HonestDissent.com

Lie detector meet brain scan

2007-02-09T15:31:00.000-08:00

"The research breaks controversial new ground in scientists' ability to probe people's minds and eavesdrop on their thoughts, and raises serious ethical issues over how brain-reading technology may be used in the future."

How do you like your burger, from a cow, clone, or Petri dish?

2007-02-04T06:56:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately, like the many genetically modified organisms (GMOs) which can now be found in just about every food or beverage product we American's consume (ex. corn, high fructose corn syrup, and soy), your desired preference is irrelevant. Chances are pretty slim that these new meat products will ever receive any type of special labeling, so how would you even know what kind you're eating? The future of meat looks delicious.

Test-tube meat: Science's next leap
"The idea may be stomach-turning, but the science for making pork in a petri dish already exists."

Cloneburgers won't come with warnings
"When the government approves food from cloned animals, expected in the next year, the Food and Drug Administration doesn't plan special labels."

Where does that come from?

2007-01-14T05:44:00.000-08:00

An Unofficial History of Social Networking Websites: Part 1

Today's installment: MySpace Genesis

Persons of Interest
Chris DeWolfe: CEO of MySpace
Tom Anderson: President of MySpace
Brad Greenspan: former CEO and Chairman of eUniverse
Andrew Wiederhorn: CEO of Fog Cutter Capital Group

Companies of Interest
Xdrive Technologies, Inc.
MySpace.com
ResponseBase, LLC
Fog Cutter Capital Corp
eUniverse
Intermix Media
News Corp

1999
- Chris DeWolfe (currently the CEO of MySpace) and Tom Anderson (currently the president of MySpace) met while working together at Xdrive Technologies, Inc. (one of those internet storage sites which allow users free internet disk space in exchange for the right to sell your personal information to all bidders and the privilege to track and travel with you on all your wonderful interweb adventure...like a little super-secret sidekick...aka Spyware).

- There are said to be backups of some version of MySpace at the Internet Archive going back to at least 1999, but the current owners have blocked the Internet Archive from accessing the site. At this point MySpace (formerly freediskpace.com) is believed to have been operating as a 'free' internet storage site.

2001
- With the internet bubble burst of 2001, Chris DeWolfe, then Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Xdrive Technologies, Inc., is laid off along with his entire marketing department, including Tom Anderson. Tom, along with several former Xdrive employees responsible for the development of an email-based 'newsletter' called "Intelligent X" go on to join Chris DeWolfe's new internet startup ResponseBase, LLC.

- MySpace becomes ResponseBase, LLC and begins sending out its "Freebies, Deals, and Discounts" 'newsletters' to 'interested parties' including a list of nearly 8 million email addresses purchased from Xdrive Technologies, Inc.

2002
- ResponseBase, LLC is purchased by eUniverse (the official spyware and adware provider behind the peer-to-peer file sharing network Kazaa). At the time of purchase, ResponseBase has upwards of 30 million e-mail addresses at their disposal.

- Chris DeWolfe is named director of the Fog Cutter Capital Group, joining former high school classmate, later convicted felon, and CEO of Fog Cutter Capital Group Andrew Wiederhorn. Wiederhorn's wife, Tiffany, joins the Board of Directors for eUniverse.

2003
- According to MySpace CEO Chris DeWolf, "the general MySpace site" is launched. Recognizing the potential of the Friendster concept, a plan is hatched to quickly develop a site which will mimic the appealing features of Friendster, re-brand it as MySpace, and then out-market Friendster using eUniverse's resources. The very first version of MySpace, as we know it, is ready for launch within ten days. As part of the internal testing and promotion of the site, the company holds a contest to see who can sign up the most people. The hope being that if all 250 eUniverse employees bring on 10 friends, they will have a starting user base of 2,500.

- Brad Greenspan, the founder, CEO, and Chairman of eUniverse, is ousted by those who he refers to as "eUniverse executives who allied with venture capitalists to protect their own jobs". He remains the single largest individual shareholder.

2004
- eUniverse becomes Intermix Media.

- Armed with email addresses of over 50 million people and over 18 million monthly web users, Intermix Media continues to grow the MySpace concept by cannibalizing some of Intermix's valuable existing pay-to-play websites like CupidJunction.com.

2005
- Intermix Media is sued by the State of New York for installing malicious spyware over the internet. Just before the spyware investigation is announced, Intermix's primary investors sell $25 million worth of Intermix stock at roughly $8 per share. Former CEO Brad Greenspan accuses these primary investors of insider trading. When the attorney general announces the investigation, Intermix stock falls to $4 per share. Intermix Media settles out of court with the State of New York, agreeing to pay $7.5 million.

- DeWolfe leaves Fog Cutter Capital Group just before News Corp's purchase of Intermix Media.

- Intermix Media is purchased by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp for $580 million ($327 million the value attributed to MySpace alone).

- MySpace begins censoring links and references to competitive websites by disabling links to content hosted by YouTube. Eventually, under pressure from its users, MySpace eventually re-enables the YouTube links. As a result, MySpace reportedly turns off a MySpace blog forum where MySpace users are discussing the censorship issues.

2006
- MySpace begins banning links to Revver, another video swapping site, but relent, again as a result of user complaints. To this, Revver co-founder Oliver Luckett responds, "References to his service were banned because MySpace saw it as competition".

- Brad Greenspan launches a website and publishes "The Free MySpace Report" that calls for the SEC, the DoJ, and the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance to investigate News Corp’s acquisition of MySpace as "one of the largest merger and acquisition scandals in U.S. history". The report's main allegation is that News Corp. should have valued MySpace at $20 billion rather than $327 million, and had, in effect, defrauded Intermix shareholders through an unfair deal process.

- Brad Greenspan files a lawsuit in Federal District Court in Los Angeles thru his LiveUniverse company, accusing News Corp's MySpace of ramping up the practice of censoring Myspace users from using or even mentioning the name on their profile pages of products or websites that News Corp deems to be competitive or a source of information adverse to News Corp. The lawsuit makes use of the law in the United States to protect companies and consumers from the attempts by MySpace to illegally create a monopoly and extend its dominance of the internet social networking market. MySpace blocks usage of the products it deems competitive and goes a step further by effectively slapping gags on the mouths of the over 100 million MySpace users by replacing any attempts by users to type the url of sites like 'stickam.com' or 'vidilife.com' into a blog or profile with '.....' .

- On the CensorSpace.com website, a video link featuring Mike McGuire, a former MySpace investor expressing concerns about the News Corp's acquisition of MySpace is posted in order to demonstrate how MySpace is censoring third party video links. Anyone with a MySpace personal profile who attempts to link this video to their MySpace profile will be able to see how MySpace is censoring such third party video content links.

Glossary (from Wikipedia.com)
Internet Archive: a non-profit organization dedicated to maintaining an archive of Web and multimedia resources. Located at the Presidio in San Francisco, California, this archive includes "snapshots of the World Wide Web" (archived copies of pages, taken at various points in time), software, movies, books, and audio recordings (including recordings of live concerts from bands that allow it). To ensure the stability and endurance of the archive, a complete copy is also maintained at Bibliotheca Alexandrina. The Archive makes the collections available at no cost to researchers, historians, and scholars.

Spyware: computer software that collects personal information about users without their informed consent. Personal information is secretly recorded with a variety of techniques, including logging keystrokes, recording Internet web browsing history, and scanning documents on the computer's hard disk. Purposes range from overtly criminal (theft of passwords and financial details) to the merely annoying (recording Internet search history for targeted advertising, while consuming computer resources). Spyware may collect different types of information. Some variants attempt to track the websites a user visits and then send this information to an advertising agency. More malicious variants attempt to intercept passwords or credit card numbers as a user enters them into a web form or other applications.

Venture Capital: a type of private equity capital typically provided by outside investors for financing of new, growing or struggling businesses. Venture capital investments generally are high risk investments but offer the potential for above average returns and/or a percentage of ownership of the company. A venture capitalist (VC) is a person who makes such investments. A venture capital fund is a pooled investment vehicle (often a partnership) that primarily invests the financial capital of third-party investors in enterprises that are too risky for the standard capital markets or bank loans.

Sources:
ValleyWag
WikiNews
BusinessWeek
Wikipedia
FreeMySpace
WikiNews (2nd link)

Next Up: Facebook and the CIA connection

Witness McCain's Amazing Shriveling Cojones

2006-07-30T14:30:00.000-07:00

I like some of you, used to hold out hope that there were at least a couple of relatively "good" Republicans. I find now that I was merely disillusioned.

If it wasn't already official, the Straight-Talk Maverick is officially dead, born is the new Wacko-Pandering John McCain. Hurray!!!

First it was Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Arlen Specter and now it appears that they (the DeLay wing of the Republican party) have gotten to McCain as well. They probably threatened to hold back the nut job (Robertson, Falwell, Dobson) conservative support in his bid for the Presidency in '08, if his recent address to Falwell's New School graduating class is any indication.

Today we find out that McCain is essentially pulling his support for a bill which once bore his name. The McCain-Feingold bill was born of the problems surrounding convicted Republican Super Lobbyist Jack Abramoff, disgraced House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, convicted Republican Congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham, embattled Republican Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee Jerry Lewis, and really the whole lot of 'em. The bill's intent was an attempt to clean up the way Republican's do politics and it is still desperately needed. Over the past decade, the Republican party (and in particular the hard-core conservative whack jobs) has essentially funded itself by selling off 'favors' - and out the American people - to it's friends in industry. Here's how it would work:

- Company "A", a lobbyist representing Company "A", or a lobbyist representing Company "A"'s industry, would meet with several of the Republican members (rarely though in some cases Industry-friendly Democrats as well) of a particular committee either to discuss legislation before it affecting Company "A"'s industry, to propose new legislation affecting Company "A"'s industry, or to guarantee Company "A" a contract discussed in a particular piece of legislation.

- Shortly thereafter, these Republican committee members would receive campaign contributions (often times at the $2000 max, sometimes illegally more - see Duke Cunningham and Katherine Harris) from Company "A" or employees of Company "A".

- Next, through some strange coincidence, Company "A" would find that, in lets say a new spending bill, they had received an earmark guaranteeing Company "A" dollars for an upcoming project, or that legislation which if passed - though protecting the people or ensuring a better way of life for the people - would cost Company "A" millions of dollars, was held up in committee never to see the floor to be voted on.

Now this isn't to suggest that this deviates from past practice, it doesn't in principal, what's new is how embolden this scum has become and how reckless we know find them with their use of earmarks and blatant rejection and authorization of certain legislation (see the "gift to the credit card companies" as the new Bankruptcy bill is referred, as just one example). Apparently to McCain this problem, which he acknowledged as a significant problem about a year ago when he co-sponsored the McCain-Feingold bill, is no longer a problem. I wonder what happened that could have possibly changed his mind. I guess like all significant problems it just went away.

It's too bad, he used to be a straight shooter, somebody we could count on to, for the most part, do what he felt was the right. But alas, McCain appears to have drank the Kool-Aid just like the rest of 'em.

Where Does Wilkes' Money Lead?

2006-05-14T07:17:00.000-07:00

Well, much has happened in recent weeks on the "Duke" Cunningham / Brent Wilkes / Mitchell Wade scandal front, primarily related to the CIA business end. Related to that we discovered that the Chairman of the powerful House Appropriations committee Jerry Lewis (R-CA) is currently being quite carefully looked at. Indicted Republican super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff used to refer to Lewis' committee as the "favor factory" for all the earmarks he was able to finagle for his clients. This will go in several directions. Obviously the Cunningham direction, but also the Abramoff direction, and at least one other, that of the direction of former Republican congressman Bill Lowery (CA), who is considered to be Wilkes' mentor.

But where will Wilkes' trail lead?

From the AP:

Prosecutors allege Wilkes paid Cunningham, a former member of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, more than $626,000 in bribes between 2000 and 2004 to win government contracts for his companies. But it's Wilkes' links to other lawmakers, lobbyists and government officials that has dramatically expanded the case.

"It's all about Wilkes paying people to get contracts,'' said Melanie Sloan, a former federal prosecutor in Washington and executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "Anybody who Brent Wilkes has been making substantial contributions to, they're going to be looking at. They'd have to.''

Here is a list of members of congress who have received at least $10,000 from Wilkes and his wife Regina since 1995. The sums reflect money directed not only to the candidates campaign, but also the candidate's PAC. From OpenSecrets.com:

Tom DeLay (R-TX) = $25,000
Former House Majority Leader, and member of the House Appropriations Committee

Randall "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA) = $19,500
A former member of the House Appropriations Committee, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense

Jerry Lewis (R-CA) = $18,000
Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee

John Doolittle (R-CA) = $15,000
Member of the House Appropriations Committee, and the House Resources Committee

Duncan Hunter (R-CA) = $13,200
Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee
Bob Livingston (R-NJ) = $10,000
Former Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee

Billy Tauzin (R-LA) = $10,000
Former Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee

The top Wilkes-earner amongst Democrats was Charles S. Robb (D-VA) who "coincidentally" co-chaired the Robb-Silbermann Commission which was tasked by the White House to look into pre-Iraq War intelligence failures. One of the commissions reccomendations going forward was to invest heavily in the super-secret CIFA (Counter-intelligence Field Activity) which contracts out billions of dollars worth of work to companies like Wilkes' ADCS and fellow co-conspirator Mitchell Wade's MZM, Inc.

Robb received a total of $6,000 from Wilkes from 1995 to Wilkes' indictment last year. It is also interesting to note that a total of three employees from MZM (Mitchell Wade's former company) sat on the Robb-Silbermann Commission, including the current President and CEO (though the name of the company has been changed to Athena Innovative Solutions, Inc. since being purchased by Veritas Capital).

Fun Fact: With the exception of John Doolittle, who is quite likely one of the most corrupt members of congress, among the California congressmen listed above all hail from the Southern California area (San Diego/San Bernardino) including former congressman Bill Lowery who was essentially squeezed out of congress in 1992 when districts were redrawn following the the 1990 census and Cunningham moved in to "share" the district. Don't feel sad for him though, Bill has done quite well in the meantime as a Washington DC based lobbyist.

2006 NFL Draft Day 2: Broncos on three. 1, 2, 3, Broncos!!!

2006-04-30T12:52:00.000-07:00

Day 2

Well the Broncs started off somewhere they should have stayed far from, Wide Receiver. It is my contention that this position should be avoided in drafts like the plague. For Denver this is usually how it works: WR gets drafted, WR spends a couple years on the developmental squad, WR fades away. Unless that receiver is drafted in the first couple of rounds. Then this is the scenario: WR gets drafted, WR spends a couple years on the bench seeing limited action, WR fades away. But I suppose you can't always count on an undrafted free-agent who played QB in college to spend a year on the developmental squad and then tirelessly work to become the greatest WR your franchise has ever seen (Rod Smith).

Anyway, the Broncos grabbed a couple of former Safties (though they both did play WR to end their college careers) to develop into some future bench warmers and practice squad guys. Both are tall and fairly quick. Central Florida WR Brandon Marshall is 6'4", 230 lbs, and runs a 4.57/40 and may end up being a TE conversion since he is apparently nowhere near as fast as his 40 time would indicate. The other would be Akron WR Domenik Hixon who comes in at 6'2", 192 lbs, and runs a sub-4.4/40. Not a whole lot on him, other then that he is a former saftey. Like I said, these guys are most likely destined to flounder on the Broncos bench.

The teams third 4th round selection (though in terms of actual order, it would have been their 2nd 4th round pick) was the shortest. At 5'11", Louisville DE Elvis Dumervil appears to be packed full of upside, although he's apparently kinda lazy. I've always wanted an Elvis, now we've got one.
The Broncos finished off the draft by selecting a couple of Offensive Lineman. These guys will spend a couple of years in development before at least one of them becomes a perennial all-pro. Will it be North Dakota G Chris Kuper or Outland Trophy winner Minnesota C Greg Eslinger?
Hopefully both.

2006 NFL Draft Day 1: Broncos on three. 1, 2, 3, Broncos!!!

2006-04-30T10:54:00.000-07:00

Day 1

Shannahan stunned just about everybody in football land by trading up (yet even further) to take Vanderbilt QB Jay Cutler at the number 11 pick. Many believed that Shannahan was trying to position himself for Maryland TE Vernon Davis (#6-SF), but Shannahan rarely drops hints and typically keeps his cards pretty close to his chest, so Cutler was probably the guy he had targeted when he started making all these moves which eventually led to securing the no. 11 pick. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I'm a pretty big supporter of Plummer, who continues to improve under a competent coaching staff (unlike what he was forced to deal with in AZ), and at the age of 31, has plenty of football still left in him. Last year his ints were down drastically, he led his team to the AFC Championship game, where they were handily defeated by a superior Pittsburgh team (let me officially go on record as stating that Roethlisberger is all man as evidenced by the ease at which he picked us apart in just his 2nd year as a pro), and he was selected to the Pro Bowl. There are only two ways he could have possibly topped what he did last year. One, win the league MVP. Two, win the Super Bowl. Now, of course, I trust Lord Shannahan wholey (except when it comes to drafting WRs), but this is quite a gamble considering what talent was bypassed in exchange for a pick of choice rather then need, not to mention the investment in how much Cutler's going to count against the cap in years to come. Three years from now, the Broncos will not be able to afford to keep both Cutler and Plummer, and a no. 11 pick will no doubt be given the opportunity to start several games before being sent off somewhere. So unless Cutler gets those starts filling in for an injured Jake Plummer, it's quite likely that Plummer's days here in Denver are numbered. Let's hope Cutler develops into the talent which Shannahan believes he is. If he does not, Shannahan should either be restricted from selecting in the first round from here on out, or limit the options for that first pick to Linebackers and D-line (where he is stellar).
In the second round, Shannahan grabbed Western Michigan TE Tony Sheffler. This definately addresses a need. With Sharpe behind a desk on Sundays, Putzier seeking greener pastures, and the nearly fatal car accident involving Dwayne Carswell, we severly need a pass catching TE. At 6-5, 255, with 4.6 speed, I like the direction. It would have been cool to get CU grad Joe Klopfenstein, but he went about 15 spots before the Broncs had their 2nd pick.

Then there was the trade. Javon Walker for a second round pick. What are you kidding me!?! What a freakin' steal. A couple of years ago (prior to the ACL injury) this was a Pro Bowler and the most dangerous deep threat in the NFL (and I include Holt in that), and you snatch him up for one 2? All the guy does is catch TDs. Lots of TDs. Long TDs. This is even better then the Bailey trade. Hail Lord Shannahan!

I tell you what kids, with the signing of Plummer a few years ago, the Bailey trade a couple of years ago, the acquisition of the Browns D-line last year, and now this Walker robbery, Shannahan has been on fire in the off-season.

Sen Coburn: Expect Seven Legislators to be Off to Jail

2006-04-16T06:57:00.000-07:00

Fresh out of Oklahoma, Sen Tom Coburn told a town hall meeting yesterday (via TPM) that he expects 7 lawmakers to end up in jail as a result of the Jack Abramoff and other congressional scandals. Six from the House and one Senator. The Senator is a no-brainner (not intended to be a rip on Mr. Burns' limited mental capacity), Sen Conrad Burns (R-MT), but lets see if we can figure out who the six House members are that he speaks of, shall we?

First, the obvious ones:

1.) Randall "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA)
he's already been sentenced for the over $2.4 million in cash and prizes that he banked from defense contractors, so this isn't even a guess, it's an observation (come on No Whammies, No Whammies, No Whammies......STOP! Dammit!)

2.) Tom DeLay (R-TX)
already indicted on charges somewhat unrelated to Abramoff, however 2 of his former aides (Michael Scanlon and Tony Rudy) have flipped for the prosecution in the indicted lobbyists' complex of scandal and a third, Ed Buckham, is expected to flip shortly (remember, if DeLay goes to jail, the terrorists win)

Next, the only-slightly-less-obvious, except to those of us who have been following this quite closely:

3.) John Doolittle (R-CA)
this guy's in it up to his frickin' earholes (so too is his lovely wife, Julie, who receives 15% of all contributions to her husband and his PAC), not only is he involved with Jack Abramoff, but he's got some ties to Duke Cunningham co-conpirators Mitchell Wade of MZM, Inc. and Brent Wilkes of ADCS, Inc. as well (a 'slam dunk' as Medal of Freedom recipient George Tenet would say)

4.) Robert Ney (R-OH)
he's been implicated in three seperate indictments (Scanlon, Abramoff, and Rudy) and a former aide, Neil Volz, is well within the prosecutor's sites (say it! say it! "Dead Man Walking")

5.) William Jefferson (D-LA)
his problems are unrelated to either Jack Abramoff or "Duke" Cunningham, he's more of an independent freelance crook in that regard as he's got his own connects to corruption (could've been a Republican if he just wasn't quite so, oh what's the word, black)

And finally, wild speculation for the 6th:

6?) Katherine Harris (R-FL) or Virgil Goode Jr. (R-VA)
both of these members of congress accepted hefty sums of money (some illegal) from Cunningham co-conpirator Mitchell Wade and his company MZM, Inc. (over $100K to Goode since 1995, and $50K to Harris since 2001) , and we know that Cunningham was wearing a wire for the feds right about the time he was indicted (i'd be willing to bet that Harris is the less careful of the two members, though if you remove Jefferson from the list, there's room for 'em both)

6?) J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ)
one of the slickest politicians on the market today, so I'd say it's unlikely that he goes down, but he was the biggest winner in the Jack Abramoff sweepstakes collecting over $90K (to him and his TEAM PAC) from Abramoff and Abramoff's clients from 1999-2004

6?) Ernest Istook (R-OK)
Mr. Istook is from the same state that Sen Coburn represents so Coburn may have some inside info here, but as far as I can tell, what Ernie's done pales in comparison to some others in congress, so I'd be suprised (a shot in the dark)

Any other guesses for a possible sixth? Or any other interpretations of what Coburn meant when he said 'Abramoff and others'?

[UPDATE 4/17/06 6:38a] Okay, after conversing with some folks around the internets and some further reflection, I've got a couple of additions to the list which were previously overlooked:

6?) Richard Pombo (R-CA)
yet another dirty California Republican with his hands in many pots

6?) Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)
and another dirty California Republican, goodness gracious

There are more candidates to select from, but these are probably the ones most likely to be headed off to the big house.

My revised list looks like this:
S1.) Burns (R-MT)
H1.) Cunningham (R-CA)
H2.) DeLay (R-TX)
H3.) Doolittle (R-CA)
H4.) Ney (R-OH)
H5.) Jefferson (D-LA)
H6.) Pombo (R-CA)

We shall see.

[CORRECTION 4/22/06 2:08p] I previously had Jefferson listed as a Republican here in the updated list. Jefferson is in fact a Democrat.

Abramoff Summer: For a Little While, Posting will be Lite

2006-03-18T14:21:00.000-08:00

I'm looking to really get HonestDissent going over the summer, so in an effort to ensure that I have plenty to post I'm kind of in research mode right now. I'm trying to learn as much as I can about a number of issues, but I'm currently and primarily working on that Abramoff thingee. Who/what does Jack know? How big is his related web of influence? And, basically, how he got to where he is today (indicted). For those who may not be well versed in the scandal, understand that it is no exaggeration when it is described as "massive". I have a list of over 100 individuals, including anywhere from 15-30 current and former members of Congress, that are involved in the shit in at least some small way. Sure, you've probably heard about the readily-mentioned players; Rep. DeLay (R-TX), Sen. Burns (R-MT), Sen. Ney (R-OH), Sen. Doolittle (R-CA), Rep. Feeney (R-FL), and Sen. Santurom (R-PA), but have you heard about the Democrats? How about a one Rep. Clyburn (D-SC) or howabout Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS). Obviously these guys aren't "as involved" as the former members mentioned, and are probably no more likely to see severe consequences as say a Newt Gingrich or a Rep. Istook (R-OK), but they're there in the mix. I'm also waiting to see if this will somehow spill over into the Duke Cunningham/MZM scandal as that one is already starting to creep into a completely seperate scandal all on it's own; Warrantless Domestic Spying [keep this on the Qt, MZM was contracted to do some work for the Counterintelligence Field Activities (CIFA) (shhhhh, CIFA is the new, and improved, NSA, the one most people haven't heard of) and quite possibly had a hand in Total Information Awareness (TIA), the program that Congress banned because it was too intrusive to American civil liberties so the DoD broke up the various "tools" as they are referred to, renamed them, and to complete the cleansing operation, put them under different agencies where nobody will find them. (see: Genoa II or Topsail for more info, just don't tell the Feds where ). MZM also did some work for the White House and the Department of Energy's Counterintelligence Agency]. What's that you say? The DoE has it's own Counterintelligence Agency? That’s right friend, everybody's got one these days. As a matter of fact, if your department doesn't have it's own counterintelligence agency, then your department is probably unnecessary, right Grover?

By the way, Grover (Norquist) is apparently in it pretty frickin' deep.

If you have no idea what in the hell I'm talking about, don't worry, I'll explain later, or in the meantime Google some of things or individuals I've mentioned, then check back around mid-April. At that time, the posts should start flowing in. And believe me, they will be flowing. OVERFLOWING or TOPPED, but definitely not breached, no way, some might say......i'm not really sure what i mean by all that.

Sen Pat Roberts (R-KS): Chairman of the Senate Cleanse & Coverup Committee

2006-03-08T10:35:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in a post last month here, Sen Pat Roberts has been instrumental in keeping President Bush's backside cleaned and polished. The guy is a frickin' tool plain and simple and ThinkProgress has put together the evidence to prove it, take a look at their in-depth report here.

Pat's cover-up conspiracies include:

Warrantless Domestic Spying
Iraq Intelligence
Intelligence Leak Hypocrisy
Torture

Pot Prohibition and Colorado's Common Sense Approach: Phase II

2006-03-05T10:10:00.000-08:00

In last November's election, Denver, CO voters approved an initiative which made it the first major city in the US (est pop. 556,835, rank 25th) to legalize small amounts of marijuana (up to an ounce or less). This was but the first step in an attempt by SAFER, Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation, the group leading this common sense fight, to 'legalize' the possession of small amounts (for personal use) of the narcotic within the state. Now we have "Phase II":

The Colorado Alcohol-Marijuana Equalization Initiative proposes a simple change to the Colorado statutes. By changing one sentence, it would make the possession of one ounce or less of marijuana legal under state law for individuals 21 years of age and older.
...snip(from here)
If this initiative passes...
What will not change: All home rule cities and towns in Colorado (representing about 90 percent of the state's population) will have the ability to fine or otherwise penalize marijuana users -- if that is what they want to do.
What will change: In cities -- such as Denver -- where elected officials or voters choose to allow residents to make the rational decision to use marijuana instead of alcohol, state law will no longer force police and prosecutors to punish marijuana users.

If you'd like to help out with the campaign you can sign up to do so here. As any well-informed individual knows, it's long past time to end this ridiculousness that is marijuana prohibition and time to start focusing those resources spent somewhere worthwhile and meaningful.

CHUMP OF THE WEEK: Sen Orrin Hatch

2006-02-22T16:56:00.000-08:00

CONGRATS shall be extended from all of us here at the HD to a one Sen Orrin Hatch (R-UT) for earning this weeks "Punkass Weak-Willed Chump o' da Week!!!"

(h/t to ThinkProgress.com for some of the links and analysis)

BACKGROUND: The "Memogate" before Rather's "Memogate". In late 2003, GOP staffers, one of which being Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist aid Manuel Miranda, were 'caught stealing' approximately 4,700 strategy documents produced by Senate Democrats from a shared computer server. These documents were internal memos laying out tactics and objections to President Bush's judicial nominees. After downloading and reviewing these documents, they were then leaked to the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times. Sen Hatch, then-Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, received much criticism from conservatives for launching an investigation into whether or not any criminal statutes were violated as a result of the breach. At the time, many conservative activists accused Sen Hatch of being a weak-willed propitiator of Democrats. In the 60-page plus report by Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle on March 04, 2004, he concludes that several criminal statutes may or may not have been violated (if you can call that a conclusion). It also discloses that some committee members asked about the possibility of pursuing a "false statement case" against Manuel Miranda. This recommendation was followed up on and this matter is currently in the hands of the Justice Department. With the convening of the 109th Congress in 2005, Republican-imposed term limits on committee chairmanships left Sen Hatch without one.

JUSTIFICATION: On Saturday (2/18/06), at an invitation-only luncheon with political and business leaders of Iron County, UT, Sen Hatch had this to say:

And, more importantly, we've stopped a mass murderer in Saddam Hussein. Nobody denies that he was supporting al-Qaeda. Well, I shouldn't say nobody. Nobody with brains.

That's right Sen Hatch, only one without a brain would conclude that Saddam DID NOT have ties to al Qaeda. So, to the 9/11 Commission and the Senate Intelligence Committee (of which, as Nico of ThinkProgress points out, Sen Hatch is a member) who both found no collaborative relationship between the two, you're all a bunch of brainless morons.

Initially, the Senator's statements were only reported on by the Spectrum, a small Utah paper, but due to the outrageousness of such a statement by a US Senator, the story was soon picked up by the blogosphere and has been whirling around the sphere ever since.

Earlier today, the Salt lake City Tribune reported on Sen Hatch's 'clarification' of afformentioned remarks.

On Tuesday, Hatch said he may have misspoken at the event, and he was speaking of conditions in post-Hussein Iraq and the terrorist network led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
"Saddam clearly had a long history of supporting terrorists, but I was not talking about any formal link between Saddam and al-Qaida before the war," Hatch said in a statement.
"Instead, I pointed out that the current insurgency in Iraq includes al-Qaida, under the leadership of al-Zarqawi, along with former elements of Saddam's regime."

Rrrrrriiiight! Now this is quite a stretch, Senator. Seriously, other then those skeptical few who claim that al-Zarqawi is merely an imaginary enemy, the logic behind such a belief escapes me, is there anybody who actually believes that al Qaeda is not involved in the insurgency. Because it was my understanding that al Qaeda is essentially funding the damn thing as well as supplying bodies and trainning.

To Senator Orrin Hatch, for his failed attempt at continuing to mislead the American people on the false claim that al Qaeda had ever had strong links to Saddam's regime. Congratulations Punkass!

Global Warming: Move Along, There's Nothing to See Here

2006-02-19T18:24:00.000-08:00

CLICK TO ENLARGE! Go on, you can do it!

The images above come from those liberal intellectual elitists over at NASA and depict computer generated renderings of what scientists at NASA describe as a "side by side comparison of seaice from 1979 and 2003" derived from "data collected by a number of satellites from" that time period.

In 2002 scientists recorded the lowest concentration of sea ice ever in The Arctic.
.....
Less ice means more open water. More open water means greater absorption of solar energy. More absorption of solar energy means increased rates of warming in the ocean, which naturally tends to yield faster rates of ice loss.

Kind of a snowball effect, you could say, global-warming-resistant of course.

Here's NASA's full-on analysis on the topic.

There's been quite a bit in the news on this topic lately, so lets take a look shall we.

1.) Bush says he doesn't believe in global warming, but he's an oil guy so why would he. As we all know, Bush likes his information uncritical, and his favored authors? They write books with titles like "Rebel in Chief: Inside the Bold and Controversial Presidency of George W. Bush" or fictional tales which suggest that global warming is an unproven theory and an overstated threat.

2.) There's also a new report out on Greenland's quickening meltdown. The lead author of the Greenland study was Eric Rignot of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

...the glaciers of Greenland, which carry ice from the interior out to the sea, have gone on a tear. They're flowing, on average, about twice as fast as they were a decade ago...
.....
If all of Greenland's ice were plopped into the ocean, sea level would rise a catastrophic 20 feet or more. Until yesterday, most experts thought global warming might make it happen in a couple of thousand years. Now they're talking hundreds.

Related Greenland article: here.

3.) Late last month we learned that another NASA scientist, James Hansen, had claimed he'd been silenced by the agency for speaking out about global warming.

4.) George C. Deutsch, the 24-year-old NASA official involved with silencing James Hansen, was forced to resign earlier this month.

The New York Times reported that Deutsch tried to limit reporters' access to Jim Hansen, a noted NASA climate scientist, and insisted that a Web designer insert the word "theory" before any mention of the Big Bang.

"George attracted attention because some of the things he demanded were so outrageous," Hansen wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press on Wednesday.

5.) For the first time in anyone's memory, there is no ice on the Great Lakes this year. Says who?

"There's essentially no ice at all," said George Leshkevich, a scientist who has studied Great Lakes ice for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, since 1973. "I've never seen that."

Punkass Weak-Willed Chump o' da Week: Sen Pat Roberts

2006-02-18T00:38:00.000-08:00

CONGRATS shall be extended from all of us here at the HD to a one Sen Pat Roberts for earning this weeks (and the inaugural) "Punkass Weak-Willed Chump o' da Week!!!"
(Mr. Roberts is not to be confused with wacko fundamentalist charlatan Pat Robertson of the 'Christian' Broadcasting Network who fails to qualify for the award because, as we all know, he's merely ABSOLUTELY BATSHIT INSANE)

BACKSTORY: Now affectionately referred to as "Bush's Tool", Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts has become an integral part of the Republican Cleanse and Cover-Up unit in congress which has been instrumental in ensuring that the Bush administration not be held accountable FOR ANYTHING. As Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman, Pat has worked tirelessly to "stonewall" Phase II of a key Senate Intelligence investigation into how the Bush administration used intelligence prior to the Iraq War. This despite having described Phase II as "one of my top priorities" at the time the report from Phase I was completed. Of particular interest considering that just last week we learned that

"the former CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East until last year has accused the Bush administration of 'cherry-picking' intelligence on Iraq to justify a decision it had already reached to go to war, and of ignoring warnings that the country could easily fall into violence and chaos after an invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein."

This is, of course, just the latest high ranking government official (and lets remember that this was "THE DUDE IN CHARGE" of Mid-East intelligence from the CIA) to suggest that the Bush administration deliberately misled the American People and Congress in it's justification for going to war (see Colin Powell's former chief of staff Larry Wilkerson to begin your journey on that front. Or refer to the many documents, which combine like Voltron to form the Downing Street Minutes).

JUSTIFICATION: This week, using his authority as Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman, Pat Roberts thwarted yet another investigation into the conduct of the Bush administration. This time, it would have been an investigation into whether the President’s warrantless domestic spying program violates the forth amendment of the Constitution or the specific FISA section, which clearly states that it is a crime to spy on Americans inside the US without a warrant. Fortunately for America, Pat and the rest of the Republican Intelligence Committee Punks do not have the final word. Many Congresspersons still possess some modicum of integrity.

SIDE NOTE: In watching Meet the Press this past Sunday, in which Sen Pat Roberts was one of the four guests (all four of which were among the congressional leadership, or 'Gang of Eight', which were actually briefed on the NSA domestic spy program), I couldn't help but notice how absolutely frustrated Sen Pat Roberts seemed to be at times. I swear at some points during the interview it was as if he was virtually on the verge of tears.

Again, Congratulations Pat! You truly are one of America's greatest Plastic Patriots.

WIWNT: Feb 9, 2006

2006-02-09T12:47:00.000-08:00

Today's blog entries and articles from around the internets that I found interesting with the primary focus being on 5 of the most visible investigations looking into the conduct of the Bush White House. These investigations are (1) the use of pre-Iraq War intelligence, (2) the administrations response to Hurricane Katrina, (3) authorized warrantless domestic spying, (4) outing of a covert CIA agent, (5) the Jack Abramoff corruption scandal.

Outing of a Covert CIA Agent

From the National Journal, as I eluded to earlier this week, it would appear that the focus of the CIA Leak investigation is headed straight towards the office of the Vice President. "Scooter" Libby has testified, and many sources with firsthand knowledge have confirmed, that Cheney authorized Libby to release classified information, including details of the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate), to defend the administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case for war. Time for another round of the White House Press Corps vs. Scottie to find what he's not able to comment on regarding this on-going investigation as it relates to Mr. Cheney's conduct. See for yourself here.

Warrantless Domestic Spying

From the AP, there should be little doubt at this point that the president is seriously concerned about the direction investigations into his NSA domestic spying program are headed. Yesterday, Congresswoman Heather A. Wilson of New Mexico, chairwoman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence (the committee which oversees the NSA) made clear her intentions for a full Congressional inquiry into the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program. This, just a day after the conservative publication Insight Magazine reported on Karl Rove's latest attempts to strong-arm Republican congresspersons into siding with the president on the legality of the program. This morning, President Bush held a press conference in the apparent hope to connect a thwarted terrorist attack involving "shoe bombs" which targeted Los Angeles shortly after 9/11 (Bush called the target of the attack the Liberty Tower, but it was actually the Library Tower, and is now the US Bank Tower) with the NSA domestic spying program - though he never specifically connected the two. The mayor of LA, Antonio Villaraigosa, claims this is the first he's ever heard of such a plot and described communication with the White House as "non-existent." Seems odd that you wouldn't notify, through some means, the mayor of a city targeted in a terrorist attack, just as kind of a heads up or something, you know. See for yourself here.
From the Washington Post, on at least two occasions the chief Judges from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court were warned by a top Justice Department lawyer that evidence obtained in President Bush's eavesdropping program may have been improperly used to obtain wiretap warrants in the court. Those revelations "infuriated U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly -- who, like her predecessor, Royce C. Lamberth, had expressed serious doubts about whether the warrantless monitoring of phone calls and e-mails ordered by Bush was legal. See for yourself here.

Katrina

From CNN, more good news for the White House today as embattled former FEMA chief, Michael Brown has indicated that he is willing, if not eager, to reveal his correspondence with President Bush and other officials during Hurricane Katrina, to a Senate inquiry unless the White House forbids it AND offers legal support.
See for yourself here.

Congress' Gift to the Credit Card Companies

From Statesman.com, Judge Frank Monroe of Austin has some apparent concerns regarding the new Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, which took effect Oct. 17, 2005. In his ruling, he called some of its provisions "inane," "absurd" and incomprehensible to "any rational human being." Judge Monroe continued in his written ruling highlighting his concerns with this statement, "Apparently, it is not the individual consumers of this country that make the donations to the members of Congress that allow them to be elected and re-elected and re-elected and re-elected." The judge has received quite a bit of attention within the legal community regarding the ruling. See for yourself here.

Radioactive Jack Investigations: Tom DeLay

From the AP, good news for indicted former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay as he takes over a coveted spot on the Appropriations Committee vacated by the convicted Republican Congressman from CA, Randy "Duke" Cunningham. As most of us know, this is only temporary position for Mr.DeLay, though he did also manage to grab a seat on the subcommittee overseeing the Justice Department, which is currently investigating an influence-peddling scandal involving disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his dealings with lawmakers. Convenient no!?! wink, wink. See for yourself here.

Feingold hits Bush (and Congress) on wiretaps

2006-02-07T19:00:00.000-08:00

In a speech given on the Senate floor today, Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) took direct aim at Bush's warrantless domestic spying program. Here's the Semi-Short & Sweet (okay, it's not really short at all, but there was alot of good stuff) summary, via RawStory, (as I emphasize):

...Since when do we celebrate our commander in chief for violating our most basic freedoms, and misleading the American people in the process? When did we start to stand up and cheer for breaking the law? In that moment at the State of the Union, I felt ashamed...
...Defeating the terrorists should be our top national priority, and we all agree that we need to wiretap them to do it. In fact, it would be irresponsible not to wiretap terrorists...
...Unfortunately, the President refuses to provide any details about this domestic spying program. Not even the full Intelligence committees know the details, and they were specifically set up to review classified information and oversee the intelligence activities of our government....
...We need answers. Because no one, not the President, not the Attorney General, and not any of their defenders in this body, has been able to explain why it is necessary to break the law to defend against terrorism. And I think that's because they can't explain it.
Instead, this administration reacts to anyone who questions this illegal program by saying that those of us who demand the truth and stand up for our rights and freedoms have a pre-9/11 view of the world...
...The President can't just bypass two branches of government, and obey only those laws he wants to obey. Deciding unilaterally which of our freedoms still apply in the fight against terrorism is unacceptable and needs to be stopped immediately...
...In the State of the Union, the President referred to Presidents in American history who cited executive authority to order warrantless surveillance. But of course those past presidents - like Wilson and Roosevelt - were acting before the Supreme Court decided in 1967 that our communications are protected by the Fourth Amendment, and before Congress decided in 1978 that the executive branch can no longer unilaterally decide which Americans to wiretap. The Attorney General yesterday was unable to give me one example of a President who, since 1978 when FISA was passed, has authorized warrantless wiretaps outside of FISA.
So that argument is baseless, and it's deeply troubling that the President of the United States would so obviously mislead the Congress and American public...
...The Administration has almost never had a warrant request rejected by those judges. They have used the FISA Court thousands of times, but at the same time they assert that FISA is an "old law" or "out of date" and they can't comply with it. Clearly they can and do comply with it - except when they don't...
..The Administration has said that it ignored FISA because it takes too long to get a warrant under that law. But we know that in an emergency, where the Attorney General believes that surveillance must begin before a court order can be obtained, FISA permits the wiretap to be executed immediately as long as the government goes to the court within 72 hours...
...FISA also permits the Attorney General to authorize unlimited warrantless electronic surveillance in the United States during the 15 days following a declaration of war, to allow time to consider any amendments to FISA required by a wartime emergency. That is the time period that Congress specified. Yet the President thinks that he can do this indefinitely...
...In the State of the Union, the President also argued that federal courts had approved the use of presidential authority that he was invoking...
...When I asked the Attorney General about this, he could point me to no court - not the Supreme Court or any other court - that has considered whether, after FISA was enacted, the President nonetheless had the authority to bypass it and authorize warrantless wiretaps. Not one court. The Administration's effort to find support for what it has done in snippets of other court decisions would be laughable if this issue were not so serious...
...The President has also said that his inherent executive power gives him the power to approve this program. But here the President is acting in direct violation of a criminal statute...
...A recent letter from a group of law professors and former executive branch officials points out that "every time the Supreme Court has confronted a statute limiting the Commander-in-Chief's authority, it has upheld the statute." The Senate reports issued when FISA was enacted confirm the understanding that FISA overrode any pre-existing inherent authority of the President. As the 1978 Senate Judiciary Committee report stated, FISA "recognizes no inherent power of the president in this area." And "Congress has declared that this statute, not any claimed presidential power, controls." Contrary to what the President told the country in the State of the Union, no court has ever approved warrantless surveillance in violation of FISA.
The President's claims of inherent executive authority, and his assertions that the courts have approved this type of activity, are baseless...
...None of the President's arguments explains or excuses his conduct, or the NSA's domestic spying program. Not one. It is hard to believe that the President has the audacity to claim that they do. It is a strategy that really hinges on the credibility of the office of the Presidency itself. If you just insist that you didn't break the law, you haven't broken the law. It reminds me of what Richard Nixon said after he had left office: "Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal." But that is not how our constitutional democracy works...

Lots and lots more goodies inside. Long, but recommended.

FU Karl Rove

2006-02-07T12:30:00.001-08:00

From Insight Magazine, every moron's favorite plastic patriot, and the president's most bestest advisor ever, Benedict Karl has come out of his spider hole once again in response to the Senate Judiciary Committee investigation into Bush's NSA domestic spying program. Karl is threatening to "blacklist" any Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who fails to find that, despite what the FISA law specifically states in regards to warrantless spying, not to mention the fourth ammendment of the Bill of Rights, the President did/does in fact, have the inherent legal authority to spy on American's without obtaining a warrant.

So instead of allowing this on-going investigation to run it's course without so much as say...commenting on it, as has been the White House stance for most of the investigations looking into it's conduct, Karl Rove is seeking to influence the vote of these senators by threatening to cut-off any further political or financial support. You know, Mara Salvatrucha 13 wouldn't dick around with silly schoolyard tactics like this. For MS 13, "If you are not loyal, you are dead."

See Karl, they'd straight assasinate these traitorous bitches, no warning no nothing. Karl Rove, your a pussy if you don't take a tougher stance then this punkass "if you don't vote for us we'll never talk to you again" nonsense. Where are your balls ma'an, threaten to kill each member of their family or something.

Karl's comments are not suprising however, as it should be very clear by now just how Karl feels about pesky things, which have hampered the White House's amazingly lucrative treasure hunts, like the constitution or the rule of law in general.

WIWNT: Feb 5, 2006

2006-02-05T15:44:00.000-08:00

More and more it would appear that this investigation is headed towards the office of the Vice President. From Newsweek, according to newly released portions of a judge's opinion Fitzgerald felt he could not charge former VP Chief of Staff "Scooter" Libby with violating a 1982 law banning the outing of a covert CIA agent, because he lacked sufficient evidence to prove that Libby was aware of Valerie Plame's covert status when he talked about her three times with New York Times reporter Judith Miller. This contradicts claims by the White House and White House apologists who have long held that Plame was not covert at the time of her outing. The new papers show Libby testified he was told about Plame by Cheney "in an off sort of curiosity sort of fashion" in mid-June - before he talked about her with Miller and Time magazine's Matt Cooper. See for yourself here.

More analysis of the eight newly unredacted pages here from emptywheel over at the Next Hurrah. See for yourself here.

Late last week we learned that Fitzgerald ran into a bit of a "snag", shall we say, when attempting to locate some emails for certain time periods in 2003 from both the Executive Office of the President and the Office of the Vice President as they were, for some reason yet to be explained, not "preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system." Odd, no? See for yourself here.

Warrantless Domestic Spying

More bad news for the White House on the warrantless domestic spying front, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee Arlen Specter, on today's Meet the Press, said that the administration's legal argument is "very strained and unrealistic" elaborating further that "the issue was never raised with the Congress. And there is a specific statute on the books, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which says flatly that you can't undertake that kind of surveillance without a court order." Despite what other Senators might be saying, specifically the Chairman of other committees, Specter's opinion is really the one that matters right now and the White House knows it, which is likely why we heard from Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Pat Roberts just a couple of days ago. That's called misdirection, kids. See the Video for yourself here.

More from ABC News. See for yourself here.

The Imperial Presidency

From Newsweek, according to administration and Capitol Hill officials, in a closed-door Senate intelligence committee meeting last week, Steven Bradbury, acting head of the department's Office of Legal Counsel, told California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, when asked about the extent of presidential powers to fight al Qaeda, that he believed that the president could indeed order the killing of a suspected al Qaeda operative on US soil. Particularly discomforting considering that it was also the opinion of this administration that a US citizen could be labeled as an enemy combatant. So, if this administration were to get its way with the Patriot Act II, which according to section 501 would expand the definition of "enemy combatant" to all American citizens who "may" have violated any provision of Section 802 of the first Patriot Act, it would be reasonable to conclude (though I hope this a huge stretch on my part) that the president could in fact by-pass the courts, as he has no apparent misgivings about doing, and order the killing of a US citizen. Under past presidents I'd be hesitant to go quite this far, but this president has a history of pushing things to the very limits of acceptability, legality, and constitutionality. No super-secret program involving black helicopters and men in black, folks. Ma'an do I miss my wacko conspiracy theories. See for yourself here.

(UPDATE: Jeralyn from TalkLeft has more on the subject, this regarding a similar stance taken by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) on the president's authority to execute someone on US soil without so much as a Miranda warning, let alone the rest of the burdensome process, say like a trial or better yet indictment. See for yourself here.)

From RawStory, "moderate Senators on both sides of the aisle are quietly considering a range of options that would attempt at the very least to delineate the President's authority, if not roll it back." This "range of options" is said to include a constitutional amendment. Note to the fundies from the right, THIS WOULD BE WHAT CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS ARE FOR! See for yourself here.

Good News for Republican Congressmen and Women

2006-02-03T23:42:00.000-08:00

The Libby obstruction, perjury, etc... trial has been set for (conveniently, wink, wink) just after the mid-term elections. From the LA Times.

Best of luck on all the rest of 'em fellers.

INTHINTs: Feb 3, 2006

2006-02-03T17:47:00.000-08:00

In light of recent revelations that my hometown of Aurora, Colorado is set to become America's Domestic Spying Capital, I will seek to provide as much information as I can on the subject - whether past, present, future, conspiracy theory (within reason), or conspiracy fact - and post it here on the ole HonestDissent blog.

Blog and MSM Updates

1.) From the NY Times via georgia10 over at DailyKos (with many more terrific links within the post), an exchange at yesterday's Senate Intelligence Committee hearing between Senator Wyden (D-OR) and General Hayden (NSA director at the time the warrantless domestic spying program was initiated):

A similarly revealing sparring session came when Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, pressed the intelligence officials about whether a controversial Pentagon data-mining program called Total Information Awareness had been effectively transferred to the intelligence agencies after being shut down by Congress.

Mr. Negroponte and the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, both said they did not know. Then came the turn of Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who headed N.S.A. for six years before becoming the principal deputy director of national intelligence last spring.

"Senator," General Hayden said, "I'd like to answer in closed session."

2.) From the AP via RawStory, George H.W. Bush (41), Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney have apparently tried once before to get a warrantless wire tap program similar to the one George W. Bush (43) authorized for the NSA to conduct, and is currently under scrutiny for, when they were with the Ford administration (Bush 41 was director of the CIA at the time). This, of course, was shot down after some intense debate. But times were different then, there was no legitimate threat to the US at the time like al Qaeda is today (except for the Soviets during that whole 'Cold War' thingamajig):
George H.W. Bush, then director of the CIA, wanted to ensure "no unnecessary diminution of collection of important foreign intelligence" under the proposal to require judges to approve terror wiretaps, according to a March 1976 memorandum he wrote to the Justice Department. Bush also complained that some major communications companies were unwilling to install government wiretaps without a judge's approval. Such a refusal "seriously affects the capabilities of the intelligence community," Bush wrote.

In another document, Jack Marsh, a White House adviser, outlined options for Ford over the wiretap legislation. Marsh alerted Ford to objections by Bush as CIA director and by Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft over the scope of a provision to require judicial oversight of wiretaps. At the time, Rumsfeld was defense secretary, Kissinger was secretary of state and Scowcroft was the White House national security adviser.

Some experts weren't surprised the cast of characters in this national debate remained largely unchanged over 30 years.

"People don't change their stripes," said Kenneth C. Bass a former senior Justice Department lawyer who oversaw such wiretap requests during the Carter administration.

3.) Then there's this, from the AP via AmericaBlog, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts says Bush's Domestic Spying Program IS constitutional. This, of course, from the man who still continues to stall Phase II of the Senate investigation into bungled pre-war Iraq intelligence. This would be the part where the part where Senate Intelligence Committee actually look into HOW THE INTELLIGENCE WAS USED. An investigation that has NEVER taken place, despite what you may have heard from the Bush White House and Republican apologists.

And finally for today

4.) From the NYTimes via TChris over at TalkLeft:
[Even though] companies that provide Internet service and run Web sites ... promise to protect the privacy of their users, they routinely hand over the most intimate information in response to legal demands from criminal investigators and lawyers fighting civil cases.
...
When it comes to e-mail and Internet service records, "the average citizen would be shocked to find out how adept your average law enforcement officer is at finding information," said Paul Ohm, who recently left the Justice Department's computer crime and intellectual property section.

WIWNT: Feb 3, 2006

2006-02-03T11:42:00.000-08:00

Despite recent claims by the president, vice president, and their minions that had this warrantless domestic spying program been in place prior to 9/11, those events would have been prevented, FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress yesterday that in the 4 plus years that the program has been in place it has led to a whole bunch of leads, but ZERO al Qaeda operatives. From the NY Daily News. See for yourself here.

According to the Boston Globe, despite Bush's remarks during his State of the Union address that not only is the warrantless domestic spying program perfectly legal, but that past presidents have done it too (does that argument ever work, I think I remember trying that one when I was a kid, but with little success), many legal experts, both conservative and liberal, seem to disagree rather strongly. On both counts. Keep trying baby, maybe if you close your eyes so tight you see 'fireworks' and you keep believing really, really hard your dream (our nightmare) will come true. See for yourself here.

From ThinkProgress, Intelligence officials are refusing to answer questions about the warrantless domestic spying program. This should be expected, nobody wants to incriminate themselves. See for yourself here.

CIA Leak Investigation

RawStory is reporting that in recent court filings related to the CIA leak investigation "no formal damage assessment has been done with regard to how the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame affected the agency's operations worldwide. They also hint that Vice President Cheney's former Chief of Staff I. Lewis Libby may have outed Plame on the orders of his 'superiors.'" Nuh uh!?! See for yourself here.

Use of Pre-War Intel

The National Journal is reporting that "Vice President Cheney and his then-Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were personally informed in June 2003 that the CIA no longer considered credible the allegations that Saddam Hussein had attempted to procure uranium from the African nation of Niger, according to government records and interviews with current and former officials. The new CIA assessment came just as Libby and other senior administration officials were embarking on an effort to discredit an administration critic who had also been saying that the allegations were untrue." See for yourself here.

The Guardian Unlimited is reporting that in a recently revealed secret British memo, yes another one (they'veapparentlyy got as many problems as we do in keeping secrets, wonder why that is), Bush and Blair had agreed to go into Iraq with or without UN backing and better yet, planned to attempt to lure Saddam into war by painting a U2 reconnaissance aircraft in UN colors and fly it over Iraq in hopes that he would fire upon it. At this point, if you still believe that we only went to war as a last resort, you're a willful idiot. See for yourself here.

According to a recent Gallup poll, 53% of Americans now believe that Bush deliberately misled them on Iraq WMDs. 84% of Republicans still refuse to believe the president would intentionally mislead them. Stubborn critters aren't they? From Editor & Publisher. See for yourself here.

Well Don't Take Him Literally Stupid

2006-02-02T19:14:00.000-08:00

From KnightRidder:

The president's State of the Union reference to Mideast oil made headlines nationwide Wednesday because of his assertion that "America is addicted to oil" and his call to "break this addiction."

Bush vowed to fund research into better batteries for hybrid vehicles and more production of the alternative fuel ethanol, setting a lofty goal of replacing "more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025."

He pledged to "move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past."

Not exactly, though, it turns out.

"This was purely an example," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said.

He said the broad goal was to displace foreign oil imports, from anywhere, with domestic alternatives. He acknowledged that oil is a freely traded commodity bought and sold globally by private firms. Consequently, it would be very difficult to reduce imports from any single region, especially the most oil-rich region on Earth.

Asked why the president used the words "the Middle East" when he didn't really mean them, one administration official said Bush wanted to dramatize the issue in a way that "every American sitting out there listening to the speech understands." The official spoke only on condition of anonymity because he feared that his remarks might get him in trouble.

ThinkProgress is the shiznit if you're looking for hard facts as opposed to just kinda "truthy". Judd has more examples of Bushspeak here.

Can't Even Vote for a New House Leader w/o a Troubled Outcome

2006-02-02T12:37:00.000-08:00

Hmmm, from Roll Call, more votes then members present.

House Republicans are taking a mulligan on the first ballot for Majority Leader. The first count showed more votes cast than Republicans present at the Conference meeting.

Bush's War on Critical T-Shirts Continues...

2006-02-01T16:28:00.000-08:00

Here's my take on this post by Glenn Greenwald.

Every once in awhile our Dear Leader takes his protective bubble out of the palace and on the road to tell us all about how much he respects opposing views, not to mention how grand it is to live in a country which fosters and encourages such views. This is utter bullshit of course, but it does make for a good sound byte and is quite effective at easing the concerns of the middle about how BushCo handles it's critics (see the handling of Joseph Wilson/Valerie Plame, Richard Clarke, Paul O'Neill, General Shinseki, and "Bunny" Greenhouse all of which turned out to be, for the most part if not entirely, correct. What was that about hindsight again Mr. President? Maybe instead of concentrating your efforts on tearing down critics you should focus your efforts on sound policy). And if you're actually gulible enough to buy what he's shovelling here, well maybe you should look back at what he's had to say about dictatorships. This is the democratically elected leader of the 'Free World', who just so happens to prefer dictatorships. WHAT ARE YOU FUCKIN' KIDDING ME!!! Is he really stupid or just arrogant (remember the slide show of him jokingly searching high and low for the imaginary WMD's scattered around the oval office, ha, ha, ha, 2,200+ dead American servicemen and women and tens of thousands more injured for those weapons, now that IS funny...asshole)?

Well last night at the Presidential Comedy Hour (seriously, who wasn't laughing when the President spoke about our dependence on oil having himself come from an oil family, with the 'former' CEO of an oilfield services company, VP Dick Cheney sitting directly behind him, and the woman who had to request that Chevron NOT name an oil tanker after her, current Secretary of State Condi Rice, parked right in front of him) Cindy Sheehan, who was in attendance, was arrested and detained but not charged for wearing a T-Shirt which reflected the current casualty count in Iraq (one of those casualties, of course being Cindy's son Casey). That's right, arrested for wearing a T-Shirt. Again with the T-Shirt and bumper sticker police Mr. President!?! Seriously, is his skin so thin that he can't handle the criticism of Cafe Press merchandise. He's like a delicate flower packaged in bubble wrap. From all credible accounts (Cindy's as well as from CNN and the AP) Cindy wasn't at all disruptive, she merely removed her jacket and there it was, THE CRITICAL T-SHIRT. Fortunately, Officer Mike Weight was in the area and quickly, maybe even forcibly, hauled her away before the president was permanently damaged......any worse.

Another close call folks, but everything is okay now.

INTHINTs: Feb 1, 2006

2006-02-01T12:05:00.000-08:00

In light of recent revelations that my hometown of Aurora, CO is set to become America's Domestic Spying Capital, I will seek to provide as much information as I can gather on the subject - past, present, and future - and post it here on the ole Honest blog.

General Info

FISA FAQ (from the Electronic Frontier Foundation)

Recent News

From CQ.com. According to a Nov.5 2001 memo issued by the US Army's top intelligence officer, Lt. Gen. Robert W. Noonan Jr., it is perfectly legal for the US military to "receive" domestic intelligence information, even though it is not legal for them to "collect" it. Here's some of what he had to say in the memo:

"Remember, merely receiving information does not constitute 'collection' under AR [Army Regulation] 381-10; collection entails receiving 'for use,' " he added. (Army Regulation 381-10, "U.S. Army Intelligence Activities," was reissued on Nov. 22, 2005, but had not previously been disclosed publicly.) "Army intelligence may always receive information, if only to determine its intelligence value and whether it can be collected, retained, or disseminated in accordance with governing policy,"

And who does the intelligence community view as a signifigant threat? Antiwar protesters, of course.

The Pentagon's Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA) was launched in 2002 with the mission of "gathering information and conducting activities to protect DoD and the nation against espionage, other intelligence activities, sabotage, assassinations, and terrorist activities," according to a CIFA brochure. Its TALON program has amassed files on antiwar protesters, according to a Pentagon official.

"More than 5,000 TALON reports" were "received and shared throughout the government" in the program's first year of operation," Carol A. Haave, deputy undersecretary of Defense for counterintelligence and security, told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in May 2004.

"At that rate, about 12,500 Talon reports would have been filed during the approximately 2 1/2 years the program has existed," The Washington Post concluded Tuesday.

From RawStrory.com. That pinko commie outfit only concerned with Civil Rights, the ACLU (I'm a card carrying member), is up to their old America hating ways again. From the ACLU's Press Release:

"The Pentagon's monitoring of anti-war protesters is yet another example of a government agency using its powers to spy on law-abiding Americans who criticize U.S. policies," said ACLU staff attorney Ben Wizner. "How can we believe that the National Security Agency is intercepting only al Qaeda phone calls when we have evidence that the Pentagon is keeping tabs on Quakers in Fort Lauderdale?"

The President has claimed that he can spy on American's essentially because Article II of the Constitution says he can as long as we're at war. Well this should come as welcome news to all of us. From the WashingtonPost.com.

Administration officials seem to refer to the "long war" more frequently these days. President Bush mentioned it during his State of the Union address this week. On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the term is a way of telling people the truth about the fight against terrorism.

"Just as the Cold War lasted a long time, this war is something that is not going to go away," Rumsfeld said.

He said this does not mean U.S. troops will be in Iraq indefinitely, but rather that the U.S. will be fighting violent extremists for many years to come.

From ThinkProgress. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan continues to try and make the NSA domestic spying issue a partisan issue, but when high profile conservative figures such as Grover Norquist call the program illegal, it's hard to get that strategy to stick.

Referring to what some see as a conflict between fighting vicious terrorists and upholding all civil liberties, Norquist said, "It's not either/or. If the president thinks he needs different tools, pass a law to get them. Don't break the existing laws."

Additional Reading. From CommonDreams.org.

Welcome to the Neighborhood

2006-01-30T13:48:00.000-08:00

Look who's coming to my hometown of Aurora, Colorado. IT'S THE NSA, YEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAH! The place of my birth (specifically, Fitzsimmons Army Medical Hospital, just like John "the Chump not Champ" Kerry) and the city of residence for 28 of my 30 years.

According to William M. Arkin, in an online piece today over at the WashingtonPost.com, Aurora, CO is set to become the American epicenter for national domestic spying. From the piece:

In May, Dana Priest reported here in The Washington Post that the CIA was planning to shift much of its domestic operations to Aurora, Colorado.

...

Aurora is already a reconnaissance satellite downlink and analytic center focusing on domestic warning. The NSA and CIA join U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) in Colorado. NORTHCOM is post 9/11 the U.S. military command responsible for homeland defense.

The new NSA operation is located at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, at a facility commonly known as the Aerospace Data Facility.

...

According to Government Executive Magazine -- thanks DP -- "NSA is building a massive data storage facility in Colorado, which will be able to hold the electronic equivalent of the Library of Congress every two days." This new NSA data warehouse is the hub of "data mining" and analysis development, allowing the eavesdropping agency to develop and make better use of the unbelievabytes of data it collects but does not exploit.

Growing up, we used to refer to the cluster of "globes" which house the satellite dishes at Buckley Air Force Base (pictured above), as giant teed-up "golf balls" and they are probably Aurora's most recognizable landmark. They are afterall big ass fuckin' balls situated in the eastern plains (not the mountainy parts CO is known for). They're hard to miss is what I'm saying.

FUN FACT: Aurora is affectionately called "Saudi Aurora" by many from other parts of Colorado, as there was a spell there in the mid-90's where we received some pretty negative national attention for a multiple homicide at a Chucky Cheeses (located about a half a block from the home that I grew up in) and similar such tragedies. For those extra curious, Columbine High School is about 20-30 minutes SW of Aurora depending on day and time.

To the kids over at the NSA, I say welcome and don't you be no super secret strangers you hear, drop on by a conversation or few. You know the numbers.

As far as us natives and such is concerned, if you just so happen to meet yourself a brand new friend who just moved to the area from say, I don't know, somewhere around the Maryland area and they claim to work for the Department of Defense be very careful about what you say to them. Or better yet, as discretely as you possibly can, excuse yourself and slip out the back.

Are the Dumb leading the Dumber?

2006-01-28T16:27:00.000-08:00

Today, in an online piece posted over at Counterpunch by the former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the Reagan administration, Paul Craig Roberts, entitled "Polls Show Many Americans are Simply Dumber Than Bush" he asks:

Why does any American think that spying without a warrant has any more effect in reducing the threat of terrorism than spying with a warrant? The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Bush is disobeying, requires the executive to obtain from a secret panel of federal judges a warrant for spying on Americans. The purpose of the law is to prevent a president from spying for partisan political reasons. The law permits the president to spy first (for 72 hours) and then come to the court for permission. As the court meets in secret, spying without a warrant is no more effective in reducing the threat of terrorism than spying with a warrant.

Instead of explaining this basic truth, the media has played along with the Bush administration and formulated the question as a trade-off between civil liberties and protection from terrorists. This formulation is false and nonsensical. Why does the media enable the Bush administration to escape accountability for illegal behavior by putting false and misleading choices before the people?

EXACTLY!!! The propaganda and noise coming predominately from the Right is designed to allow those who wish, as well as the unsuspecting, to exist within an alternate "reality". Plastic Facts, Plastic Patriotism. This is why many on the left often refer to themselves as "reality-based" or of the "reality-based community". It is to the benefit of those currently in control of the levers of power that Americans, as a whole, be illinformed or misinformed. See Jack Aramoff partner Michael Scanlon's comments for more on how the "Wackos", as he puts it, from their conservative base are controlled. This should shed some light on the overall strategy for you.

FISA was created with the specific intent of "balancing" national security with the unalienable rights guaranteed to all those who reside within the borders of the United States by our Constitution. However, FISA itself is little more then just accepted doctrine and at this time is only considered "legal" because it has never been directly challenged in a court of law. This is how the lines of tyranny are first blurred and then shifted.

Paul then continues with this analysis of the current political climate in the Middle East as a result of US intervention:

It is extraordinary that anyone would think Americans are safer as a result of Bush invading two Muslim countries and constantly threatening two more with military attack. The invasions and threats have caused a dramatic swing in Muslim sentiment away from the US. Prior to Bush's invasion of Iraq, a large majority of Muslims had a favorable opinion of America. Now only about 5 percent do.

A number of US commanders in Iraq and many Middle East experts have told the American public that the three year-old war in Iraq is serving both to recruit and to train terrorists for al Qaeda, which has grown many times its former size. Moreover, the US military has concluded that al Qaeda has succeeded in having its members elected to the new Iraqi government.

...

And now with the triumph of Hamas in the Palestinian election, we see the total failure of Bush's Middle Eastern policy. Bush has succeeded in displacing secular moderates from Middle Eastern governments and replacing them with Islamic extremists. It boggles the mind that this disastrous result makes Americans feel safer!

A pretty good read, hitting on the heart of the problem, propaganda. Recommended.

WIWNT: News for You 01/26/06

2006-01-26T12:51:00.000-08:00

Today's blog entries and articles from around the internets that I found interesting.

Torture

The AP is reporting that "A European Parliament investigation into alleged CIA secret prisons could ask Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to testify, although it has no legal power to subpoena them". Good luck with that. The US Congress can't even get the Bush administration's top mine safety official to cooperate, you think Cheney and Rumsfeld are going to appear before a foreign entity. Hold your breath, I dare you. See for yourself here.

MSM: free press at fair market value

The Palm Beach Daily News is reporting that on Tuesday, former anchor of CNN's NewsNight, Aaron Brown gave an impassioned speech at The Society of the Four Arts. Brown had this analysis of today's main stream news outlets, "Truth no longer matters in the context of politics and, sadly, in the context of cable news." Anyone willing to spend 30 seconds with Bill O'Reilly knows exactly what he's talking about. If you want the ratings, you've got to be willing to sell your soul to the Springer formula. Garbage sells. See for yourself here.

The New Republic online has a neat little piece on FoxNews.com's science columnist Steven Milloy. Turns out that Milloy just so happens to be one of those despicable hacks willing whore out his column for anybody willing to pay a little bit for it. Tobacco overlord Phillip Morris was willing to pay to the tune of $92,500 each year for "consulting" in at least 2000 and 2001. What are the results of Milloy's "consulting"? Secondhand smoke is apparently not all that bad. Thank goodness, oh and according to Milloy, global warming is a hoax but we all knew that. See for yourself here (subscription req'd).

More detail from the Huffington Post. See for yourself here.

Then there's this, which is freakin' hilarious, and demonstrates exactly how much credibility the independent grassroots organization Accuracy In Media truly deserves. According to AIM, Fox News is in danger of becoming one more cog in the leftwing media machine which has been so successful of late champion leftist causes. That's right kids, Fox News, just another pinko commie outfit. See for yourself here

The Jokes on US: Operation Iraqi Liberation

Just one day after Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld categorically denied claims from a Pentagon draft report which suggested that the US Army was stretched thin, the top US Commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, acknowledged that the US Army was, in fact, stretched. However, he said, the Army is capable of accomplishing their mission and any recommendation to reduce troops further would be dictated by the situation on the battlefield, the AP reports. Rrrriiiiight!?! See for yourself here.

MSNBC has more on that Pentagon draft report. See for yourself here.

From ThinkProgress, according to Secretary Rumsfeld, what's the reason why we are in this unfortunate position of having our Army stretched so thin? It's Clinton's fault, of course. Kind of like the imaginary WMD's were Clinton's fault as well, or the events of 9/11 were his fault. Of course the response to Katrina wasn't Clinton's fault. That was the fault of local officials. For an administration that doesn't want to get dragged into the blame game, they sure do spend a lot of time blaming others. Although, covering your ass after your incompetence and/or neglegence has resulted in the death of thousands of American citizens/soldiers/marines does require quite a bit of work with all the shifting of blame and "stonewalling". It must be awesome to be so incompetent; nothing is ever your fault. IT'S EVERYBODY ELSES FAULT EXCEPT MINE. To the Bush administration, may only a few thousand more Americans die as a result. See for yourself here

Terminator Seeds

Seriously, to what possible benefit do these freakseeds serve other then to assure that peasant farmers be forever at the mercy of the multinational agribusinesses. This is just about as despicable as it gets. See for yourself here.

Lost Comments

2006-01-25T17:06:00.000-08:00

I'm having a little bit of trouble getting HaloScan's comments to 'stick' with the new coding, some tweaking is definately going to be required. If you've posted a comment in the past, but cannot find it now, I apologize. It's something I'm working on.

Thanks,
Damond

WIWNT: News for You 01/25/06

2006-01-25T12:03:00.000-08:00

Today's blog entries and articles from around the internets that I found interesting.

Presidential Impeachment

From Night Ridder, according to a poll released last week by Zogby International, 52% of Americans favor impeaching President Bush if the NSA program which he authorized included spying on Americans without a warrant. See for yourself here.

Big Brother Bush-style

From Reuters, Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Senate Judiciary Committee's top Democrat, has asked AG Alberto Gonzales "what steps are being taken to protect Americans' privacy rights as the Justice Department demands information about Internet searches". See for yourself here.

Mine Safety

ThinkProgress has video of the Bush administration's top mine safety official, David Dye, walking out in the middle of his appearance in front of a Senate subcommittee looking into the tragedy of the Sago mining disaster. See for yourself here.

According to the New York Times, Sen Arlen Specter, "can't recollect it ever happening before" but plans to, "find a way to take appropriate note of it." See for yourself here.

Katrina: Administration's Response

According to the New York Times, as is the norm with this White House when ever a tragedy occurs as a result of theinegligencece oincompetencece, rather then get to the "why" in an effort to prevent it from ever happening again, they prefer to "stonewall" any investigation. Because, you see, if we pretend it didn't happen, it'll just go away. The Presidency of Bush 43: A Seemingly Endless Series of On-Going Investigations! See for yourself here.

Bilking Taxpayers and Shielding Defense Contractors

Rawstory is reporting that the Pentagon has suspended a senior fraud investigator who has crusaded against military contractor overcharges for "insubordination". Their source is Eric Rosenberg for the Hearst News Service. According to Rawstory, Rosenberg's article, which went out to Hearst member papers, has not appeared in any of them to date. See for yourself here.

According to the New York Times, "A new audit of American financial practices in Iraq has uncovered irregularities including millions of reconstruction dollars stuffed casually into footlockers and filing cabinets, an American soldier in the Philippines who gambled away cash belonging to Iraq, and three Iraqis who plunged to their deaths in a rebuilt hospital elevator that had been improperly certified as safe." See for yourself here.

WIWNT: News for You 01/24/06

2006-01-24T12:13:00.000-08:00

Today's blog entries and articles from around the internets that I found interesting.

Presidential Impeachment

According to Insight magazine, the White House is bracing for potential impeachment hearings. Possible charges to be leveled against the President are said to include false reports to Congress as well as the President's authorizing of NSA to engage in domestic spying without a court warrant as is required by the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights. See for yourself here.

Domestic Spying

Glenn Greenwald has a great entry today essentially debunking the White House's latest go at defending it's warrantless Domestic Spying program. He recalls an attempt in 2002 by Republican Sen Mike DeWine of Ohio to introduce legislation that would amend FISA to lower the standard for non-citizens from "probable cause" to essentially "reasonable cause". The measure failed. See for yourself here.

Digby over at Hullabaloo goes further. See for yourself here

Media Matters has more as well. See for yourself here

Today student protestors at a Georgetown Law School Forum stood in silence with their backs turned to AG Gonzales as he attempted to defend the administrations warrantless domestic spying program, reports the AP. See for yourself here.

Chemically Preserving Humanity

According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the EPA is set to expand pesticide testing to include pregnant women and children. See for yourself here. See the Press Release. For more, go here.

Torture

Reuters is reporting that the US has outsourced its torturing of detainees while European governments have turned a blind eye. See for yourself here.

Supreme Court

ABC News is reporting that on the day that Chief Justice John Roberts was being sworn in to his current position, Associate Justice Scalia was playing tennis at an outing sponsored by the Federalist Society. Scalia was the only justice absent at the swearing in. See for yourself here.

Halliburton

According to MarketWatch, Halliburton subsidiary KBR has just been awarded a contingency contract from the Department of Homeland Security to support its Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities in the event of an emergency. The maximum total value of the contract is $385 million. See for yourself here.

Katrina

The Washington Post is reporting that the White House began to receive detailed warnings about the potential impact of Katrina to the Gulf Coast region as much as 48hrs prior to the storm reaching land. These warnings included "eerily prescient predictions of breached levees, massive flooding, and major losses of life and property, documents show." See for yourself here.

WIWNT: News for You 01/23/06

2006-01-23T13:05:00.000-08:00

Today's blog entries and articles from around the internets that I found interesting.

Bush is Grrrrrrreat!

According to a new poll out today from the American Research Group 36% of American's approve of Bush's overall performance, while a nearing 2-1 majority, 58% of Americans, disapprove. Keep up the great work you lame duck. See for yourself here.

National Security/Big Brother, Bush-style

From the AP, Bush continues to defend using the once foreign-only spy agency the NSA to spy domestically on American citizens in what would appear to any competent person to be in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Fortunately for Bush, about half of all American's appear to be absolute morons. Keep buying what he's selling you dupes. Maybe, if you pray hard enough you can make it acceptable for the rest of us too. See for yourself here.

mcjoan over at the DailyKos reveals exactly how familiar Deputy Director of National Intelligence General Michael Hayden really is with the Fourth Amendment. He's not totally wrong, but he appears to be unfamiliar with the amendment in it's entirety. See for yourself here. See, that's the key. You've got to read the whole thing, every letter, every word. Or maybe thats the way things are done now, I don't know, the rules for what's acceptable have definately worked their way into the shady area since the Republican seizure of power, so maybe I'm just guilty of being of a pre-9/11 mindset.

Radioactive Jack

White House spokesweasels claim that they know of no existing photos which would place the President and embattled Republican super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff together, but that if any photographs do exist they were most likely taken at a large gathering like a Chanukah party, which are often attended by litterally billions of people that the President doesn't know, has never heard of, and those in which he has no desire to ever meet. The weasels suggesting this are completely full of shit. Part and parcel, I'd say, of this administration of secrecy, manipulation, torture, and deception. Keep that bullshit coming fellas, making the case that Bush 43 was one of the worst Presidents in American history, if not THE worst, is gonna be a "Slam Dunk", to borrow a phrase from Bush bestowed Medal of Freedom recipient George Tenet.

In an article posted yesterday over at Time magazine, we have our second confirmation of a news organization which has viewed approximately 5 photos which show President Bush with embattled Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff. See for yourself here.

It is the belief of Judd over at ThinkProgress.com that Jack Abramoff himself may be shopping these photos around to different news agencies as he is apparently feeling a bit of a financial pinch. See for yourself here.

ThinkProgress.com has also revealed that the White House has apparently "misinformed" the AP in regards to a meeting on May, 9 2001 between President Bush, Jack Abramoff, 21 state legislators, and several of Jack Abramoff's tribal clients. In June of last year, White House spokesweasel Erin Healy said that there were no records which would indicate that Abramoff was in attendance. Of the 5 photographs that Time magazine claims to have viewed, one of the photographs would suggest that those remarks are, how do you say in America, "moderately inaccurate". Abramoff was paid $25,000 by his tribal clients to arrange this meeting minus one. See for yourself here.

Iran: Nuclear Showdown

From the AP, "Iran will immediately retaliate if referred to the U.N. Security Council next week by forging ahead with developing a full-scale uranium enrichment program, a senior envoy said Monday." See for yourself here.

Support for the Troops

Big Iraq War no-bid contract winner, and Vice-President Cheney's semi-on-hold employer, Halliburton is in the news again for another greed inspired despicable act. No, this time it's not for ripping us off to the tune $50 per 2"x4", or for meals they never served, or even for knowingly serving food well beyond it's expiration date. No, this time they've exposed our troops to contaminated water, and then apparently refused to notify anyone about it. See for yourself here. Halliburton is on our side, right!?!

Oh, and just in case you didn't know, Dick Cheney still receives a modest, but healthy, income from Halliburton. Approximately $200K a year +bonuses.

Advanced Electioneering

At least one of the MSM outlets, the Washington Post, finally seems to be paying attention to the fact that electronic voting machines without any type of a paper trail may not be as secure as once believed. See for yourself here. NO SHIT, huh!?! You know there were quite a number of critics suggesting the very same thing oh, about two, two and a half years ago. So that would lead me to believe that after a couple more years pass we can get to the part where largely Democratic districts in states like Ohio were severly under-supplied with healthy voting machines. Then maybe another year passes and they can get to the vote count irregularities. That would be neat. To see some of these news outlets scurry along to report on such trivial matters as say the questionable outcome of a presidential election, or the use of phony-to-questionable intelligence in the build up to war on a sovereign nation. Oh well, time to check in to see what's going on with that missing groom. I hear now that they were drinking Absinthe and thats why everybody was all fuckered up (for those unaware, Absinthe is the drink in the NIN "Perfect Drug" video, and is said to be a root cause to van Gogh's madness. It is only illegal to sell the liquor in the states. Possession and purchase, not so much).

WIWNT: News for You 01/20/06

2006-01-20T19:06:00.000-08:00

Here are some of today's blog entries and articles from around the net that I found interesting.

Jack Abramoff

The Washingtonian is reporting that they have viewed at least 5 photographs of President Bush with indicted Republican lobbyist, and 2004 Bush Pioneer, Jack Abramoff. See for yourself here.

Fired Up! is reporting that one of the many investigations surrounding Jack Abramoff is going all the way to Hong Kong. Former house majority leader Tom DeLay and possible replacement Rep Roy Blunt both seem to have connections. See for yourself here.

CIA Leak

Reuters is reporting that lawyer's for Dick Cheney's indicted former Chief of Staff Scooter Libby are planning to issue subpoenas to journalists and news organizations for documents to be used at his trial involving the leak of a CIA operative's name. This is expected to delay proceedings. See for yourself here.

National Security/Big Brother, Bush-style

Google continues to resist a Justice Department subpoena for records of all customer searches during a specific week in an effort to uncover how accessible adult websites are to kids. The Justice Department claims that this is the best way to get the necessary information. Google claims that they cannot comply because this will jeopardize some of their trade secrets, the information Justice is looking for cannot be ascertained in this way, oh and that whole plastic customer privacy thing too. See for yourself here, and here.

From the Washington Post, true American patriot Karl Rove has come out of hiding for a minute to defend domestic spying and accuse critics of being of a pre-9/11 mindset unable to adjust to this new and substantial thre....blah, blah, blah. You know, YOU LEAKED THE NAME OF A COVERT CIA AGENT WHOSE JOB IT WAS TO MONITOR THE PROLIFERATION OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION AND THEN YOU REPEATEDLY LIED ABOUT IT. On the subject of national security, you've proven that you are not to be trusted. As far as the legality of the program, I have so far been unable to successfully locate anything in your bio which would validate your credentials as a constitutional legal expert, SO SHUT UP! And climb back down into your despicable little spider hole. See for yourself here.

According to the AP, former Pentagon analyst Lawrence A. Franklin was sentenced to 12 years in prison for providing classified information to an Israeli diplomat and members of a pro-Israel lobbying group. Franklin previously worked with many top Pentagon officials, including Douglas Feith. See for yourself here.

"If you're not doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to worry about"

2006-01-20T17:09:00.000-08:00

It's a rediculous argument and akin to, "if you don't disagree with us you've nothing to fear."

Well, as Joe over at AmericaBlog points out, the same totalitarian argument that the Bush administration is pimping this month to justify their super-secret warrantless domestic spying program, is now being floated by at least one of the cell-phone records dealers to justify their business practice.

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

"If you're not involved in suspicious activities or infidelity, and you are not trying to hide from someone because of debt, or involved in a criminal activity, there really is no reason to be concerned about your call records."

Did you get that? If you're not doing anything wrong, then what do you have to hide?

Oh I don't know. Maybe I'm a woman trying to get away from an abusive spouse? May I'm a police detective who doesn't want criminals knowing who my informants are? Maybe I'm a business competitor who doesn't want you to know who all my clients are?

For those who are unaware, earlier this month John over at AmericaBlog was able to purchase the cell phone records of former presidential candidate, and former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, Wesley Clarkwithout permission or knowledge, for a mere $89.95.

For more background on this issue AmericaBlog has more on the jist of it here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

HD V2: Let the blogging begin

2006-01-17T17:23:00.000-08:00

No posts recently as I've been getting the site updated. So far I'm pretty happy with the way that it looks both on my Mac and the PC at work. Still working on the bugs in the layout and adding links, but as far as the overall composition and color scheme, this is it. Hope you find it pleasing. I find it oddly soothing. Lots of stuff coming down the pike politically, so much to write about it. Now that I'm, for the most part, all set up and ready to go, real blogging begins on Friday.

Where the Shit Hits the Fan?

2005-12-27T19:42:00.000-08:00

So now that the Iraqi elections appear to be such a resounding success on all levels, can we now.....oh, shit! What are the Kurds doing?

From the article:

"Kurdish leaders have inserted more than 10,000 of their militia members into Iraqi army divisions in northern Iraq to lay the groundwork to swarm south, seize the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and possibly half of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, and secure the borders of an independent Kurdistan."

Here's a map for reference.

Wait a second, I thought this administration said everything was under control. Other then the initial invasion, has anything in Iraq ever been 'under control' and WHERE THE HELL IS BIN LADEN!?! Tora Bora, Tora Bora, Tora Bora.

Is there anything, other then assuring more tax breaks for the wealthy, that these clowns can do right!?!

Please site examples (and don't say we haven't been hit since 9/11, because 1) we were hit on 9/11, 2) we weren't hit - on American soil - before 9/11, and 3) we now know that it took a several years to plan 9/11).

[UPDATE: I'll give you the economy. The wealthy few really appear to be doing quite well right now.]

Happy New Year! It's 1984

2005-12-23T01:36:00.000-08:00

[BUMPED FOR UPDATES] - [ORIGINALLY POSTED 12/19/05 @ 1:36A]

(IF NOTHING ELSE, READ THIS POST, and the links for Echelon & Carnivore), without question Big Brother IS watching you. An excerpt from the post (links added by me):

"Let me ask why every smart blogger out there and every pundit on TV is talking about wiretapping when the obvious problem is that the U.S. government is now monitoring the entire U.S. Internet a la Echelon or Raptor.

Why do Gonzales and Condi Rice keep mentioning the "technical" aspects of the program as a dodge around FISA?

Why this seemingly inconsequential parsing by Bush of the difference between "monitoring and detection"? Bush says they use FISA if they're monitoring, but this is about "detection."

Why, in his letter, does Rockefeller state that he's "not a technician."?
Why the mention of TIA in Rockefeller's letter?
And why the mention of "large batches of numbers all at once"?

Why?

These are not phone numbers we're talking about...These are IP addresses, email addresses.

A system is in place that basically filters on certain triggers (text, phoneme, etc.) within Internet "conversations." This is "detection" or at least it's tortured definition that was placed in this idiot Bush's mind. "Monitoring" would be recording an entire conversation, like in a phone conversation.

That system then collects information on those conversations including...ta da...source and destination IP addresses. Those IP addresses can then be stored for further investigation on other "conversations."

E.g., I start an email thread with a friend in France. I mention Al Qaeda. My conversation is "detected" and my info is stored. The system then segments my address into another system and starts a deeper "detection" on any further "conversations" for further triggers. Hence, the system could still be said to be in the detecting mode, not monitoring. If I don't mention any other "evil" words, if I simply send medical records or lusty love letters or diatribes against liberals, I'll eventually be dropped."

They would be capable, are capable, and do, do this, through the use of "sniffers" like Carnivore which monitors all internet communications or with a signals intelligence and analysis network like Echelon which grabs all other communications. They set the parameters, and the program does the rest. And its almost as simple as a google search, except that it's CONSTANTLY sifting through ALL communications which are sent overseas, coming from overseaes, or are otherwise routed outside of US borders (supposedly) [UPDATE: aparently some calls are purely domestic]. Why have absolute control of the Internet, and be able to intercept communications otherwise anywhere in the world, if you're not going to use it, right? This sounds like a reasonable explanation as to why they would need to be so secretive. They knew that what they were doing was quite likely very illegal, with scale and scope that only few could imagine, fewer could comment on without being dismissed as a foil capped nutball, and once uncovered most would find absolutely terrifying.

They can do what now!?!
On anybody...anywhere!?!
Without any real judicial or congressional oversight!?!
(Related link: Carnivore, Altivore, Echelon)

Here's what members of the administration (primarily Bush, Cheney, Rice, & Gonzales) are saying in defense of their end-run around the US Bill of Rights and jitter-bugging through the very specific rules which address such warrantless intelligence gathering activities established by FISA :

The President's legal rationale, this from the Washington Post:

"The NSA activities were justified by a classified Justice Department legal opinion authored by John C. Yoo, a former deputy in the Office of Legal Counsel who argued that congressional approval of the war on al Qaeda gave broad authority to the president, according to the Times."

Keep in mind that they're still trying to feel it out, but the predominate justification appears to be this (From CNS News):

In an appearance on Fox & Friends Monday morning, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez said, "We believe that the president has the inherent authority as commander in chief under the Constitution to engage in signals intelligence of our enemy, against al Qaeda, but we also believe the president has statutory authority."

On Sunday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told NBC's "Meet the Press" that the president has "authorities" under Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act -- "which we are using, and using actively. He also has constitutional authorities that derive from his role as commander in chief and his need to protect the country. He has acted within his constitutional authority and within statutory authority."

On Monday morning, Gonzales noted that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act "does require a court order before we can engage in electronic surveillance...except as provided otherwise by statute. And we believe that Congress has 'provided otherwise by statute' in the authorization of the use of force, which Congress passed in the days following the attacks of Sept. 11."

(Here is the Afghan Resolution he's referring to)

The problem with that statement is that later in a press conference Gonzales provided this seemingly conflicting statement when asked why the administration chose not to seek to add a new statute to amend FISA, allowing something like what they were doing "legally":

"We've had discussions with members of Congress, certain members of Congress, about whether or not we could get an amendment to FISA, and we were advised that that was not likely to be -- that was not something we could likely get, certainly not without jeopardizing the existence of the program, and therefore, killing the program. And that -- and so a decision was made that because we felt that the authorities were there, that we should continue moving forward with this program."

As Kos points out:

"Gonzales says it was okay to spy on Americans without authorization because the war resolution gave them that power. But when asked why they didn't ask for specific congressional authorization, he says, well, Congress wouldn't have given them that power."

WTF!?! So they've had over a year to figure out a position, while the NY Times sat on the story at the behest of the White House, yet this is the best they can do for a defense? Who in the hell is running the show over there, the Tweedles? Where the hell is Rove?

Oh yeah, he's trying to stay out of prison.

[UPDATE: Well, this explains it, it doesn't look like Bush actually thought this would ever get printed, and when he found out he freaked out summoning the editor and publisher of the Times to his office.]

So why did the administration feel that circumventing the Constitution was not only feasable but necessary? Well, they claim that time was of the essence. Things were capable of happening so fast and the bureaucratic hurdles would've unnecessarily left us open to another attack (Cheney claims that 9/11 could've possibly been prevented had they had this authority then. I say 9/11 could've possibly been prevented if they had a reasonably competent National Security Advisor willing to ask a question or two when receiving a Presidential Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the US" or willing to meet with Terrorism Czar Richard Clark on his request to discuss al Qaeda and the threat it posed prior to 9/11 - Ah, you're right, thats just silly, asking questions and meeting with experts. These guys know it all, thats why we currently live in paradise).

After all, we were post-9/11, ma'an, remember!?!

Reasonable, right!?!

Wrong. Up until 2003, FISA had never rejected a single warrant application. Also, if they were really in a hurry, they could've done the wire taps, and then gone back later to get the necessary retro-active warrants. But really, this may all be irrelevant, because what the NSA was doing wasn't just wire-tapping, these were "fishing" expeditions. There was no specific credible threat, they gathered as much information as they could coming into the US from points across the globe and then went to sorting through it after the fact.

Okay, the administration claims that they ran all this by leaders in congress. So let's see what some of those members have to say:

To recap, here is what Condi said Sunday morning on "Meet the Press":

"It's been reviewed not just by the White House counsel but by the lawyers of the Justice Department and by the lawyers of the NSA, the National Security Agency, and by the Inspector General of the National Security Agency, and it has to be reauthorized every 45 days. And the Congress, the congressional leaders, including...including leaders of the relevant oversight intelligence committees have been briefed on this."

Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time, Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL) had this to say:

"There was no reference made to the fact that we were going to...begin unwarranted, illegal - and I think unconstitutional - eavesdropping on American citizens."

From Sen. Minority Leader Harry Reid's statement on Monday:

"The President asserted in his December 17th radio address that "leaders in Congress have been briefed more than a dozen times on this authorization and the activities conducted under it." This statement gives the American public a very misleading impression that the President fully consulted with Congress.

"First, it is quite likely that 96 Senators of 100 Senators, including 13 of 15 on the Senate Intelligence Committee first learned about this program in the New York Times, not from any Administration briefing."

From House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's statement on Monday:

“We all agree that the President must have the best possible intelligence to protect the American people, but that intelligence must be produced in a manner consistent with the United States Constitution and our laws. The President's statement today raises serious questions as to what the activities were and whether the activities were lawful.

I was advised of President Bush's decision to provide authority to the National Security Agency to conduct unspecified activities shortly after he made it and have been provided with updates on several occasions.

The Bush Administration considered these briefings to be notification, not a request for approval. As is my practice whenever I am notified about intelligence activities, I expressed my strong concerns during these briefings."

On Monday (12/19/05) nights "Hardball", Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who sits on both the Senate Intelligence Committee and Judiciary Committee, and was not privy to this information, said that only the eight leaders - 4 Democrats, 4 Republicans - of the Intelligence Committees in both the House and Senate, as well as the leaders of the House and Senate, were briefed. They were also barred from discussing it even with colleagues who have clearance to view classified information. When she asked the ranking Democrat of the Select Intelligence Committee Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) about the operation, she was told that he was not allowed to talk about it.

However, Sen. Rockefeller, did voice his misgivings to the Vice President in the form of a hand-written letter.

So who's talking about possible crimes committed by the president and potential impeachment?

- Alan Dershowitz (Video from C&L):

"I think the President broke the law....It's not enough for the President to get his lawyers to tell him what he wants to hear. That's not the kind of objective legal advice that the Constitution requires for this kind of action to be undertaken."

- Jonathon Turley (Video from C&L) on the O'Reilly Factor:

"I don't consider this a close case at all...This operation was based on a federal crime."

- Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) (Video from ThinkProgress) on Sunday's "Face the Nation":

"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."

- Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL)(Audio from the Bill Press Show) when asked if he believed President Bush had broken the law when he authorized secret wiretaps on American citizens:

"My interpretation of the law would be yes, that he did not have the legal authority to do this under the Afghanistan war resolution or under the general powers as commander-in-chief. The Congress in 1978 - and there's been no effort to modify it in any significant way since that time - understood that circumstances might change, but it did not provide for any circumstance in which the president alone, without consulting any other legal authority, judicial authority, could waive the rights of U.S. citizens to be free from having their phones wiretapped."

- Russell Feingold (D-WI)(from the Washington Post)(links from atrios):

"Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis) responded to Gonzales' comments in an NBC interview this morning. "This is just an outrageous power grab," he said. "Nobody, nobody, thought when we passed a resolution to invade Afghanistan and to fight the war on terror, including myself who voted for it, thought that this was an authorization to allow a wiretapping against the law of the United States. "There's two ways you can do this kind of wiretapping under our law. One is through the criminal code, Title III; the other is through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That's it. That's the only way you can do it. You can't make up a law and deriving it from the Afghanistan resolution. "The president has, I think, made up a law that we never passed," said Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.)"

- Former White House counsel John Dean -- made famous by his role in revealing the Watergate tapes -- asserted that President Bush had 'admitted' to an 'impeachable offense.'

Presidenting is Hard, but Dictatoring is Fun

2005-12-20T17:23:00.000-08:00

Bush Quotes on Dictatoring (from The Wildness Within):

"You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier."
Describing what it's like to be governor of Texas. (Governing Magazine 7/98)-- From Paul Begala's "Is Our Children Learning?"

"If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
(CNN.com, December 18, 2000)

"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it."
(Business Week, July 30, 2001)

Oh, Sweet Condi

2005-12-19T22:27:00.000-08:00

In response to a question from Andrea Mitchell on “Hardball” this evening, about recent accusations made by 8 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, that they were tortured in a US run secret prison in Afghanistan – a claim supported by Human Rights Watch - Condi had this to say while shedding (as she should) the key point (the torture part of it) and instead focusing on this alternative version of “Catch and Release”:

Well Andrea, lets be realistic here, we have a choice; we pick up people on the battle field clearly engaged in activities against either American forces or terrorist activities or with links to terrorist organizations. We can either hold them or we can let them go, eventually they will be brought to justice, but I don’t think anybody expects us to simply release terrorists into – people who we’ve encountered on the battlefield in places like Afghanistan – just release them back into the general population. It makes no sense. And in fact we have released some people from Guantanamo who we’ve met again on the battlefield.

Sweet. Does that resonate with you? It sure does with me. Makes me want to think that none of 'em should ever get let go. Our troops may have to face 'em again, right? It's too bad that complex issues can't really be summed up in a couple sentences. Oh well, back to thinkin'.

One Small Victory

2005-12-16T10:53:00.000-08:00

In the battle to regain many of the rights craftily seized by Congress (at the behest of the White House) while we as American's were still in shock post 9/11, a bipartisan group of Senators have come together to force a continued debate on many of the provisions which are set to expire.

When the Patriot Act was initially voted on shortly after 9/11/01, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) was the only Senator to oppose the bill (here are his reasons). Today, with the help of Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) and a bipartisan group of Senators (which included one of my boys, Ken Salazar of Colorado), the Patriot Act was successfully filibustered. This comes just days after NBC's Lisa Myers broke the story that Rummy's DoD has put together a list of organizations which have been determined by the Pentagon to qualify as a potential threat to the US (this list includes a peace organization which met at a Quaker meeting house in FL) and on the day following a New York Times report that Bush secretly authorized the relaxing of restrictions on the intelligence community when spying on US citizens.

(don't blink. don't you fuckin' blink)

[UPDATE: From Arianna's Huffington Post, more links to articles relating to Bush's shameful assault on American Civil Liberty and his continuing war on the very foundations of American (Jeffersonian) Democracy: Rice Denies US Broke Law, & Specter to Probe if Laws Broken. This is absolutely an assault on all of us and part and parcel of this administration's "seize all power regardless of law" policy. And if you're unsure why this is so important, then it's time for a review of the signifignce of the Fourth Ammendment and how we as Americans apply it to our little Republic. Also, if your argument is Terrorism (a tactic mind you, not an enemy), it's time for your ignant ass to move on, because this doesn't appear to be the country for you. I hear Iran is nice, if you like theocracies. Or hell, which is pretty warm this time of year, if you lack the mental capacity to understand why our political leaders are not to be blindly followed, but rather constantly checked.]

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
-- Benjamin Franklin

[UPDATE 2: Kossack georgia10 has some pretty decent analysis on the NY Times decision to sit on this story about Bush's authorization of secret/warrant-free wire taps for more then a year (conveniently post presidential election). Liberal pricks!...wait a second, that don't make no sense.]

[JUST SO WE'RE CLEAR: I have absolutely no objection to getting wire taps on suspected criminals, terrorists, etc..., the objection I have is the how and for how long. Circumventing one of the most fundamental of our laws, as well as for how long it was done!?! Immanent threat is the only exception. Immanent threat!]

BradBlog: MSM's Finally Paying Attention to the eVoting Crisis

2005-12-15T17:31:00.000-08:00

From my favorite of all conspiracy nuts, Brad Friedman of the super green BradBlog who has been all over this, the greatest crisis facing our democracy today. Other then, of course, the crisis of Liberals who continue to live and breathe, but thats a given.

This is one of many quotes which appear at the top of his homepage:

"Either every vote is sacred, or democracy is a sham."
- David Cobb, Green Party presidential candidate, 12/2/04

Abso-fuckin-lutely!

Here are the posts from Brad's Blog: here and here

The key excerpts are from the original articles so I'll just list a couple of them. Follow the links above if you'd like more info.

When the debate hit fever pitch before last year's presidential election, many conservatives said questions about the machinery were a liberal ploy to undermine confidence in the voting system.

Sancho agrees that good security is key, but said he's not sure he won't also have problems with the $1.3 million ES&S system, which he'll also test.

and this

And then more actual common sense, spoken out loud by Elections Official (and American Democracy's latest hero!) Sancho:

Sancho said Diebold isn't the only one to blame for hacker-prone equipment. The Florida secretary of state's office should have caught these problems early on, he said, and the Legislature should scrap a law severely restricting recounts on touch-screen machines and equip them with the means of producing a paper trail.
...
"These were sold as safe systems. They passed tests as safe systems," Sancho said. "But even in the so-called safe system, if you don't follow the paper ballots, there is a way to rig the election. Except it's not a bunch of guys stuffing ballots in a precinct. It's possibly one person acting in secret changing thousands of votes in a second."

As the Second Day of Fitzmas Nears

2005-12-14T21:22:00.000-08:00

Raw Story reports, and MSNBC confirms (VIDEO - go down to the bottom right of the page), Fitzgerald will be meeting with his second grand jury tomorrow. Also, this "Holiday Gift" to the left:

Although the grand jury’s term expires in 18 months, Fitzgerald is expected to wrap up the case as it relates to Rove before the end of the year, the sources said.

Because as anybody willing to accept this impending realization that Rove is in serious trouble knows, Fitz didn't empanel and conveign 'em just to talk about baseball.

FOIA Request in UK for the Release of the Bush/Blair Bomb al-Jazeera in Qatar Memo

2005-12-14T20:44:00.000-08:00

This was submitted towards the end of last month, and they have 20 days to respond. Best of luck, but if Blair has half the control over these requests that Bush does here in the States, this is where we get off, because it ain't going no further friends.

For background on the memo go hear.

For a copy of the FOIA acknowledgement go hear.

All I Want for Christmas is it's Destruction - BOGEY, BOGEY, BOGEY!

2005-12-08T20:42:00.000-08:00

The dominionist nutballers, largely driven by the enablers of ignorance over at Fox News (O'Reilly, Gibson, et al), have worked themselves all up into a nifty lil' tizzy this HOLIDAY SEASON over some sort of so-called "War on Christmas". This "War" is led, quite naturally of course, by liberal secular bogeymen - BOGEY, BOGEY, BOGEY! Ma'an, it's amazing how many morons need to feel like they are oppressed in order to justify they're ridiculous existence. It's not just irrational, it's insane. The idea that Christians, who make up about 80% of the US population (although this estimate is from 2001 and is about 8.5% lower then in 1990, while godless heathens have increased by more then 6.5% - BOGEY, BOGEY, BOGEY!), are somehow being persecuted during their biggest, grandest, most super fantastic holiday ever holiday (a national holiday, mind you. The only religious holiday that is also a national holiday. Most of the country literally shuts down it's that big of a holiday) is more ridiculous then trying to claim, as a white man in the US, that you are constantly being discriminated against. Who is it that's attacking Christmas? The 20% that may or may not celebrate it? Have heathens infiltrated the ranks of Christianity in an attempt to sabotage their efforts to do only good works, and bring peace, joy, and goodwill to all? I doubt it. This "War on Christmas" is an absolute farce and it's composed primarily of two parts. The first is an attempt by the right to solidify its core in preparation for the pending Alito battle. The second is an attempt to generate revenue and viewer-ship for those who are nobly "defending" Christmas from Liberals. Anybody who would find offense in being wished a Merry Christmas has issues. I'm a heathen, not a godless one mind you, but a heathen none the less, and I find absolutely nothing offensive about it. Merriment and joy are fuckin' awesome and every effort to share such good tidings should be made all year long. Oh, how wonderful that would be.

Anyway, somebody in FL has bound, blindfolded, and lynched jolly ole St. Nick for the whole neighborhood to see. The kids in the neighborhood are traumatized. I admit, it's only funny in a really twisted way. I'm hilariously appalled!

Also, from C&L, Jon Stewart tackles the War on Christmas. At the end of the segment Jon gives O'Reilly this Kwanzaa gift and Christmas declaration:

"I'm your enemy. Make me your enemy. I, Jon Stewart, hate Christmas, Christians, Jews, morality. And I will not rest until every year, families gather to spend December 25th together at Osama's Homo-bortion Pot and Commie Jizz-porium."

Ma'an, do these guys love a free press or what!?!

2005-12-01T18:26:00.000-08:00

(partially straight-up jacked from firedoglake)

This is awesome. Staffers with the Arab news service Al Jazeera have started their own blog called "Don't Bomb Us". This is in response to recent revelations that Bush and Blair were in serious discussions as to whether Al Jazeera's international headquarters in US friendly Qatar should be bombed during the campaign in Fullujah. Blair eventually talked Bush out of it, but apparently memos/minutes exist in the UK. This is, of course, after Al Jazeera offices were bombed "accidentally" in Kabul and Baghdad relative to each country being invaded by US troops. These bombings occured despite the fact that as with all news organizations in the effected regions, Al Jazeera notified the US military of their location in an attempt to prevent being accidentally bombed.

How do I love thee, let me count the ways

- Paying commentators to endorse policy

- Government sponsored propaganda to support policy distributed as legitimate news stories

- A male escort posing as a White House reporter for a right wing rag asking silly questions while Helen Thomas is forced to the outskirts (not to mention demonized - eh, Scottie?)

- Using reporters to leak classified information in retaliation of critical comments and then hoping to hide behind their ethical responsibility not reveal their sources

- Shutting down newspapers in Baghdad

- Paying Iraqi newspapers to print phony stories written by the US military

- Bombing legitimate news organizations

(don't blink, don't you fuckin' blink)

IN ADDITION: I have nothing against the bombing of Al Jazeera offices in Kabul during the Afghanistan campaign. This was a conventional war and these things are necessary, but Iraq was/is unconventional. We are there to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, among other ever-shifting reasons, and to bring freedom and democracy to it's people. You don't start out by bombing the press. That's just stupid. And if you're unsure why, now is where you spend a little more time trying to understand the significance of the first ammendment and how we apply it to a democracy. We either want to give them what we got, or we don't. And don't you dare try and tell me we don't.

It Has Always Been About the Oil

2005-11-16T14:43:00.000-08:00

(With the ties to the oil industry that members of the Bush administration have, the idea that this was entirely dismissed by the MSM's - prior to invasion - is absurd. Also, these oil execs were not required to swear under oath, thanks to one of America's greatest friends, Ted Stevens (R) Alaska. By the way, how are those bridges coming Ted?)

(UPDATE: apparently nothing, is the answer to that previous question)

The Washington Post now reports that Cheney secretly met with oil exec.s in 2001 prior to both 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. Some of the participants of this meeting have now been identified.

A White House document shows that executives from big oil companies met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force in 2001 -- something long suspected by environmentalists but denied as recently as last week by industry officials testifying before Congress.
The document, obtained this week by The Washington Post, shows that officials from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. met in the White House complex with the Cheney aides who were developing a national energy policy, parts of which became law and parts of which are still being debated.

[snip]

Chevron was not named in the White House document, but the Government Accountability Office has found that Chevron was one of several companies that "gave detailed energy policy recommendations" to the task force. In addition, Cheney had a separate meeting with John Browne, BP's chief executive, according to a person familiar with the task force's work; that meeting is not noted in the document.

Now lets look at what, in particular, they might have been discussing. This is from the 7/18/03 broadcast of PBS's Now with Bill Moyers:

Judicial Watch is a conservative organization that investigates and prosecutes government corruption and abuse, and two years ago, Klayman filed a Freedom of Information request to find out who came to the Vice President's meetings and what advice they gave. When the administration failed to comply, Klayman went to court.

Well, this week, in response to that lawsuit the government had to release several energy task force documents.

Now, keep in mind, these date back to the spring of 2001, some six months before 9/11, two years before the war with Iraq. Among them are a map of Iraq's oil fields and pipelines, and lists of foreign companies — the documents call them "suitors" — interested in developing Iraq's oil industry. These documents raise more questions than they answer, they don't tell us, for example, why the Vice President and private energy executives would be so curious at that time about those Iraqi oil fields, and why they would fight so hard in the meantime to keep their curiosity secret.

Here are the maps, from Judicial Watch.

Make no mistake about it, oil has always been "the" significant factor.

Bush and Abramoff: The Last Loose-End

2005-11-11T19:03:00.000-08:00

Heads handed up on a silver platter now packaged up nice-and-neatly.

With so much rightfully, and deservedly, headed straght towards the White House, as well as Republicans in general right now, it's gonna take some pretty serious magik to get out of this.

2 minutes, a straitjacket, 1 key, and rising water, will they be able to escape?........Stay tuned!

Pre Documenting Age, the Mere Suggestion of this Would Merit a TinFoil Participation Ribbon

2005-11-09T17:28:00.000-08:00

Or be ignored by greater masses, while selfishly enjoyed by a privilaged few.

But low and behold, with virtually realtime documenting, point of fact a historical record, aided by the relative ease of the internets, with a what whoever wants to can do with em, and the TiVos, and all the crazy shit you can do with them too. We now have the technology available to check and re-check what is said and then claimed to have been said. It's awesome, because it's Green Kryptonite, undeniable evidence to the affirmitive. ThinkProgress would like to present.

There is a brewing controversy about what exactly was said at the White House press conference on October 31. Everyone agrees NBC’s David Gregory said this:

Q Whether there’s a question of legality, we know for a fact that there was involvement. We know that Karl Rove, based on what he and his lawyer have said, did have a conversation about somebody who Patrick Fitzgerald said was a covert officer of the Central Intelligence Agency. We know that Scooter Libby also had conversations.

Congressional Quarterly and FNS both transcribed Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s answer as “That’s accurate.” The White House transcript lists McClellan’s answer as “I don’t think that’s accurate.”

Paranoid My Ass!

2005-11-08T20:47:00.000-08:00

Is the FBI gathering information about you? If they're gathering information on people you have contact with, then the answer is probably yes. And they'll hang on to whatever they find regardless of whether or not you've done anything wrong. Welcome to George Bush's America.

(don't blink, don't you fuckin' blink)

If You're a Kid in Kansas...

2005-11-08T20:15:00.000-08:00

you should be pissed. You've officially become the laughing stock of the nation as a result of other's doings.

Note to the wacko's of the Kansas School Board (the 6 that voted for, not the 4 who voted against) and the supportors of this nonsense: Just because you really, really, really want something to be true, doesn't necessarily make it so. The children of your state should not have to suffer for your ignorance.

Chalabi: Don't Hate the Player, Hate the Game

2005-11-08T14:33:00.000-08:00

This guy was/is a major player, and has/is been through the whole process of the Iraqi occupation. He has also been playing both sides (US & Iran) since well before the run-up. The White House and it's Republican minions in congress have been reluctant to go after him, for obvious reasons - he and the neo-cons are joined at the hip, but as we get closer to him potentially taking control of Iraq (when he potentially becomes Prime Minister in December) more and more focus is being directed his way.

Jacked from ThinkProgress.com:

Statement from congressman George Miller regarding his visit

“While Mr. Chalabi is sashaying around the streets of Washington, in between photo ops with Vice President Cheney and Secretary Rice, the Senate and House Intelligence Committees should issue him a subpoena,” said Miller. “It’s time we get to the bottom of Chalabi’s role in providing false intelligence to the White House and whether he’s working with Vice President Cheney to cover up the fact that the intelligence did not justify the war.”

From Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin regarding his visit

I don’t understand this. While the Department of Justice is actively investigating this man for wrongdoing that could have endangered American troops and American lives, the Department of State and the Department of the Treasury are hosting him like some sort of dignitary. So don’t be surprised if you watch the Chalabi motorcade speed up when they pass the Department of Justice. I guess they’re concerned whether an FBI agent will come out and pursue this so-called active investigation.

It is very difficult to track how this man, who gave us such misleading information before the invasion of Iraq, now under active investigation for endangering American troops is now under active investigation for endangering American troops is now the toast of the town at the Department of Treasury and the Department of State.

Chalabi's history - an introduction to PNAC's favorite Iraqi

Wingnuts, Dominionists, Chumps

2005-11-04T14:14:00.000-08:00

Brad sums it up about as well as I could, so here:

Do you people get it yet? You're the "wackos" according to your own people.

You've been played.

One Step Closer: Niger/Uranium Forgeries

2005-11-04T10:05:00.000-08:00

from the New York Times:

Senator Brutti also told reporters that Italian intelligence had warned Washington in early 2003 that the Niger-Iraq documents were false.

"At about the same time as the State of the Union address, they said that the dossier doesn't correspond to the truth," Senator Brutti said. He said he did not know whether the warning was given before or after President Bush's address.

He made the claim more than once, but gave no supporting evidence. Amid confusing statements by various lawmakers, he later appeared to backtrack in conversations with both The Associated Press and Reuters, saying that because Sismi never had the documents, it could not comment on their merit.

There had long been doubts within the United States intelligence community about the authenticity of the yellowcake documents, and references to it had been deleted from other presentations given at the time.

Josh Marshall breaks down the article and has the most info on the subject (specifically related to the Italians) that I've been able to find.

New Media Revolution: On the Cusp

2005-11-04T09:58:00.000-08:00

Rolling Stone has a great article about the New Media's role in the CIA outing (I was directed to it by RawStory)

Storm Clouds Gathering

2005-11-03T10:57:00.000-08:00

From the Democratic Underground:

The current climate presents Democrats with an enormous opportunity to define the contrast between the two parties for years to come. Democrats need only remind voters that, under Clinton, not only were they the party of peace, prosperity and budget surpluses, but they were able to reduce the size of government and still be effective; while the Bush record is the exact opposite on all counts.

Tweeds: Denver OKs up to an Ozer

2005-11-02T16:20:00.000-08:00

Some from my state are informed, lets hope this common sense approach to the war on drugs continues.

ThinkProgress: National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley's Role in the Forged Uranium/Niger Documents

2005-11-02T13:56:00.000-08:00

from.

People are now asking what was discussed during that meeting. Hadley says he has “no recollection” of what was discussed or of any documents being passed. It sure sounds like a denial, but it doesn’t mean much.

Bush's Last Relatively Good Week

2005-11-02T12:56:00.000-08:00

(This is another email that I sent around to some friends last Friday, so here it is for the blog.)

The news keeps getting better for this administration, I hope thay all enjoyed their last relatively "good" week.

Some of the "not-so-good" parts from the article:

Libby's indictment is a political embarrassment for the president, paving the way for a possible trial renewing the focus on the administration's faulty rationale for going to war against Iraq — the erroneous assertion that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen reports the indictment "makes it very likely, almost a certainty" that Vice President Dick Cheney will have to testify in the criminal trial against Libby.

If so, Cheney, who prizes secrecy, will be called upon as a witness to explain why the administration launched a campaign against Plame's husband, diplomat Joseph Wilson, a critic of the war who questioned Mr. Bush's assertion that Iraq had sought nuclear material.

(Uh oh Mr. Cheney)

and this

At a news conference, Fitzgerald said the inquiry was substantially complete, though he added ominously, "It's not over." He declined to comment about Rove's involvement. Asked about Cheney, he said: "I'm not making allegations about anyone not charged in the indictment."

and more

Democrats suggested the indictment was just the tip of the iceberg. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the case was "about how the Bush White House manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to bolster its case for the war in Iraq and to discredit anyone who dared to challenge the president."

SO GREAT, two years after the war began we're just now getting ready to really start looking at how the intelligence was used.

Keep up the good work Congress, we're so proud of the good work you do.

The List Continues to Grow

2005-11-02T12:39:00.000-08:00

Investigations and indictments are mounting for members of the Republican party. I should start a list.

This week's Republican in Trouble (RIT): US Sen Elizabeth Dole - NC

PNAC and the Niger Documents (a work in progress)

2005-11-02T12:07:00.000-08:00

I originally sent this around to some friends of mine on Oct. 26 (last Wednesday), but have updated some things. I thought it should be here, so just like that, here it is.

from:

"The probe is far from being at an end. According to this reporter's sources, Fitzgerald approached the judge in charge of the case and asked that a new grand jury be empanelled. The old grand jury, which has been sitting for two years, will expire on October 28."

and this from the same entry/blog/article

"Thanks to a letter of February, 2004 which Fitzgerald asked for and obtained expanded authority, the Special Prosecutor is now in possession of an Italian parliament investigation into the forged Niger documents alleging Iraq's interest in purchasing Niger uranium, sources said.

They said that Fitzgerald is looking into such individuals as former CIA agent, Duane Claridge, military consultant to the Iraqi National Congress, Gen. Wayne Downing, another military consultant for INC, and Francis Brooke, head of INC's Washington office in an effort to determine if they played any role in the forgeries or their dissemination. Also included in this group is long-time neoconservative Michael Ledeen, these federal sources said."

About the investigation in Italy regarding the (forged Niger/Uranium documents). These documents were dismissed by the CIA at least 3 times, yet then Deputy National Security Advisor (current National Security Advisor) Steve Hadley (said to be a target in the CIA leak investigation) met with Italian Military Intelligence (SISMI) Chief Nicolo Pollari regarding those documents.

from:

"Nicolo Pollari is the head of Italian military intelligence, SISMI. The Repubblica article claims that over the course of 2002 Pollari -- knowing the documents were fakes -- made repeated attempts to get them into the DC information stream by going around the CIA, which discounted them as fakes. This was to satisfy the expressed needs of Bush administration officials who were searching for some information to validate their claims about an Iraqi nuclear program."

It is widely speculated that these documents were in fact created by the Iraqi National Congress. The Iraqi National Congress is headed by Ahmed Chalabi, a former Iraqi exile, educated in the US, who returned to Iraq shortly after the first Gulf War, to help the Kurds fight Sadam. He is currently the deputy Prime Minister and interim Oil Minister in Iraq. The INC, and Chalabi, are favorites of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

PNAC, established in 1997, is a conservative think tank chaired by Weekly Standard editor William Kristol. Its past and present members include such notables as Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Donald Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush, Steve Forbes, Dan Quayle, and William Bennett (he of "[Y]ou could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down" fame.)

and here is where it gets really good.

In the PNAC project paper "Rebuilding America's Defenses" they describe the need for a "Pearl Harbor-type event" (or possibly a 9/11-type series of events) to generate support for the "Democratization" of the Middle East, beginning, of course, with regime change in Iraq.

Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.

see also this for a summary of the paper.

So you see, Iraq does have something to do with the events of 9/11, just not in the manner in which has been eluded to by the Bush administration.

Look who's coming to America

2005-11-02T10:56:00.000-08:00

Similar to the oil and chemical industry's current attempts to preemptively redo their images before public opinion begins to really turn against them, PNAC darling Ahmad Chalabi is coming to America in an apparent attempt to do the same. Why? Because the whole world (including the Iraqi's) will be watching as congress essentially "re-debates" (investigates) the justifications for going to war in Iraq - something that should have been done 2 1/2 years ago, though curiously Democrats are all of a sudden shocked and outraged - and Chalabi's name will quite frequently come up. Chalabi really wants to be America's puppet in Iraq...I've been told, they have a lot of oil.

On the First Day of Fitzmas

2005-10-29T10:49:00.000-07:00

From the Q&A section after Fitzgerald's announcement yesterday (not from an official transcript, but from Americablog.com):

Q: This began as a leak, yet no one was charged with leaking, is it finished?

Fitzgerald: It's not over. But the substantial work is concluded. Grand jury won't be continued. But we'll keep a grand jury open to consider other matters. In this case, the damage was done to all of us. Why was this info going out? Was the damage intended? I can't tell you Scooter's motives - it prevents us from finding out why this leak happened. Compromising national security information is a very serious mater, and the need to get to the bottom is extremely important - anyone who would go into a grand jury and lie and impede the investigation has committed a serious crime. If what we allege in the indictment is true, he is charged with a very very serious crime.

It appears that "Fitzmas" will most likely come in multiple phases, and it is also quite likely that this WILL roll-over somehow into an investigation of the case made by this administration to go to war. A case significantly based on fears that Saddam had, or was attempting to acquire, WMD's. This was not the only part of the case made for going to war, mind you, but it was the primary reason, and the single claim which invoked the greatest need for immediacy. This is the piece that tipped whatever balance there was in support for going to war with Iraq when we did, specifically why we couldn't wait any longer for weapons inspectors to complete their jobs.

Let's take a look at what Dick, Condi, George, and Ari were all saying at the time, and let us not narrowly focus on the just the nuclear threat:

Dick Cheney, Sept 8, 2002, in an interview with Tim Russert of Meet the Press (from, 2002 transcripts from Meet the Press are no longer available on-line):

"But we do know, with absolute certainty, that he is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon."

Condoleezza Rice, Sept 9, 2002, in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer (from):

"We know that he has the infrastructure, nuclear scientists to make a nuclear weapon. And we know that when the inspectors assessed this after the Gulf War, he was far, far closer to a crude nuclear device than anybody thought -- maybe six months from a crude nuclear device."

"The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

George W Bush, Sept 12, 2002, in Address to the UN (from):

"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."

Ari Fleisher, Dec 2, 2002 (from):

"If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world."

So the threat was imminent, and as best members of this administration could tell, the intelligence used to "sell" the case for war was well researched and reliable, right? Wrong.

The following relates specifically to the case presented by Colin Powell to the UN.

Colin Powell, May 16, 2004, to Tim Russert on Meet the Press - this was just after a member of Powell's staff, by the name of Emily, attempted to abruptly end the interview (from, about 1/3rd of the way down the page):

"I'm very concerned. When I made that presentation in February 2003, it was based on the best information that the Central Intelligence Agency made available to me. We studied it carefully; we looked at the sourcing in the case of the mobile trucks and trains. There was multiple sourcing for that. Unfortunately, that multiple sourcing over time has turned out to be not accurate. And so I'm deeply disappointed. But I'm also comfortable that at the time that I made the presentation, it reflected the collective judgment, the sound judgment of the intelligence community. But it turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong and in some cases, deliberately misleading. And for that, I am disappointed and I regret it"

Ok, but he didn't exactly spell it out for us, he's a loyal soldier. Let's see what Powell's Chief of Staff Larry Wilkerson has to say about the intelligence used. From the CNN documentary "Dead Wrong" (from):

"I wish I had not been involved in it," says Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a longtime Powell adviser who served as his chief of staff from 2002 through 2005. "I look back on it, and I still say it was the lowest point in my life."

(continued later in the article)

"(Powell) came through the door ... and he had in his hands a sheaf of papers, and he said, 'This is what I've got to present at the United Nations according to the White House, and you need to look at it," Wilkerson says in the program. "It was anything but an intelligence document. It was, as some people characterized it later, sort of a Chinese menu from which you could pick and choose."

Icing: The downing street memos.

How will this affect the President himself? Currently, Bush sits at about 39% approval, depending on the poll. So I ask, how low can he go? How effective will he be at these new depths? Is it still too early to start talking about impeachment, or the initiation of the process, a Resolution of Inquiry?

It's never too early to talk, talking is great, I've been talking for months, and the talking will grow increasingly louder relative to Republican loses in the 2006 mid-terms. God forbid they lose the House or the Senate, it would pretty much be a forgone conclusion.

Just for fun, lets look at the order Presidential succession.

#3 in the order of Presidential succession is Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, who himself has his own potential investigation to worry about (see).

#4 in the order of Presidential succession is the President pro tempore of the Senate (Vice Presidents back-up in the Senate) Ted Stevens of Alaska, who recently threatened to resign if Congress cut his "Bridges to Nowhere", from the recent transportation bill, to clear up funds for Katrina reconstruction (see). Truly an honorable man, who I'm sure has no skeletons in his closet.

And just in case you're curious, the #5 is Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Talk about a clusterfuck of corruption.

Bush, absolutely must spin his way out of this, and cutting the neo-cons loose may his only chance. As the bobble-heads have been suggesting, we are quite likely on the verge of a post-Iran-Contra-Reaganesc reshuffling within the White House. That or impeachment.

THIS RIDE HAS ONLY JUST BEGUN. How long will Bush be able to hold on?

Man's Best Friend/Shark Bait

2005-10-11T19:15:00.000-07:00

This is disturbing:

On the French-controlled island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean, live dogs have been reportedly impaled on large fish hooks and left overnight in the ocean as shark bait. One consistent detail of the story was that a puppy that had somehow managed to free itself from the fishing line, was found alive in a creek bed, the hook still embedded in its upper lip.

Dobber's Got Some Splainin' to do

2005-10-11T15:22:00.000-07:00

This from the Rocky Mountain News:

Focus on the Family founder James Dobson will take to the airwaves Wednesday and Thursday to clarify what information he got from the White House or other sources about U.S. Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers.
......
Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have said they might call Dobson to testify at Miers' upcoming confirmation hearings because of his statements implying he has confidential information about the nominee.

AP: Frist Had Stock Outside of Blind Trusts

2005-10-11T14:44:00.000-07:00

Oh, Billy. Christmas is still more then two months away, yet Republicans, and the Republican leadership in particular, have given us Progressives so much this year.

Iraq & Katrina: For Some, It's Like Winning the Lottery

2005-10-11T12:52:00.000-07:00

Why was Vice President Dick Cheney shopping for a new multi-million dollar home while hundreds of thousands of Americans were suffering in the hurricane ravaged Gulf Coast Region (that’s right, a somewhat petty shot, but thats where he was)? Has he recently come into some cash? Cash that’s burning a hole in his pocket? Could said hypothetical cash be related to the many, many, many billions of dollars worth of Iraqi, and Gulf Coast no-bid reconstruction and oil services contracts awarded to, Cheney's "former" employer, Halliburton by the Bush administration (run-on diddly on)? Well, according to Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ):

Cheney's options -- worth $241,498 a year ago -- are now valued at more than $8 million. The former CEO of the oil and gas services juggernaut, Cheney has pledged to give proceeds to charity.

Sweet! But on top of that:

Cheney continues to receive (sic) a deferred salary from the company. According to financial disclosure forms, he was paid $205,298 in 2001; $162,392 in 2002; $178,437 in 2003; and $194,852 in 2004.

NO FINANCIAL INTEREST, INDEED!?! I'd give Cheney's Superior Vena Cava for just a fraction of that financial non-interest.

Stories Like This Keep Me Half-Assed

2005-10-10T20:11:00.000-07:00

For the better part of the past ten years, the good Reverend has strickly adherededed to an ovo-lacto-pecto vegetarian diet, or as he likes to refer to it, a half-assed vegetarian diet. This just means that his vegeterianism has extended to include eggs, dairy, and fish. From here on out he'll be switching to first person.

Over those years I've often been asked, "For what reason, sir, have you chosen such a drastic step in diet? Are you concerned with the well being of our fellow Earth creatures? Will you not eat anything with a face?"

And my response is often some variation of this, "My problem is not with the killing of the animal, though it would take a pretty unusual circumstance for me to ever consider killing a cow, or some such wily beast. God gave me K9's and a couple of eyes facing the front. There is little doubt that I am of a predatory species. What I'm not, however, is a science experiment. I am not to be used as some sort of "on-the-fly" Guinea Pig, while the cattle industry tests out their latest growth hormone cocktail. Not to mention the conditions in which these animals are raised. It's revolting. I wouldn't handle most of the materials contained within these places, let alone put something produced from these facilities in my own person. Now, if I lived on a ranch or something, where I had access to a steady supply of "quality" meat, I'd have no problem with it (to be honest I miss French Dip sandwiches), but as it is, that’s not the case.”

Here is the article.

Wake Me When its Soylent Green Day

2005-10-10T19:37:00.000-07:00

Assisted suicide, in a semi-roundabout way, is currently getting the SCOTUS treatment. This is how things are shaping up in Britain.

Shield Law: Bloggers aren't Journalists

2005-10-10T18:57:00.000-07:00

Bloggers may not be protected by newly proposed shield law.

This Seems a Bit Early

2005-10-10T18:27:00.000-07:00

For the right decision, that is. Now that this debate appears to have officially entered the main stream arena, we should all be wary.

Juxtaposition of Republican Humility

2005-10-07T19:48:00.000-07:00

There are so many things wrong with this; I almost don't know where to begin. I received this pic via email earlier today. It's supposed to be...well, you can see what its purpose is. Now the most obvious problem is that they didn't occur relative to the same event, so to reason that some sort of equal comparison can be made is downright absurd. In the pic labeled "Democratic Leadership" (note the 'ic' at the end of Democrat, oops, though the 'leadership' in quotes is a nice touch) we see the seeds of a controversy plucked and passed-on throughout the Classic Media, as well as throughout the blogosphere, prior to Rita's evacuation. Galveston officials would have been well aware of these pictures of buses in New Orleans, and to allow for similar pictures in Galveston would have been...well, you get the point. You can't really compare the two.

But here is the most notable problem I have with the comparison. Really, how would having these buses available to move out evacuees have improved the situation in New Orleans? All levels of government failed in the response to Katrina; federal, state, and local, but there is little debate as to who should have been running the show. A Cat 4 hurricane is a massive storm with the potential to unleash massive devastation (as we witnessed). States are not equipped to deal with such events, which is why they declare a State of Emergency. The federal government (DHS and more specifically FEMA) is responsible for coordinating all response/relief efforts. There was little in the way of supplies staged and waiting for the post-hurricane response (as we witnessed). There was no coordinated relief effort between state/local and federal officials (as we witnessed). Where were those buses to take evacuees, exactly? Maybe to another Superdome or Convention Center like facility? How would those buses have addressed the problems that occurred at the Convention Center or at the Superdome?

Which officially designated hurricane shelter was the one FEMA chief Mike Brown had no idea evacuees were at until 4 days after the storm had passed? Who appointed him? Who controls the congress that confirmed him? Under which administration did he serve? Are you kidding me? Republicans should be staying as far away from finger pointing here as possible.

Now my intent, in no way, is to imply that these buses shouldn't, or couldn't have been used. They absolutely should have been. But for systematic failures so far-reaching, this "bus issue" is relatively insignificant.

As for any budding Republican apologist who feels they would like to participate in the finger-pointing (blame-game), please see this.

Remember these Senators when the "Bad" Photos & Videos are Released

2005-10-06T15:50:00.000-07:00

These are the Senators who voted "Nay" on Sen McCain's interrogation limits amendment (S.AMDT.1977). Remember them when the "bad" photos and videos are released:

Allard (R-CO)
Bond (R-MO)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Stevens (R-AK)

Wayne Allard, is one of my boys. Here is the email that I sent to him earlier:

RE: S.AMDT.1977

Mr. Allard,

So here we are again. You were one of only nine Senators to vote against this Amendment sponsored by fellow Republican, former Vietnam POW, and victim of torture himself, Senator John McCain. An amendment co-sponsored by your Democrat counterpart, Salazar, among others. How fantastic. Are you not aware of the "bad" photos and videos which are on track to be released to the public here shortly? Do you not realize Senator that as soon as those items are released to the public this vote will be revisited? What are you doing? What is your reasoning? To date, nine Army reservists (Lynndie England, Charles Graner Jr, Ivan Frederick, Jeremy Sivits, Roman Krol, Armin Cruz, Sabrina Harman, Javal Davis, and Megan Ambuhl) have all been convicted on charges related to the documented torture of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Almost all claim to have committed such atrocities at the behest of senior officers. Similar atrocities were committed at Gitmo in Cuba. The Army, the White House, and their apologists have long claimed that the problems are not systemic, yet the evidence, as well as the similarities in personnel overseeing procedures at both facilities, would suggest otherwise. Few people can, or are even willing, to dismiss the blatant coincidences between the two facilities. Yet you remain unwilling to establish limits to ensure that Abu Ghraib does not happen again. After the original photos were released, the World was shocked, the American people were shocked, and most were appalled, but it turns out that these were the “good” photos. What happens when the “bad” photos and videos are released? How will American’s react then? How will the World react then? Do these people we’re fighting really need more reason to hate America and American’s? Should we be so willing to provide recruitment material to these extremists? Should you be so willing? Why would you want to, in essence, openly support and encourage the use of these tactics?

Sincerely,
The Honorable Reverend Joseph Gastholomew Money
XXXXXXXXXX

Coming Soon: "The Disaster of POTUS 43"

2005-09-29T18:26:00.000-07:00

This is an imminent, link-laden series of reports, largely researched google-style, often cribbed, and intended to expose what is rightfully labeled the GOP's current "Culture of Corruption".

Please check back periodically for updates as these will be the primary postings until they are complete.

Thanks,

Rev. Gas Money