Happy Independence Day!

On this date, July 2, in 1776, the American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain. On that date, the Continental Congress adopted the resolution put forth by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, that "these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.''

John Adams thought that this anniversary should be the one celebrated. However, we observe the day that the congress adopted the written DECLARATION, not the act of declaring independence itself (the document would not be signed until much later)

Below is what John Adams wrote to his wife. In his honor, you all have my permission to take the day off..

"The Second Day of July 1776 will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. . . . It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires, and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."

RIP

Brown v. Board of Education

Born 1954

Died 2007

Remarkable--even for him

Even for someone as pathetic as George Bush, yesterday's speech was amazing. In a rather short address, he mentioned "al-Qaeda" almost 30 times. I know it is the new stategery to re-frighten the stupid, but I would think that even the mouthbreathers would get it by now. This one is comically absurd:

Now we're in a new and unprecedented war against violent Islamic extremists. This is an ideological conflict we face against murderers and killers who try to impose their will. These are the people that attacked us on September the 11th and killed nearly 3,000 people. The stakes are high, and once again, we have had to change our strategic thinking. The major battleground in this war is Iraq.

I don't expect dittoheads to understand that "al Qaeda in Iraq" and Zarqawi had no operational connection to Osama bin Laden, or to know that Iraqis are different from Saudis, but can something this basic be so hard to grasp?

Or try this one on for size:

Anbar is a largely Sunni province that accounts for nearly a third of Iraqi territory. It's a big place. Anbar stretches from the outskirts of Baghdad to Iraq's borders with Jordan and Syria. It was al Qaeda's chief base of operations in Iraq. Remember, when I mention al Qaeda, they're the ones who attacked the United States of America and killed nearly 3,000 people on September the 11th, 2001.

"See, if I say it enough, maybe they'll believe me!"

Think of great presidential oratory..the better angels of our nature..the only thing we have to fear...ask not what uour country can do for you..nut that all pales in comparison to "According to a captured document -- in other words, according to something that we captured from al Qaeda ." Then we have the clincher, "one reason it is different is that the Iraqis are beginning to understand that al Qaeda is the main enemy for Shia, Sunni, and Kurds alike."

Oh good God.

Congratulations, Wayne!

Below is proof positive that Freepers and Dittoheads should not be allowed to spawn.

Wayne Meyer of Chicago writes

I'm confused. How could "Chemical Ali" have been convicted of killing more than 180,000 Kurds by use of chemical nerve agents and poisonous gases when we all have been told time after time that Iraq never had weapons of mass destruction?

Wayne, who ever said that Iraq NEVER had chemical agents? We GAVE them to him to use against Iran and helped fund purchases from German companies. The Reagan administration looked the other way at the atrocities against the Kurds that happened in 1988.

The Sounds of (Cicada) Silence

I miss them already.

While not totally silenced, the roar of the 17-year cicadas has all but died away around my office.

I will miss them.

These big, ugly, harmless (and some say tasty) bugs reminded me of the wonders of nature. They crawl out of the ground as if on cue, roar and fly and mate and die in a few weeks, and their offspring will do the same, in 2024. The timeless rhythm and the deafening roar shouted the mystery of nature at its finest and noisiest. Farewell, small friends, I hope I will be here to greet your children!

Another Lefty Defeat-o-Crat

In my judgment, the costs and risks of continuing down the current path outweigh the potential benefits that might be achieved. Persisting indefinitely with the surge strategy will delay policy adjustments that have a better chance of protecting our vital interests over the long term.

Just another left-wing terrorist loving liberal? Try Richard Lugar (R-Ind).

Care to be a fly on the wall at an evening news production meeting?

Producer 1: Let's see, we have a Washington Post story saying that the vice president has usurped the president's authority, is running a shadow government, torn up the constitution and was the point man on torture. Killer stuff, huh?

Coiffed Talking Head: Paris is out of jail!

Producer 2: Well, Iraq is going to hell, we've lost almost 20 kids in the last week and the lid is going to blow off Gaza any time.

Coiffed Talking Head: But we've got missing white girls!

Producer 3: The Supreme Court apparently overruled an existing precedent in the campaign finance case and gave a big boost to the faith-based initiatives program.

Coiffed Talking Head: What about the concert for Princess Di? William and Kate are back together!

Producer 4: The more we learn about the US Attorney scandal, the more apparent it becomes that this was designed to suppress the 2008 vote. The attorney general is also up to his eyeballs in the vice president's power grab.

Coiffed Talking Head: The Tiger Woods baby! And maybe a story about puppies! We're done here.

Al Who? (and we live in the world's dumbest country)

Take a look at any news report out of Operation Iraqi Clusterfuck. Odds are, you will see more references to "al Qaeda" than the much-less emotionally charged "insurgents" or the geopolitically-accurate, and beautifully-simple "Iraqis." Looks like the "liberal media" has willingly taken hold of the White House talking points.

First of all, to my friends in the media. GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT. Whatever "al Qaeda in Iraq" IS, what it IS NOT is a "branch" of bin Laden's operations. Oh, OBL sits back and chuckles as he sees us caught in this nightmarish quagmire, but there is no real connection between him and the group of thugs started by Zarqawi, a Jordanian petty criminal and publicity hound. STOP LISTENING TO WHITE HOUSE SPIN. Do your job for a change.

Oh, 41% of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks.

God help us.

People who should be thinned from the herd

In church this morning I witnessed the baptism of a baby girl--

Reagan Cheney ****.

Good luck with that.

Heard on the "Street"

It is common knowledge that the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal is collectively nuts. They are such an odd group of bizarre wingers that I've often said that the news division doesn't tell them where the Christmas party is. One of them, Dorothy Rabinowitz (in a byline piece) on Friday took the crazy cake. She, amidst great wailing and gnashing of teeth, decried those two "out of control" prosecutors--Mike Nifong of the infamous Duke case and PATRICK FITZGERALD!

The very idea of Patrick Fitzgerald as a renegade prosecutor is absurd. The man is a button-down Republican who won't let pols or reporters buy him a cup of coffee to avoid any potential conflicts. he did what prosecutors are supposed to do. He investigated through the grand jury process rather than through the media. He did not bring sensationalistic charges that he could not prove (the statute in play is a horribly written mishmash that makes proof of a criminal case almost impossible) and he brought and won a perjury case. Fitzgerald himself was frustrated because all signs of his investigation led to one common source--the vice president--but that inquiry was stonewalled by Libby and others in the administration.

I seem to recall the Wall Street Journal beating the drum for the Clinton impeachment to vindicate the "rule of law." Funny how trivial perjury and obstruction of justice has become since then. They also misspelled the name of the renegade prosecutor acting on an agenda. The correct spelling is K-E-N S-T-A-R-R.

And now, in this corner...

Elizabeth Pearson of Elmhurst, Illinois goves us this gem:

I don't understand why so many feel the war in Iraq unnecessary and unwinnable. It is of greater import than any we have ever been engaged in to date. While our forces fight overseas against a more ruthless enemy than we have ever known, we extend our freedoms here. More important than assisting a beleaguered country is our ability to keep our fanatical enemy engaged in lesser pursuit before it enters our shores, which it is eager to do, with more loss of life than can be imagined, far greater than our loss to date, soldier and civilian. Our enemy has successfully intimidated former allies, who shrink from our battle. The stakes have never been higher for the entire world and the goal of our warriors never more important, worthwhile and noble. If we cut and run, with our tail between our legs, we just hasten the escalation of this conflict on our shores and nuclear weapons are inevitable. Some may have to eat crow when they discover our president not so naive after all.

Wow, that is one extra-crispy bucket of stupid. How do people get like that?

We're fighting "a more ruthless enemy than we have ever known?" Hmm, a few thousand Sunni rebels and a couple renegade Shi'a militias are more "ruthless" than the Nazi Wehrmacht? And "we extend our freedoms here?" By illegal wiretapping? Declaring people to be "enemy combatants" and denying habeas corpus? By turning the Justice department in to a virtual Republican secret police?

Lizzy says we're "assisting a beleaguered country." I suppose so, if you define "assisting" as invading without cause, drstroying the infrastructure, killing and maiming hundreds of thousands, imposing a stooge government looting the natural resources and maintaining a hostile occupation.

And finally, "Some may have to eat crow when they discover our president not so naive after all." Naive? No. Stupid, incompetent, venal, cruel, soulless, mendacious, petty, shallow, etc. etc. yes, but naive? Nah. So Lizzy, in a word..

Off to D.C.

Well, I'm off to our nation's capital for a few days. First, a conference for physics teachers and then a few days visiting friends. On Thursday mornings when the Senate is in session, our Illinois senators have a gathering for constituents who want to come by and ask questions, so we'll meet up with Durbin and Obama and see what they're up to. I hope to get a chance to ask Durbin why he voted for the continued funding of our occupation of Iraq.

On the other hand, I have no expectations that I'll be in a room with Chimpy or Shooter, so I'm not packing a bat.

You lookin' at me?

From Rep. Henry Waxman's site (you know, the chairman of the House committee on oversight and government reform, part of that whole "checks and balances" nonsense)

Vice President Exempts His Office from the Requirements for Protecting Classified Information

The Oversight Committee has learned that over the objections of the National Archives, Vice President Cheney exempted his office from the presidential order that establishes government-wide procedures for safeguarding classified national security information. The Vice President asserts that his office is not an “entity within the executive branch.”

Yeah, who needs those pesky vice-presidential records?

Amidst the talking points, a kernel of truth

We previously mocked Sen. Mitch McConnel's "Face the Nation" appearance where he mouthed the GOP talking points and blamed the Iraqis for not capitalizing on the wonderful "opportunities" we "gave" them. Amidst the nonsense, though, some of the GOP's version of truth slipped out:

The Iraqi government, so far, has been a big disappointment. They've not done the things that they know they need to do to hold their country together, things like the new oil law

Ah, the new "oil law." The law that will hold their country together by giving control of Iraqi oil to western companies and fulfilling a Bush-ite wet dream of ending OPEC hegemony. My pal Joshua Holland over at Alternet has been all over this for a LONG time, here, here and here.

Yes, Mr. President. We're making progress--progress toward looting and permanently occupying an Arab country.

On Morality and Hypocrisy

Well, once again the president has found his veto pen on stem cell research. We've been all over the ideology trumping science, and how these "lives" not used for research will end up down the garbage disposal with yesterday's leftover pizza. What is so galling is this man's hypocrisy, when he smirks that "America is also a nation founded on the principle that all human life is sacred."
Hmm, I would initially doubt the historical veracity of that statement (Alex, may I have "Slavery" for $500, please?) Beyond that, though, it is too repulsive to watch the ex-governor who giggled with glee when presiding over executions, the most of all the states during his tenure, and a president who started a murderous war for sport and profit, speak of the "sanctity" of life.

He finished this bizarre carnival (again, complete with human props) with

This science which does not cross ethical lines requires money. I believe it is a good use of taxpayers' money to spend money on this kind of science and research. And Michael [Leavitt, Secretary of Health and Human Services] is going to expedite it, that's what that means -- it's a fancy paragraph for saying he's going to get it done.

(Ladies and gentlemen, President Larry the Cable Guy.)

Nor-mal (adj.)

Normal (adj)--Conforming to the standard or the common type; usual; not abnormal; regular; natural.

I guess some people's idea of "normal" is different from others. On Face the Nation, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Clueless) said

We've given them an enormous opportunity here over the last four years to have a normal country, and so far they haven't been able to take advantage of this opportunity.

Let's see. They were invaded without cause, and had their social, political and economic infrastructure destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed and maimed, an outside western power imposed an alien form of "government" on the country in a way guaranteed to exacerbate ages-old sectarian tensions, a foreign army is occupying the country while building permanent bases and an embassy the size of Rhode Island.

If that is normal, I'd hate to see abnormal.

Why does Kathleen Parker have a job?

For those of you lucky enough to be unfamiliar with Chatty Kathy, she is a dimwitted winger columnist based in Cracker City, USA (Orlando). She had a gem today, it has to be seen to be believed.

She has her shorts in a bind over the administration's decision not to re-nominate politicking ruthlessly ambitious climber Peter Pace to head up the joint chiefs. In one of the most bizarre bits of intellectual gymnastics ever, and proving once and for all that the shortest distance between two totally disconnected points is at a bottle and a half of pinot grigio, Chatty Kathy finds the roots of Pete's demise not in his leadership of a disastrous war but rather in the political machinations of HILLARY CLINTON! Oh the humanity!

I know it is tough to follow, but--Pace made dumb anti-gay comments back in the spring. I'll let you read the rest for yourself:

One doesn't need much of a running start to make the leap to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who also sits on the Armed Services Committee and who, you may have heard, is running for commander in chief. No one benefits more from Pace's removal than Clinton, who would have had to vote for or against the man and be stuck with a position that could hurt her. As the Democratic candidate for president, Clinton couldn't endorse Pace, now identified in some quarters as anti-gay. Her husband is responsible, after all, for the 1993 "don't ask, don't tell" policy that evolved as a compromise to his campaign promise to lift the ban on gays in the armed forces. As a future commander in chief, Sen. Clinton could ill afford to be perceived as siding with the liberal agenda and the gay lobby, which continues to push for the original Clinton promise.

So it is all about gays and Hillary? The WHITE HOUSE killed the nomination which does wonderful things for the Democratic frontrunner? Good God.

One doesn't need much of a running start to make the leap to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.... Well, Kathy, actually the only people who could make that leap are slow-witted administration apologists like you. I'm going out on a limb here, but since Gates wanted him back, do you suppose that the White House didn't want angry public hearings on its ongoing disaster? Just a thought.

Hey Pete - I think Mike Huckabee would disagree with you!

From ThinkProgress:

Later, on CNN’s Late Edition, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) expressed his disagreement with Powell about closing Guantanamo, saying “most of our prisoners would love to be in a facility more like Guantanamo and less like the state prisons that people are in in the United States.” (emphasis added)

Pressed by host Wolf Blitzer to address the fact that “detainees are being held, by and large, without charges, without any evidence,” which is “causing a smear on the U.S. reputation,” Huckabee said it didn’t matter because hypothetically, “if we let somebody out” they could “come and fly an airliner into one of our skyscrapers.”

Let's hear it for the 4th Circuit

One 3-judge panel, at least, a panel that rejected the Bush administration's Star Chamber claims to hold "terrorists" without charge.

"For a court to uphold a claim to such extraordinary power ... would effectively undermine all of the freedoms guaranteed by the constitution."

Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri may be a very bad guy. He may have been an al-Qaeda operative. As reported in the Chicago Tribune,

Although not charged with a terrorism offense, al-Marri was tied by authorities to Al Qaeda because he allegedly placed calls to a phone number in the United Arab Emirates linked to one of the paymasters for the Sept. 11 operation. His computer contained more than 1,000 apparent credit card numbers and instructions on making hydrogen cyanide.

So let's CHARGE HIM and TRY HIM. Try him in the courts that try criminal matters EVERY DAY. I don't care at all what happens to Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri. I care what his treatment does to our constitutional liberties. A legal U.S. resident, he has been held IN MILITARY CUSTODY WITHOUT CHARGES for almost four years. That is horrifying.

The Bush administration, desperate to hold on to their power to make people disappear, will seek en banc review of this three-judge decision, i.e., consideration by all 12 circuit judges. It rarely is granted, but this is a very conservative circuit. If the court denies an en banc review or affirms, then the Supremes are next. If this court, as conservative as it is, desires ANY institutional integrity, they cannot reverse this ruling.

King George, redux

From Salon's WarRoom:

"Yes, it's an interesting comment about Congress, isn't it?" Bush responded. "On the one hand, they say that a good general shouldn't be reconfirmed, and on the other hand, they say that my attorney general shouldn't stay. And I find it interesting. I guess it reflects the political atmosphere of Washington. And they can try to have their votes of no confidence, but it's not going to determine -- make the determination who serves in my government."

So, the Giggling Murderer in Chief comes out and puts it as plainly as he can, given that he has spent his life abusing that sad excuse for a brain he was born with. It's his government, dontcha know, and he'll do what he wants.

He is frighteningly dismissive of Congress - "they say a good general shouldn't be reconfirmed" - well, George, they do have that power (remember that Constitution thing?). And "They can try to have their votes of no confidence..." Wow, does that have a ring of "go out and play, young Congress, and let daddy take care of the country." There is something Congress could do about this, to let his lordship know they're not his serfs. Of course, there are too many of them who are still his willing lapdogs.

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

"Non-Alcoholic" Beer

So the official White House line is that the beverage of choice was "non-alcoholic" beer.

Yeah, right.

First of all, find an N/A with the legs or "lace," the foam pattern left in the glass, like that. Secondly, he chugs that stuff. try that with an N/A. The stuff is gawdawful, it has the bouquet of old dishcloths boiled in sweat.

And the clincher, of course, is that it is not "non-alcoholic." It is LOW alcohol, but alcohol nonetheless. The only people who should drink non-alcoholic beer are non-alcoholics.

Those crazy kids!

Clearly a member of the "32% Club"

Here in the "Heartland of America (tm)" apparitions are a fairly common occurrence. Normally I pay them no attention at all - as most of them deal with one or the other of a fairly famous mother/son team. However, the latest one caught my eye, as it concerns the recently deceased mayor of the "made" city of Rosemont, IL - Donald E. Stephens. Stephens was the only mayor Rosemont had ever had. Blessed with a great deal of land, relatively few residents and easy access to the world's busiest airport, Stephens turned his little hamlet into a veritable cash cow. His alleged connections to organized crime however, resulted in the loss of the biggest prize of all - a casino within walking distance of lots of people with time on their hands. Anyway... apparently something like his visage is now visible in a tree near the city-owned health club... CNN went out to investigate the story, and in doing so they interviewed one Cathy Sansone, membership director of the aforementioned health club. It is her reaction which summons the title of this blog entry:

"I see Jesus. Any resemblance to the late mayor is (due to) the power of suggestion."

A horror of horrors

First of all, may we offer all our condolences to the family of Wyoming Senator Craig Thomas. By all accounts, he was a good and decent man.

Wyoming has interesting laws on this. In most states, the governor gets to appoint the interim senator. Not in Wyoming--the PARTY picks three and the (now Dem) governor chooses one. The rumor mill has that one of the three is

LYNN CHENEY!!!

Oh, the horrors!

If this is the best of all possible worlds, what are the others?

The right-wing base is in a tizzy over some comments made by NASA chief Michael Griffin dealing with climate change. In an interview with NPR, Griffin said:

I have no doubt that global -- that a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with. To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change. First of all, I don't think it's within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown, and second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings -- where and when -- are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take.

Griffin has come out recently as saying that these are his own beliefs, not the official position of NASA, but his position lends a credibility to his comments that the Luddites are clinging to like a polar bear clings to the last ice floes in the arctic. While it is indeed true that the world has undergone dramatic climate changes in its multi-billion year history, the point of view espoused by Griffin is dangerously short-sighted and ignorant.

There are two primary problems with this idea. First of all, the current climate change is *not* a natural phenomenon. The evidence is overwhelming that it is being caused by human activity. Secondly, regardless of the mechanism of change, we have a moral obligation to respond to it. The last major fluctuations in the Earth's climate occurred when the population was much much smaller than it is now. There are roughly 6.6 billion people living on the planet right now, many of whom live in cities on the water (New York, anyone?). Consider the devastation caused by the tsunami in December 2004, and think about what would happen if every city around the world that was on an ocean was flooded. Indonesia. India. London. New York. How many refugees would there be? How much farmland would be under water? What kind of burden would this place on the economies of the world? Even if this was entirely a natural process, if we didn't respond in some way, we would be witnesses to the greatest disaster humanity has ever faced. Do we ever hear any of these pundits blathering on about how this is natural, etc, discussing the cost of housing a billion refugees? Feeding them? Rebuilding whole segments of societies (think New Orleans on a global scale)? And that's only considering the rising of the oceans - I'm ignoring the other effects of climate change - habitat migration, different seasonal patterns, increases in storm frequency and intensity, etc.

Now, consider that we know that we're causing this. It is most decidedly not arrogant to think that if we're messing with the global ecosystem, it's our job to fix it. Think about Griffin's logic for a minute - if we follow his path, then there is no such thing as responsibility. Who says that you wouldn't be hit by a bus tomorrow, so if I shoot you today, why is that wrong? It's absurd. So, we have a situation where we know that we're changing the earth's climate. The consequences of the change could be devastating on a scale we can't fathom. We can (a) ignore it, and say "well, maybe it will be better that way - who are we to say which way it should be", or (b) try to limit the damage we cause, and hope that within the span of existence of humans on the planet, we find the means to prevent the death and destruction global warming will bring, whether it is caused by us or a natural event.

Doesn't seem like a tough choice to me, nor apparently, to Mr. Voltaire. Michael Griffin, on the other hand, is an idiot.

A "contact your representatives" moment

Just like last year, both the Senate and the House have passed (by sizable margins) bills which would expand federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Unfortunately, the culture of death that surrounds the Chimp will cause him to veto the bill, since it might save lives and he still kowtows to a rabid and moronic base of troglodytes who hate life and want the apocalypse to come this afternoon. If your representative or senator voted against the bill, please urge them to change their mind and override the upcoming veto. No one knows whether or not embryonic stem cell research will ever lead to any tangible outcomes, but the hope is there. All this bill is saying is that embryos which would otherwise be incinerated be delivered instead to researchers who are trying to find cures for horrific conditions from which millions and millions suffer every day. No fetuses will be aborted, no children will be cloned.

It's staggering that we're still talking about this - Europe and Japan are years ahead of us in research, because they're not being dragged down by drooling fundies who still think the Earth is flat and there are dragons out beyond the horizon. Let's all pretend that this is the 21st century, people, and use our brains to help the world.

Lawrence of Arabia, redux

T.E. Lawrence, 1920

The people...have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are to-day not far from a disaster.

We have not reached the limit of our military commitments. Four weeks ago the staff in Mesopotamia drew up a memorandum asking for four more divisions. How far will the killing of ten thousand villagers and townspeople this summer hinder the production of wheat, cotton, and oil? How long will we permit millions of pounds, thousands of Imperial troops, and tens of thousands of Arabs to be sacrificed on behalf of colonial administration which can benefit nobody but its administrators?

Who ARE these people?

WASHINGTON — Public approval of the job President Bush is doing now matches its all-time low, an AP-Ipsos poll says. The survey, released Thursday, reflects widespread discontent over how Bush is handling the war in Iraq, efforts against terrorism and domestic issues. It also underscores challenges Republican presidential and congressional candidates will confront next year when they face voters who seem to be clamoring for change. Only 32 percent said they were satisfied with how Bush is handling his job overall, the same low point AP-Ipsos polling measured last January and a drop of 3 percentage points since May.

I have two questions. Who are those 32-percenters, and how can I get to play poker with them?

Meanwhile, back in Frostbite Falls...

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Hundreds of Turkish soldiers crossed into northern Iraq on Wednesday pursuing Kurdish guerrillas who stage attacks on Turkey from hideouts there, Turkish security officials and an Iraqi Kurd official said.

One recalls the words of the prophet Hosea, who said "For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind."

Looks like it's reaping time. Windy today, isn't it?

SHE ran a national campaign? And she is a "law professor?"

Susan Estrich, the "mastermind" of that great Dukakis campaign, and a professor of law, wrote that

The only problem here is that there was no underlying crime.

Susan, pardon me (pun intended), but you are a "professor" of criminal law. This involved testimony to a GRAND JURY. What do GRAND JURIES do? They INVESTIGATE. They decided not to indict a primary violation under a crappy statute, but a large part of the problem in that failure to indict involved the Scooter lies.

So Susan, it is OK to lie to a grand jury as long as the INVESTIGATIVE JURY does not indict???

Fish fish fish!

From The Shawshank Redemption, where Red bets on the first to crack:

That tall drink of water with the silver spoon up his ass.

So now when you crack--they let you out to MANSION arrest.

That crazy activist judge!

Here's the wacko that sentenced Scooter

Judge Reggie B. Walton assumed his position as a United States District Judge for the District of Columbia on October 29, 2001, after being nominated to the position by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the United States Senate. In May 2007, Chief Justice John Roberts appointed Judge Walton to serve as a Judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which is a 7-year appointment...Former Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Judge Walton to the federal judiciary's Criminal Law Committee, effective October 1, 2005. Judge Walton previously served as an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia from 1981 to 1989 and 1991 to 2001, having been appointed to that position by Presidents Ronald Reagan in 1981 and George H. W. Bush in 1991 (link).

Looks like Scooter found a real conservative judge, one who doesn't like people who lie in the process.

Who spends more time in jail?

With today's developments, does Scooter see the inside of a cell for longer than Paris?

If you don't stop building nukes, we'll nuke you!

So, we're watching the GOP debate tonight (the Cubs game hasn't started yet), and Wolf is asking the candidates about whether they would use a tactical nuclear weapon to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon of their own. Their answer, of course, is yes. Yes - we're so opposed to you having the same weapons we have that we will use them on you.

Whee!

Alex, may I have "Triangulation" for $1000, please?

Dear Senator Clinton:

In response to the question, "do you agree with Senator Edwards that this war on terror is nothing more than a bumper sticker; at least the way it's been described" you responded:

No, I do not. I am a senator from New York. I have lived with the aftermath of 9/11, and I have seen firsthand the terrible damage that can be inflicted on our country by a small band of terrorists who are intent upon foisting their way of life and using suicide bombers and suicidal people to carry out their agenda. And I believe we are safer than we were. We are not yet safe enough.

You lived with the aftermath of 9/11. So? What connection does that have with your answer? Thank you for parroting a right-wing talking point equating responding to a particular incident to a "war on terror." And in what possible sense are we "safer?" The military has been crippled perhaps for generations, millions across the world hate us with a new-found passion, National Guard equipment has been destroyed, first responders have not yet been provided for, the budget teeters on the precipice of disaster, etc. etc. Please, Sen. Clinton--STOP.

30 months, aaah...

We'll be Scooter-free for 2 1/2 years! Let's just hope the judge has the guts to send him away pending appeal (more).

The Lasting Bush Damage

Yes, he has destroyed the constitution and made the world hate us, but some damage can be undone with a Democratic president and Congress. This however, can not be undone, the damage to the federal judiciary, with LIFETIME appointements. Check out Leddbetter v. Goodyear, where the Bush-appointed freaks fundamentally changed discrimination law.

This case appears simplistic on its surface because it was effectively decided on procedural grounds. It did not address the substantive question of pay equity. Rather, it dealt ONLY with the procedural aspect of WHEN the statute's 180-day limitation period began to run.

The case was clearly wrongly decided. You basically have 180 days to act after a discriminatory "event." That is reasonable with such discrete events as not getting hired, not being promoted, getting fired, etc. You KNOW when one of those things happens to you. How is anyone supposed to know they have been subjected to pay discrimination? Was she, without reason to suspect a problem, supposed to file interrogatories every six months just to be sure? THAT would make you popular! It basically guts the statute, as it limits any liability for the immediate six months before they got caught.

In addition, I don't think this trend of 5-4 decisions over heated dissents is good for the institutional integrity of the court--or what is left of it.

Back from wandering

I return from the desert to find that the Democrats, as feared, have no spines. Trying to stay rational, so I don't go nuts...

I can't fire them. I have no choice. W and his cronies of hate need to be stopped, and the Democrats, I'm sad to say, are the only possibility right now. We need to continue sending them the message, however, that this sort of behavior is simply unacceptable.

My note to Senator Durbin:

"With your recent vote on the Iraq supplemental bill, you have failed all of us. Be ashamed. Next Memorial Day, remember to think about the soldiers who died during the past year and your failure to do everything you could to save them. I have been a huge supporter of yours, but this is woeful. You have a year and a half to try to redeem yourself if you still want my support in the next election. If you cannot find it within yourself to help lead us out of Iraq, we'll just have to find someone else who can."

Iraq-No-Phobia

Still feeling that ol' Democrat disgust. I would especially like to take the junior senators from Illinois and New York out behind the woodshed. Way to triangulate until the last possible minute and not vote until the cause was lost, guys. Keep up the good work.

I just don't get it. You have a president who is less popular than open sores, his administration is reeling from the Scandal du Jour, and then he looks absolutely CRACKERS at his press conference, complete with bird poop--and the Democrats are terified of him.

Coast Guard, they're the boat guys right? Life jackets, no drinkin' on the boat?

Fearless Leader addressed the graduating class of the Coast Guard Academy.

Guess what--SEPTEMBER THE ELEVENTH!!

In this war, we face a brutal enemy that has already killed thousands in our midst

Gosh, I thought we were fighting native Iraqi resistance.

That means the best way to protect our people is to take the fight to the enemy.

OK, and the enemy is WHO?

in Afghanistan...25 million people have been liberated

Hmm, maybe we should tell them that they are just imagining the warlords, the re-emerging Taliban and Opium, Inc.

In Iraq, we removed a cruel dictator who harbored terrorists, paid the families of Palestinian suicide bombers

Hmm, George, Hussein was a latecomer to the payments thing, joining in with SAUDI ARABIA, the UAE, Qatar, etc.

I've often warned that if we fail in Iraq, the enemy will follow us home.

Yeah, they couldn't find the way here otherwise unless they followed the bread crumbs.

in January 2005, Osama bin Laden tasked the terrorist Zarqawi -- who was then al Qaeda's top leader in Iraq

Oh good God. He was a Jordanian thug that bin Laden had no use for and was the White House's "Iraqi Idol" until they needed to kill him.

The enemy in Vietnam had neither the intent nor the capability to strike our homeland. The enemy in Iraq does.

George, what would you know about Viet Nam? And a couple thousand foreign fighters in Iraq are going to "strike us?"

The question for our elected leaders is: Do we comprehend the danger of an al Qaeda victory in Iraq,

DO YOU??? There will be no "al Qaeda" "victory" in Iraq. It is a SHI'A country and the Shi'a DESPISE al Qaeda!

New and...Improved?

Stuff you can't make up:

Top U.S. commanders and diplomats in Iraq are completing a far-reaching campaign plan for a new U.S. strategy

Hey, look, a new strategy! it will help us win! Winning is good, especially the extra win-ny kind!

Amazing. After four years of botched nation-building and an occupation that makes even the most pro-western Iraqi hate us, they come up with a new strategy, one that unfortunately does not involve--LEAVING.

I belong to no organized political party

I'm (ashamed to be) a Democrat.

The cave on Iraq funding is so humiliating. The Democratic Congress was elected to stop the madness, and they cave in front of Chimpy's veto pen.

Hey Dems, here's a thought--You've sent hima bill, and he pulled out the veto crayon. ALL the leverage is YOURS. If NOTHING happens, the war funding stops. You had every advantage and you pissed it away. Disgusting.

E-mailed to the Speaker of the House...

Humbly submitted by your esteemed Zinfandelfan to Nancy Pelosi's website (www.speaker.gov):

It is being reported in conflicting fashion in several places (DailyKos, TalkingPointsMemo, Fox) that an agreement has been reached with the White House on Iraq war funding and that the funding would be provided without timetables, benchmarks or other caveats which could allegedly "hamper" the President's style.

As someone who went out in the last election cycle and not only contributed significantly for the first time in his life but also phone banked and canvassed, it would be a tremendous disappointment and a rebuke of all the time, effort and financial commitment of everyone who helped bring the Democratic Party to power in November.

While I realize that negotiations are "on-going" with the White House, despite the heat that members of the caucus may be feeling, it is important that we continue to do what the majority of Americans have called for in *every* poll and that is to bring the troops home and to not give the President a blank check with no restrictions or conditions.

No matter how many people continue to be paraded before the podium and the war keeps being packaged as a, "No, really, THIS time it will work;" the fact is that the Administration has lost all credibility and, further, the right to unquestioned fealty in their decision making process.

Do not concede, do not waver, do not yield. Bring our men and women home soon to rest, recover and reconstitute our fighting forces to fight the "Global War on Terror," not play arbiters between factions linked to unstoppable bloodshed.

In much the fashion that contributor Schmidlap put in his message to his guy, I don't think that we can let our elected representatives who were swept to power on a platform that includes doing something different about the war, think that giving der Chimpenfuehrer everything he wants is a "compromise". Somebody once defined compromise (or perhaps it was 'negotiation') as neither party getting everything they want but both parties being satisfied.

Unfortunately for The Decider, his definition of compromise is getting everything he wants and screw everybody else. Well, it is high time that Congress ceases to be the pet of the Executive Branch and that if he gets a bill that gives him all of his money with those "strings" that he threatens to veto, every radio, television, newspaper, billboard and MP3 player should ring with the very clear point that it is THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WHO IS PLAYING POLITICS WITH THE TROOPS AND NOT THE CONGRESS.

The man from Plains

In November 1976, at the ATO house in Greencastle, Indiana, Tom Garrison invited me and my new girlfriend (I wonder what ever happened to her? She was really cute. By the way, selfless shilling, you may wish us a happy 25th next Tuesday) to watch the election returns, where the Georgia governor defeated the incumbent president.

30-plus years later, that Georgia governor said that "I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history."

Please tell me where he was wrong.

On teaching--and Iraq

I took my 13-year old for one of his regularly-scheduled cheap haircuts. In the line in front of me was a young man, military cut and lean and mean. he was talking things military with his barber, and then he turned around. Immediately, he said "Professor Peter!" I hesitated at first because (as Doc would know, I was a humble instructor, not a "professor") and I did not recognize this lean taut young man. Then I saw and recognized the face--he was a really bright student who I taught at the local community college and yes, I inspired him to go into teaching (that's my one!). I thought I had demoralized him when I saw him in another part-time job when I said I'd given up teaching for the money but he remembered me and said he had given up his teaching job for an officer's commission in the Army--and Iraq. God bless you.

I would question his judgment (as I would for looking up to me in the first place!) for doing so, but please return safely.

Places to go, pictures to take

So tomorrow morning I'm off for a week or so in sunny middle of frackin' nowhere New Mexico. City of Rocks State Park, to be exact. One might realistically ask why I'll be headed there, to sleep in a tent, try to avoid rattlesnakes and scorpions, stay up til 2 or 3 every night, miss mrsdrmagoo terribly, and try to demonstrate some semblance of sanity. The answer, of course - work! We've organized a travel course on Astrophotography, and this is one of the darkest public sites in the country. There will be 5 professors (two of whom are teaching the course, two of us who are doing a little teaching, but are mostly learning how to do this stuff and to assist, and one who is coming along because he can) and 17 students. We'll be doing all sorts of late-night activities - well, the sort that involves a camera, a telescope, a computer, and looking up - and a bunch during the day - trips to historic towns, petroglyph sites, the VLA (where we can stand in the footsteps of Jodie Foster - and many brilliant scientists), and assorted natural wonders. Have fun whilst I'm gone, and don't burn down any important buildings (unless you can trap certain politicians).

Oh, and IMPEACH!

And in this corner...

From today's letters to the editor:

When will we admit that, if and when we abandon Iraq, we are still at war? How foolish to alert the enemy of our withdrawal when we are in a lifetime struggle against a foe that will never go away. We have got to toe the mark and convince other nations that if America loses, they are goners too.

We now struggle alone.

The threat of global dominance requires global resistance, not just one nation fighting Goliath. David slew the giant with help from his God. America seems to have forgotten our past, when we honored our creator. Many a battle is fought and won on one's knees.

Elizabeth Pearson
Elmhurst

Wow, this one is a stunner First of all, Lizzie, we are not "AT WAR." The "war" ended about 20 days after it began. Now we are just slogging through a botched occupation that will end badly, sooner or later. Global dominance? Wild-eyed fanatics in caves with box ciutters and backpack bombs. Please, be serious. I can show you global dominance if you want. Pull out your map and take a long look at that REALLY big country called China.

And God? Yeah, I'm sure the supreme being, creator of the universe has a vested interest in the outcome of the misguided imperial delusions of a drunken failure with daddy issues. Lizzy, please, on your way back to Elmhurst,

The long and winding road

Garrison Keillor wrote

The French have a new president, the British will soon have a new P.M., and we envy them as we endure the endless wait for this small dim man to go back to Texas and resume his life.

My question is--after that endless wait is over, what kind of country will we have left? Barring a Diebold disaster of the highest magnitude, given that one-third of the GOP presidential candidates believe that we would have unicorns dancing in the forests if they hadn't missed the Ark, the White House in 2008 must surely go blue. But what will it mean? How much lasting damage has been done?

Our standing in the eyes of the world has never been lower, and this administration has made the Middle east into a permanent nightmare. The Chinese are our Mr. Potter and we do live in Pottersville. The jobs that went across the seas aren't coming back, and precious time has been lost in avoiding more than one ecological disaster.

Those fellow unicorn believers sit not only on the U.S. Supreme Court, but on every federal bench in the country, and will sit there for the rest of their lives. Career professionals throughout the government have been pushed out in favor of small-minded ideologues. The U.S. military has been shattered in a fashion that will take years to rebuild. The young officer corps, the academy grads, the captains, majors and lieutenant colonels, are leaving in droves, and of course, one of our most valuable resources, the national Guard, has been effectively destroyed as another hurricane season awaits.

Yes, the small dim man will return to Texas some day. The question is--where do we go?

Three final notes

Today has been chock full of noteworthy stories, but I don't want to have too many posts, so let me combine three into one final post for the day (unless, of course, something else happens).

1) Paul Wolfowitz resigns. As a principal architect of the disaster in Iraq, I can only hope that his special comb someday gets used as his catheter.

2) The bloviating windbag says something really quite funny. During the GOP debate the other night, a question was asked about the lack of minorities or women on the stage. So, during his radio show yesterday, OxyContin boy said: "And I guess — you know, the Democrats never get those kinds of questions because it's always assumed that they're fair and just, and not discriminatory and all that." Or, perhaps, that well, I'm not even going to say it.

3) Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson are fining a suit against Shooter, Turd Blossom, Scooter, etc, charging that when they leaked her identity for political reasons they did damage to her career. Cheney's lawyer's response: "He has immunity." From the Washington Post:

The lawyers said any conversations Cheney and the officials had about Plame with one another or with reporters were part of their normal duties because they were discussing foreign policy and engaging in an appropriate "policy dispute." Cheney's attorney went further, arguing that Cheney is legally akin to the president because of his unique government role and has absolute immunity from any lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates asked: "So you're arguing there is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- these officials could have said to reporters that would have been beyond the scope of their employment, whether the statements were true or false?"

"That's true, Your Honor. Mr. Wilson was criticizing government policy," said Jeffrey S. Bucholtz, deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's civil division. "These officials were responding to that criticism."

So, when responding to "criticism," it's perfectly okay for any member of the Admininstration to say anything, true or false? Umm, what?

Torture Boy gets pwnd!

Fifty-six members of embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez' graduation class from Harvard Law School (1982) took out a full-page ad in the Weshington Post as an open letter to Torture Boy:

Dear Attorney General Gonzales:

Twenty-five years ago we, like you, graduated from Harvard Law School. While we arrived via many different paths and held many different views, we were united in our deep respect for the Constitution and the rights it guaranteed. As members of the post-Watergate generation who chose careers in law, we understood the strong connection between our liberties as Americans and the adherence of public offi cials to the law of the land. We knew that the choice to abide by the law was even more critical when public officials were tempted to take legal shortcuts. Nowhere were we taught that the ends justified the means, or that freedoms for which Americans had fought and died should be set aside when inconvenient or challenging. To the contrary: our most precious freedoms, we learned, need defending most in times of crisis.

So it has been with dismay that we have watched your cavalier handling of our freedoms time and again. When it has been important that legal boundaries hold unbridled government power in check, you have instead used pretextual rationales and strained readings to justify an ever-expanding executive authority. Witness your White House memos sweeping aside the Geneva Conventions to justify torture, endangering our own servicemen and women; witness your advice to the President effectively reading Habeas Corpus out of our constitutional protections; witness your support of presidential statements claiming inherent power to wiretap American citizens without warrants (and the Administration’s stepped-up wiretapping campaign, taking advantage of those statements, which continues on your watch to this day); and witness your dismissive explanation of the troubling firings of numerous U.S. Attorneys, and their replacement with others more "loyal" to the President’s politics, as merely "an overblown personnel matter." In these and other actions, we see a pattern. As a recent editorial put it, your approach has come to symbolize "disdain for the separation of powers, civil liberties and the rule of law."

As lawyers, and as a matter of principle, we can no longer be silent about this Administration’s consistent disdain for the liberties we hold dear. Your failure to stand for the rule of law, particularly when faced with a President who makes the aggrandized claim of being a unitary executive, takes this country down a dangerous path.

Your country and your President are in dire need of an attorney who will do the tough job of providing independent counsel, especially when the advice runs counter to political expediency. Now more than ever, our country needs a President, and an Attorney General, who remember the apt observation attributed to Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." We call on you and the President to relent from this reckless path, and begin to restore respect for the rule of law we all learned to love many years ago.

THE SIGNATORIES ARE ALL MEMBERS OF THE HARVARD LAW SCHOOL CLASS OF 1982

How you can tell when you've found our house

Should you ever be driving along, looking for Magooland, you will know you've found it when you see this in our window:

The Impeachables

The Liar In Chief at today's joint press conference with outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair:

"Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? ... I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. ... And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to!"

Not really, but it amounts to the same thing (h/t TPM):

"There's a lot of speculation about what happened and what didn't happen - I'm not going to talk about it. It's a very sensitive program. I will tell you that, one, the program is necessary to protect the American people, and it's still necessary, 'cause there's still an enemy that wants to do us harm. ... And so there's going to be all kinds of talk about it, and as I say I'm not going to move the issue forward by talking about something as highly sensitive, highly classified subject. I will tell ya, however, that the program is necessary. ... As I said, this is a necessary program that's constantly reviewed and constantly briefed to the Congress."

To clarify, again, the the question that was asked had nothing to do with the nature of the program, but what could be considered "internal" deliberations within the Administration. Bush considers all such deliberations classified, because no one has the right to question him or his decisions. He was forcing through a program which John Ashcroft, for goodness' sake, was against, because Shooter and Torture Boy wanted it. Note, specifically, that he didn't in any way dispute Comey's testimony. To him, it is irrelevant what tactics he chooses, because "If the President does it, it's not illegal."

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Move this pragmatist into the "Impeach Now" column

YES, there were ample grounds for impeachment before, and yes, I thought the effort would be futile and frustrating. The wiretapping-Ashcroft stories are brazen abuses of power, though, that not only support impeachment--they demand it.

Jimbow is certainly right on "high crimes and misdemeanors." Read the report of the Judiciary Committee in 1974 (will link when I get home). This phrase referred not to "crimes" but to abuses of power.

I don't want RR's head to explode

But after reading his post below, read the following, perhaps the only time John Ashcroft came out as a sympathetic figure in his life.

From Salon:

The call came at 8 p.m., Wednesday, March 10, 2004. Attorney General John Ashcroft was in the hospital, struck with a life-threatening case of pancreatitis. Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey was just leaving his office, being chauffeured by his security detail.

"I remember exactly where I was, on Constitution Avenue," Comey testified Tuesday morning before the Senate Judiciary Committee. "And [I] got a call from Attorney General Ashcroft's chief of staff telling me that he had gotten a call."

So begins a remarkable tale that nearly led to the resignation of the Justice Department's senior leadership, an ordeal that was recounted in great detail for the first time Tuesday. Two senior White House officials, Andrew Card and Alberto Gonzales, were headed to Ashcroft's hospital bed, despite the instructions of his wife that there would be no phone calls or visitors. They wanted Ashcroft to sign off on the secret National Security Agency wiretapping program, a program that Ashcroft had already decided to reject before falling ill.

Comey was determined to stop them. "So I hung up the phone," Comey told the committee, and I "immediately called my chief of staff, told him to get as many of my people as possible to the hospital immediately. I hung up, called [FBI] Director [Robert] Mueller and -- with whom I'd been discussing this particular matter and had been a great help to me over that week -- and told him what was happening. He said, 'I'll meet you at the hospital right now.' [I] told my security detail that I needed to get to George Washington Hospital immediately. They turned on the emergency equipment and drove very quickly to the hospital. I got out of the car and ran up -- literally ran up the stairs with my security detail."

The story gets better at this point. Comey's testimony reads like a detective story. Minutes later, there is a showdown in the hospital room. Ashcroft, buffered by his wife and three of his senior deputies, faces down Gonzales and Card and refuses to sign off on the spy program. Gonzales and Card storm out of the room. Card calls Comey and demands that he come to the White House, but Comey refuses to go until he can get Ted Olson, the solicitor general, to accompany him. "After what I just witnessed, I will not meet with you without a witness," Comey tells Card.

Read the rest. It's scary stuff.

IMPEACH.

OK -- I'm Convinced..... It's Time to IMPEACH

I have been one poor correspondent over these months since the last election cycle. After all, the wicked witches running the congress had been melted by the icy cold water thrown on them by a disgusted electorate. I was as happy as Dorthy returned to Kansas after having lived through the terrible nightmare of the Texas neo-con tornado...

But I was dead wrong to be happy. All that I have heard since the congressional takeover is lip-service to the agenda that was forwarded by the Democratic leadership in the months leading up to the November election. We're STILL losing brave men and women in Iraq for no discernable reason. Bush is surging troops in the face of a 28% approval rating (within a percentage point of what the illustrious Schmidlap calls the Keyes Constant) and he sees no real problem with pretty much ANY WRONGDOING by his minions. Events of the last 24 hours have caused me to go past my usual distaste for all things neo-con, and get right down to brass tacks: BUSH MUST BE IMPEACHED. What events you ask? What hit my radar in the past day which makes IMPEACHMENT a necessity? It's not the Wolfowitz scandal at the world bank, nor the firing of the U.S. Attorneys for partisan political reasons.

And no, it's not the troop surge.

All of these things while distasteful are completely within the boundaries of a president's constitutional authority. So, what is it, you ask? It's HIGH CRIMES and MISDEMEANORS.

Last night on the award-winning PBS investigative series Frontline the entire breadth of Bush's illegal domestic spying program was laid bare. The basis for the program revolved around a very quiet move by the Bush administration's FBI to commandeer the records of private enterprises in Las Vegas in the weeks preceeding New Year's Eve 2003 in reaction to a "threat" against the city intercepted by the NSA. In effect, National Security Letters were used to confiscate ALL information on 250,000 people who had visited Las Vegas over a 2 week period. In the end, there was no threat. There were no terrorists, no plot. But the FBI now had the personal financial and travel records of a quarter of a million citizens - AND THEN HELD THE INFORMATION FOR AT LEAST TWO YEARS.

The despicable nazi John Yoo could barely contain his glee as he explained that under the constitution the president has unbridled and unlimited rights to do anything he wants regarding suspicionless searches and seizures. The basis for this power: the president's authority as commander-in-chief. Yoo did everything but call the 4th amendment "quaint." At the same time, the investigation revealed that the president is almost certainly STILL bypassing the FISA courts and conducting unmonitored domestic surveillance on U.S. citizens.
Here is a portion of an interview done for the program with Peter Swire, Chief Counsel for "Privacy" in the Clinton administration

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

FRONTLINE: ...the president says, "I authorized (the warrantless domestic spying program)." As a lawyer, as somebody who specialized in information technology and the law for a quarter of a century, what's your bottom-line take on this? …

SWIRE: I was outraged. I tend to be fairly level in the way I approach things, and I had a sense of outrage that they would just disregard the law. The law said the exclusive authority for wiretaps were these other statutes, and the president looked at exclusive authority and said, "Except when I feel like it." It was as though the lessons of Watergate had been forgotten. It was as though the lessons of centralized executive power and the problems that come with that had been forgotten. And now the president just said, "I think I can do it my way."

Q: So you're saying the president violated the law?

A: My view is that the president violated the law, yes.

snip

Q: Now, the president has described the program publicly, and to a certain extent Gen. Michael Hayden, the former director of the NSA, Attorney General [Alberto] Gonzales have followed the same line that makes it sound as though the eavesdropping is from one point overseas -- Al Qaeda -- to one point in America; point to point, person to person. Is that what's going on here, or is there more going on?

A: Well, there's still mysteries here. There's one program that the president and the attorney general have announced publicly, but there's very strong reports about other programs that are happening, too. ...

Q: What are you talking about? There's one program; ... it's the program the president describes. What else have you got in mind?

A: Well, there's two other revelations that we've had -- three programs to keep in mind. Program number two has to do with a whistleblower for AT&T who says that some of the big phone switches where huge amounts of communications go in and out between the U.S. and overseas, there's a direct feed to the government. That's not point-to-point for people linked to Al Qaeda; that's anybody who's sending e-mails or [making] phone calls overseas.
[The] next report was the USA Today story in the spring of 2006 which said that for 40 or 50 million Americans -- that's not all Al Qaeda -- 40 or 50 million Americans, [their] detailed phone records have been turned over to the government by the big phone companies. So now we have huge numbers of ordinary communications being intercepted, huge numbers of ordinary Americans' phone records being taken, and no legal structure in place to do that. That's much, much broader than a few people linked to Al Qaeda. ...

Q: [T]his business of turning over the stored communication records for 40 or 50 million Americans, is that legal? …

A:I think it's illegal according to the published reports. There's something called the Stored Communications Act. It says what the rules are for when the government can get people's phone records, but the published reports went down each of the exceptions and said they didn't apply. And we had apparently senior lawyers for one of the phone companies, Qwest, that decided not to participate. … The published reports said ... that Qwest had asked for a warrant, and the government refused to do it.

Q: Could the National Security Agency have gone under the FISA law and gotten a warrant to obtain stored communications, records, for millions of Americans?
I think that would really be up to the judges on the FISA court. The Patriot Act says you can get the whole database. If the whole database is 10 million people, that's something that was never discussed in Congress, [has] never necessarily been approved by any court. The court might decide that's a general warrant and it violates the Fourth Amendment, but the words in the statute would appear to allow it. …

Q: The third program you were talking about is this AT&T program. ... What is your understanding of what is happening in the AT&T case?

A: This program sounds like it could be Carnivore on steroids (an old FBI eavesdropping program)
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Both my wife and I had to pick our jaws up off the floor. And today, the exacta came in. My brother emailed me this piece from Slate wherein a former assistant to (now retired) Attorney General John Ashcroft testified before a senate committee that (then) White House Counsel (now Atty. General) Alberto Gonzalez tried to coerce Ashcroft and his deputy to sign off on the reauthorization of the COVERT domestic spying program in 2004 WHILE ASHCROFT LAY CRITICALLY ILL IN THE HOSPITAL. The punchline is that Ashcroft, who has never been accused of being a liberal, had already come to the determination that the program was ILLEGAL, and he REFUSED to signoff on it. The upshot is that the US Attorney General was telling the president that this program BROKE THE LAW. The president's reaction? Send his counsel to get his signature from a nearly comatose Ashcroft. The piece reads like Kafka on acid.

So what do we have?? We have two stories which dovetail. They tell that this administration believes that it is answerable to no one. Bush and his minions believe that TOTAL INFORMATION AWARENESS isn't a necessary evil, but a presidential prerogative. It's time to stop this madness. It's time to IMPEACH.

Hell just got a lot more unpleasant

Rev. Jerry Falwell dead at 73

Happy Mother's Day!

If only...

Ahhh...Catholicism

Y'know, Schmidlap had the right idea abandoning this religion. Come to think of it, I'm knee-deep in doing the same thing, too.

Somebody must've been working with Ratzy and playing the old Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood alphabet game. "D", is for dogma and doctrine.

While traveling around Brazil, and *there's* a country come Carnival time that says, "Let's party and then start the most penitent part of the Christian calendar," God's Rottweiler gave us the following gem about politicians and abortion:

But before Benedict even got off his plane in Brazil, he stoked a debate among Catholics who have been arguing whether politicians who approve abortion legislation as well as doctors and nurses who take part in the procedure subject themselves to automatic excommunication under church law.

...

But Lombardi added that politicians who vote in favor of abortion should not receive the sacrament of Holy Communion.

Anybody remember what the 2004 Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry went through when the religious right got their Wurlitzer started?

It's okay to play to play the pedophile shell game. It's okay to be hypocrites. It's even better to lead all kinds of cleansing "In His Name," throughout most of the Middle Ages.

But to have a tolerant, scientific approach about women having reproductive rights and formulating a well thought out opinion that has to do as much with population science and privacy as it does with anything else, they're going to remain stuck in the Dark Ages.

Best of all, Ruu-dee, who stands for really nothing at all, won't even get near this one.

And the band plays on...

The Way Back Machine

GWB, Fall 2000:

I'm worried about over committing our military around the world. I want to be judicious in its use.

Fearless Leader on Tornado Survival

"...a lot of folks had basements here in this part of the world"

Back to normal (for me)

Back and un-jetlagged!

We don't need to torture prisoners--just make them fly long-haul coach.

Can we PLEASE buy France some soap?

VETO

So the Chimp is all excited - he might get to pull out his veto pen again. But remember what he's all excited about - vetoing money for his war. No matter what Congress proposes, unless they give him everything he wants, the way he wants it, he will veto. That's not "leadership", that's being a dictator.

If he won't work with anyone else, ever, then the only possibility is to get rid of him. Most presidents begin to worry about their legacy, but he continues to live in a dangerous world of delusion.

Frankly, if he doesn't want his money, that's fine. Bring the troops home, then.

IMPEACH

Science, students, and activism

One of the most frustrating things for me about the current political landscape is the lack of participation by younger voters (18-24). This is a group of people who will be profoundly affected for years to come by decisions that politicians make, but who have not connected themselves to the political process. Imagine how different the political landscape would be if 18 year olds voted in the same percentages as 70 year olds.

So I decided to try to do what I can to influence my students. My theory is that if they get involved now, they're likelier to stay involved. In the fall semester, I gave them extra credit if they (a) voted and (b) wrote a paper about science and politics. This semester, I made a required part of the course a paper about an issue of public interest that had important connections to science and then to spread the word to some community outside the class. Given the chance to care, the students did an excellent job - they wrote on global warming, stem cell research, banning smoke in public places, the spread of communicative diseases - heck, even the injuries caused by wearing a backpack over one shoulder. They wrote to their senators, the President of the University, letters to the editor, and letters to professional organizations. Their political opinions don't always line up with mine, which is fine - I just want them to think and participate.

Courting the moron contingent

During the GOP debate last night (and no, I didn't watch it), the moderator asked for a show of hands of which candidates did not believe in evolution.

pause

Yes, that was an actual question. Hand raisers - Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo, Mike Huckabee, apparently in competition for the Presidency of the United States of Christ or something.

Later in the debate, they asked who didn't believe in gravity. (Okay, no they didn't - but it just missed the cut.)

Four more years!

So, Chimpy McFlightsuit is going to commemorate four years of celebrating Mission Accomplished with his veto pen. It's the one he's only pulled out to support his Culture of Life by preventing scientists from doing research that could save lives and now, by refusing to consider ending the occupation of Iraq by US forces. He has said, many times, that he won't agree to anything with a timetable in it, and this weekend, he sent his Secretary of Hate out to the talk shows to explain that he also wasn't interested in requiring anything of the Iraqi "government":

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that President Bush will reject any attempt by Congress to require the Iraqi government to meet benchmarks as a condition for US troops remaining in Iraq...

The president and the administration are still prodding the Iraqi government to meet its goals for political progress and quelling sectarian violence, but the Bush camp does not want deadlines for them to be enshrined into law, she said.

"The benchmarks that are anticipated here, of course, [are] benchmarks that the Iraqis themselves have adopted. They are benchmarks that they need to meet," Rice said on CNN's "Late Edition." "We are telling them all of the time that their national reconciliation is moving too slowly [and] needs to move more quickly."

Now, this is an administration that doesn't believe in consequences or planning, so it's quite natural for them to decide that the Iraqi "government" should play no role in anything as trivial as getting our soldiers home and ending the flow of hundreds of billions of dollars into a giant black hole. And the Iraqis themselves are planning on taking July and August off (hey, just like ol' President Ranchhand!). The combined lesson, of course, is that neither the Bush administration nor the Iraqi "government" seems to have any interest in ending the occupation.

If you would like a little reflection on the costs of this disaster, the Democrats in the Senate have put together a little interactive map, showing the number of men and women from each state currently serving in Iraq, the number who have been killed, the number who have been wounded, and the cost of the war (in dollars) attributable to that state.

For example, here's the data from Illinois:

* Number of Active Duty Service-Members in Iraq: 7,124
* Number of Reserve Forces in Iraq: 1,449
* Number of Service-Members Killed in Iraq: 120
* Number of Service-Members Wounded in Iraq: 934
* Cost of War to the People of Illinois: $20.5 billion

(Source: CTS Deployment File, 1/31/07; Department of Defense Personnel Statistics; nationalpriorities.org)

One quickie from Greece

I'm sitting in an Internet cafe just above the Mykonos windmills, just after sunset. My wife just left, staying in Athens tonight and headed home tomorrow, while I'm kicking around Athens for a couple of days.

Been TOTALLY out of touch, what's new in the world? Be home Sat.

Some observations:

1) There is not a highway to hell. You do not go to hell in a handbasket. If you are going to hell, you go through Charles DeGaulle airport in Paris. My God, they should just blow that disaster up and start over.

2) Americans should not be allowed to leave the country. Period. We're dicks. God I hate it when I see Americans making asses out of themselves expecting everything to be like it is at home. If you want home--stay home.

3) It is amazing how different (and wonderfully refreshing) the international press is on TV.

4) Go to Santorini. I have never seen ANYTHING like it. Period.

Wisdom

One of the positive outcomes from someone's death can be a reflection on what they did that benefited the world. Such is the case with Kurt Vonnegut, whose words continue to teach.

There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too.

Snopesed!

Well, it seems that Mr. Connie Miskimen is a lawyer who apparently enjoys wasting people's time (I wonder what he would do if the world billed him for his time) by writing stupid letters to the editor to see if they will get published. Well, he has proven that the editors at the newspaper were either idiots or pranksters.

All together now: Go sit in the corner...

Pete's not here right now, but I think he'd appreciate the following:

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Northwest Edition

Daylight exacerbates warning[sic]

You may have noticed that March of this year was particularly hot. As a matter of fact, I understand that it was the hottest March since the beginning of the last century. All of the trees were fully leafed out and legions of bugs and snakes were crawling around during a time in Arkansas when, on a normal year, we might see a snowflake or two.

This should come as no surprise to any reasonable person. As you know, Daylight Saving Time started almost a month early this year. You would think that members of Congress would have considered the warming effect that an extra hour of daylight would have on our climate. Or did they ?

Perhaps this is another plot by a liberal Congress to make us believe that global warming is a real threat. Perhaps next time there should be serious studies performed before Congress passes laws with such far-reaching effects.

Connie M. Miskimen, Hot Springs (Thanks to Bartcop for the image.)

Where do I begin, oh Connie M. Miskimen? Is it with the typo in the title? Or that the bill changing when Daylight Savings Time would start was passed by the previous Congress, which was controlled by Republicans? Or, perhaps, that you have somehow imbued our Congress with the ability to actually change the rate at which the Earth rotates, thus adding an extra hour to the day? I mean, really, why didn't Congress give us that extra hour in the fall, so that it doesn't get so cold?

Connie M. Miskimen, of Hot Springs Arkansas,