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Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

    Time Event
    2:04a
    Warning shot fired
    Israel Army Radio: Gunshot fired at Tel Aviv airport while Sarkozy, Olmert, Peres there. Leaders rushed away and safe. The warning shot came soon after French sock-puppet Sarkozy said something about 'colonialism'.
    It could have come from a right-winger who believes in greater Israel or some pathetic Marxist fraud terrified of being outflanked by a loser like Sarko. DEVELOPING...
    2:17a
    Sodomizing Carolina
    "Community standards" is the current Supreme Court-approved yardstick for deciding if something is obscene. But how do we know what the standards of a particular community really are? Defense attorney Lawrence Walters has an idea:

    In the trial of a pornographic Web site operator, the defense plans to show that residents of Pensacola are more likely to use Google to search for terms like "orgy" than for "apple pie" or "watermelon."...."Time and time again you'll have jurors sitting on a jury panel who will condemn material that they routinely consume in private," said Mr. Walters, the defense lawyer. Using the Internet data, "we can show how people really think and feel and act in their own homes, which, parenthetically, is where this material was intended to be viewed," he added.
    2:48a
    Defending the Working Family
    The threat of terrorism is an inescapable reality of life in the 21st century. It is a permanent condition to which Australia and the entire world must adjust. The need for homeland security, therefore, is not tied to any specific terrorist threat."
    --"Securing the Homeland, Strengthening the Nation" Prime Ministerial report

    The intelligence bureaucracy should always know in advance when something is going to happen. Analysts call this predictive capability an "Indications and Warning" system. It starts by connecting existing government and commercial databases.
    Let's start by connecting most of the large government databases that contain information on domestic activity, including those containing Social Security, Customs, Immigration, Law enforcement, Military and Taxation Revenue Service files. The network will eventually include State and local tax rolls, political contribution lists, and educational and voting records.
    In the short term, the government will build software that translates queries between the various databases (since its current information systems are the digital version of the Tower of Babel).
    A permanent solution will be to create rigid requirements forcing all agencies and contractors to converge around a common set of standards for data storage and access.
    Contractors will eventually write translation gateways into many commercial databases so that searches against the government database can be seamlessly integrated. Some of these commercial databases will be straightforward, containing data such as credit reports, phone and other utility bills, and transportation/reservation information from airlines, rental car companies and hotels. Others may be more subjective and involve human appraisals such as profiled direct-marketing lists, school guidance counselor records and comments made by utility or government workers.
    Matched then to commercial information such as credit reports (using Medicare numbers).
    Initially, translation systems will be "data-matched" against government records. The government will eventually mandate that all commercial databases include a field for social security numbers. This will result in legislation making it a crime for consumers to give false social security numbers to companies.
    It will also have to require these companies to deny service to the curmudgeons who still refused to provide that information.
    This system will eventually access tens of millions of real-time sensors for up-to-the-minute threat assessment.
    Add tens of millions of cameras and other sensors.
    This system will eventually access tens of millions of real-time sensors for up-to-the-minute threat assessment. This process of adding sensors is already underway at several different agencies. These sensors include visual cameras at various public places, such as storefronts, street corners, highways, toll roads and airports. Some already rely on experimental face-recognition software. Other sensors will include identification devices at checkpoints in public buildings and eventually in all transportation terminals.
    Required national ID cards tied to a biometric database.
    These devices will require some sort of universal identification card that carries biometric information. The biometrics could include fingerprints, retinal scans, face measurements, blood types and DNA. (The police and military is already collecting DNA information to facilitate body identification.) Of course, this will require a national ID card and, even more importantly, a universal database of biometric information; otherwise it would be useless. The easiest way to build up this database is to collect the information from schoolchildren. An alternative method would be to link the biometric collection to draft registration for citizens and to visa issuance for resident aliens.
    Tracked phone calls and e-mail, and generated diagrams of social groupings using traffic analysis.
    An important element of our new Aussie predictive system will be the gathering of information on social interactions and on "networks" of individuals who communicate as a group. Intelligence analysts refer to this process as "traffic analysis." Expansion of the DSD program to encompass most Internet-based communications, used together with records of phone transactions, should provide enough information.

    Naturally, detailed analysis will also require the content of the conversations. Since the system will have to reconstruct activity after the fact, this implies that all communication from all Internet users will have to be stored.
    Built technology that will "guess" what people are thinking and predict what they might do.
    Since terrorism is ideologically based, anyone is a potential terrorist. Under this proposed system, then, everyone's actions will have to be under constant scrutiny. But the biggest problem with large-scale information systems is figuring out what's important in the data that's being stored.
    Since this is a threat-assessment system, it will deploy a so-called heuristic processing, or rules-based analysis, similar to what's used by credit scoring systems to determine consumer creditworthiness.
    But the terrorist-profiling system will have much more sophisticated and insightful rules, crafted by psychologists, and will have much more data to work with. It will look for ideological leanings, as demonstrated by choice of reading material, organization memberships and friends, or psychological disturbances, as evidenced by behavioral changes such as a sudden switch in grocery-buying habits.
    Researchers will be free to experiment with many types of correlations of individual behavior - such as dietary habits, travel behavior and social grouping - to determine the best way to assess the threat-potential of everyone, Australians and aliens alike.
    Giving everyone a secret threat score or loyalty rating.
    Since millions of government workers need access to these threat profiles - and most will not be trained in the nuances of interpreting psychological information - threat scores similar to credit scores are the most useful way to display the results of these profiles. In this way, any government employee with access to the system can look up a person's threat score based on their social security number, driver's license or immigration visa number.
    People may get used to the 'Big Brother' cameras, but threat profiling could also cause them to make lifestyle adjustments. We've become accustomed to the idea that our credit report can affect our chances of getting a job, renting an apartment or buying a car. The threat score will serve the same function in all of our interactions with government employees.
    As this Predictive Data Security System threat profiling develops, people will quickly find out what kind of behavior will draw attention and what's safe. They will avoid certain books and take extra-special care to find out the background and opinions of their friends, colleagues and employees. Or else.
    If a person unfortunately gets a high threat score - perhaps because of something that one of their friends or family said - they might reduce that score through some socially useful action such as providing information on one of their neighbors. This is the Australian way.
    3:12a
    Could it happen to a nicer species?
    '...we have used up all slack in the schedule for actions needed to defuse the global warming time bomb. The next President and Congress must define a course next year in which the United States exerts leadership commensurate with our responsibility for the present dangerous situation. Otherwise it will become impractical to constrain atmospheric carbon dioxide ... to a level that prevents the climate system from passing tipping points that lead to disastrous climate changes that spiral dynamically out of humanity’s control...'

    I met a traveller from an antique ocean ledge
    Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
    Stand in the sea. Near them on the edge,
    Half sunk, a shatter'd vessel lies, whose frown
    And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
    Tell that its figurehead sculptor well those passions read
    Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
    The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
    And on the ships pedestal these words appear:
    "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
    Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
    Nothing beside remains: round the decay
    Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
    The lone and level seas stretch far away
    3:29a
    The mendacity of hype
    '...We know that we did not find the stockpiles that the CIA said we would find...' - Feith again

    Stockpiles of aluminum tubes? Stockpiles of Yellowcake, a reference too that the CIA had removed from one criminally irresponsible presidential speech and yet found its way back into the State of the Union?

    Why should the CIA take any blame for this part of the Big Lie technique? ( Or the criminally negligent technique) And why should Feith and craphounds like him continue to get away with criminal cover-ups?

    I take it back if Feith is referring specifically to stockpiles Cheney and Libby said would be found. After all they spent a lot of time digging around at Langley.
    3:37a
    Love the sin of sodomy
    Hate the Movie. Love the Soundtrack. [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

    I'm in a D.C. travel and meeting mode today so I thought I'd try to start a thread of the most important kind. Over the weekend I found I kept listening to "The Way We Were." I hate, hate, hate the movie. But I'm apparently a fan of the song. There must be other instances of this: Hate the movie. Love the song. (A little like Hate the sinner? Love the sin?)

    Discuss. 06/24 10:37 AM

    IANAL but isn't that supposed to be ' Love the sinner; hate the sin '
    3:44a
    Two Golf carts in every garage
    McCain is calling for better batteries for his mini- 'Straight-Talk Express' Golf buggy. I'm calling for Mark Steyn to be burned at the stake.
    The heads of major fossil-fuel companies who spread disinformation about global warming should be "tried for high crimes against humanity and nature," according to a leading climate scientist. Dr. James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, sounded the alarm about global warming in testimony before a Senate subcommittee exactly 20 years ago."

    "Thanks for coming out on such a hot day. It was so hot, Barack Obama met with Al Gore just for the shade." --Jay Leno

    "I actually have a nice story about the presidential campaign. You hear a lot of negatives. ... John McCain's daughter is writing a children's book based on her father's life. Isn't that nice? Yeah, the children's book is called 'James and the Giant Prostate.'" --Conan O'Brien

    Known unknowns - "According to a Pentagon report this week, more than 1,000 nuclear missile components in the U.S. arsenal are lost and cannot be located. We can't even find our own weapons of mass destruction! Anyway, the Air Force, in their defense ... said today, there's a big difference between something being missing and just not being able to find it. Which would be okay if you're talking about a pair of lost sunglasses." --Jay Leno

    ' I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair a little mussed'

    Do you like good news? President Bush has ordered now -- it's official -- has ordered his troops now to find Osama Bin Laden. Yep boy, he really jumped on that one, didn't he?" --David Letterman

    "The CIA has a new theory -- they think they know where Osama Bin Laden is. They think that he's hiding in the mountainous regions of Pamela Anderson." --David Letterman
    3:57a
    Now we're sorta okay with racists...
    ...like that rich white dude in Chicago. You know some of these ' Class Struggle' revolutionary types on the loony left actually make racism almost look wholesome by comparison. Much more bang for yr genocide buck too , over the last century anyway.

    Ron Paul explains why he is opposed to the “compromise” FISA wiretap bill (June 20):

    Mr. Speaker, I regret that due to the unexpected last-minute appearance of this measure on the legislative calendar this week, a prior commitment has prevented me from voting on the FISA amendments. I have strongly opposed every previous FISA overhaul attempt and I certainly would have voted against this one as well.
    The main reason I oppose this latest version is that it still clearly violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution by allowing the federal government to engage in the bulk collection of American citizens’ communications without a search warrant. That US citizens can have their private communication intercepted by the government without a search warrant is anti-American, deeply disturbing, and completely unacceptable.
    In addition to gutting the fourth amendment, this measure will deprive Americans who have had their rights violated by telecommunication companies involved in the Administration’s illegal wiretapping program the right to seek redress in the courts for the wrongs committed against them. Worse, this measure provides for retroactive immunity, whereby individuals or organizations that broke the law as it existed are granted immunity for prior illegal actions once the law has been changed. Ex post facto laws have long been considered anathema in free societies under rule of law. Our Founding Fathers recognized this, including in Article I section 9 of the Constitution that “No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.” How is this FISA bill not a variation of ex post facto? That alone should give pause to supporters of this measure.
    Mr. Speaker, we should understand that decimating the protections that our Constitution provides us against the government is far more dangerous to the future of this country than whatever external threats may exist. We can protect this country without violating the Constitution and I urge my colleagues to reconsider their support for this measure.
    11:48a
    Blood for oil update
    PARIS - After a sea of lies and a tsunami of propaganda, the ugly truth behind the Iraq and Afghanistan wars finally emerged into full view this week.
    Four major western oil companies, Exxon, Mobil, Shell, BP and Total, are about to sign US-brokered no-bid contracts with the US-installed Baghdad regime to begin exploiting Iraq’s oil fields. Saddam Hussein had kicked these firms out three decades ago when he nationalized Iraq’s foreign-owned oil industry for the benefit of Iraq’s national development. The Baghdad regime is turning back the clock.
    This agreement comes as talks are continuing between the Washington and its Baghdad client regime over future US basing rights in Iraq. After some face-saving Iraqi objections, it is expected that Baghdad will sign a compact with Washington giving US forces control of Iraq and its air space in a manner very similar to Great Britain’s colonial arrangement with Iraq.
    Interestingly, the same oil companies that used to exploit Iraq when it was a British colony are now returning. As former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan recently admitted, the Iraq war was all about oil. VP Dick Cheney stated in 2003 that the invasion of Iraq was about oil, and for the sake of Israel. MORE ON

    http://www.ericmargolis.com/archives/2008/06/at_last_some_tr.php

    The 9/11 attacks, about which Taliban knew nothing, supplied the pretext to invade Afghanistan. The initial US operation had the legitimate objective of wiping out Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida. But after its 300 members fled to Pakistan, the US stayed on, built bases – which just happened to be adjacent to the planned pipeline route – and installed former Unocal `consultant’ Hamid Karzai as leader.
    Washington disguised its energy geopolitics by claiming the Afghan occupation was to fight `Islamic terrorism,’ liberate women, build schools, and promote democracy. Ironically, the Soviets made exactly the same claims when they occupied Afghanistan from 1979-1989. The cover story for Iraq was weapons of mass destruction, Saddam’s supposed links to 9/11, and promoting democracy.
    12:00p
    King Barry among the savages
    Sunstein An Advisor To Barack Obama? (by Big Tent Democrat at TalkLeft)
    AdamB announced his law panel for Netroots Nation and it is an impressive one. But one thing stuck out for me in his announcement - the bio of Cass Sunstein: “One of America’s foremost legal scholars, Cass Sunstein is a professor at Harvard Law School and a visiting professor at The University of Chicago Law School, and serves as an advisor to Obama for America.” Cass Sunstein is an advisor for Obama for America? That is extremely troubling as Cass Sunstein holds views that I believe should be anathema to most progressives. For example, Sunstein supported John Roberts for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court… Cass Sunstein supported the Bush Administration theory of inherent authority to spy on Americans without warrants… The question is this - to what degree do the views of Cass Sunstein on these issues reflect the views of Barack Obama? I would like to know.

    Torturegate: Truth, But No Consequences (by Chris Floyd at Empire Burlesque)
    [Last week was] one of the most extraordinary weeks in modern American history… By week’s end, the evidence that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and other top government officials had deliberately created a system of torture which they knew was illegal – indeed, a capital crime – under U.S. law was so plain, so overwhelming, and so handily concentrated that it broke through the levees of institutional cover-up and media complicity that had held this clear truth at bay for so long…
    Barack Obama – who has been busy … bolstering “Blue Dog” supporters of executive tyranny and appointing a gaggle of dim warhawks, has-beens and imperial factotums as his national security team) – has given every indication he too sees the Administration’s high crimes as “dumb policies” that don’t require any legal redress…

    Very strong, credible, evidence-based charges of launching a criminal war of aggression based on deception is not an “exceptional circumstance” worthy of the investigative and prosecutorial process of impeachment. It might just be a “very dumb policy.” Very strong, credible, evidence-based charges of knowingly, deliberately creating a regimen of systematic torture is not an “exceptional circumstance” worthy of impeachment; it might not even be worth further investigation by the Justice Department. It too could just be a “dumb policy” that we should forget about – especially if Republicans are going to make a fuss about it. More on

    MAKETHEMACCOUNTABLE

    I would much rather have a policy where if we see Barry there’s a shoot-on-sight order.
    12:05p
    Prediction betting markets
    Aggregating - and checking - the pundits (by Jeff Jarvis)
    Hubdub, a news prediction betting marketplace, has started a cool new feature that tracks the pundits’ predictions. Punditwatch takes the predictions of prognosticators from Christ Matthews to Perez Hilton to TechCrunch and enters them into its system as if each of the guesses were a bet. Then it tracks wins and losses and gives each pundit a score. I’ll spare you the nitpicking: Some predictions are easier than others and so they’re not all valued alike. But it’s a great guide to the crystal-ballers.
    Brill’s Content, during its brief life, had a similar rating feature for pundits. Turned out they were all so bad at predicting that they complained and the magazine killed the feature. No wonder that magazine died. - MTA
    12:08p
    Net repression with Asian characteristics
    The Mystery Of 56.com’s Shutdown: Beginning Of Chinese Government Takedown Of Video Sites? (Paid Content)
    Is the Chinese government taking down non-state-owned video sites? That seems to be the prevailing view of what caused the Chinese YouTube-like site 56.com to cease operating on June 3rd, according to WSJ. The site, which has received $30 million—a $20 million second round was closed last December—from early backers Sequoia Capital and Disney Steamboat Ventures, among others. Visitors to the site are greeted with a message in Mandarin indicating that 56.com is dealing with a simple server problem.

    SKorea ponders closer watch on web after surge of protests
    SEOUL (AFP) - After weeks of tumultuous protests inspired largely by South Korea’s netizens, the country which claims to be the world’s most wired society is considering new ways to monitor the Internet. - MTA
    12:20p
    Jesus is a cop
    A GOLD Coast teenager who wore a T-shirt by English extreme metal band Cradle of Filth that reads 'Jesus is a c**t' has been charged with offensive behaviour.
    Above the offensive slogan a nun is depicted masturbating.
    A 16-year-old was arrested on Monday for wearing the shirt and was charged with offensive behaviour under the Summary Offences Act 2005 for public nuisance.
    Senior Sergeant Arron Ottaway said the teen was walking along Hollywell Road, in Biggera Waters, when a officer saw him.
    Police conducted inquiries at Australia Fair, where the teen said he bought the shirt, to find any shops selling it.

    Fucking cop cunts

    The Reverend Matt Hunt of the Helensvale Baptist Church said it was sad people spoke about the Lord in such a way.
    "It's fairly common language these days to express sadness, anger or hurt," he said. "It's a degrading word to use and Jesus is anything but that. It's like calling white black."

    'Jesus is a well known Dick - not a cunt'.

    'The cuntish police are acting like the thought police and censors. The church could not do without those cunts"
    12:34p
    Off the reservation
    Joe Klein calls time

    '...The notion that we could just waltz in and inject democracy into an extremely complicated, devout and ancient culture smacked—still smacks—of neocolonialist legerdemain. The fact that a great many Jewish neoconservatives—people like Joe Lieberman and the crowd over at Commentary—plumped for this war, and now for an even more foolish assault on Iran, raised the question of divided loyalties: using U.S. military power, U.S. lives and money, to make the world safe for Israel...'

    Hey if it walks like a neocolonialist duck...
    12:49p
    Sex workers who infiltrate the working class
    There has been some debate into whether or not some sex industry workers are a part of the working class.

    http://libcom.org/forums/libcom-wobblies/iww-referendums-15062008?page=6

    We must remember that the enemy penetrates everywhere. In Venezuela there is not one space where the enemy doesn’t penetrate. We must realise that the enemy is everywhere and we must be there as well. A comical event occurred about 20 years ago. There was an organisation for the defence of the rights of sex workers, and a lot of homosexuals and transsexuals joined. A member of the North American embassy was the head of the organisation and I began to wonder why. You must realise they do it for the intelligence. Do you think they wanted to participate in the defence of the sex workers? No, They were thinking that through the sex workers, they could obtain information. This is why I say there is no area where the enemy has not been inserted. We must have the firmness and conviction to also do the same, because we are defending our life, our country, and our rights, and the lives of our children, our future and our humanity. We are doubly obliged to do this. FROM

    From: International News
    GLW issue #672 - 21 June 2006:
    VENEZUELA: 'Socialism is our model'

    Lenin's succint comment was:
    'Why should I respond to Kautsky? If I did that, the Kautsky would respond to my response, and then I would have to respond to his response, and so on. All I have to do is say that Kautsky is an enemy of the people, and everyone will understand everything.'
    5:52p
    Historical material
    Combing through the anarchist archives reveals some interesting factoids about some significant anarchist figures. For example...

    1) Proudhon was reassessing his life long hatred for Jews toward the end of his life. At the very end he was even working on an anarchist essay incorporating the exodus from slave owning Egypt as a powerful metaphor for anarchism.

    2) Bakunin , it seems, also had a death bed project going. It was a Stirnerian/Proudhonian idea for a mutualist co-operative dedicated to tracking vanguardists and keeping them honest by means of ostracism.

    3) Then there was Kropotkin whose last will and testament read that , ' Inspired as I was by an instinctive reaction to illegal aggression ( The invasion of Belgium by Germany in 1914) I now realize nothing good can come out of any Nationalist style combat and wholeheartedly align myself with Malatesta on this hot button issue. Take care of our people'.
    6:05p
    Just say no to Dopes
    PILGRIMS will be handed condoms en route to the papal Mass at Randwick racecourse for World Youth Day as part of a protest against the Pope's views on homosexuality, contraception and abortion.
    NoToPope, a coalition of religious, atheist, gay and lesbian groups will hold a rally in Taylor Square from midday on Saturday, July 19. Protest organisers expect between 1000 and 5000 people.
    The Mass will be on July 20, after an overnight vigil.
    While the groups want the protest to be peaceful, they say they cannot guarantee there will be no confrontations with police or pilgrims. "We will say to them, 'take up the campaign within the Catholic Church to promote condoms'," said Rachel Evans, from Community Action Against Homophobia.

    http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/condom-protest-for-pilgrim-march/2008/06/24/1214073246965.html
    7:37p
    Rocket science
    '...As Kevin Drum pointed out in this post yesterday, this technology is far too complicated for mere lawmakers and judges to adequately understand...'

    I understand that it's a little like E=mc2 where things that matter to you are have an inverse square law relationship to the energy of government torturers. Kevin Drum and Digby seem happy to insult yr intelligence now on a regular basis but I try and ration myself. I do.
    8:15p
    Fascist police state surveillance
    This FISA bill is abysmal on many levels. This fight imho is all about the veniality of Bush and the Democratic leadership. It’s about not making them look bad.

    Stripping the retroactive immunity out simply insures that Bush will veto it.

    The retroactive immunity for telecons is Bush’s smoke screen. The telecons don’t need criminal immunity, their lawyers already secured it from AGAG. Bush wants this bill, because it insulates the telecons from having to disclose those previous grants of immunity, along with who they snooped on and how much they charged American taxpayers to snoop on Americans. The Democratic leadership knows, if they don’t grant retroactive immunity, then they have to investigate the telecons and the Bush WH. The telecons will then produce letters from the AG saying it’s ok to wiretap US citizens. The Democrats will say that violates the 4th Amendment:

    “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

    Bush will respond, “hey, you Democratic leaders, my henchman told you what I was doing and you had no problem with it.”

    That’s why the Democratic leaders want what Bush wants, retroactive immunity. They want to hide their complicity with him. Lower level Dems in the Senate and the House are only too happy to make their leaders happy by following along.

    Word to all sell-out, corporate-owned Democrats: No donation without representation!

    Wouldn't it be awesome if a senator who had expressed non-ambiguous opposition to the Protect AT&T act in the past joined in the filibuster against it?

    Wouldn't it be even more awesome if the vast majority of that senator's base -- oh hell, forget the base, let's open it up to the vast majority of all Americans -- opposed amnesty for law-breaking telcos and expanded spying powers for the White House, making this a slam dunk win for that senator, giving him a chance to show some serious leadership?

    Oh! Oh! Oh! And wouldn't it be the most awesome EVER if that senator was running for president, and could use this issue to show Americans that he was seriously committed to changing the way things happen in Washington?!

    Yeah, that sure sounds like a perfect dream scenario, doesn't it?

    Oh well. A guy can dream. Yeah . . . a guy can dream.

    Senator Boxer:

    One of the most basic tenets of our freedom is justice, and at the heart of justice lies the search for truth.
    Throughout history, whenever the United States government has violated the trust of the American people, we have always worked to regain that trust by seeking the truth and allowing for a full examination of the abuses of government power.
    Unfortunately, what we have before us today is a bill that would not only deny the Court the ability to finally make a judicial determination as to the legality of the NSA program but would effectively guarantee immunity for the telecommunications companies that cooperated with the Administration and violated the privacy of their customers.
    Now, I would support granting the telecom companies indemnification, but this immunity provision blocks us from finding the truth.
    I know that many of my colleagues in the Senate think we know enough about this program. But we do not know enough. The Bush Administration trampled on the Constitution, and we are not doing anything in this bill to provide accountability.
    Simply put, this bill is a fig leaf that attempts to hide the truth about the warrantless surveillance program at the expense of the rights of our citizens. And if we vote for it today, we are perpetuating a cover-up.
    But we should remember, as former Justice Thurgood Marshall said, "History teaches us that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure."

    The trouble with Harry

    I'd like to see him lose his temper just once and say something like, "Mister Bush, you're a lameduck president and from here on out I don't give a damn what you want. I don't care what you say. We're not going to give one more inch of ground to you. And if you keep it up, I'll squash you like a roach, and shut your government down so fast, you'll resign in disgrace before January 20th. In fact, I'm calling Speaker Pelosi within the hour and demanding that she put impeachment back on the table, to seal the deal"!

    Now, how hard was that?
    8:19p
    Puke justice league
    Evangelizing and disciplining the hurting people of the world

    '...things have surely improved under Michael Mukasey, that's far from clear. You remember two weeks ago when news leaked out that DOJ's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention was doling out grants to politically well connected Republicans (for example, to a program run by Bill Bennett's wife) while rejecting applications that were actually worthy? After employees blew the whistle on OJJDP director Robert Flores' corruption, DOJ started an investigation. No, not into the corruption; it was an investigation of the whistleblowing.
    But Flores' corruption just is too egregious to cover up. Murray Waas has another revelation today. Under pressure from another political appointee, Steven McFarland (director of DOJ's Faith-Based and Community Initiatives task force), Flores awarded a massive grant to Lisa Trevino Cummins, formerly of the WH Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Cummins' application previously had been deemed unacceptable by Department reviewers, partly because fully a third of the grant was to go to her consulting firm just for helping the intended recipient spend the money. Cummins also planned to have the grant overseen by Kelly Cowles, who was under investigation by the Ohio Inspector General for mismanaging a similar grant.
    And the ostensible recipient of Flores' largesse, with an assist from the well-connected Cummins?

    Victory Outreach describes itself as a "church-oriented Christian ministry called to the task of evangelizing and disciplining the hurting people of the world, with the message of hope and plan of Jesus Christ."

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