutch] were trying to regulate shipping [in the East Indies], but they hadn't made much impact on the local political structure," he said. "So for places like Sumbawa, there's not much historical record."

Wow!

Tags: Sumbawa, Tambora, port security, volcano, Haraldur Sigurdsson

Et Tu, Mom?

2006-02-27T20:48:00.000-08:00

I guess I'm easily amused, but I find this hilarious:

Speaking of McClellan, Ken Herman reports for Cox News Service that even McClellan's mom has joined the chorus of GOP critics on the ports deal

" 'Our roads, our bridges, our seaports, our airports and our border crossings are vital to our economy and prime targets for terrorists,' said Carole Keeton Strayhorn, Texas comptroller, couching it in home-state terms but jumping on the political bandwagon opposing the ports deal. 'Why take the chance and let a private or public foreign operation control vital Texas infrastructure and property?' "

First she registers as an independent and now this. Poor ol' Puffy McMoonface.

Tags: Scott McClellan, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, port security, Dubai Ports World, national security

Racist Rita

2006-02-27T19:55:00.000-08:00

Racist Rita, empty shill
nothing can make me watch you
when you come on, I turn the channel off

watching news, the bloviators
when I caught a glimpse of Rita
talking like a bigot on her little "news" show
With her throat she sounds much older
And the chip upon her shoulder
Made her seem a little like a hateful old shrew

Racist Rita, empty shill
may I inquire discreetly
how in the hell did you get on t.v.?

on the vote, she tried to say this:
that the dems were overt racists
because they were trying to gain the "hoodlum vote"
felons are black; Rita said it
sad thing is, I think she meant it
maybe she should go missing in Aruba, too...

Racist Rita, empty shill
too bad they didn't fire you
at least I know i'll never think like you

Ugly racist shill
Rita racist shill
oh, Racist Rita, empty, empty shill

apologies to Lennon & McCartney

Tags: Rita Cosby, racism, voter registration

When Pigs Take Wing

2006-02-26T19:20:00.000-08:00

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Calloo, callay!

Tags: Bush, Cheney, port security, impeach, neocon

More Biased Facts

2006-02-24T07:41:00.000-08:00

I don't think we were supposed to turn :
this corner:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 25 — The American ambassador to Iraq said today that sectarian violence this week was a threat to the future of Iraq, and that Iraqi leaders would have to come together and compromise if they wanted to save their homeland.

...Mr. Khalilzad's comments are the most explicit acknowledgment so far by an American official of the instability of the situation. The killings and assaults across Iraq that began Wednesday have amounted to the worst sectarian violence since the American invasion.

...The threat of full-scale civil war loomed over the country as Sunni politicians lashed out at Shiite leaders on Thursday, accusing them of igniting anti-Sunni reprisals, and at the American military, charging it with standing idly by as the violence erupted. The most powerful Sunni Arab political group said it was suspending talks with Shiite and Kurdish politicians on forming a new government.

Across the country on Thursday, thousands of furious Shiites flooded the streets in a second day of protests against the bombing of the Askariya Shrine, whose signature golden dome was reduced to rubble by explosives on Wednesday morning in Sunni-dominated Samarra. The demonstrations were mostly peaceful, and much of the violence seemed to be tapering off Thursday, though armed Shiites raided several Sunni mosques in Baghdad and set fire to at least two.

Aravosis has more.

Ports of Impeachment

2006-02-24T00:20:00.000-08:00

The 'I' word has hit prime-time television, and rather vociferously at that. Even the American Family Association has a letter campaign going on this! I think the cognitive dissonance finally went too far and some people snapped. Who knew that after warrantless wiretaps, lying us into war, and flouting the Geneva Conventions, it would take shrubya contracting our ports out to the UAE to at long last break the spell?

I can almost hear Condi saying "who could have ever guessed that outsourcing our port operations to a country with terrorist ties would upset people?"

Or maybe it's the corruption that bothers them. John Snow and Darth Cheney both have an interest in this deal; Snow's is in the form of CSX, where he worked before taking his place at the Treasury. Cheney's, of course, is Halliburton, which operates out of Dubai.

When CBS Television's 60 Minutes program visited the address where Halliburton Products and Services is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, they discovered a "brass plate" operation with no employees whose agent - the Calidonian Bank -- forwards all of the company's mail to Halliburton's offices in Houston (instead of the company's operations in Dubai), "indicating that decision-making authority may be in Houston, not the Cayman Islands or Dubai," according to the Senators. In addition, it was reported that Halliburton's operations in Dubai share the same address, telephone and fax numbers as Halliburton Products and Services - an indication that the companies do not function separately.12

"It is extremely disturbing to hear media reports of possible violations of our anti-terrorism laws by prominent American companies through straw corporations established to evade U.S. law. What makes these charges extraordinary is the involvement of the Vice President, since Halliburton Products and Services began operations in Iran during the time that Vice President Cheney was CEO of Halliburton," Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) wrote in a letter to her colleagues.

...During the 1990s, under Cheney's leadership Halliburton did business with the former Nigerian regime of dictator Sani Abacha, a brutal military dictator. The Abacha regime threw thousands of political opponents into prison, and executed nine environmental activists, including the playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa.

Freedom is all good and well until it stands in the way of a business deal, dontchyaknow? Can it be that Americans are actually catching on the gaping disparity between what these fools say versus what they do? Is it finally dawning on people that big business might be just a tad too influential in government?

And therein lies the key: in the neoliberal world of Republican, Friedmanesque fantasy, Nation-States as we know them today become increasingly irrelevant. All that matters is business, and the interests of corporations in securing their maximum bottom line. No one on either side of the debate argues this point: for liberals, the exploitation is done to enrich corporate coffers; for conservatives, it is done to maximize growth and lower prices. But no one denies that the Nation-State becomes almost a spectator in this grand opera.

...And the bottom line dictates that products, services, and yes, even national ports, will be sold off to the higest bidder--no matter which country they are from. Because the World is now Flat.

Thus it is that we now live in a world where Americans build Dubai's oil infrastructure (thus ensuring anti-American sentiment in the region), while Arab Emirates control our port security (thus rendering us vulnerable to terrorism). And no one can even complain. Because to complain would be to challenge the very economic system that our elites believe in almost as a religion.

-----------------------------------------------------

In this brave new FlatWorld, National Sovereignty is a thing of the past.

Perhaps it's simply dawned on people that shrubya isn't really serious about security or much of anything else. And it's not just the wonks - port security is a very visceral issue. Everybody pretty well understands enough after hearing "U.S. Ports, security, country with terrorist friends." This - the idea of our port security being outsourced in this manner - could wind up being that proverbial straw:

When Bush said that we need to justify holding a Middle Eastern company to a higher standard, he showed that he in fact does not agree with the key point of his own doctrine: namely, that in a post-9/11 world, you can never be too careful.

And regardless of whether DPW is a national security threat, the fact that Bush for whatever reason has not taken the same "whatever it takes to defend the American people" approach on this issue that he has taken on Iraq, domestic surveillance, the Patriot Act and torture--that fact paves the way for questioning the motives of the other activities I mentioned--because if Bush really took the "you can never be too careful" approach to everything, why didn't he stop the DPW deal?

Bush has reneged the entire premise of his presidency.

But that's not really news, now is it?

Tags: Bush, Cheney, Dubai, port security, CSX, Halliburton, John Snowe, impeach, neocon

Measure 37: Concentrated Evil

2006-02-22T06:54:00.000-08:00

I was mad enough when this p.o.s. passed; now that Oregon's Supreme Court has ruled it constitutional, I can barely type straight. The big question, of course, is "what now?" Unfortunately, it's not an easy one to answer. The next opportunity for the state legislature to address this issue won't be until 2007, unless we can convince Kulongoski to call a special emergency session. Frankly, we need a bill repealing measure 37 yesterday, but with a republican majority in the state house, it's not likely to happen. Contact them anyway.

I doubt Kulongoski could be persuaded to call an emergency session, but we should certainly contact him - if he has any injuctive power as Governor, he should use it. This is a state crisis and as Governor, he should be taking an active role in mitigating the damage. What damage?

Well, for starters, measure 37 provided no means to pay for its implementation and management - the state is already expending a lot of effort and money just to administrate and investigate claims. We pay those costs; is that the best use of our tax dollars, given the budgetary problems of the state? These claims also impose a tremendous burden on the state's courts - there are already neighbor v neighbor lawsuits cropping up all across Oregon. Who pays for those? Every Oregonian.

And it's every Oregonian who pays for every aspect of Measure 37 - if the state pays compensation, that's your tax dollars. Did people really vote in favor of subsidizing someone else's hypothetical profits? Conversely, if the state relaxes zoning restrictions in lieu of payment, that's your community, your scenic heritage, your natural landscape. Did a majority of Oregonians vote for urban sprawl? I doubt it, but these are the realities of measure 37. It's patently obvious that the state would never be able to pay all the various claims; it was never anything but a thinly veiled push for unfettered land development. In other words, it was a really convoluted mechanism to blackmail the state of Oregon.

It was also exceptionally inartful. I really can't understand for the life of me how our Supreme Court could possibly find the measure constitutional. Its wording is too broad and vague; it sets up a system of unequal compensation (via the use of historical property claims); it forces taxpayers to subsidize would-be developers. It is, simply put, overkill. Oregon's land use laws could definitely use a little tweaking; measure 37, though, is a sledge hammer.

Please keep these thoughts in mind and contact your local and state government members. This includes Kulongoski, your state Senators and Representatives, and I have even contacted my city council members - perhaps cities could be individually persuaded to pass laws overturning m37. I started my phone journey by calling Dan Saltzman, Commissioner of Public Affairs. I don't know if this varies by city, but I was referred to the City Auditor:

Gary Blackmer
City Auditor
1221 SW 4th Ave, Room 140, 97204
Phone: (503)823-4078
E-mail: gblackmer@ci.portland.or.us

A woman in his office then referred me to Chris Dearth, Program Manager for Measure 37. He can be reached at 503 823 1110. Frankly, I'm calling everybody. The public input on this needs to be huge - please share this information far and wide and educate as many people as you can on this issue. The Oregon Task Force on Land Use Planning will be holding a meeting on March 3 that is open to the public - make yourself heard!

The Oregon Task Force on Land Use Planning, established under Senate Bill 82 (2005), has scheduled its first meeting for Friday, March 3, 2006, at 1 p.m., in Hearing Room F at the Oregon Capitol building. [Click here for Meeting Notice warning: pdf]

The first meeting will focus on the organization of the task force and providing task force members with an initial overview of SB 82, the Oregon land use program and Oregon's economy, to establish a context for their work. An agenda of the meeting will be published on this website prior to the meeting.

The meeting is open to the public:

March 3, 2006
1:00 – 5:00 p.m.
State Capitol Building
900 Court St. NE
Hearing Room F
Salem, OR 97301

I also spoke with George Naughton, Assistant Director in the Department of Land Conservation and Development. He said that there's not much to do - measure 37 is law and they are just trying to apply the letter of the law. He said that there's a window of one to three weeks before the new court ruling goes into effect, whatever that might be worth.

I am also calling my city attorneys to see if there isn't some legal recourse for them having this administrative burden thrust upon them. I am also encouraging them to impose filing fees - marriage licenses require it and they're a damn sight easier to manage than these claims. Oregon taxpayers shouldn't have to pay these costs.

Hardy Myers, Attorney General
Oregon Department of Justice
1162 Court Street NE
Salem, OR 97301-4096

The general phone number is (503) 378-4400.
The general email address is: doj.info@state.or.us

I was told that sending letters is the most effective for presenting an issue to the Attorney General. If the state has any legal recourse in this, i.e. suing the measure's sponsors for administrative costs, they should try to stop m37. Basic guideline: call everybody you can think of - city councils, Gov. Kulongoski, city attorneys, Mr. Myers, your city auditors, etc. Explore every angle.

Most importantly, let 1000 Friends of Oregon know you support their efforts to overturn measure 37. They are floating ideas for a new ballot initiative, but won't proceed with it if doesn't look like it would pass. We need to make sure they understand that we've got their back. The deadline for filing the initiative is sometime in July for the November ballot. If you ask me, we have no choice but to file one, no matter what the trial balloon indicates. The more volunteer support they know they have, the more likely they'd be to go for it. They also have a lot of great contact info for state & local officers to contact.

Speaking of ballot measures, some freaknut named Ross Day has filed a slew to boost measure 37 - if anyone knows how to go about contesting those, please drop some info.

And, of course, letters to the editor are always in order. If the general public understood what measure 37 really meant, they would never have voted for it. Conversely, if we have any hope of overturning it, it is imperative they realize what the effects will be. A new ballot measure is the best chance we have to limit measure 37's damage in the short-term. Please share this with every Oregonian (and Washingtonian - it's contagious) you know. And if you have any additional info, please leave a comment.

Keep Tom McCall's spirit alive in Oregon! Thanks!

Other resources: Friends of the Columbia Gorge, 1000 Friends of Oregon,
Land Use Watch, Oregon House Democrats

Tags: public lands, Columbia Gorge, environment, property rights, Tom McCall, 1000 Friends of Oregon, Oregon, Washington, measure 37, land use law

Keeping Up With Avian Flu

2006-02-18T03:22:00.001-08:00

Flu season may be drawing to a close, but bird flu marches on. After Iraq reported its first cases from northern provinces a few weeks ago, the virus appears to be spreading through the country. Iraq's health minister has declared an alert for the southern province of Maysan, where one suspected case has been discovered.

The Iraqi cases are especially alarming because there were no reported animal cases first, which indicates a breakdown in monitoring and reporting of the disease. In a war-torn country lacking infrastructure, an outbreak could quickly prove unmanageable.

More alarming still, officials said, the finding suggests that the disease may be spreading widely - and undetected - among birds in countries of Central Asia that are poorly equipped to pick up or report infections. Bird flu has never been reported in animals in Iraq.

As in Turkey earlier this month, the spread of bird flu to a new part of the world was heralded by a human death, a death that was most likely avoidable. Bird flu only rarely infects humans, late in the course of an animal outbreak, and then only after intense contact with sick birds.

"We shouldn't be seeing human cases first, and this points to serious gaps in surveillance," said Maria Cheng, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organization in Geneva. "But given the situation in Turkey, I don't think we'd be surprised to see isolated humans cases in surrounding areas."

...For example, the local government in Sulaimaniya is monitoring commercial poultry flocks, "but they don't really have the ability to monitor what's going on in village flocks," said Rod Kennard, who is managing a year-old UN project to rebuild veterinary services in Iraq.

What do they mean by "the situation in Turkey"? One point is that even though efforts to contain the disease have been largely successful, Turkey has already identified 55 outbreaks in 15 provinces. Like Iraq, Turkey first detected the disease in humans, not animals. Most importantly, at least one patient was infected with what appeared to be a new mutation of the virus.

Mutations that could make it easier for the bird flu virus to infect humans have been found in a sample taken from a patient in Turkey, a report in the journal Nature said Friday.

The World Health Organization is monitoring the situation, but a spokeswoman said it is too early to know whether the virus is changing in ways that would signal the start of a human flu pandemic.

..."It's one isolate from a single virus from Turkey," WHO's Maria Cheng said in Geneva. One mutation found "suggests the virus might be more inclined to bind to human cells rather than animal cells," Cheng said, but there's no evidence that it's becoming more infectious.

The Nature report cites a second mutation that also "signals adaptation to humans."

...The mutations, which were detected by scientists at a lab in London, may "signify the virus is trying different things to see if it can more easily infect humans," Cheng said. "So far, we haven't seen that the virus has the ability to do this. But it's important that we continue monitoring."

Since the previous year's cases, the virus has already weakened the species barrier; it can now pass to humans from even casual contact with infected birds. Does this change have implications for human-to-human transmission? Maybe; maybe not. Nobody is sure what direction H5N1 evolution will ultimately take. But some scientists have been investigating its evolutionary mechanisms.

A recent development regarding bird flu evolution took place in October, 2005, when Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger and his associates published a letter in the science journal Nature, stating that the 1918 Spanish Flu did not evolve in the same way as two other 20th century pandemic strains: Asian Flu in 1957 and Hong Kong Flu in 1968.

The 1957 and 1968 pandemic strains evolved when a human with flu also contracted bird flu. Genetic material from the two viruses combined by what scientists call "reassortment" to create a flu that can pass between humans. It's believed that flu viruses created in this way are milder than flu viruses that evolve indepedently.

Taubenberger's work showed that the 1918 Spanish flu evolved by a process of "recombination." In other words, the virus mutated on its own to a form that humans could catch from each other.

...So far, the H5N1 bird flu virus has evolved only by recombination. And flus that evolve in this way are thought to be more deadly to their human hosts, as was the Spanish Flu of 1918, which killed millions around the globe.

The virus has recently spread to Nigeria, Egypt, Greece, and Germany, among other places. Currently, it meets all the criteria for causing a pandemic except human-to-human transmission. Hold on to your hats!

Tags: H5N1, avian flu, bird flu, pandemic

Terrorists On the Internets

2006-02-17T15:40:00.000-08:00

Lovely...our government can't even propagandize right, despite spending $1.6 billion to do so. And even though the Department of Defense outspent all other agencies, Al Qaeda is winning the PR war using tech toys available everywhere to everyone.

The United States lags dangerously behind al Qaeda and other enemies in getting out information in the digital media age and must update its old-fashioned methods, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Friday.

...The Pentagon chief said today's weapons of war included e-mail, Blackberries, instant messaging, digital cameras and Web logs, or blogs.

"Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but ... our country has not adapted," Rumsfeld said.

Fun though it is to make fun of Rummy for, apparently, not even using email himself, this is actually a very disturbing development: he basically just put bloggers on a par with terrorists. He just declared e-mail, text messages, instant messages and blogs objects of interest in the war on terror. Since Congress seems set to retroactively grant permission to conduct datamining phone surveillance operations, there would be nothing to stop them from similarly monitoring all these communication media as well.

That's a damn slippery slope, especially given the Pentagon's recent declaration to "fight the net."

A newly declassified document gives a fascinating glimpse into the US military's plans for "information operations" - from psychological operations, to attacks on hostile computer networks.

...But the true extent of the Pentagon's information operations, how they work, who they're aimed at, and at what point they turn from informing the public to influencing populations, is far from clear.

...When it describes plans for electronic warfare, or EW, the document takes on an extraordinary tone.

It seems to see the internet as being equivalent to an enemy weapons system.

And, in a grand finale, the document recommends that the United States should seek the ability to "provide maximum control of the entire electromagnetic spectrum".

US forces should be able to "disrupt or destroy the full spectrum of globally emerging communications systems, sensors, and weapons systems dependent on the electromagnetic spectrum".

Consider that for a moment.

The US military seeks the capability to knock out every telephone, every networked computer, every radar system on the planet.

I never thought Chris Matthews' odious remarks equating war critics with terrorists could get more sinister, but they just did.

Tags: Rumsfeld, spying, civil rights, Chris Matthews, propaganda, Bush, military, psyops

wing tip to dailykos!

Kinda like starting out in the Last of the Mohicans and ending up in The Matrix

Passing Bills and Passing the Buck

2006-02-15T13:06:00.000-08:00

The Stepford Senators strike again! After a lot of tough talk about insisting on an investigation of shrubya's domestic spying, several members of the (R) Senate caucus have done an about face, after pressure from Cheney and are now pushing a bill to remove the spying program from FISA oversight.

Republican Senate DeWine says he will introduce a bill sanctioning the program, explicitly exempting it from the requirements of FISA. Both Hagel and Snowe are said to be in favor of the bill. So suddenly, Republicans are comfortable with the President breaking the law? Where was the bill in the 90s condoning Oval Office blow jobs and Presidential perjury? Oh, that's right. The lawlessness of a President is exempted only when that President wears a 10-gallon hat and calls himself a "conservative."

This all raises a very interesting point: If they have decided it's necessary to pass legislation exempting the program from FISA, this is a tacit admission that the program is, indeed, illegal. Which is as it should be. Yes; the program would have been legal before FISA, but Nixon ruined that for all future presidents. His abuse of the ability to conduct domestic surveillance necessitated oversight by the FISA court. Given historical precedent for abuse of surveillance programs and absent any guarantees against future abuse, oversight of such programs is absolutely essential.

Please call DeWine, Snowe, et al to demand an investigation and tell them that removing the program from any external oversight would be doubleplus ungood. I can't believe they're even considering such a thing - do they have no respect for themselves as a co-equal branch of government?

This craven maneuver also removes any accountability from the equation. Again, since a bill is now deemed necessary to legalize the spying, it is incontrovertible that shrubya was breaking the law. The response to that should not be "oh...ok. well, let's just make that activity legal so it'll be ok." He broke the law and he needs to be held accountable for that before any decisions are made on revising said law. Any other course of action is a travesty of our constitutional system.

Tags: DeWine, Republicans, NSA, Bush, spying

They Made Me Do It

2006-02-11T21:20:00.000-08:00

I'm as anxious as anyone to find out just how inclusive Abramoff's skybox of iniquity really was. I, too eagerly await documentation that he and shrubya were a little closer than "don't know him;" after all, we know it's out there. We also know that shrubya really doesn't want us to see the pictures.

In his press conference today, President Bush suggested that the existence of photographs of himself and Jack Abramoff are no big deal and generally pooh-poohed the press's focus on the story. But our reporting suggests that the White House is actively involved in covering up and possibly destroying photographic evidence of the two men together.

Earlier this month, we were alerted to the existence of a series Abramoff photos at the website of Reflections Photography, a studio that does photo shoots for many Republican political events and sells copies to the individuals who attended the events and other members of the public through an online photo database. Reflections was an official photographer for Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign events and for the 2005 inauguration.

One of those photos was of Abramoff and Ralph Reed at a party for the launch of Reed's Century Strategies DC office in 2003. We contacted Reflections Photography and purchased the rights to publish that photograph and did so on January 11th.

Things weren't so simple with the late 2003 photograph of Jack Abramoff and President Bush.

Despite the apparantly meticulous scrubbing of these images, the blogosphere has been treated to umpteen "Bush/Abramoff Pics Here!" posts. Yes, little blogger; you were the first to find these thoroughly disappeared pictures of Bush/Abramoff...on the internets. It's quite maddening. I'm sure it makes metajesus weep.

So, please, let the record show that this is NOT Abramoff:

It's Rick Renzi (seen at the link with Katherine Harris). This, however, is a pic of Abramoff (background, far left) at an event with shrubya:

It's not much, but it's what there is for now, apparently. So now that we do have a shrubya/Abramoff picture out there, can we finally put to rest the "BREAKING!!" pic posts? Please?

Tags: Abramoff, corruption, lobbyist, Bush

Feingold on NSA Shenanigii

2006-02-08T18:08:00.000-08:00

I &hearts Russ!

Russ Feingold's website has just posted audio of his floor speech and video of his questioning of Gonzales:

AUDIO LINK: February 7th, 2006 Floor Statment on the President's Warrantless Wiretapping Program

questioning of Gonzales in the committee hearing:

VIDEO LINK: Questioning of Attorney General Gonzales at the February 6, 2006 Judiciary Committee Hearing 1st Round

VIDEO LINK: Questioning of Attorney General Gonzales at the February 6, 2006 Judiciary Committee Hearing 2nd Round

Ladies and Gentleman we have a full on Constitutional crises on our hands. Feingold lays out in very clear language the obvious. Tha Gonzales and Bush have broken the law. It is stunning.

What is the country going to do about it?

Yes, pray tell, what? Congress is obviously not interested. I guess it's really just us vs. Diebold now.

Tags: 9/11, FISA, NSA, Bush, spying

New Species Discovered in Indonesia

2006-02-08T03:20:00.000-08:00

"Lost World" Found in Indonesia Is Trove of New Species"

"It really was like crossing some sort of time warp into a place that people hadn't been to," said Bruce Beehler of the wildlife expedition he co-led in December into the isolated Foja Mountains on the tropical South Pacific island of New Guinea.

During a 15-day stay at a camp they had cut out of the jungle, the conservationists found a trove of animals never before documented, from a new species of the honeyeater bird to more than 20 new species of frogs.

"We were like kids in a candy store," said Beehler, a bird expert with Conservation International in Washington, D.C. "Everywhere we looked we saw amazing things we had never seen before."

Here's a small photo gallery.

Tags: conservation, endangered species, Indonesia

But We Weren't At War Then...

2006-02-07T23:10:00.000-08:00

Maybe they were actually planning ahead or something:

The National Security Agency advised President Bush in early 2001 that it had been eavesdropping on Americans during the course of its work monitoring suspected terrorists and foreigners believed to have ties to terrorist groups, according to a declassified document.

The NSA's vast data-mining activities began shortly after Bush was sworn in as president and the document contradicts his assertion that the 9/11 attacks prompted him to take the unprecedented step of signing a secret executive order authorizing the NSA to monitor a select number of American citizens thought to have ties to terrorist groups.

...According to the online magazine Slate, an unnamed official in the telecom industry said NSA's "efforts to obtain call details go back to early 2001, predating the 9/11 attacks and the president's now celebrated secret executive order. The source reports that the NSA approached U.S. carriers and asked for their cooperation in a 'data-mining' operation, which might eventually cull 'millions' of individual calls and e-mails."

It's understandable enough that these calls would get mixed together, especially with the vastness of the data set. It's so understandable, they had a policy in place to handle such mistakes:

What had long been understood to be protocol in the event that the NSA spied on average Americans was that the agency would black out the identities of those individuals or immediately destroy the information.

But according to people who worked at the NSA as encryption specialists during this time, that's not what happened. On orders from Defense Department officials and President Bush, the agency kept a running list of the names of Americans in its system and made it readily available to a number of senior officials in the Bush administration, these sources said, which in essence meant the NSA was conducting a covert domestic surveillance operation in violation of the law.

The NSA's domestic surveillance activities that began in early 2001 reached a boiling point shortly after 9/11, when senior administration officials and top intelligence officials asked the NSA to share that data with other intelligence officials who worked for the FBI and the CIA to hunt down terrorists that might be in the United States. However the NSA, on advice from its lawyers, destroyed the records, fearing the agency could be subjected to lawsuits by American citizens identified in the agency's raw intelligence reports.

What was that about only guilty people having something to hide? Thankfully, their spin really isn't fooling too many people; letters denouncing the program have been coming from all quarters and the story is not dying down in the media. One of the letters is from a group of 14 constitutional scholars, including some former employees of (R) and (D) administrations. Their opinion? "The program appears on its face to violate existing law."

Additionally, "if the administration felt that FISA was insufficient, the proper course was to seek legislative amendment, as it did with other aspects of FISA in the Patriot Act, and as Congress expressly contemplated when it enacted the wartime wiretap provision in FISA"

..."One of the crucial features of a constitutional democracy is that it is always open to the President - or anyone else - to seek to change the law. But it is also beyond dispute that, in such a democracy, the President cannot simply violate criminal laws behind closed doors because he deems them obsolete or impracticable."

Another letter arrived from Jeffrey Smith, former General Counsel for the CIA. I'm guessing he would have been telling the NSA to shred, shred, shred; he thinks it's illegal too. He also gives us a chilling reminder of Justice Alito:

if President Bush's executive order authorizing a covert domestic surveillance operation is upheld as legal "it would be a dramatic expansion of presidential authority affecting the rights of our fellow citizens that undermines the checks and balances of our system, which lie at the very heart of the Constitution."

But it's not all gloom and doom; some members of Congress are actually starting to get squeamish with this whole unbridled executive power bit, especially for shrubya. We even have the (R) chairwoman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence calling for an investigation. Here's a thought for her: the searches aren't even effective, at least not for their
ostensible purposes.

Tags: 9/11, FISA, NSA, Bush, spying

Senator John McCain, Übertool

2006-02-07T18:33:00.000-08:00

Campaigning for shrubya after being viciously smeared in the 2000 primary apparently wasn't enough; recently allowing his anti-torture bill to essentially be gutted hardly made a blip. Now that McCain is shedding any lest vestiges of rationality, I hope we can all finally agree that he is NOT a moderate. On live television this afternoon, he apparently criticized President Carter's address, even though he hadn't seen it himself.

This follows closely on the heels of his outburst at Senator Obama, who decided not to join his bi-partisan committee on lobbying reform. McCain took it a might too personal and neglected to count to ten before writing Obama:

Dear Senator Obama:

I would like to apologize to you for assuming that your private assurances to me regarding your desire to cooperate in our efforts to negotiate bipartisan lobbying reform legislation were sincere.

...Thank you for disabusing me of such notions with your letter to me dated February 2, 2006, which explained your decision to withdraw from our bipartisan discussions. I'm embarrassed to admit that after all these years in politics I failed to interpret your previous assurances as typical rhetorical gloss routinely used in politics to make self-interested partisan posturing appear more noble. Again, sorry for the confusion, but please be assured I won't make the same mistake again.

It stands in stark contrast to Obama's gentlemanly response:

As you will recall, I told everyone present at the meeting that my caucus insisted that the consideration of any ethics reform proposal go through the regular committee process. You didn't indicate any opposition to this position at the time, and I wrote the letter to reiterate this point, as well as the fact that I thought S. 2180 should be the basis for a bipartisan solution.

I confess that I have no idea what has prompted your response. But let me assure you that I am not interested in typical partisan rhetoric or posturing. The fact that you have now questioned my sincerity and my desire to put aside politics for the public interest is regrettable but does not in any way diminish my deep respect for you nor my willingness to find a bipartisan solution to this problem.

Sincerely,

Barack Obama
United States Senator

Not surprisingly, Chris Matthews took McCain's side, lamenting the way Obama had treated him.

MATTHEWS: Well, let's take a look at it, because I think the people will learn a lot from this about -- I know you're being nice now -- but the way in which Obama treated you.

...MATTHEWS: Well, more here: "I concluded your professed concern for the public interest was genuine and admirable. Thank you for disabusing me of such notions." You're saying to the guy, I thought you were a gentleman and a civil servant, and now you're obviously not. [Laughter]

Of course, he's an Übertool, too. I guess McCain has finally decided "it's politics" after all.

Tags: McCain, Matthews, Obama, corruption, lobbying

Are We Really At War?

2006-02-06T02:15:00.000-08:00

And is it still Oceana? With all of Herr Chimperor's legal nonsense about "wartime powers," it's a worthwhile pursuit to wonder what exactly is Iraq?

Here is the embarrassing question: Is America actually at war? We have a war president, war hawks, war planes, war correspondents, war cries, even war crimes -- but do we have war? We have war dead, but the question remains. With young US soldiers being blown up almost daily, it can seem an absurd question, an offensive one. With thousands of Iraqis killed by American firepower, it can seem a heartless question, as if the dead care whether strict definitions of ''war" are fulfilled. There can be no question that Iraq is in a state of war, and that, whatever its elements of post-Saddam sectarian conflict, the warfare is being driven from the Pentagon.

But, regarding the Iraq conflict as it involves the United States, something essential is lacking that would make it a war -- and that is an enemy.

...But the war on terrorism is not real war either, since the Pentagon has proven itself incapable of actually engaging Al Qaeda. That, of course, is because Al Qaeda is a free floating nihilism, not a nation, or even a network.

...Bin Laden was a self-mythologized figure of no historic standing until George W. Bush designated him America's equal by defining 9/11 as an act of war to be met with war, instead of a crime to be met with criminal justice. But this over-reaction, so satisfying at the time to the wounded American psyche, turned into the war for which the other party simply did not show up. Which is, of course, why we are blasting a substitute Iraq to smithereens.

...Bush is presiding over a self-serving delusion.

Maybe it's presiding over him...

Tags: Iraq, terrorism, war, Bush

Executions at Guantanamo

2006-02-05T01:41:00.000-08:00

Somebody please stop this train:

The army has just changed the rules governing the location of military executions.

The new regulations are primarily aimed at service personnel sentenced to death at a military court martial.

Previously executions could only take place at a military jail in Kansas but now death sentences can be carried out anywhere, including the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.

The army has confirmed the new rules will also apply to any Guantanamo detainee sentenced to death at a specially convened military tribunal.

The move worries anti-death penalty campaigner David Elliot.

"The death penalty should not work in a sequestered manner where the public can not see what's happening," he said.

Tags: Guantanamo, Bush, execution

Oilholics

2006-02-02T23:15:00.000-08:00

Addicts:

And What Do Addicts Do When They Don't Get Their Fix?

Steal, lie, rob their grandparents (or grandchildren). They become irrationally violent. Uncontrollable.

In short, Bush just put the world on notice. For the next 20 years or so, America's official policy is "Anything for Oil."

Tags: Bush, oil, oil addiction

SOTU, SCHMOTU

2006-02-02T18:37:00.000-08:00

It must be awfully demoralizing to do all the hard work of speechifyin' and then have nobody watch your State of the Union address.

So we have, what 300 million people in this country? And few cared enough about this president to give him an hour.

Bush's address clocked about 8.2 million viewers on Fox, according to Nielsen stats.

That beats NBC's 8 million, ABC's and CBS's 7.7 million each, Fox News Channel's 6.5 million, CNN's 2.2 million and MSNBC's 707,000 viewers, according to the stats.

About 33 million, or just over 10 percent of the country, though those are averages and Nielsen claims 41.699 million watched at some point or another. And good thing for averages, because people tuned out

It doesn't exactly help that at least half of those viewers reacted thusly:

Tags: SOTU, Bush

Heckuva Job, Boys!

2006-02-01T18:18:00.000-08:00

I guess every scandal's got its scapegoats - some members of the CPA have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar. And a lot of other things.

A former American occupation official in Iraq is expected to plead guilty to bribery, conspiracy, money laundering and other charges in federal court on Thursday for his actions in a scheme to use sexual favors, jewelry and millions of dollars in cash to steer reconstruction work to a corrupt contractor, according to papers filed with the court.

The official, Robert J. Stein Jr., served as a comptroller and funding officer in 2003 and 2004 for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which governed Iraq after the American-led invasion. Four Americans, including Mr. Stein and the contractor, Philip H. Bloom, have been arrested in the case. Mr. Stein's plea, apparently with the understanding that he will cooperate with prosecutors, is the first to be made public.

The court papers depict a sordid exercise in greed and corruption that was spread much more widely that previously known. Including the four people already arrested, the papers indicate that a minimum of three other still unnamed co-conspirators also played a role in the scheme. In order to give more than $8 million in contracts and millions more in stolen cash to Mr. Bloom, the papers say, the conspirators accepted bribes, valuable goods and other favors.

This racket makes Cunningham look like an amateur:

The goods included first-class plane tickets, watches and other jewelry, alcohol and cigars, the court papers say. They add that Mr. Bloom kept a villa in Baghdad where women dispensed "sexual favors" in exchange for official actions in his favor or for refraining from exposing the scheme.

...The e-mail exchanges between Mr. Stein and Mr. Bloom, as detailed in the papers, are remarkable in their illustration of the daily business of apparently greed and graft. "I love to give you money," Mr. Stein wrote on Jan. 3, 2004, as he began steering work on an Iraqi police academy to Mr. Bloom.

At other times, Mr. Stein warns Mr. Bloom about others who are threats to expose their scheme or may want to get in on it themselves. "I will warn you to be very careful what you say around him," Mr. Stein writes on Jan. 27, 2004, about someone identified only as person D. "If he ever knows what we are doing he will want 'his cut!'"

It's obscene.

Tags: Iraq, CPA, Coalition Provisional Authority, Bush, corruption

Keep Up the Hardball With Hardball

2006-01-30T21:10:00.000-08:00

This is Alito-related anyway - unbelievable though it is. So, what could possibly top Chris Matthews' classless performance of equating liberals with Osama bin Laden? Or his less-than-charming notions regarding immigrants? Glad you asked. He's at it again and Crooks and Liars has the video.

MATTHEWS: ...won't they say something up beat and (bucking up)... isn't she a great woman, didn't she stand up-and then they'll put the camera right on Ted Kennedy and show how he was the guy that molested her basically-that's the way they'll play it

Yes - he just accused Senator Kennedy of molesting Mrs. Alito. Exactly where does "sloppy, irresponsible journalism" stop and "slander" begin?

Back to the boycott!

Tags: Alito, Supreme Court, Hardball, Chris Matthews

Wall of Shame

2006-01-30T15:34:00.000-08:00

The following Senators voted in favor of cloture on the Alito nomination. A lifetime Supreme Court appointment deliberated for all of 30 hours. Disgusting.

AR - Lincoln, Pryor
CO - Salazar
CT - Lieberman
DE - Carper
FL - Nelson
HI - Akaka, Inouye
LA - Landrieu
MT - Baucus
NE - Nelson
NM - Bingaman
ND - Conrad, Dorgan
SD - Johnson
WA - Cantwell
WV - Byrd, Rockefeller
WI - Kohl

History will vindicate the filibusterers, but why wait? Keep up with the LTEs - we cannot let the media set the tone and define this narrative. And while you're at it, be sure to give Lieberman an unmistakable message by donating to Ned Lamont today.

And please give Kerry, Kennedy and the others who stood up for what's right some love. They deserve it.

Tags: Alito, Supreme Court, John Kerry, Bush

Tax Overhaul

2006-01-29T20:06:00.000-08:00

Wyden's Fair Flat Tax of 2005 proposal gets some good press!

[it] would tax all income from whatever source at the same rate, close thousands of loopholes, and simplify everybody’s tax return into a one-page form.

...It’s been 20 years since the last tax overhaul, when then Democratic Sen. Bill Bradley worked with the Reagan administration to slash the tax rates and close loopholes. Wyden conferred with Bradley, who told him the case for reform is even stronger now than it was in 1986 because globalization has tightened the squeeze on the middle class.

Wyden would reduce the current six tax rates to three—15, 25 and 35—and get rid of “all the glop,” the 17,000 special-interest provisions added since ’86. He wouldn’t raise the top rate, which should calm Republican fears about class warfare, and he would preserve popular deductions like home-mortgage interest and charitable contributions. When Wyden calls some of his wealthier constituents to tell them he wants the same treatment for wages and investment income, “You can hear the pause at the other end of the line.” After he explains that it’s not really fair to tax unearned income from investments and stocks at a lower rate than hard-earned wages, “There’s another long pause before they say, ‘I can’t argue with that’.”

...Bush had intended to make tax reform a centerpiece of his second term, but he is too weakened to bring his party to any consensus. Wyden thinks his plan could attract bipartisan support. “A Republican senator told me he didn’t agree with me on capital gains,” Wyden told NEWSWEEK. “But he said it ought to be a requirement every 20 years to clean up the code. He laughed and said, “Then the lobbyists can come back and fill it up again.”

Tags: Wyden, tax reform, taxes

Guerrila Marketing Success!

2006-01-29T19:16:00.000-08:00

Some members of World Can't Wait were in my neighborhood tonight and apparently were told by someone around the way to be sure not to miss the house with the "Impeach" sign!

Yay front-porch blogging!

Oh, and speaking of the SOTU...

Tags: SOTU, World Can't Wait, Bush

"Keep Our Powder Dry"

2006-01-29T18:24:00.000-08:00

You've got to read this. Trust me.

For once, I'm in agreement with the pragmatists of the Democratic Party. The fight to stop Alito is one that we cannot win. It is better to keep our powder dry. You might respond, "Keep it dry! For what?" Glad you asked. I can think of fights for which we will be glad we kept our powder dry.

...Imagine that a catastrophic terrorist attack happens on our shores. The Republican President gives some nice speeches and promises to kick some terrorist ass. He tells us that if anyone could have imagined such an attack he would have done everything possible to protect us. I'm just spinning my wheels here, but what if it later became clear that there was warning of the attack and the President did absolutely nothing to stop it? He was busy doing something ultra-Republican, maybe trying to start a new nuclear missile program -- who knows. At any rate, he ignored the threat and lied about receiving warning. This is a Republican we are talking about; so, he'd probably try to pull some crazy stunt like falsifying an EPA report that states the air at the place struck by the terrorists made the location unsafe. We need to keep our powder dry for this eventuality.

3. Republicans love war, particularly when they and their families don't have to fight. Terrorists don't really have their own nation, so the President would have to find somewhere to attack and appear "Presidential." It is possible, unlikely, but let me put on my tin-foil hat for a minute, that the President would manufacture reasons to go to war with a nation that was in no way threatening us. He'd probably pick some faltering Middle East country that he felt would be a cakewalk. How would he convince us to fight? Maybe, he'd say something about mushroom clouds and also suggest they were in league with the terrorists. He'd probably try to hint that the country had something to do with the terrorist attack on the US. I'm not sure what else, make a half-ass try at avoiding war through the UN. Sure, millions would see through this and take to the streets in anti-war marches, but we would need our Senators and Representatives to have some dry powder ready to stop the illegal war. At least we know that Republicans are all about integrity and hate "nation-building," so once no weapons are found and the war of choice is exposed, they'd hold the President accountable.

...These are just a few examples of how things could get much worse. I even dreamt up one scenario where a whole US city is destroyed because of incompetent planning and misplaced priorities. I bet if that happened the GOP would go with the "Nobody could have predicted this" defense. Crazy Wingers.

...who knows what those wacky GOPers could get up to, so let's keep that powder dry for a real fight.

Go!

Tags: Alito, Supreme Court, John Kerry, Bush

Why Alito Matters

2006-01-29T16:09:00.000-08:00

This video and his judiciary committee testimony speak volumes.

Polls show that Americans are on our side in this - let the Senate know!

Tags: Alito, Supreme Court, John Kerry, Bush

Sheehan for Senate?

2006-01-29T14:42:00.000-08:00

Wouldn't that just beat all!?

Poor Little Ricky

2006-01-27T16:58:00.000-08:00

It seems he doesn't lie so well. Crooks and Liars has footage directly linking him to Norquist and the K street Project. Oops!

wing tip to dailykos

Filibustering Alito

2006-01-26T16:55:00.000-08:00

Kerry is supporting a filibuster - Please sign his filibuster petition. And call Salazar NOW - he is taking a filibuster poll. Apparently, Ben Nelson is soliciting feedback as well. I just called Nelson's office and spoke with a delightful fellow who didn't even care that I'm out of state because he's from here! : p

I told him that extending debate on Alito's nomination is entirely appropriate given Alito's deference to presidential power in light of spygate. There is no reason not to put Alito's nomination off until we have some answeres on extralegal domestic surveillance.

Meanwhile, we need to get the word out publically in every way possible - people need to understand what they'd be getting in Alito and why a filibuster is warranted.

Here are some resources for LTE's, etc.:

a democratic staffer !@#$%& gets it!

Anti-Alito Brigade for Justice round-up

and don't forget the wisdom of Mark Crispin Miller:

"A no vote is a yes vote, unless you filibuster!"

Tags: Alito, Supreme Court, John Kerry, Bush

Maybe There's Hope for Kansas After All

2006-01-24T22:50:00.000-08:00

Are they still screening shrubya's audiences?

Army troops from Fort Riley, Kan., listen to President Bush deliver a speech about the war on terror during the Landon Lecture at Kansas State University Monday, Jan. 23, 2006 in Manhattan, Kan.. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Perhaps this brightened their day a bit:

Someone asked Bush at a question and answer session at Kansas State University if he'd seen "Brokeback Mountain," since he's a rancher and all. Bush said he hadn't.

The president, clearly caught off guard, hemmed and hawed when asked his opinion of the movie.

Bush -- after some hesitation, and laughter in the audience -- said he'd be glad to talk about ranching, but said he hasn't seen the movie.

...The guy who asked the question told the president, "You would love it. You should check it out."

Check it out? He's practically living it. Although he's probably much more interested in the sequel.

Tags:
Abramoff, accountability, Bush, corruption, DeLay, Hardball

Scotty's Not Gonna Like This...

2006-01-23T19:47:00.000-08:00

It seems that Americans are none too keen on this warrantless spying nonsense.

The warrantless surveillance targets international communication between suspected terrorists and people in the USA. "If (terrorists) are making phone calls to the United States, we need to know why to protect you," Bush told an audience at Kansas State University.

The remarks were part of a Bush administration rebuttal to weeks of criticism about a program that empowers the National Security Agency to tap communications without a court-approved warrant.

Gen. Michael Hayden, the nation's No. 2 intelligence officer, gave a more detailed defense of the secret surveillance in Washington.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to take up the issue in public hearings early next month.

A new USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll shows that 51% of Americans say the administration was wrong to intercept conversations without a warrant. The poll also showed that 58% of Americans support appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the issue. The poll of 1,006 adults was taken Friday through Sunday and has a margin of error of +/—3 percentage points.

Be sure to sign the ACLU's petition!

Tags: NSA, spying, Bush, ACLU

wing tip to Dailykos!

Grow Your Own! Home, that is

2006-01-23T18:57:00.000-08:00

What they won't think of next!

Growing a home from living trees instead of building a home from felled timber is the goal of an architect from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Mitchell Joachim, part of the MIT Media Lab's Smart Cities Group, along with ecological engineer Lara Greden and architect Javier Arbona, propose a home that is actually an ecosystem.

...In Joachim's vision, the exterior of the living house is shaped over the course of several decades into a protective crisscross of vines, interspersed with soil pockets and growing plants.

A clay and straw composite fills in the gaps to insulate against the cold and heat and keep out moisture.

He proposes constructing windows manufactured from soy-based plastics that would flex with the home as it grows.

...Joachim's dream is to plan an entire community based on the living house design, but before that can happen, he will need to conduct a year or two's worth of sociology and feasibility studies.

In the meantime, he is currently designing a house in California that will be constructed from 50 percent recycled and reconstituted materials and 50 percent living elements.

The project is called MatScape and Joachim sees it as an experimental step toward the ultimate living house.

Go Joachim!

Coincidence?

2006-01-23T18:24:00.000-08:00

Bush, Abramoff and Cheney, oh my!

Kerry Entering Alito Opposition Into Congressional Record

2006-01-23T13:12:00.000-08:00

John Kerry has a new anti-Alito petition and will be entering the gathered signatures into the Congressional Record! Please sign it and share it far and wide.

Dear Friend,

I've studied Judge Alito's legal record. I met with him one-on-one. After all this, I am left with one simple conclusion: if Judge Alito becomes Supreme Court Justice Alito, he will move the Court backwards.

I will vote against Judge Alito's confirmation, and I hope a majority of Senators choose to join us on the Senate floor, voting and speaking out against him. I know we face tough odds, but this is an important fight.

The bottom line is Judge Alito cannot be trusted on the Supreme Court. We can't trust him to stand up to government abuse of power. We can't trust him to ensure all citizens enjoy equal protection under the law. We can't trust him to protect our right to privacy. We can't trust him to defend mainstream American values.

To muster enough Senators to defeat Judge Alito, the American people have to make it clear that they are against his nomination. That's where you come in. By speaking out, you will help us convince other Senators to join our fight.

We can do this! Be sure to also check out SusanHu's great diary about some Senators who need that extra nudge to do the right thing.

Tags: Alito, Supreme Court, John Kerry, Bush

People Against Pombo!

2006-01-23T12:02:00.000-08:00

You know you've got problems when, between you and Nixon, you're the asshole. When a retired congressman - from your own party, no less - considers re-entering politics solely to ensure your defeat. And he's not your only challenger. And even your challenger has a challenger...and...oh hell, I haven't got all night:

The Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund has begun a campaign to oust the man voted the "Most Anti-Conservation Member of Congress" -- Republican Richard Pombo (CA-11). Rep. Pombo is the best kind of friend special interests have ever had. He has tried to gut the Endangered Species Act, restart commercial whaling, open coastlines to offshore drilling, sell off 15 national parks, allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and weaken the Magna Carta of environmental law -- the National Environmental Policy Act.

...Challengers to Pombo in his district are Republican Pete McCloskey, a 78-year-old former congressman who was an original co-author of the 1973 Endangered Species Act -- the bill Pombo is trying to gut. McCloskey has looked for a younger Republican candidate, but has not been able to find one, so he said he will enter the race if one does not step forward.

On the Democrats side is Jerry McNerney, who is a wind power engineer and who lost to Pombo in the last election. McNerney's competition will be Steve Filson, an airline pilot from Danville with no political experience.

McCloskey vs. McNerney - that'll make for an interesting "pregnant chad" scenario. I really don't care who wins as long as Pombo goes down.

[UPDATE from 1.9.2006] McCloskey is in!

"Winning isn't the issue. The issue is forcing a debate on which way the Republican Party goes," McCloskey said. "This guy Pombo, he wants to privatize the remaining public lands in California and he has the power to do it. He's the chairman of the House Resources Committee. He's up to his neck with Abramoff."

...McCloskey, a lawyer in Redwood City, helped write the Endangered Species Act while he was in congress, and he ran for the Republican presidential nomination against
Richard Nixon in 1972 on an anti-Vietnam War platform.

He said Saturday that he spent months trying to find a candidate to run against Pombo, also a Republican, who is in his seventh term.

"I'm going to run against him because nobody else will," McCloskey said. He said he planned to formally announce his candidacy Monday.

Another one to keep our eyes on Sen. Larry Craig - he and Pombo are peas in a pod.

Tags: endangered species, Richard Pombo, Pombo, environment, sustainability

Kulongoski Decides Not to Run

2006-01-21T19:30:00.000-08:00

He will instead be working with the Archimedes Movement:

It was the clear eyed recognition of this reality that led me to my conclusion. At some point, each of us needs to ask "where can I make the most difference?" And for me the answer is clear. I can make the most difference not by entering a campaign for governor but rather by launching a campaign to change the American health care system and by offering people a way to engage around an idea - not just a candidate-- and as members not of political parties or of various stakeholder groups, but as members of a community.

Tags: Health Care, Medicare D, Kulongoski, Oregon, Archimedes Movement

Feingold Fighting for Victims of Medicare D

2006-01-21T19:17:00.000-08:00

It's just three weeks old and already disastrous. So, for 2008, it's Feingold, Gore and Clark - whatever order - Pres., Veep, cabinet Secretary, SoS; whichwhatever.

I &hearts Russ

be sure to check out this great column by Teresa Heinz Kerry and Jeffrey Lewis on Medicare D.

Tags: Health Care, Medicare D, Russ Feingold, Teresa Heinz Kerry

Wyden Saying "No" to Alito

2006-01-20T12:11:00.000-08:00

Three cheers for my good Senator!

“It is my conclusion that Judge Alito’s record portends a view on the power of the President that would undermine our proven and constitutionally-mandated system of checks and balances. His measurable record and answers to my questions suggest that, on the question of a woman’s right to choose, he will have an open mind only with respect to the degree to which he is willing to recognize more than three decades of precedent.

His record demonstrates a dangerous and narrow interpretation of the Commerce Clause, which could lead to results that would threaten the health and safety of all Americans. And his record of standing with large, corporate polluters who fouled our air, poisoned our waters, and then don’t want to pay for it could be disastrous for generations to come.

Ultimately, it is Judge Alito’s record that leaves me convinced that he has pre-judged many of the matters that would come before him on the court. It is with a heavy heart that I arrive at this conclusion. I believe that a President is due considerable latitude to select nominees of his or her own political party and ideology, but I will not vote to confirm a judge whom I believe incapable or unlikely to separate those personal beliefs from his constitutional obligations.”

Lots of extra Anti-Alito info over here.

[UPDATE]: He's also in for the filibuster! Show him some love!

Tags: Alito, Wyden, Supreme Court, Oregon

Conyers to Hold Hearings on Illegal Spying

2006-01-19T19:33:00.000-08:00

Oh, I do love that man! I wish that I could vote for him. Tune in tomorrow at 11 EST to watch the proceedings.

The hearing will commence at 11 am ET, and will be broadcast live on C-SPAN, Radio Pacifica, and ABC Radio. It will also be covered by CNN, the New York Times, and many bloggers. This is particularly timely since the DOJ today issued a 42 page rant that again attempts to defend the indefensible - spying on Americans without court approval. For those in the DC area, you can see the hearing in person at B 339 Rayburn Bldg (1116 Longworth for overflow).

This is a Huge development. The fact that millions of Americans will be able to tune in and see House Democrats challenging this program will show that we don't need to simply sit on our hands while the Constitution is shredded.

We will have an excellent and bipartisan panel, including Reagan Deputy AG Bruce Fein, GWU Law Professor Jonathan Turley, spying expert and author James Bamford, peace activist Richard Hersh, ACLU DC Director Caroline Frederickson, and Kate Martin of the Center for National Security Studies.

In the meantime, enjoy yet more criticisms of shrubCo's extralegal shenanigans from conservatives in goverment.

Tags:
John Conyers, NSA, spying, Bush

Death With Dignity? Not With Alito

2006-01-19T10:31:00.000-08:00

The good news is that the Supreme Court recently upheld Oregon's Assisted-Suicide Law; the bad news is that the addition of Alito to the nation's highest court would likely endanger this and other personal rights.

The U.S. Supreme Court, bolstering the right-to-die movement, ruled that the Bush administration overstepped its authority by trying to block an Oregon law that authorizes doctor-assisted suicide.

The justices, voting 6-3, today said the Justice Department can't use the U.S. Controlled Substances Act to bar physicians from prescribing lethal doses of drugs to terminally ill patients, as Oregon law permits. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. was among the dissenters.

The ruling is a major victory for patient advocates, preserving a first-of-its-kind law that may serve as a model for other states. More than 200 people have killed themselves using drugs prescribed under the Oregon Death With Dignity Act, which took effect in 1997.

The majority said the Justice Department and former Attorney General John Ashcroft had encroached on the traditional power of states to regulate the practice of medicine.

Given Alito's tendency to support the executive branch and expand its powers, we can't count on him to rule in a similarly restrained manner.

The Bush administration position would ``effect a radical shift of authority from the states to the federal government to define general standards of medical practice in every locality,'' Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court.

Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Stephen Breyer, John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter voted with the majority.

Roberts joined Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas in dissent. Scalia's opinion for the group said the court should have deferred to the Justice Department's approach.

...Oregon voters approved the measure twice, in 1994 and 1997, the second time with 60 percent favoring the law. Court challenges kept the law on hold until October 1997.

The balance is especially precarious in light of Thomas' and Roberts' statements during their nomination hearings. In both cases, the nominees said all the "right" things during the confirmation process, but proceeded to rule in direct contradiction of their statements once appointed to the bench.

Prior to his confirmation hearings, then-Judge John Roberts had a conversation with our Senator Ron Wyden.

While they didn't discuss the Death With Dignity law directly, he seemed to indicate that he would look favorably upon it. Of course, earlier today Roberts voted with Justices Scalia and Thomas in a dissent against upholding it.

A look back to August 10, 2005:

Supreme Court nominee John Roberts declared that, in cases dealing with end-of-life care, he would "start with the supposition that one has the right to be left alone," Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said after the two met for an hour Tuesday. ...

Roberts told Wyden that he would look closely at the legislative history of federal laws and would be careful not to strip states of powers they traditionally have held -- such as regulating the practice of medicine, Wyden said.

The death with dignity act was upheld on a 6-3 split - adding Alito to the bench would tilt the balance precariously toward intrusive government regulation of deeply personal decisions - where is the vaunted federalist philosophy now?

Tags: Alito, Wyden, Supreme Court, Death with Dignity, Oregon

Blog Roundup - Passing Judgement

2006-01-12T20:15:00.000-08:00

Needless to say, Alito took center stage around the blogosphere this week. I think it would be impossible to round up every worthwhile Alito post, so let's just say shorter blog roundup: Alito, Scalito, Thomaslito, Borkalito. It's so much nicer to end the week with Harry Reid's statement regarding "Say Anything Sammy's" nomination.

I have not forgotten that Judge Alito was only nominated after the radical right wing of the President's party forced Harriet Miers to withdraw. The right wing insisted that Justice O'Connor be replaced with a sure vote for their extreme agenda.

And what would any extreme agenda be without extremist rhetoric such as this:

And now Ariel Sharon, who was again a very likeable person, a delightful person to be with. I prayed with him personally. But here he is at the point of death. He was dividing God's land, and I would say woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the EU, the United Nations or United States of America. God said, "This land belongs to me, you better leave it alone."

Obviously, Israel didn't appreciate what Robertson had to say and the country has judged back - they have decided to "stop all contact" with him. Maybe now that his inane ramblings have finally caught up with him - he won't get to build his "JesusLand" theme park anymore - he might finally be a little more prudent with his commentaries. Of course, there's always the 700 Club's prayer line - it would be hilarious to get a ton of prayer requests for Robertson to get a grip.

Aaahhhh...so much judging and there's always so much to go around; while we were judging judges and Robertson was - well, not exercising any judgement whatsoever, but anyway - Spain and other European nations may have been judging us.

The concept of universal jurisdiction asserts that some crimes are so abhorrent that they transcend the normal understanding of sovereignty:

According to the proponents of universal jurisdiction, certain crimes pose so serious a threat to the international community as a whole, that any state ought to be able to prosecute an individual responsible for it; no place should be a safe haven for war criminals (including criminals involved in genocides) and human rights violators. Amnesty International also includes torture, "disappearances" and extrajudicial executions in this list.

The most famous incarnation of this concept can be found in Belgium's 1993 "law of universal jurisdiction under which charges were brought against participants in the Rwandan genocide, Ariel Sharon for event at Shatila, and against George H.W Bush, Colin Powell, and Dick Cheney for the 1991 Gulf War. However, Belgium is not the only country that has asserted the principal of universal jurisdiction.

In addition to Belgium, Spain has claimed the right to universal jurisdiction, with this jurisdiction traditionally being limited to cases involving Spanish nationals. This was the basis upon which Baltazar Garzon, one of Spain's investigating magistrates, brought charges against Augusto Pinochet, the ex-dictator of Chile. While the vast majority of the allegations being made against Pinochet related to the killings and torture of native Chileans, the presence of Spanish nationals amongst the victims was the basis upon which Garzon was able to ask for the extradition of Pinochet from the UK to stand trial in Madrid.

John Yoo isn't going to like that...

Tags: Alito, Universal Jurisidiction, Supreme Court, Israel, Pat Robertson

I've Been Tagged

2006-01-12T00:33:00.000-08:00

Carnacki got me with this "5 Weird Habits" thing.

1. When I'm getting my morning coffee, I pour the cream first. The coffee is always as strong as it always is and, therefore, always needs the same amount of cream to be that perfect rich, creamy goodness that coffee is. Why dirty a spoon or use the disposable stirrers, yannow? I also couldn't, for the life of me, estimate how much cream that is, i.e., if someone asked how I liked my coffee, I would only be able to answer "add enough cream so that it matches that light brown sweater over there..."

2. When coughing or sneezing, I use the crook of my elbow instead of my hands to cover my mouth. I touch far fewer things with it...

3. I salt my ketchup, because, let's face it - salt never sticks to french fries unless they're straight out of the fryer.

4. I am very fond of zippered sweatshirts and always, always, always have safety pins attached to the zippers and usually a hair tie or two or three. *shrug*

5. I'm fascinated by random noises, the wackier the better. I will often try to mimic them without even realizing I'm doing it. Yes; this includes a few embarassing incidents where people thought I was making fun of them.

A Few Moments With Paul Craig Roberts

2006-01-11T19:13:00.000-08:00

aka, "Why Can't the Sunday Lineup Be Like This?"

I'm on the West Coast, so trying to catch the Sunday talking heads live is just brutally absurd. Sometimes though, I imagine it might be worth it if we could see pundits who were actually capable of, say, thinking beyond talking points. Or if someone might offer analysis that goes a little deeper than "some people say." It would be especially delightful if we could look forward to scathing reviews of shrubCo, such as those delivered by Paul Craig Roberts.

The destruction of New Orleans is the responsibility of the most incompetent government in American history and perhaps in all history.

...The Bush administration is damned by its gross incompetence.

...The neoconservatives have brought these disasters to all Americans, Democrat and Republican alike. Now they must he held accountable. Bush and his neoconservatives are guilty of criminal negligence and must be prosecuted.

Wouldn't it just make your morning to hear that as you drink your coffee? Sadly, we must content ourselves with the internets, as what passes for journalism these days is just pseudo-intellectual infotainment. If Judy Bachrach freaked them out, can you imagine the short circuit upon hearing shrubya declared a tyrant?

Americans must recognize the Bush administration and the Republican Party for what they are. They are tyrants. They are bringing evil to the world and tyranny to America.

The talking heads might well explode like so many Harry Mudd robots, incapable of reconciling unfamiliar input. Imagine a Sunday lineup that included something à la this excerpt:

No administration in my lifetime has given so many strong reasons to oppose and condemn it as has the Bush administration. Nixon was driven from office because of a minor burglary of no consequence in itself. Clinton was impeached because he did not want the embarrassment of publicly acknowledging that he engaged in adulterous sex acts in the Oval Office. In contrast, Bush has deceived the public and Congress in order to invade Iraq, illegally detained Americans, illegally tortured detainees, and illegally spied on Americans.

Good news - you longer have to imagine! I emailed Dr. Roberts and he agreed to grant an interview of sorts; his answers to three of my questions are almost a column unto themselves. I know this is neither television nor Sunday, but you are reading this via an electronic screen and it will still be here when the talk show ~~circus~~ circuit starts this weekend. So you can keep it nearby to read during the commercial breaks; it will keep you invigorated through all the bloviation.

And now, without further ado, those promised moments with Dr. Paul Craig Roberts (all emphasis mine):

C: At what point did you part ways with the Bush administration?

PCR: I can't say that I was ever in company with the Bush administration, or any other, with the exception of Ronald Reagan's administration in which I served. Political parties and administrations are collections of interest groups who put their interests ahead of those of the country. Reagan did convince me that he was primarily concerned with two enormous issues on the outcome of which the country's fate rested. One issue was stagflation and the threat of simultaneous increases in both unemployment and inflation. The other issue was the cold war. Reagan dealt decisively with both issues and thus served the country well.

The current Bush administration is associated in most people's minds with the US invasion of Iraq and the faulty justification for this war. I, like most Americans, was disturbed by the events of September 11. However, it was clear to any informed person that Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with September 11. When I saw where the Bush administration was going with the terrorist issue, I wrote that an invasion of Iraq would be a strategic blunder of disastrous dimensions. This fact is beginning to dawn even on distracted Americans.

C: In your column "America's Hegemonic Miscalculation," you raise many interesting points about unforeseen consequences of international military aggression and wonder "what hath Bush wrought?" regarding Iraq. I suppose it could be argued that most of the snafus resulting from the invasion (insurgency, civil war, Islamic state, etc.) were not anticipated. But your broader point is that we should be wary of the long-term consequences of, in your words, "the first adventure of neoconservative Jacobin ideologues willing to use any means to impose their "democratic" agenda on the rest of the world, especially the Middle East."

You cite this misadventure as a turning point in history - do you have any thoughts on what some of the long-term consequences might be?

PCR: Yes, the consequences are dire. America has never faced a greater threat than the neoconservative ideologues--who are not conservatives but Jacobins (see Claes Ryn's book, "America the Virtuous"). These neocons or neocrazies as some call them have total control of the Bush administration. They have their own agenda and are using the Bush administration to advance their agenda. It is not clear to me that Bush himself is aware of what is happening and why. In brief, neocons believe that America as interpreted by them has a monopoly on virtue and the right and duty to impose American virtue on the rest of the world, especially on the Middle East, which they see as a Muslim threat to Israel. They have made this abundantly clear in their writings.

Among the consequences is a complete change in how the world views America. For example, in the Asia Times (Jan. 12, 2006, "Dismal days ahead in Iraq"), a young Iraqi woman is quoted as follows: "We used to love the American people but not anymore. Hatred is spreading all over now, and everyone wants revenge on America. Bush is bringing disasters to the people of your own country, not only to Iraqis." Another Iraqi says: "The Americans destroyed everything in Iraq. Bush should be among the greatest terrorists along with his colleagues in Britain, because they are all criminals who have killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis."

Polls show that huge majorities all over the Middle East now feel this way about America, a country that formerly they looked up to and respected. Polls also show that our former European allies now see us as a rogue state dangerous to the world's stability.

In short, Bush and the neocons have isolated America. This is an especially bad thing when you are running up massive foreign debts that the rest of the world is financing. Once the dollar's role as reserve currency gets into serious trouble, Washington cannot look to the rest of the world for support. Indeed, the world can collapse the US superpower by devaluing our currency. US living standards are on a precipice.

Bush's invasion of Iraq has damaged the image of American military might. 150,000 US troops are essentially tied down by a few thousand rag-tag lightly armed insurgents. After three years of fighting and enormous destruction in Iraq, the US does not exercise control over the territory and has failed to impose its will.

Furthermore, prior to Bush's invasion of Iraq the country was ruled by secular Sunnis. The outcome of the invasion is to turn Iraq over to the majority Shi'ites, who are largely religious fundamentalists. The Iraqi Shi'ites are allied with Iran, which is also Shi'ite. What Bush has done is to create, in the words of our ally, the king of Jordan, "a Shi'ite crescent from Iran through Iraq to Lebanon." This is a great concern to the Sunni regimes that are our allies if not our puppets.

Saddam Hussein served as a restraint on Iranian power. By removing him, we have strengthened Iran. Now that the Bush administration recognizes its blunder, it thinks it can mitigate its mistake by attacking Iran. Alarmed US officials have leaked the word that Bush has plans to attack Iran with tactical nuclear weapons, as we have no remaining forces to risk in a ground war. I fear that Bush and the neocons are insane enough to attack Iran with nuclear weapons. If this mistake is made, the US will not recover from it. The rest of the world will put us on a par with Nazi Germany and organize against us.

Neocons, wallowing in hubris, confuse America's power with military power. However, America's power has always been based on our "soft" power: the recognition of our moral, diplomatic, and economic leadership. Once the world no longer accepts our leadership, military power will not go very far.

Another dire consequence is that the Bush administration has told so many lies and broken so many laws that it has to protect itself by constructing a police state. That so many Americans think the Bush police state will only be used against "terrorists" shows how distracted from reality they are.

Really, what American ever expected to hear the president, vice president, and attorney general of the US justify torture, indefinite detention, the right to break the law against spying on Americans, or claim that the president is above the law? Bush is leading us back to a legal system prior to the existence of our civil liberties. The Bush administration has made it clear that its intention is to discard our Constitution's separation of powers and to concentrate power in the executive. The Alito appointment to the Supreme Court will give the five votes needed to create an unaccountable executive with power to rule as he chooses.

C: I had asked Roberts a question about popularly-elected democratic representation as it relates to the following quote from H.L Mencken:

"We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

PCR: H.L. Mencken was on to something. In his humorous way he anticipated Hans Herman-Hoppe's point that democracies are poorly governed because the rulers only have a short-run interest in the country's success, whereas a king must think of the state of the kingdom that he is leaving to his son. Democratic governments grow large by gaining powers to tax and to regulate. The income tax (1913) and the New Deal (1930s) gave government the power to tax and regulate on a vast scale. Once that happens, government degenerates into interest group politics.

(end of correspondence)

Hamilton actually made similar arguments in Federalist no. 71, suggesting that a limited presidential term for the presidency wouldn't quite induce the president to properly invest himself in the office. Unfortunately, shrubya proved to be an extraordinary exception, but it is still an interesting idea. It's probably more interesting than the Sunday pablum, in any event.

Enjoy your coffee.

Tags: Paul Craig Roberts, Bush, Iraq, Iran, neocon, H. L. Mencken

Today in History

2006-01-10T23:43:00.000-08:00

On January 10, 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense. Here are a few of what I feel are the more fun excerpts from "On the Origin and Design of Government in General, with Concise Remarks on the English Constitution."

Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins.

...Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.

Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him, out of two evils to choose the least.

In order to gain a clear and just idea of the design and end of government, let us suppose a small number of persons settled in some sequestered part of the earth...

...In this state of natural liberty, society will be their first thought...Thus necessity, like a gravitating power, would soon form our newly arrived emigrants into society, the reciprocal blessings of which would supercede, and render the obligations of law and government unnecessary while they remained perfectly just to each other; but as nothing but Heaven is impregnable to vice, it will unavoidably happen that in proportion as they surmount the first difficulties of emigration, which bound them together in a common cause, they will begin to relax in their duty and attachment to each other: and this remissness will point out the necessity of establishing some form of government to supply the defect of moral virtue.

...Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world.

I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered, and the easier repaired when disordered.

Absolute governments, (tho' the disgrace of human nature) have this advantage with them, they are simple; if the people suffer, they know the head from which their suffering springs; know likewise the remedy; and are not bewildered by a variety of causes and cures.

And once they set their minds to "off with their heads," they stuck with it.

But as the same constitution which gives the Commons a power to check the King by withholding the supplies, gives afterwards the King a power to check the Commons, by empowering him to reject their other bills; it again supposes that the King is wiser than those whom it has already supposed to be wiser than him. A mere absurdity!

There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of Monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required. The state of a king shuts him from the World, yet the business of a king requires him to know it thoroughly; wherefore the different parts, by unnaturally opposing and destroying each other, prove the whole character to be absurd and useless.

*snigger*

Some writers have explained the English constitution thus: the King, say they, is one, the people another; the Peers are a house in behalf of the King, the commons in behalf of the people; but this hath all the distinctions of a house divided against itself; and though the expressions be pleasantly arranged, yet when examined they appear idle and ambiguous; and it will always happen, that the nicest construction that words are capable of, when applied to the description of something which either cannot exist, or is too incomprehensible to be within the compass of description, will be words of sound only, and though they may amuse the ear, they cannot inform the mind: for this explanation includes a previous question, viz. HOW CAME THE KING BY A POWER WHICH THE PEOPLE ARE AFRAID TO TRUST, AND ALWAYS OBLIGED TO CHECK? Such a power could not be the gift of a wise people, neither can any power, WHICH NEEDS CHECKING, be from God.

That the crown is this overbearing part in the English constitution needs not be mentioned, and that it derives its whole consequence merely from being the giver of places and pensions is self-evident; wherefore, though we have been wise enough to shut and lock a door against absolute Monarchy, we at the same time have been foolish enough to put the Crown in possession of the key.

see: Michael Brown, "Signing Statements"

The prejudice of Englishmen, in favour of their own government, by King, Lords and Commons, arises as much or more from national pride than reason. Individuals are undoubtedly safer in England than in some other countries: but the will of the king is as much the law of the land in Britain as in France, with this difference, that instead of proceeding directly from his mouth, it is handed to the people under the formidable shape of an act of parliament. For the fate of Charles the First hath only made kings more subtle — not more just.

Thank you, Mr. Paine!

Tags: Thomas Paine,
Government

That About Sums It Up...

2006-01-09T19:52:00.000-08:00

"Credibility" has rarely been an issue for Supreme Court nominees, but it is clearly a major issue for Alito.

- Senator Kennedy.

The views expressed there raise serious concerns about his ability to interpret the Constitution with a fair and open mind. When this embarrassing document came to light, he faced a difficult decision on whether to defend his 1985 views or walk away from them. When I and others met him a short time later, he appeared to be renouncing them -- "I was just a 35-year-old seeking a job," he told me. But now he's seeking another, far more important job. Is he saying that he did not really mean what he said then?

You really just can't beat that, but some things come close. I think this one will be an instant Frameshop classic:

Some say that Alito can chalk the statements up to job-application hyperbole that can be expected from someone applying for a political position. "The best thing he can say is that he was sucking up," says Rutgers' Baker.

...But Alito supporter Roger Pilon of the Cato Institute says, "He can't back away from the 1985 statements, nor should he."

If the best his supporters can say is that he must own his words," Sammy's got more than a few problems - it's not just credibility.

The university's most famous alumnus of the day, basketball star and later U.S. senator Bill Bradley, was invited into CAP initially but quickly found it "impossible to remain a member" because of CAP's "right-wing" views. A special committee of alumni, which included future Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, accused CAP of presenting a "distorted and hostile" view of the university. Alito joined CAP about that time, despite its purposes and reputation, and remained a member through 1985, when he cited his CAP membership as another qualification to join the Meese inner circle.

In 1987, when he was nominated to be U.S. attorney for New Jersey, and in 1990, when he was nominated for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, he did not mention his CAP membership to the Senate Judiciary Committee or to then-Sen. Bradley, who introduced him to the committee at the nomination hearing and endorsed him "100 percent." Bradley says today that had he known about Alito's long membership in CAP he would have had serious questions about it. Alito now says he can't remember anything at all about CAP.

Not that I would expect such details to stop the theocrats from mewling about how he was overwhelmingly confirmed by the Senate before - as if U.S. Attorney for New Jersey is somehow comparable to being Supreme Court Justice. They'll probably declare CAP irrelevant and otherwise do whatever it takes to get their man on the bench. After all, he passed the litmus test with flying colors.

One really has to wonder if these people see anything beyond their rigid social agenda. As usual, they've been hoodwinked by subjectivity and so blithely assume that because abortion is their only concern, that will be the only impact of Alito's rulings. Or something. They are an extraordinarily dangerous sort - so focused in their zeal for implementing their social agenda that they are blind to any other concerns, oblivious handmaidens of a totalitarian state.

His pledge to be absolutely impartial where the government is concerned : While chairing his confirmation hearings in 1990, I asked Alito how he could remain neutral in the cases that would come before him as a 3rd Circuit judge after his more than a dozen years of service representing the U.S. government. He stated that he would be "absolutely impartial" in all his cases. But in case after case involving the actions of U.S. marshals, IRS agents and other government officials, he has sided with the government and against the citizens, even when his fellow judges have told him he was off-base.

Executive power. Alito is Roman Catholic, but don't be surprised if he is accused of being a Unitarian this week -- not of the Protestant sect, but an advocate of the theory of the "unitary executive." In a November 2000 speech before the Federalist Society, Alito expounded on this theory, which holds that the Framers of the Constitution wanted all executive power to be in the hands of the president and not to be shared with administrative agencies or with Congress. The Framers advocated this approach not only for efficiency and accountability, he said, but "to balance the huge power of the legislature and the factions that may gain control of it."

In the wake of revelations about Bush administration domestic eavesdropping, Alito has also been taken to task for a 1984 memo he wrote in the solicitor general's office suggesting that government officials deserved immunity from liability for authorizing illegal wiretaps.

This, of course, makes him every bit as dangerous as his Wingnut™ supporters. Yet, somehow, he's apparently expected to just charm his way through the judiciary committee. What a load of dreck!

"Sam will be home free when his most ardent political opponent cannot resist genuinely sharing in Sam's dry, laserlike humor..."

What the !@#$%& ever. I'm sure Thomas has cracked a few good jokes in his day. Hell, even Hitler probably did. But that doesn't make them suitable for their respective positions any more than shrubya's faux folksiness qualifies him to breathe my oxygen.

If this issue gains traction with the public and with Republicans -- some of whom, such as Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, Pa., are concerned about the erosion of congressional powers -- then it could spell trouble.

Now that's more like it. These are going to be some mighty interesting hearings...

wing tip to dailykos!

They Get Letters...

2006-01-07T23:54:00.000-08:00

He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

The reality of life under the Party (poor, dirty, and hungry) is completely different to the image of life according to their propaganda (efficient, futuristic, and mechanical). Even so, everyone appears to swallow the propaganda and believe they are living the great life they see in posters and on films.

Quote 41: "Even the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages was tolerant by modern standards. Part of the reason for this was that in the past no government had the power to keep its citizens under constant surveillance. The invention of print, however, made it easier to manipulate public opinion, and the film and the radio carried the process further. With the development of television, and the technical advance which made it possible to receive and transmit simultaneously on the same instrument, private life came to an end." Part 2, Chapter 9, pg. 206-7

Surveillance 10: All letters sent by mail are opened and checked by the mail service. There is no such thing as private mail.

It used to be fiction...

In the 50 years that Grant Goodman has known and corresponded with a colleague in the Philippines he never had any reason to suspect that their friendship was anything but spectacularly ordinary.

But now he believes that the relationship has somehow sparked the interest of the Department of Homeland Security and led the agency to place him under surveillance.

Last month Goodman, an 81-year-old retired University of Kansas history professor, received a letter from his friend in the Philippines that had been opened and resealed with a strip of dark green tape bearing the words “by Border Protection” and carrying the official Homeland Security seal.

DHS was fairly unapologetic and uninformative in their response to inquiries on this issue. As is typical with this administration, we learn far more from what not is not said.

A spokesman for the Customs and Border Protection division said he couldn’t speak directly to Goodman’s case but acknowledged that the agency can, will and does open mail coming to U.S. citizens that originates from a foreign country whenever it’s deemed necessary.

...“This process isn’t something we’re trying to hide,” Mohan said, noting the wording on the agency’s Web site. “We’ve had this authority since before the Department of Homeland Security was created,” Mohan said.

However, Mohan declined to outline what criteria are used to determine when a piece of personal correspondence should be opened, but said, “obviously it’s a security-related criteria.”

Mohan also declined to say how often or in what volume CBP might be opening mail.

Oh goody! More surveillance with ill-defined boundaries and applications. On whose whim is it determined that correspondence needs to be screened? Who is doing the screening? Does DHS keep files on the opened letters and their contents?

This is getting ridiculous.

Smoke, Mirrors and Snake Oil

2006-01-05T00:15:00.000-08:00

Well whaddaya know - the much ballyhooed torture compromise between McCain and shrubya has been, well, compromised.

The President signed the Defense Appropriations bill on Friday. In his signing statement he did at least two notable things.

First, with respect to several provisions of the bill, the President signaled his intention to reserve his authority, as Commander in Chief, to ignore statutory mandates.

...Most importantly, as to the McCain Amendment, which would categorically prohibit cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees by all U.S. personnel, anywhere in the world, the President wrote:

The executive branch shall construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power, which will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President, evidenced in Title X, of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks.

Translation: I reserve the constitutional right to waterboard when it will "assist" in protecting the American people from terrorist attacks.

So, where is McCain on this? Maverick, my ass. All the demagoguery and veto drama about his anti-torture amendment was just an elaborate dog and pony show, if you ask me; a kind of Senatorial "good cop, bad cop" routine. McCain gets to publically be the principled advocate for what is right and decent, thus securing his image as moderate reformer. He can pretend he's bucking the shrubCo machine, while in the back rooms, he and Graham and shrubya worked out a backup amendment and this "signing statement" to make sure nothing really changed. McCain gets to play good cop while remaining in collusion with the bad cops and retaining shrubya/GOP support for the 2008 nomination. Politics, you understand...

"We've been happy to work with him to achieve a common objective, and that is to make it clear to the world that this government does not torture and that we adhere to the international convention [on] torture, whether it be here at home or abroad," Bush said.

..."We've sent a message to the world that the United States is not like the terrorists," McCain said while sitting next to Bush at the White House. "We are . . . a nation that upholds values and standards of behavior and treatment of all people, no matter how evil or bad they are. And I think that this will help us enormously in winning the war for the hearts and minds of people throughout the world."

Charlatans, the lot of 'em. Including their lawyers - chalk this up as reason number 4,753 why Alito should not be confirmed. He's pretty big on these "signing statements." Probably because it would keep cases out of SCOTUS' hair:

Second, the President unsurprisingly signals that the Administration reads the Graham Amendments to cut off currently pending habeas cases:

[G]iven the decision of the Congress reflected in subsections 1005(e) and 1005(h) that the amendments made to section 2241 of title 28, United States Code, shall apply to past, present, and future actions, including applications for writs of habeas corpus, described in that section, and noting that section 1005 does not confer any constitutional right upon an alien detained abroad as an enemy combatant, the executive branch shall construe section 1005 to preclude the Federal courts from exercising subject matter jurisdiction over any existing or future action, including applications for writs of habeas corpus, described in section 1005.

What this means is that we're about to see a major battle in the Supreme Court, where the SG argues that the Court must dismiss the Hamdan case and Hamdan's attorneys argue that the Graham amendment should be construed to preserve pending cases.

So, what of Graham's amendment? It basically eliminates any way to enforce a "no torture" policy, i.e. it renders the McCain amendment meaningless.

This one bars Guantánamo detainees from going to federal court to enforce the rights that McCain would declare sacrosanct.

A shabby compromise is in the making. Bush removes his veto threat - as long as Graham's amendment remains in the bill - to transform McCain's principles into a hypocritical gesture: Listen up, world, we are against torture at Guantánamo - as long as nobody can complain about it.

It also provides murky justification for the use of information obtained under coercion:

...it provides that the review boards, in reaching a decision on the status of a detainee, should consider whether statements supporting that decision were obtained under coercion.

If the statements were obtained coercively, the boards are instructed to assess the "probative value" of those statements.

...it leaves open the possibility that a review tribunal will find that a statement obtained coercively is nonetheless reliable. And by leaving the possibility open, it indicates that such statements may be used.

...Article 15 of the Convention Against Torture, a treaty that the United States has ratified, requires that governments ensure "that any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings."

Good thing Abu Gonzales declared the Geneva conventions "quaint" and "obsolete." Even our only real ally in the waronterra has denounced torture and emphatically declared that evidence produced by it is not admissable in court.

As one law lord explained, the use of torture "corrupts and degrades the state which uses it and the legal system which accepts it."

"Torture is not acceptable," another law lord stated categorically. "This is a bedrock moral principle in this country."

Oh, how far we've fallen from the tree, when the defense of torture is a high priority for our country's "leaders."

But Vice President Cheney...is strongly opposed to any compromise that includes the McCain provision.

...Cheney personally lobbied against McCain's measure to ban abuse and torture, contending that its language was too broad and would prohibit the use of interrogation methods necessary to secure vital national security information. After the Senate approved the measure as part of a defense spending bill, he pushed to exempt the CIA from its provisions.

Now Cheney has turned to House Republican leaders to hold McCain's language back.

"It's fair to say the White House has made the case -- both the president and the vice president -- that the McCain amendment is harmful," acting House Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said last week.

...Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said Cheney has done nothing on the issue that is not fully supported by the president. She pointed to a statement Bush made last week, saying that Cheney's lobbying reflected administration views.

I thought we were supposed to be the Good Guys™...

be sure to check out this fabulous article about the Graham amendment, also - lots of detailed info. wing tip to boomantribune!

Tags: Alito, McCain, Torture, Bush, Lindsay Graham

Et Tu, Newte?

2006-01-04T01:41:00.000-08:00

Some news items are just too much fun:

With a House Republican committee chairman implicated in the criminal case and the highest echelons of the Republican Party increasingly vulnerable to charges, GOP leaders moved yesterday to distance themselves from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and prepare to combat a growing corruption scandal.

...The Post detailed a fundraiser held by Hastert at one of Abramoff's restaurants that netted from the lobbyist's law firm and tribal clients at least $21,500 for the speaker's political action committee. Since then, numerous lawmakers from both parties have returned such donations, but only yesterday did Hastert join the line.

"While these contributions were legal, he believes that it is appropriate to donate the money to charity," said Ron Bonjean, Hastert's spokesman.

Given all the ~~slush fund~~ charity shenanigans of Team Abramoff, it's delightfully fitting that at least some of the money is finally going to worthy causes. It provides some wonderful poetic justice, even if it is nothing more than CYA. Speaking of CYA, DeLay's people should really stop talking to the press - they never seem to do themselves any favors by it. I've come to think of them as the Keystone Kops of the disinformation set.

Moreover, numerous references to Abramoff-financed trips to Scotland and the Northern Mariana Islands raised anew questions about DeLay's own trips to both locations with Abramoff...Dick DeGuerin, an attorney for DeLay, said he is not concerned about the Abramoff investigation.

..."If Jack Abramoff tells the truth, what he'll do is clear the air, and everyone will see there's no connection between Jack Abramoff's money-dealing and Tom DeLay," DeGuerin said.

No connection...unless you count Abramoff's former partner Mike Scanlon, who also previously worked as a top aide for DeLay. Or pesky details such as these:

Yesterday, Travis County prosecutor Ronnie Earle, who has been overseeing the probe into illegal corporate donations in Texas, tried to find that connection by sending subpoenas to Abramoff's two former employers in Washington, seeking documents and any correspondence involving DeLay and certain contributions by Abramoff clients.

The subpoenas are based on evidence that the law firm Preston Gates Ellis LLP and several Abramoff clients, including the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, made donations to Texans for a Republican Majority, a political action committee organized by DeLay and his associates. That committee has been indicted on charges of illegally using corporate funds, and Earle now appears to be seeking information on what the donors expected to get in return for their payments.

Nope...no connection between Abramoff's money machine and Tom Delay. What's a little campaign donation between best friends?

Apparently, plenty - DeLay's chances of regaining his position as House Majority Leader are now effectively nil.

And former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) called on House Republicans to elect a new majority leader to permanently replace Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), Abramoff's most powerful ally in Washington, who faces a trial on unrelated criminal charges of violating Texas campaign laws.

"Unequivocally, the House Republicans need to select a new majority leader in late January or early February," said Gingrich, who cited revelations in The Washington Post that a public advocacy group organized by DeLay associates had been largely financed by Russian energy interests.

2006 is going to a very interesting year...

wing tip to Americablog!

"Watergate Was a Kindergarten Picnic"

2006-01-03T00:34:00.000-08:00

Maybe my inner schadenfreude has voyeuristic tendencies; I just find it immensely gratifying to see conservatives levying serious criticisms against shrubya. It's a fine day indeed when even (R) Senators call for investigations and the rug is otherwise pulled out from under this maladministration. And nobody pulls the rug, rolls it up and proceeds to thwap shrubya upside the head with it better than Paul Craig Roberts, who has been positively excoriating the preznit at just about every turn. He's been screaming for impeachment longer than most, including many on the left.

As you might imagine, his commentary on shrubya's extralegal domestic spying, titled "A Criminal Administration," is exceptional. He blasts the obsequiousness of our Potemkin Press and lays out precisely why the spying is illegal (and unecessary) under FISA. Oh, and Hitler references are now "fair game," to quote a...ummmm...noted personality.

Caught in gratuitous and illegal spying on American citizens, the Bush administration has defended its illegal activity and set the Justice (sic) Department on the trail of the person or persons who informed the New York Times of Bush’s violation of law. Note the astounding paradox: The Bush administration is caught red-handed in blatant illegality and responds by trying to arrest the patriot who exposed the administration’s illegal behavior.

Bush has actually declared it treasonous to reveal his illegal behavior!

Get this man a bully pulpit! Or maybe a seat in Congress. MSM, take note: the leaker is a patriot, whereas shrubya is breaking the law. Learn it, love it, live it. Repeat it ad nauseum like we all know you can! For bonus points, spend the five minutes that might allow you to weave this narrative in amidst the corrupt and naked imperialism the administration wears like a badge of honor.

Compared to Spygate, Watergate was a kindergarden picnic. The Bush administration’s lies, felonies, and illegalities have revealed it to be a criminal administration with a police state mentality and police state methods. Now Bush and his attorney general have gone the final step and declared Bush to be above the law. Bush aggressively mimics Hitler’s claim that defense of the realm entitles him to ignore the rule of law.

Does this mean the 'f' word is no longer off-limits as well? All shrubya's missing is a little hair grease and that goofy mustache. If the jackboot fits...

What will the federal courts do? When Hitler challenged the German judicial system, it collapsed and accepted that Hitler was the law. Hitler’s claims were based on nothing but his claims, just as the claim for extra-legal power for Bush is based on nothing but memos written by his political appointees.

...Bush has upheld neither the Constitution nor the law of the land.

...The Bush administration, backed by the neoconservative Federalist Society, has brought the separation of powers, the foundation of our political system, to crisis.

I do believe this is the first condemnation from conservative quarters that puts such a fine point on the magnitude of this issue. Too many of them are still more than happy to shred the Constitution in the name of dear leader's lip service. "Sure he can ignore laws - we're at war, donchyaknow!?" Well, excuse me, but I didn't realize we were electing a monarch capable of ignoring any law which doesn't suit his nefarious purposes. I'm no Rhodes scholar, but I'm pretty sure we fought for independence precisely so we would be free of the capricious, self-serving edicts of a megalomaniacal aristocracy. Doesn't being the Good Guys™ mean we fight against tyranny?

We used to; I'm pretty sure that was in my history class as well. It is sickeningly ironic that our government is becoming the very thing we committed a generation's worth of resources and citizens to defeat. And this analogy isn't just coming from the American left; the idea that America is taking a turn towards totalitarianism has been widely expressed by people who really should know it when they see it. Desmund Tutu has said that America's current political climate reminds him of Apartheid South Africa.

"It's unbelievable that a country that many of us have looked to as the bastion of true freedom could now have eroded so many of the liberties we believed were upheld almost religiously."

..."I had naively believed all these many years that Americans genuinely believed in freedom of speech. [But I] discovered there that when you made an utterance that was remotely contrary to what the White House was saying, then they attacked you. For a South African the déjà vu was frightening. They behaved exactly the same way that used to happen here—vilifying those who are putting forward a slightly different view."

Holocaust survivors and others with vivid recollections of Nazi Germany are also worried about the current state of affairs. I'd think they'd know fascism when it rears its ugly head.

"My father was a Nazi soldier and he realized during the war what he and most of his generation was led into. I have learned from him that a nation can be guilty and that we must stop the arrogance of the powers at the very beginning. To me, America is becoming truly scary and the parallels to the development in Germany of the thirties (although the reason behind it are totally different) are sickening."

..."With Adolf Hitler's ascendancy to the chancellorship, the Nazi Party quickly consolidated its power. Hitler managed to maintain a posture of legality throughout the Nazification process."

Whether by chance or design, George W. Bush is the most powerful American president in modern history. Not only does he have both houses of Congress beholden to him, but the majority of the Supreme Court is acting like a quintet of Bush lapdogs. And it all appears legal.

...Soon after Hitler took power...Parliamentary democracy ended with the Reichstag passage of the Enabling Act, which allowed the government to issue laws without the Reichstag."

Which is precisely what shrubya would claim for himself - l'etat c'est moi, as it were. In his mind, he should be the sole arbiter of what is right and wrong and if what he feels is right is against the law, well, that's a mere technicality. If you ask me, anybody who isn't positively horrified by such a development is every bit as delusional and dangerous as shrubya himself. "Only people with something to hide need worry" is just shorter Martin Niemöller in English.

Besides, we already know that such a claim is patently false, given what we do know about the targets of the domestic surveillance. Peta, though annoying, is hardly a threat to western civilization. And I wonder just what they imagine the Quakers - a sect dedicated to non-violence - might do by the way of insurrection. Paranoia will destroy ya, georgie. It got Nixon in the end and it will bring you down too, especially when we find out the full list of U.S. citizens on whom you spied illegally.

Nor do I think stonewalling will be effective here - all that does is leave filling in the details up to the imaginations of millions of outraged citizens. Just earlier today, there was a diary on the recommended list wondering if shrubya might have had the NSA listen in on Kerry's campaign or other communications of his. Some kossacks lamented and derided the diary as "irresponsible speculation," but really; is it so much of a stretch to think that a group as underhanded, dirty and conniving as this lot would use a tremendously powerful data-mining operation for their own political purposes? No. It most certainly is not. So take heart, davej - Mr. Roberts agrees with you.

Why, then, has the administration created another scandal for itself on top of the WMD, torture, hurricane, and illegal detention scandals?

There are two possible reasons.

One reason is that the Bush administration is being used to concentrate power in the executive. The old conservative movement, which honors the separation of powers, has been swept away. Its place has been taken by a neoconservative movement that worships executive power.

The other reason is that the Bush administration could not go to the FISA secret court for warrants because it was not spying for legitimate reasons and, therefore, had to keep the court in the dark about its activities.

What might these illegitimate reasons be? Could it be that the Bush administration used the spy apparatus of the US government in order to influence the outcome of the presidential election?

Unless he decides to be finally be honest with American citizens about the full extent of this spying, I'm afraid the only healthy option is to assume the worst, given shrubCo's track record. Not considering the appalling prospect that he would spy on his political opponents is the irresponsible action in this scenario. We cannot afford to pretend that shrubya is doing a heckuva job and that we are not, in fact, on the verge of a constitutional crisis.

No administration in my lifetime has given so many strong reasons to oppose and condemn it as has the Bush administration. Nixon was driven from office because of a minor burglary of no consequence in itself. Clinton was impeached because he did not want the embarrassment of publicly acknowledging that he engaged in adulterous sex acts in the Oval Office. In contrast, Bush has deceived the public and Congress in order to invade Iraq, illegally detained Americans, illegally tortured detainees, and illegally spied on Americans.

...September 11, 2001, played into neoconservative hands exactly as the 1933 Reichstag fire played into Hitler’s hands. Fear, hysteria, and national emergency are proven tools of political power grabs. Now that the federal courts are beginning to show some resistance to Bush’s claims of power, will another terrorist attack allow the Bush administration to complete its coup?

But you see, shrubya won't need another Reichstag fire if he manages to get executive enabler Alito on the Supreme Court. Let's hope Specter was serious about investigating spygate in early January; with any luck, it will postpone or completely derail the Alito hearings. And may I just say that "filibuster" has never been a lovelier word.

Tags: Paul Craig Roberts, Bush, Iraq, spying, NSA, Watergate, tyranny

Corrections, Page Z29

2006-01-02T23:56:00.000-08:00

At least this made it to the public record, I guess.

Britain has dropped its allegation that Iran has been supplying extremist groups in southern Iraq with bombs.

...It is ackowledged that the devices or the technology to construct them must have been smuggled to Iraq across the Iranian border into Maysan province in the south, but British officials no longer say that there is any intelligence linking the bombs to Tehran or even to elements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

Craig Murray Interview

2006-01-02T14:55:00.000-08:00

From BBC 4

Background on Murray

Leaker in Chief

2006-01-02T13:50:00.000-08:00

Never mind that Libby only left the White House upon indictment and that Karl Rove still works there, security clearance intact - this administration does not tolerate leakers! After the revelation of the extra-legal domestic spying, shrubya had this to say:

Meeting with reporters at the White House, Bush said he has the power as commander in chief to repeatedly authorize the National Security Agency to listen in on private domestic phone calls to crack terrorism cases, and that program needs secrecy to avoid tipping off suspected terrorists.

''My personal opinion is, it was a shameful act for someone to disclose this very important program in a time of war. The fact that we're discussing this program is helping the enemy."

So why does he keep discussing it? In a recent break from ~~the true WOT~~ his vacation, he did some speechifyin' and other prezudenshal posturing. Apparently, his handlers are on vacation, too.

President Bush on Sunday strongly defended his domestic spying program, saying it's a limited initiative that tracks only incoming calls to the United States.

"It's seems logical to me that if we know there's a phone number associated with al-Qaida or an al-Qaida affiliate and they're making phone calls, it makes sense to find out why," Bush said. "They attacked us before, they'll attack us again."

That sounds like a leak to me; it certainly provides more specific information about the program than the leak in question. At least it would if it were accurate. I really think shrubya's winging it again. Not to worry, though - his handlers are back on the job.

The White House, clarifying the president's remarks after his appearance, said later that either end of the communication can in fact be outside the United States.

I really don't think they pay attention to anything they say. Discussing the spying program helps the enemy, so Mr. "I'll keep you safe"...discusses it. Then the White House feels compelled to correct the preznit, providing more information about the program. I'm sure Al Qaida appreciated the update.

This is all even more pathetic in light of William Safire's recent appearance on Meet the Press:

MR. SAFIRE: I was writing a speech on welfare reform, and the president looks at it and says, "OK, I'll go with it, but this is not going to get covered. Leak it as far and wide as you can beforehand. Maybe we'll get something in the paper." And so I go back to my office and I get a call from a reporter, and he wants to know about foreign affairs or something, and I said, "Hey, you want a leak? I'll tell you what the president will say tomorrow about welfare reform." And he took it down and wrote a little story about it.

IOKIYAR!

More Conservatives Get Their Grip On

2006-01-02T02:49:00.000-08:00

It has long been rumored (and fervently hoped in some circles), that, eventually, one of shrubCo's antics would fall so far beyond the pale as to break through the Kool-Aid haze. I think Operation: Big Brother has finally done it. The idea of impeachment, once relegated to "the fringe," is now openly discussed. "Separation of Powers" is suddenly a topic of great interest and the Constitution is actually being quoted. None of which is good for shrubya - from Congress, to the courts to commentary, he's taking hit after hit over his administration's blatant power grabs and manipulations.

So far, at least three (R) Senators have stepped up in favor of investigations, including Olympia Snowe and Richard Lugar. Chuck Hagel also had some choice words on the matter:

"Every president, that we know of, has complied with the law (FISA)," Hagel said. "No president is above the law. We are a nation of laws and no president, majority leader, or chief justice of the Supreme Court can unilaterally or arbitrarily avoid a law or dismiss a law. If the vice president holds a different point of view, then he holds a different point of view."

..."I take an oath of office to the Constitution," he said. "I don't take an oath of office to the vice president, a president or a political party."

Lindsey Graham also dropped some gems in his December 18th appearance on Face the Nation:

GRAHAM: If he has the authority to go around the FISA court, which is a court to accommodate the law of the war of terror, the FISA Act was-created a court set up by the chief justice of the United States to allow a rapid response to requests for surveillance activity in the war on terror. I don't know of any legal basis to go around that. There may be some, but I'm not aware of it. And here's the concern I have. We can't become an outcome-based democracy. Even in a time of war, you have to follow the process, because that's what a democracy is all about: a process.

...I reject the idea that any president can sit down with a handful of congressmen and deal the courts out if the law requires the court to be involved. It is about the process. It's not about the politics. It is about winning the war, adhering to the values that we are fighting for and you can't set those values aside in the name of expediency.

Interestingly, the notion that shrubCo plays fast and loose with policy for the sake of expedience is also a facet of this smackdown from the very conservative 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. Maybe Luttig's just being testy over not being nominated to the Supreme Court, but he put some pretty scathing remarks in the court's opinion of the Padilla case.

[The Bush Administration’s] actions have left not only the impression that Padilla may have been held for these years, even if justifiably, by mistake [but also] they have left the impression that the government may even have come to the belief that the principle in reliance upon which it has detained Padilla for this time…can, in the end, yield to expediency with little or no cost to its conduct of the war against terror

...And these impressions have been left, we fear, at what may ultimately prove to be substantial cost to the government’s credibility before the courts.

Even William Safire, a former White House speech writer, has said they've gone too far. It's amazing what having one's phone tapped will do to ones' perspective.

SAFIRE: And so they tapped my phone, and for six months, every home phone call I got was tapped. I didn't like that...it told me how easy it was to just take somebody who is not really suspected of anything for any good reason and listen to every conversation in his home--you know, my wife talking to her doctor, my--everything.

...So there's always this struggle in a war between liberty and security...During wartime, we have this excess of security and afterwards we apologize. And that's why I offended a lot of my conservative and hard-line friends right after September 11th when they started putting these captured combatants in jail, and said the president can't seize dictatorial power. And a lot of my friends looked at me like I was going batty. But now we see this argument over excessive security, and I'm with the critics on that.

Nope...things are not going well for the boy who would be king who would be emperor.

wing tip to Americablog!

Needs No Embellishment

2006-01-01T20:20:00.000-08:00

Some things just speak for themselves:

18 Months and Kicking and Screaming...to get an investigation into governmental responses to 9/11/01.

8 months and a (12 hour headstart) to get an investigation into who leaked the identity of an undercover agent.

1 week to start an investigation into who squealed on the President's illegal wiretapping.

Updated from 6:03 pm Dec. 31st:

I spoke too soon; in light of this story, it seems a little embellishment is in order after all. Just like Cheney's hero, stonewall is all this crew knows. Leave it to them to weave 1984 into an almost perfect re-enactment of Watergate.

Though Mr. Bush made no mention of the subject in his radio address, some of his advisers and national security officials say the White House has decided in the past two weeks to take a hard line with Congressional inquiries into Mr. Bush's secret authorization of wiretaps without warrants on suspects within the United States.

...Mr. Bush's aides and intelligence officials say they plan to refuse to offer more details in public on why they believe the technology of the program made it necessary to bypass the secret court designed to authorize wiretapping efforts inside the United States.

They are preparing to dispute vigorously and quite publicly the broader legal critique, offered by some Democrats, the American Civil Liberties Union and some Republicans, that the president acted beyond his authority as commander in chief.

Let them dispute it - shrubya builds the case against him every time he opens his mouth. He can't even stonewall properly.

Borrow and Squander

2005-12-30T22:05:00.000-08:00

Ok, I give up; can someone please explain to me the mental disconnect that allows the GOP to persist in their asinine tax cuts? If any household, business or other entity ran their affairs in this manner, they wouldn't last a day.

U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow warned lawmakers on Thursday that a legally set limit on the government's ability to borrow will be hit in mid-February and urged Congress to raise it quickly.

Failure to do so potentially risks throwing the country into its first default in history, Snow warned in what has become virtually an annual rite as U.S. borrowing needs spiral.

I'm especially bothered by the expression "borrowing needs." It is not a need; it's a choice and a very sorry indicator of the priorities of this administration and its congressional enablers. Medicare and Medicaid are slashed so the rich can have tax cuts. "Appalling" doesn't begin to cover it.

Snow said that Treasury, if the debt limit was not raised by then, would have to take "extraordinary actions" to keep paying its bills for everything from Social Security to national defense spending.

Even if Treasury took "all available prudent and legal actions to avoid breaching the statutory debt limit, we anticipate that we can finance government operations no longer than mid-March."

I've got a suggestion: every member of the administration who really doesn't need their federal salaries could forego them. Ditto for those members of Congress voting in favor of tax cuts and debt increases - anyone who can afford to should follow the noble example set by Governor-elect Corzine. Or maybe Congress could pull a Newt and let the government shut down. The tax cuts only benefit 1% of the population, after all; surely moderate Rs up for re-election could be pressured into being reasonable. There's simply no reason they should stick their necks out for the squanderer-in-chief when such reckless financial policy is detrimental to most of the population and the nation as a whole.

The call for an increase in the debt ceiling typically provokes a round of criticism from opposition politicians over excessive government spending and the process is drawn out until nearly the last possible moment.

Well I would hope so. I also hope it doesn't pass. I really think the GOP does this on purpose when they're in power so that when the Dems take the reigns, they're the ones who, of necessity, end up raising taxes. Being the adult is never any fun.

Abramoff Worse Than Abscam

2005-12-30T05:00:00.000-08:00

WaPo has a *great* story on Abramoff.

Alan K. Simpson (R), the former Wyoming senator who was in Washington during the last big congressional scandal -- the Abscam FBI sting in the late 1970s and early 1980s, in which six House members and one senator were convicted -- said the Abramoff case looks bigger. Simpson said he recently rode in a plane with one of Abramoff's attorneys, who told him: "There are going to be guys in your former line of work who are going to be taken down."

Abramoff is now officially toxic:

Burns, one of half a dozen legislators under scrutiny by the federal Abramoff task force, returned $150,000 in campaign contributions this month.

"This Abramoff guy is a bad guy," Burns told a Montana television station. "I hope he goes to jail and we never see him again. I wish he'd never been born, to be right honest with you."

Former Republican congressman Mickey Edwards (Okla.), usually a defender of lobbying and Congress, said there have always been members who get caught "stuffing money in their pants." But he said this is different -- a "disgusting" and disturbingly broad scandal driven by lobbyists whose attitude seemed to be "government to the highest bidder."

"This is at a scale that is really shocking," said Edwards, who teaches public and international affairs at Princeton. "There is a certain kind of arrogance that in the past you might not have had. They were so supremely confident that there didn't seem to be any kind of moral compass here."

wing tip to Attaturk!

If Baghdad Bob Were a Lawyer

2005-12-30T04:08:00.000-08:00

I imagine he would sound a lot like Saddam's chief lawyer, Khalil Dulaimi. In a letter to shrubya, he proclais "complete innocence" for his client and demands he be released, saying "His popularity gains by the day and (he) is beloved by millions of Iraqis."

The United States should free Saddam Hussein if it wants to end its problems in Iraq and earn the friendship of Arabs, the former Iraqi president's lawyer wrote in a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush.

The chief lawyer for Saddam at his trial for crimes against humanity in Baghdad told Bush that Iraqis who supported their former leader were waiting for a bold decision from the world's most powerful statesman to free him.

I have to hand it to him, though; his appeals to shrubya's vanity and delusions of grandeur are fantastic. He even goes so far as to suggest that freeing Saddam would make him the legend he yearns to be, securing his place of greatness in history.

Such a decision would prove to be the panacea that would end Washington's woes over Iraq, Dulaimi asserted.

"Your relations with Iraq will then be historic and you will win the favor of the Arabs and Muslims and the entire world," Dulaimi said.

Shall we take bets?

Sen. Gordon Smith on the Rule of Law

2005-12-29T13:49:00.000-08:00

It's time to remind all the GOoPer politicians of the principled stances they once espoused regarding the president and our nation's laws. You can fax for free via the web! This is what I sent:

"But we have to decide on the evidence today, and the evidence to me is clear. Soldiers and sailors are discharged and punished for far less than what the President did. And judges are impeached by the House and removed by the Senate for far less than this. Indeed, we have to ask, is the President to be held to a lower standard than those he sends to war or those he appoints to dispense justice? I cannot and I never will agree to such a low standard for the Presidency of the United States."

Dear Senator Smith:

I hope you recognize the above quotation; those are your words on the subject of Clinton's impeachment. I hope you are still willing to hold the president of the United States to such a standard, because we are a nation of laws, not men or political party. I'm sure you realize that the crisis before us is not a partisan issue, but a question of the foundation of our democracy.

I am counting on you to uphold the rule of law and our Constitution, which you have sworn to defend. Nixon faced impeachment over lying to the American people and using illegal wire taps. This situation is no different - the evidence is clear.

"Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- *a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so*. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution."

- George W. Bush, April 20, 2004

Presidential Oath of Office:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

U.S. Constitution; Article II, Section III:

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; *he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed*, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

Thank you for your attention to this gravely important matter. To quote a recent column from Anne Applebaum, "The rule of law is an ongoing process, not a goal." That process is what defines America; our goal should be to support it absolutely.

Sincerely,

A Few Moments From History

2005-12-29T12:35:00.000-08:00

Presidential oath of office, sworn by shrubya on Jan. 20th, 2000 & 2005:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

U.S. Constitution; Article II, Section III:

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

Specification of Charges (Bill of Particulars) for articles of impeachment against Nixon:

Pursuant to the plan or scheme specified in Count 1, President Nixon and his co-conspirators:

2. Illegal Wiretaps. Caused wiretaps to be placed on the telephones of seventeen persons without having obtained a court order authorizing the tap, as required by federal law; in violation of sections 241, 371 and 2510-11 of the Criminal Code.

Don't miss the ACLU's great advertisements - they've been putting them in the NYT!

Impeachment: It's Not Just for Blowjobs Anymore

2005-12-29T02:47:00.000-08:00

Neither is it just for democrats, liberals and other assorted leftists anymore. Congressional republicans have joined the calls for an investigation and the momentum for impeachment is steadily growing. Bob Barr, a former U.S. Representative who was active in Clinton's impeachment is now turning the same ire on shrubya, saying "This is just such an egregious violation of the electronic surveillance laws." Robert Levy, a Senior Fellow of Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute - and Board Member of the Federalist Society - makes some excellent points regarding limits on presidential power before concluding that shrubya has "overreached." I think he was euphemizing.

In a recent interview with Diane Rehm, conservative scholars Bruce Fein and Norm Ornstein were a bit more blunt. Ornstein is quoted as saying, "I think if we’re going to be intellectually honest here, this really is the kind of thing that Alexander Hamilton was referring to when impeachment was discussed." Fein was not so reserved:

I think the answer requires at least in part considering what the occupant of the presidency says in the aftermath of wrongdoing or rectification. On its face, if President Bush is totally unapologetic and says I continue to maintain that as a war-time President I can do anything I want – I don’t need to consult any other branches – that is an impeachable offense. It’s more dangerous than Clinton’s lying under oath because it jeopardizes our democratic dispensation and civil liberties for the ages. It would set a precedent that … would lie around like a loaded gun, able to be used indefinitely for any future occupant.

But I think even they were too restrained. The right-thinking members of the right must make themselves heard on this issue; eloquent comparisons to loaded guns will, I'm afraid, get lost in the translation. Unlike their GOoPer doppelgangers, true conservatives are serious in the things they say and the sentiments they express; they also tend to know a lot more on the subjects at hand. They are actually capable of arguing their points and could truly reach people - if they can be heard above the RWNM.

And they must be; this has nothing whatsoever to do with partisanship and the dittoheads of the world need to understand that this is real. Which is why I was so happy to see Fein kickng it up a notch in an op-ed for the very conservative Washington Times yesterday. He lays out the finer points of the legal violations involved and pretty much shreds the administration's defenses, saying "the Constitution's separation of powers is too important to be discarded in the name of expediency."

President Bush secretly ordered the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on the international communications of U.S. citizens in violation of the warrant requirement of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, abominations.

...Mr. Bush has adamantly refused to acknowledge any constitutional limitations on his power to wage war indefinitely against international terrorism, other than an unelaborated assertion he is not a dictator.

...Volumes of war powers nonsense have been assembled to defend Mr. Bush's defiance of the legislative branch and claim of wartime omnipotence so long as terrorism persists, i.e., in perpetuity.

...President Bush preposterously argues the Sept. 14, 2001, congressional resolution authorizing "all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons [the president] determines" were implicated in the September 11 attacks provided legal sanction for the indefinite NSA eavesdropping outside the aegis of FISA. But the FISA statute expressly limits emergency surveillances of citizens during wartime to 15 days, unless the president obtains congressional approval for an extension.

...Moreover, the White House has maintained Congress was not asked for a law authorizing the NSA eavesdropping because the legislature would have balked, not because the statute would have duplicated the war resolution.

Yes; they were too stupid/drunk with hubris to even lie about it. Why does it always come down to "criminal or incompetent" with this bunch? Not only did shrubya brazenly admit to breaking the law; he also vowed to continue doing so. Even Barron's - a conservative stalwart owned by the WSJ - was appalled.

"the Bush administration has been fighting terrorism by intercepting communications in America without warrants. It was worrisome on its face, but in justifying their actions, officials have made a bad situation much worse: Administration lawyers and the president himself have tortured the Constitution and extracted a suspension of the separation of powers.

...Willful disregard of a law is potentially an impeachable offense. It is at least as impeachable as having a sexual escapade under the Oval Office desk and lying about it later. The members of the House Judiciary Committee who staged the impeachment of President Clinton ought to be as outraged at this situation.

...It is important to be clear that an impeachment case, if it comes to that, would not be about wiretapping, or about a possible Constitutional right not to be wiretapped. It would be about the power of Congress to set wiretapping rules by law, and it is about the obligation of the president to follow the rules in the Acts that he and his predecessors signed into law.

...the president said: "It was a shameful act for someone to disclose this very important program in a time of war. The fact that we're discussing this program is helping the enemy."

Wrong. If we don't discuss the program and the lack of authority for it, we are meeting the enemy -- in the mirror.

But even they were too generous. As encouraging as these pieces are, none of these conservatives has yet called for impeachment directly. I wish they were all as vociferous as Paul Craig Roberts, who has been calling for outright impeachment since at least circa the Downing Street Memos. The current outrage is another in a long line of impeachable offenses as far as he's concerned. He's also delightfully scathing in his criticisms. After Katrina, he described this administration as "the most incompetent government in American history and perhaps in all history." With the suspension of habeus corpus, he characterized shrubya and the GOP as "bringing evil to the world and tyranny to America." Now that man knows how to castigate!

wing tip to dkosser fabooj for the title. also, don't miss this fabulous collection of quotes from republicans on the importance of the rule of law. and mark your calendars - impeachment rallies are being planned for March!

Guerrilla Marketing Is Fun!

2005-12-28T21:33:00.000-08:00

I just put my sign up tonight and it's already been fucked with. w00t! I went outside to check on it and someone had folded it on top of the bricks. At least they didn't take it, I guess.

Scrap fabric - $0
Hot glue gun - $0 (it was abandoned by an ex-roomie along the way)
Seeing that !@#$%& impeached - priceless!

Have you read the impeachment checklist? Even more fun is this collection of quotes from republicans on how so very important the rule of law is.

Two Georges, Two Iraqs, One Good Decision

2005-12-28T03:01:00.000-08:00

If only shrubya had read his father's book...

"Incalculable human and political costs...We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect rule Iraq,"

"The coalition would have instantly collapsed. ... Going in and thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations mandate would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish."

"Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."

- The adult George Bush

"Even if Hussein were captured and his regime toppled, U.S. forces would still have been confronted with the specter of a military occupation of indefinite duration to pacify the country and sustain a new government in power.

"Removing him from power might well have plunged Iraq into civil war, sucking U.S. forces in to preserve order. Had we elected to march on Baghdad, our forces might still be there."

- James Baker, Sec. of State to the adult George Bush

Hell, even Darth Cheney agreed with them, but that was before he had worked for Halliburton. And of course, terra, terra, Sadamma Bin laden, 9/11 changed everything; this time, we had to invade. I guess he doesn't read either, which is a pity. I'd really like to see the spin on this:

"If the Kurds want to separate from Iraq it's OK, as long as they keep their present boundaries," said Sgt. Hazim Aziz, an Arab soldier who was stubbing out a cigarette in a barracks room. "But there can be no conversation about them taking Kirkuk. ... If it becomes a matter of fighting, then we will join any force that fights to keep Kirkuk. We will die to keep it."

Kurdish soldiers in the room seethed at the words.

"These soldiers do not know anything about Kirkuk," Capt. Ismail Mahmoud, a former member of the Kurdish Peshmerga militia, said as he got up angrily and walked out of the room. "There is no other choice. If Kirkuk does not become part of Kurdistan peacefully we will fight for 100 years to take it."

Five days spent interviewing Iraqi army soldiers in northern Iraq - who are overwhelmingly Kurdish - made clear that many soldiers think that a civil war is coming.

Parades! Rose petals! "Kumbayah" in Arabic!

Achieving independence is a matter of life and death for Mahmoud, as with most other Kurdish soldiers interviewed.

...Col. Sabar Saleem, the head of intelligence for the 4th Brigade of the Iraqi 2nd Division in the city of Mosul, said there would be no compromise over Kirkuk.

"War is just another kind of political solution," said Saleem, a former Peshmerga.

He said that while he wore an Iraqi army uniform he had a much larger mission in mind.

"I tell you that I am a part of the Iraqi army, but when it comes to the Kurdish cause I am willing to offer my life, my head, for one inch of Kurdish land," Saleem said. "Especially for Kirkuk."

There are roughly 10,000 equally impassioned Kurds serving in the Iraqi army. Their loyalty also lies with an independent Kurdistan that includes Kirkuk.

The soldiers said that while they wore Iraqi army uniforms they still considered themselves members of the Peshmerga - the Kurdish militia - and were awaiting orders from Kurdish leaders to break ranks. Many said they wouldn't hesitate to kill their Iraqi army comrades, especially Arabs, if a fight for an independent Kurdistan erupted.

"It doesn't matter if we have to fight the Arabs in our own battalion," said Gabriel Mohammed, a Kurdish soldier in the Iraqi army who was escorting a Knight Ridder reporter through Kirkuk. "Kirkuk will be ours."

The Kurds have readied their troops not only because they've long yearned to establish an independent state but also because their leaders expect Iraq to disintegrate.

Not only do they expect it, they don't seem to mind the prospect one bit.

Col. Sabar Saleem, a former Peshmerga who's the head intelligence officer for the 4th Brigade, said he answered to the Peshmerga leadership. He also said he had little use for most Sunni Arabs.

"All of the Sunnis are facilitating the terrorists. They have little influence compared with the Kurds and Shiites, so they allow the terrorists to operate to create pressure and get political concessions," Saleem said. "So they should be killed, too ... the Sunni political leaders in Baghdad are supporting the insurgency, too, and there will be a day when they are tried for it."

I'd almost say they're even looking forward to it.

"We will do our best diplomatically, and if that fails we will use force" to secure borders for an independent Kurdistan, Mustafir said. "The government in Baghdad will be too weak to use force against the will of the Kurdish people."

...One key to the Kurds' plan for independence is securing control of Kirkuk, the seat of a province that holds some of Iraq's largest oil fields. Should the Kurds push for independence, Kirkuk and its oil would be a key economic engine.

..."Kirkuk is Kurdistan; it does not belong to the Arabs," Hamid Afandi, the minister of Peshmerga for the Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of the two major Kurdish groups, said in an interview at his office in the Kurdish city of Irbil. "If we can resolve this by talking, fine, but if not, then we will resolve it by fighting."

You're doin' a heckuva job, Georgie...

wing tip to dailykos and americablog!

Wanker in Chief

2005-12-27T20:07:00.000-08:00

This is what shrubya's biography should look like:

AFA Goes After Santorum

2005-12-26T17:32:00.000-08:00

His Frothiness has been chastized by the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Family Association for not behaving to their liking. It seems they're upset with him for not further endangering his re-election prospects in defense of intelligent design curricula. As Atrios says, "Poor little Ricky. He's stupid and he's ugly and nobody likes him."

A conservative organization that touts itself as a supporter of traditional values blasted Sen. Rick Santorum for his withdrawal of support for the Dover Area School District's unconstitutional intelligent design policy.

"Senator Rick Santorum's agreement with Judge John Jones' decision ... is yet another example of why conservatives can no longer trust the senator," the American Family Association of Pennsylvania said in a news release Friday.

..."It's a warning that he needs to be careful" Gramley said. "That he's beginning to lose his conservative base."

Wingnut™ Wars are fun!

Wall? What Wall?

2005-12-25T19:41:00.000-08:00

I really can't believe I just read this. But read it I did.

A Cincinnati appeals court ruled Tuesday that a Kentucky courthouse can display the Ten Commandments alongside other historical documents, even though the U.S. Supreme Court recently barred a similar display 50 miles away.

The decision from the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals means the display in Mercer County is permitted as long as the religious document is not given significance over the other documents, which include the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence.

...Manion said the Supreme Court rulings in the other Kentucky cases left an opening for such displays as long as those who erect them don't make religion a focal point.

In the other counties, the court noted, the displays were put up as pastors and others applauded the effort to bring religion into public places. The judges concluded that did not happen in Mercer County, thus making the display there permissible.

"The Ten Commandments are part of an otherwise secular exhibit," Judge Richard Suhrheinrich wrote for the panel.

...we conclude that the Mercer County display lacks a religious purpose and further conclude that it does not endorse religion.

It lacks a religious purpose, but is part of an "otherwise secular" exhibit. Do those of the wingnutosphere never think about the things they say? I can't wait to see what happens when Hindus, Muslims, Pagans, and Jews petition to have their religions acknowledged in such a display. That will tell us whether or not it's an endorsement of religion.

As you enter the Mercer County Courthouse from the front, on the left wall are framed displays of the national anthem, the preamble to the Kentucky Constitution, the Ten Commandments, the Mayflower Compact and the Declaration of Independence.

On the right wall is Lady Justice, an explanation of the Foundation for American Law and Government, the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution and two frames containing the Magna Carta.

One of these things is not like the others; one of these things just doesn't belong. The wingnuts themselves aren't even trying to pretend there's no signifigance in displaying the Ten Commandments alongside the documents which form the foundation of our legal system. In the full text of the ruling, we are informed that the display also contains a commentary page providing an explanation for each of the items featured. Here is the explanation for the Ten Commandments:

The Ten Commandments have profoundly influenced the formation of
Western legal thought and the formation of our country. That influence is clearly
seen in the Declaration of Independence, which declared that “We hold these truths
to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the
pursuit of Happiness.” The Ten Commandments provide the moral background of
the Declaration of Independence and the foundation of our legal tradition.

Never mind that most of our founding fathers ascribed to no specific religion; never mind the Treaty with Tripoli, which explicitly states "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." I think God himself could tell the dominionists that America was not established as a Christian nation and they'd probably still persist in these delusions. Needless to say, they're ecstatic over this ruling. The same groups who want to see Biblical edicts codified into law are almost as gleeful over this as they were after Alito's nomination. Which makes this development really scary - would the Supreme Court continue to rule against such practices if he is seated?

Opponents, however, said the ruling is a rebuke to the Supreme Court decision in June that barred almost identical displays at courthouses in Pulaski and McCreary counties in southeastern Kentucky.

...In those cases, a 5-4 Supreme Court majority found that the displays in McCreary and Pulaski counties violated the Constitution because they were erected with a clear religious purpose.

"This creates a situation where a court of appeals is essentially ignoring a Supreme Court decision," said Scott Greenwood, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which challenged the displays. "It's a slap in the face."

Greenwood said the display in Mercer County is virtually identical to the other displays and was put up with the same purpose: to promote religion.

...ACLU attorney David Friedman said he is disappointed with the ruling.

..."It endorses religion by trying to wrap the Ten Commandments in the flag," Friedman said.

And that's the bottom line. I don't care what technical hairs they split over the Ten Commandments not having any prominence over the other pieces in the display; the very fact that they are being presented as equal to legal documents is problematic enough. Neither do I buy this nonsense about it being a "historical" display. Yes; these documents are all of historic importance, but they are specifically relevant to our nation's legal history. If the display included information about the town's development or history about the courthouse being built, they might have a point. But it doesn't and neither do they. They have placed their religious doctrine in a display with items of legal provenance at the county offices of law and justice. They know full well what this means; this "opening" means everything to them.

"Courts across the country are closely split on these issues," Friedman said. "This panel is more tolerant of government conduct that endorses religion."

But those who have defended counties in their quest to post the Old Testament edicts said Tuesday's decision is a sign that judicial opinion on the separation of church and state is moving to the right.

"It gives a road map to cities and counties that want to display the Ten Commandments," said Francis A. Manion, of the American Center for Law and Justice, which represented Mercer County in the case. Manion also represents other counties in Kentucky facing similar lawsuits.

That's the same American Center for Law and Justice founded by Pat Robertson. Their other distinctions include representomg Terri Schiavo's parents and protecting the free speech rights of "pro-life" demonstrators. They also have quite the quarrel with the ACLU as outlined by Jay Sekulow:

I spent this past weekend reviewing a number of issues involving the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). It has been clear for a long time that the ACLU is out of step not only with the American people, but oftentimes with common sense.

...On the religious liberty front, the ACLU’s assault on the Ten Commandments and other forms of expressions of faith in the public square has been unrelenting.

...I have instructed our ACLJ regional offices and our affiliates throughout the country to aggressively pursue cases involving the ACLU. We are prepared to defend cities, counties, members of Congress and others who are placed in the legal crosshairs by the ACLU and their lawyers.

If one didn't know any better - maybe we don't - one might think that Judge Suhrheinrich's legal opinion was ghost written by Mr. Sekulow himself.

Suhrheinrich took several swipes at the ACLU at the end of the ruling. Throughout the ruling, he wrote that a reasonable person might see the McCreary and Pulaski displays as a religious documents while a reasonable person would see the Mercer County display as secular.

"And the ACLU ... does not embody the reasonable person," he wrote.

Friedman's reply: "Judge Suhrheinrich thought it was appropriate to put in the opinion, so he did."

Gratuitous disparagement of the case's plaintiff...classy. If that doesn't qualify him as a judicial activist, maybe this will:

The appeals judges also said the ACLU misinterpreted the Constitution's ban on establishing a religion to mean there can be no acknowledgement of religion by government.

"The ACLU makes repeated reference to the 'separation of church and state,' " Suhrheinrich wrote. "This extra-constitutional construct has grown tiresome. The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state.

Ok, sure; technically, it is an "extra-constitutional construct," but I would certainly expect a federal judge to appreciate the significance of its source. Originating as it did with Thomas Jefferson - who played a large role in the creation of the Bill of Rights - has got to count for something. To most constitutional scholars, it does; for those with an agenda, it doesn't. And so we end up with federal judges pretending that "de jure" is a prerequisite for "de facto" and ignoring the very necessary, practical and invaluable wall between legislative and spiritual affairs.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.

(signed) Thomas Jefferson
Jan.1.1802.

Maybe they're just testy because he equated "religion" with "opinion." The Wingnut™ Brigade never has had a sense of humor; there's nothing they enjoy more than taking themselves far too seriously. After all, if the only tool you have is a persecution complex, you tend to see every problem as a lion.

Full text of the ruling, if you're interested. wing tip to dailykos!

ACLJ, Theocracy, Bush, Church and State, Alito

R.I.P. - Best. Dog. Ever.

2005-12-24T18:05:00.000-08:00

I had to put my baby down today. Okay, she was 14 and not technically a "baby," but you know how it is with pets. She was recently diagnosed with oral cancer and things turned south real quick. You always know it's an eventuality, but you're never prepared for it. But this is not about being sad. This is about what a wonderful dog she was. And she was the greatest.

Since both of her parents were mutts, I've always figured that made her a purebred mutt. The best description would be border collie-lab-setter. And she had the best of all those worlds. Even as an adult dog, her hair was luxuriously soft and so very wonderful to pet. Here is a picture of her at roughly age 9 wearing bunny ears.

She was a spoiled little beastie, but she deserved it. I really did get extremely lucky - you never really know how a puppy will be as an adult dog. But she was just the sweetest, happiest thing. People always commented that she smiled a lot. I actually had her trained for off-leash really, really well, so I took her most everywhere with me. It was always heaps of fun. The best thing, though, was when I would ride my bike down the street and she'd run along with me on the sidewalk! We both loved the hell out of that.

We hiked a lot, too; she was a great hiking dog. She'd always run way ahead of me on the trail (or off of it - she loved hikes) and would then poke her head back around the corner to make sure I was still catching up. Secure in that knowledge, she'd tear right back off again. And so we hiked.

She also loved water. The first time I ever took her to a lake, I could barely get her leash off before she was jumping in. She would fetch a stick from halfway across a river and swim back to you with it. She definitely preferred rivers and lakes to oceans though; not really sure why.

Even though I've always considered her to be the quintessential dog, she did have some very un-doglike habits. She was never one to stick her head out of car windows to slobber in the wind. Thank goodness. She also loved fruits and vegetables of all kinds, which I fed her often.

This all started when I was trying to train her as a puppy. If you've ever been through dog training, you know that "stay" is really a very abstract thing and one of the hardest to teach. One day, though, she was doing it perfectly and I really wanted to reward her with one of her carob treats, but they were in the other room. I knew that if I left her field of vision, all would be lost.

As it happened, the only thing nearby was a canister of raisins. I figured they were small and brown and sweet; maybe she wouldn't notice. So I gave her two or three and told her what a good "stay" she was doing. She scarfed them right up without a second thought. Later, I gave her a few more just to see if that was a fluke, but she ate those too.

So I was really curious to see what else she might like and made a point to always test new fruits and vegetables. I think about the only things she ended up not liking were lettuce and mushrooms. She actually didn't go for as many fruits as she did vegetables. She liked apples, pears, strawberries and pineapple well enough, but her absolute favorite was cantelope. I always gave her my rinds, making sure to leave a few healthy bites on them for her. For hours afterward, I would find shredded melon rind all over the place, most of it scraped as clean as dog teeth can get it.

Over the years, I learned that she was moody about cucumbers and zucchini, sometimes eating it, sometimes dropping it in the middle of the floor. Tomatos were one of her favorites; she definitely liked organic romas the best. Her other favorites included pickles, avocados, red peppers, asparagus, peas, all kinds of beans and carrots. She LOVED carrots.

But I think her favorite of all would have to be broccoli. It had to be steamed though; she wouldn't touch it raw. I'm sure that dog ate more organic broccoli than any human I know, except myself. I couldn't think of having broccoli without sharing some with her. She would smell it steaming and not leave the kitchen - by the way she acted, you'd think I was cooking steak.

It was a wonderful 14 years. Pets are truly good for the soul; she taught me so much. I already miss her.

Not To Belabor the Point

2005-12-24T17:33:00.000-08:00

But damn...it really is as though shrubya is using 1984 as a "Dictatorship for Dummies" guide to high office. The similarities are almost cliché, as though the administration were living a Roger Corman adaptation of the story. How else to you end up with "I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace" in a speech about home ownership?

Then there's Operation Big Brother, wherein shrubya himself authorized extralegal spying on Americans. Now they're trying to claim that they never associated Saddam with 9/11.

Senior U.S. officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, had also warned before the war of possible links between Hussein's government and the planners of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

Bush acknowledged on Friday there was no evidence of such a link.

"There was no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the attack of 9/11," Bush said. "I've never said that and never made that case prior to going into Iraq."

Yes; we've always been at war with Oceana.

"If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say this or that even, it never happened—that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death." —pg 32

"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'" —pg 32

"Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary." —pg 36

For the record, here is a lovely collection of various quotes on 9/11 and Saddam.

You also want to check out this story - the Oakland Tribune is taking donations so that they can send a copy of 1984 to all of Congress and the administration. I love it!

wing tip to dailykos!

Me Fail English? That's Unpossible!

2005-12-24T16:25:00.000-08:00

I think shrubya's been winging it in his public statements again. I hate to use the term "flip-flop," so I'll just say that some of his positions on recent events haven't exactly been consistent.

After declaring that he would veto any extension of the Patriot Act, shrubya changed his tune:

(White House-AP) December 22, 2005 - The White House is hailing the Senate's vote to extend the Patriot Act for six months, a day after vowing President Bush wouldn't accept a short-term extension.

Press Secretary Scott McClellan calls Wednesday night's Senate vote "an important victory for the American people."

It's amazing what the public backlash over domestic spying will to do unbridled hubris. Sometimes, it can even get a president to admit to a criminal offense. If his handlers are really distracted, he might even completely contradict himself in every way possible.

For 24 hours, Bush and other top administration officials refused to confirm the existence of their secret domestic spying program, arguing that doing so would endanger the American people:

President Bush, 12/16/05

I know that people are anxious to know the details of operations, they– people want me to comment about the veracity of the story. It’s the policy of this government, just not going do it, and the reason why is that because it would compromise our ability to protect the people.

...This morning, President Bush not only confirmed the existence of the program but provided details about how it worked.

Does he operate under the assumption that no one pays attention to a word he says? Or maybe he can't remember, so figures we won't either. The only other explanations are he's either counting on people to not understand what he says or he really has no idea himself. A stunning case in point lies in the administration's defense of its extralegal domestic spying campaign. It's attempt to explain the rationale to bypass the FISA court - and get perfectly legal wiretaps - really lends credence to the "no clue what the words really mean" theory. One has to wonder if they ">listen to themselves at all.

Bush administration officials believe it is not possible, in a large-scale eavesdropping effort, to provide the kind of evidence the court requires to approve a warrant.

Sources knowledgeable about the program said there is no way to secure a FISA warrant when the goal is to listen in on a vast array of communications in the hopes of finding something that sounds suspicious.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said the White House had tried but failed to find a way.

To paraphrase, "Well, we couldn't get permission to do it, so we just did it." They blithely dance around the issue of not being able to meet the court's criteria with apparently no consideration of what that implies. It's as though authorization for wiretaps were as mundane and legally neutral as any other bureaucratic process - it involves paperwork, so it must be administrative. To read this explanation, they regard their inability to meet the legal standards as a mere technicality, a process glitch and nothing more.

One government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the administration complained bitterly that the FISA process demanded too much: to name a target and give a reason to spy on it.

"For FISA, they had to put down a written justification for the wiretap," said the official. "They couldn't dream one up."

It doesn't seem to occur to them that not meeting the FISA court's requirements intrinsically means the endeavor is illegal. I think they've been speaking in soundbytes for so long, they've actually forgotten what a broader context does to individual words. True to form, they focus only on the most superficial interpretations of their statements, oblivious to the deeper implications. Excepting, of course, the traitorous notion that Mr. Preznit is above the law; they can envision that one all too clearly.

Politicians - Take Note

2005-12-24T00:59:00.000-08:00

Why can't they all be like this?

Visiting the UW-Madison campus Friday, U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold tore into what he called attacks on Americans' civil liberties, then laid out how he'll decide whether to make a much-speculated-on presidential bid in 2008.

..."This is a fight against terrorism and an effort to protect innocent Americans who have done nothing wrong. We can do both," said Feingold, who cast the lone vote against the [P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act]legislation when it was first passed in 2001.

...Feingold said he'd continue to speak out about a recently revealed secret wiretapping program by the National Security Agency, saying the practice was possibly illegal and helped make the case for greater checks on authorities charged with rooting out terrorism.

Political watchers such as University of Virginia professor Larry Sabato point out that while Feingold's recent stands on civil liberties and the Iraq war may please liberal activists, they may well hurt his chances later on with moderate Democrats and conservatives.

I don't know which politics Mr. Sabato is following; the ones I saw had bi-partisan support for the filibustering the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act renewal. I've also seen former officials from republican administrations castigate shrubya for spying on innocent Americans. People, pundits and politicians from all over the spectrum are outraged by this latest revelation. I can't imagine who Sabato thinks will be alienated by a statement with overwhelming public support. Typical Wahoo.

Feingold, in his own glorious way, was also dismissive of Sabato's musings.

"I don't care," he said. "Whatever political considerations I have are absolutely irrelevant to the decisions I make having to do with people's civil liberties and something as weighty as Americans risking their lives overseas.

The day that I start to think politically about those things is the day I should leave politics."

I &hearts Russ!

wing tip to dailykos!

Guerrilla Marketing: Impeach

2005-12-23T17:27:00.000-08:00

I think fabric banners would be really easy to do. Thrift stores always have scrappable fabric and the letters can even be glued in place or you could use paint - no sewing required. And it would be very weather-resistant.

Feel Safer Yet?

2005-12-23T01:29:00.000-08:00

I sure don't. Since DHS, the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act and domestic spying apparently aren't working, can we just have our freedoms back already? All these civil rights encroachments seem to be distracting our resources from real safety concerns:

Officials are investigating the theft of 400 pounds of high-powered plastic explosives in New Mexico. The material was stolen from a bunker owned by a bomb expert who works at a national research lab outside Albuquerque, N.M.

ABC News has been told it's one of the most significant thefts of high-power explosives ever in the United States.

...The missing 400 pounds of explosives includes 150 pounds of what is known as C-4 plastic, or "sheet explosive," which can be shaped and molded and is often used by terrorists and military operatives.

"It is a very dangerous material, we want to keep this off the streets," Cherry told ABC News.

Also, 2,500 detonators were missing from a storage explosive container, or magazine, in a bunker owned by Cherry Engineering.

...A special agent at ATF said the incident was unusual because such high-powered material was targeted.

The missing material could potentially make numerous bombs.

But no worries...they don't think terrorists were involved. Obviously, it's your garden-variety street thugs who are interested in high-powered, undetectable "sheet explosives" that can be hidden in letters and books. Yessir, Chertoff's doin' a heckuva job!

wing tip to Americablog!

Alito's Tilted Balance

2005-12-23T00:00:00.000-08:00

Bush gets permission slips:

Taken together, the memos advised the President that he had almost unfettered latitude in his prosecution of the war on terror. For many years, Yoo was a member of the Federalist Society, a fellowship of conservative intellectuals who view international law with skepticism, and September 11th offered an opportunity for him and others in the Administration to put their political ideas into practice.

...Soon after September 11th, Yoo and other Administration lawyers began advising President Bush that he did not have to comply with the Geneva Conventions in handling detainees in the war on terror. The lawyers classified these detainees not as civilians or prisoners of war—two categories of individuals protected by the Conventions—but as “illegal enemy combatants.” The rubric included not only Al Qaeda members and supporters but the entire Taliban, because, Yoo and other lawyers argued, the country was a “failed state.” Eric Lewis, an expert in international law who represents several Guantánamo detainees, said, “The Administration’s lawyers created a third category and cast them outside the law.”

Given his druthers, that's where shrubya would like to be to - outside the law, wholly unfettered by pesky prohibitions and stifling statues. His legal advisors have been all too happy to indulge these imperialist fantasies, arguing that being a war-time president allows him to do anything necessary for the defense of the nation. Torture? No problem! Indefinite detention? Sure! Spying on Americans? Why not; you're the leader!

I don't know when exactly a preternatural deference to the president came into vogue, but this is not a healthy state of affairs for our country. It's alarming, but to be expected, from his own staff. It's despicable when Senators invoke it to seat Alberto Gonzales as the chief law enforcement officer in the land. If it works its way onto the Supreme Court, I think we will find ourselves at a full-blown constitutional crisis. All the Padillas in the world could sue and it wouldn't matter one whit; the Supreme Court crowned boy george once and they could do it again. Only in the future, they might not take the courtesy to label the rule unfit for establishing precedent.

Take the anti-torture amendment, for example. What happens when it is ratified as a law and used as the basis of a lawsuit against the governmet, especially if the case goes to the Supreme Court? Well, a lot of that depends on the make up of the Supreme Court. If the justices believe in checks and balances, the administration would likely be vulnerable to prosecution. But if the court is stacked with justices who believe in carte blanche plenary powers for the executive - especially in a time of war - would he evade accountability? I'm content to never know the answer to that question, but if Alito's nomination is successful, we may find ourselves conducting that ghastly experiment.

Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. once said that a Supreme Court decision upholding the creation of an independent counsel "hit the doctrine of separation of powers about as hard as heavyweight champ Mike Tyson usually hits his opponents."

Alito's remarks, delivered as an introduction to a 1989 debate sponsored by the conservative Federalist Society, offer a window into his thinking on the separation of powers, an issue that the Supreme Court regularly wrestles with but that seldom came up during Alito's 15 years as a federal appellate judge.

...Alito said the 1988 ruling upholding the law undercut several important doctrines that had protected presidential power "from congressional pilfering."

I wonder if ScAlito would exhibit the same hostility towards "reckless empowerment of the executive branch." Somehow, I doubt it.

Former solicitor general Theodore B. Olson said that Alito's deference to presidential power in both cases is not surprising, given that Alito had served in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. A key duty of the Office of Legal Counsel is to prevent against encroachments into presidential power, he said.

"He's clearly sensitive to the issue," Olson said, "but as to how he would rule on any given case, I wouldn't draw any conclusions."

But Cass R. Sunstein, a liberal constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago, said that Alito's views are relevant to understanding how he may rule. "It's noteworthy that he shares the view of Justice Scalia, and it suggests that he has a quite broad understanding of presidential power," Sunstein said.

I'm with Cass; for a Federalist Society "strict constructionist," Alito seems quite content to elide some of the Constitution's most salient points. He just doesn't seem too concerned about the "coequal branch" and "separation of powers" edicts explicitly outlined by our founding fathers. Maybe he used the Clif's notes; maybe he just doesn't respect Congress and its primacy in our government.

Congress is the branch the framers set up in Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution. It is not coincidence that Article 1 is twice as long as Article II, which created the executive branch, and almost four times as long as Article III, which established the judiciary. Judges should bend over doubly and triply backward before overturning a Congressional statute, especially if it is clear that Congress acted carefully and deliberatively...

Congress had passed the law in a reasonable and deliberate fashion. A genuine practitioner of judicial restraint would have allowed them a wide enough berth to do so. Alito's colleagues did just that. But Alito used his own logic to call for its overturn, arguing that the possession of machine guns by private individuals had no economic activity associated with it, and that no real evidence existed that private possession of guns increased crime in a way that affected commerce -- and thus Congress had no right to regulate it. That kind of judicial reasoning often is referred to as reflecting the "Constitution in Exile."

Whatever it is, it's not judicial restraint.

Wish O'Reilly "Happy Holidays"

2005-12-22T21:00:00.000-08:00

wing tip to mr. lestatdelc!

Christmas in NOLA

2005-12-22T18:33:00.000-08:00

Anti-Alito Brigade For Justice, Day 11!

2005-12-22T18:19:00.000-08:00

Today's letter on Alito is good stuff:

Dear Senator:

I am writing today to express my displeasure with the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court of the United States. As I have reviewed Judge Alito's records of past rulings, it is apparent to me that he consistently puts the needs and interests of corporations over the rights of everyday workers in the United States. He has also shown blatant disrespect for the environment, again siding with business interests.

So is Boxer's petition demanding hearings on the domestic spying before we can address Alito's nomination. My prayers have been answered!

More Fundraisers

2005-12-22T16:10:00.000-08:00

Digby isn't the only blogger deserving of support. Once Upon a Time needs some love, too.

Even if you can't donate, you want to check out the blog anyway. It would be a shame if it became inactive.

Asphalt Activism

2005-12-22T16:02:00.000-08:00

This is the coolest !@#$%& thing! You can insert your own tile mosaic [UPDATE: the link seems to no longer work. meh. any leads?] into any asphalt surface! Imagine the possibilities for the Impeachment Guerrilla Marketing movement!

This is a method for making colorful, permanent mosaic installations in asphalt roads and lots. Like glass, asphalt appears to be a solid but is actually a liquid. This means that a design affixed to it with more asphalt will eventually settle in and become a part of it. We owe our awareness of this technique to a nameless mystic we have never encountered in person.

How fun is that!?