This Rosh Hashonah

I think the world will be a safer, saner place if all leaders, and all people, from every nation, can agree to:

1) Respect the sovereignty of other countries regardless of whether or not they agree with their ideology.

2) Make space for difference, and allow for autonomy. Palestine deserves its own state as does Israel. No one state is more worthy, or more deserving.

3) Recognize that an act of violence is never righteous whatever the cause, or intended goal. Whether it's Israeli missiles destroying parts of Beirut, killing and maiming innocent men, women, and children, or whether it's the rockets of Hezbollah. Human rights, and the dignity of each and every human being, must take precedence over what is erroneously called "national security." Warfare is a retreat from civilization, and not a sanctuary for it. There can be no security when the lives of a country's citizens are daily put at risk in the name of making the world safe for this cause or that.

4) Diplomacy can only be achieved through compromise, not contempt. Without diplomacy, there can be no lasting peace.

Whether we be Muslim, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, agnostic, or atheist, we all share a common thread--the need for space, vision, and a reason to live. When we shed the blood of others, regardless of the reason, we shed the blood of our ancestors, our sisters and brothers, and those yet to come. There can be no respect for the sanctity of human life in an atmosphere of combat, and terror.

So, to my friends in Israel I say: if you want peace, accept Palestine, and treat your Arab brothers and sisters as members of your family, not as your enemies, but as future friends.

To Muslims in America, and around the world, I say: do not deny the Holocaust, nor the onslaught of punishment the Jews have endured including, of course, that most celebrated of Jews, Jesus Christ, who was crucified, and lives on as a testament to the horrors to which all Jews have been subjected.

To Christians, I say: those temptations we need to overcome most are not temptations of the flesh, but the perennial urge to scapegoat, and target those who are most vulnerable, and accessible to mob rage. The higher order thinking of the New Testament----forgiveness, compassion, the "judge not lest ye be judged" mentality is needed now more than ever. Those who call for the annihilation, execution, or murder of others, whether it be on the battlefield, or in a state penitentiary, profane in His name.

As a world, we have advanced far beyond the capacity of anyone living even as recently as a century ago could have imagined. We can fly to Mars; we can communicate instantly with people thousands of miles away, still, we have thousands, in Africa, who die of starvation; still we fight for territory that can easily, and justly, be shared.

At its root, nationalism is the perversion of individualism and, more often than not, individualism is narcissism disguised. Intolerance is a mushroom cloud from which no one will escape.

While global warming poses a huge threat, a more immediate danger to the survival of the planet comes from the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and their imminent use. Only respect for autonomy. and self-determination, as well as the ability to appreciate, not condemn, that which is different will prevent a war from which no one will be left to plant a flag.

"The Israel Lobby"

"You declare, my friend, that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely 'anti-Zionist.' And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of God's green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews - this is God's own truth."

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. -
from "Letter to an Anti-Zionist Friend," Saturday Review, August 1967

To Friends in New York on 9/11

Know that the memories of this horrific day hang just as heavily here in California, and around the world, as within blocks of the World Trade Center. Wherever innocent blood is shed in the name of ideology, there can be no end to pain and dread.

But, now more than ever, we need to show the world, and prove to ourselves, that we're a nation of fighters who have only just begun to fight--not against "terrorists," but against all those who try to hide behind slogans, and lies, as against any whose occupation is to fill our minds and hearts with fear and loathing while, at the same time, waving American flags.

The crimes of one diminish the humanity of all.

Petraeus

The only "surge" that's working is one that has resulted in obscene oil company profits, as well as a big bulge in the coffers of military contractors like Halliburton. The kind of denial that comes from the mouths of generals, and other Bush-dupes, is one that even Houdini couldn't pull off.

As his testimony to Congress approaches, consider for a moment how closely Petraeus comes to sounding like "betray us."


(btw, I wrote this piece Sunday afternoon before the full page Move.On ad came out, in today's New York Times, calling the general "betray-us." great minds think alike, and sink alike, too; I might add.)

In Pursuit of Power

Just when he thought it was safe to come out of his cave, the National Security Agency, previously busy eavesdropping on thousands of Internet, and cell phone, conversations of ordinary Americans for the past five years, announced that it is finally able to trace the cell phone from which bin Laden's video appears to have been made. (AP) Well, not really. In fact, about the only thing the NSA has been able to trace is its own ineptitude which presents itself magnificently in the high drama Houdini escape of Al Qaeda's finest.

Funny thing, we may not remember when Osama last appeared live, but he does, right before the mid-term election in 2004, and right around the time Congress finalized the USA Patriot Act which, you'll recall, was intended to keep U.S. safe from bin Ladens, and other radioactive madmen. Fat chance. As a federal judge in New York decided yesterday, about all the Patriot Act accomplished was to guarantee the continuity of this administration's gang rape of the First and Fourth Amendments.

How appropriate that the president's enemy twin, who has managed to elude capture for about as long as we've been occupying Iraq, should invite American heathen to "embrace Islam." What a dynamic duo, these two Apocalypso dancers; what an unlikely team, an American president and the leader of Al Qaeda, both of whom "embrace" kamikaze rapture, and an ideology designed to inflate when the futility of militarism becomes obvious. Indeed, why doesn't the president invite Osama to join the Christian brothers in the 82nd Airborne? Different ideologies; same appetites.

And, who better to keep track of Mr. Bush's approval ratings than Mr. bin Laden? Except, of course, for Mr. Cheney. Who better than Osama to devise an exit strategy for Iraq? Arguably, the gravest threat this video poses is to show that, while we in the states have been feasting on the Larry Craig headlines, Osama has been reading Noam Chomsky. Wouldn't we be in better shape if John Ashcroft, Karl Rove, and Dick Cheney had read Chomsky first!

While Al Qaeda's leader may have been in freeze frame for nearly four minutes, (AP) no technical problems have been detected when, on Wednesday, the National Security Archives, an independent think-tank in Washington, D.C., announced its suit against the White House seeking to recover "more than 5 million" e-mails from executive branch computers which were deleted between the spring of 2003 and the fall of 2005, right around the time of the midterm elections; right around the time bin Laden last appeared; right around the time Iraq was invaded, and Katrina evaded. (NSA)

National Security Archive director, Tom Blanton, pulls no punches when he asserts that "The Bush White House broke the law and erased our history by deleting those e-mail messages." But, can one sue, or press criminal charges, against a sitting president, or an elected official? Would not such an action require their removal, voluntary or otherwise, from office? Isn't that among the many reasons Alberto Gonzales had to step down, as we now know, so that the Justice Department can look into its options vis a vis prosecuting him on charges of perjury, and obstruction of justice.

What happens when the executive branch attempts to neutralize the judiciary? What happens when there are no longer any boundaries between the attorney-general and the president; when checks and balances become victims of planned obsolescence? When the Bill of Rights is sent to recovery, and the Constitution is seen as if it were a 12 step program instead of a blueprint for democracy.

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero's response, in New York, yesterday was to demand that a court approve any governmental request for Internet records without first informing customers. There must be more federal judges like Marrero who come forward, and stop this administration's unfettered attempt at warrantless surveillance of ordinary American citizens in the name of a war on terror which any idiot can see could clearly be won if this president, and his homeboys, did a little target practice.

What a scary world when America's most wanted fugitive spends more time talking about global warming, and failed foreign policy than our own chief executive. Moreover, bin Laden, a man who comes from among the world's richest countries, and families, entreats us to "liberate" ourselves "from the deception, shackles, and attrition of the capitalist system.," (AP) and does so in a way that would make Marx blush with envy. While his nemesis, on the other hand, still thinks Marx is something one gets in school.

Don't you wish "To Tell the Truth" was still on the air, so we could ask: will the real lunatic please stand up! Why is the obvious always the toughest thing to see, how it is that we are all victims of those who, in pursuit of power, strive to dehumanize in the name of ideology.

There is only one thing

worse than a lapsed Catholic, and that's a lapsed Republican!

Time...

Time flies, and we walk.

The Hallelujah Glory Hole Choir

Now that Senator Larry Craig is having his fifteen minutes of infamy along with such other notable tycoons of family values as defrocked Rep. Mark Foley, the absurdity of his having been a vocal, and virulent, opponent of gay marriage isn't lost on anyone.

What is getting lost in the shuffle is the perfunctory manner in which we, in America, accept dragging someone through the public square on charges of "lewd behavior" without questioning exactly what the phrase means, who gets to apply it, and what penalty must be paid. How willingly we give up our personal privacy.

Make no mistake, the issue isn't whether or not this Idaho senator deserves outrage, and stoning---the issue is whether the neo-Conservatives who still walk among us will be allowed to turn his arrest into a backlash against gay men and sodomy. What takes place between consenting adults is, after all, their business. It's the context, not the act, that is tacky and sleazy.

After all, what constitutes "public decency?" Who gets to decide that, and at what price? In recent years, the Federal Communications Commission has been caught with its pants down when it comes to this matter, too.

Larry Craig's real "crime," apart from the obvious hypocrisy, is perjury if, as he said, he entered a false guilty plea. What bitter irony given Craig's role in working to impeach a former president, Bill Clinton, for lying before a grand jury.

If the radical right is permitted to use this sensationalism, and widescale titillation, to reactivate homophobia, then every person who reads, or writes, about what would be considered a tasteless, and insipid act, if committed by "ordinary" folks in a men's room, will be used as an indictment against all homosexuals.

Injustice is...

a form of torture.

If you've been following the recent Abu Ghraib trials, you may wish to note that Army Lt. Col. Jordan was acquitted today, in a military court, of failing to control his subordinates, but convicted of a lesser charge of not following an order.

Now that Gonzales has "resigned" as attorney general, it's time for Congress to ensure that crimes against humanity, like those committed at Abu Ghraib, make it to civilian courts, too, where this army officer Jordan might justifiably have been convicted on all counts.

The Invincible President

On my way out to pick up the morning paper, I saw my neighbor in her housedress which looks like it dates back to about 1955. "He's leaving, you know," I said. "Who's that?" she asked. "Alberto Gonzales," I patiently told her. "Oh, you mean the guy from San Jose." "No; the attorney general of the United States."

I couldn't help but marvel at how red state and blue state could live side by side separated only by a row of empty trashcans, all the while oblivious to ideology, and wars of ideology, despite the sophistry that tries to pass itself off as foreign policy these days.

She calmly put one hand on her hip, as if to cushion her retort, and said "Oh, Bush, well, he's getting rid of everyone, but it's not going to help. He's still going to have to leave when his term is up."

"and in her wake"

In memorium, my small poem for Philomene Long, poet, visionary, descendant of Irish royalty, ex-nun, sister, mother, and beloved wife of poet John Thomas...

"and in her wake"

for Philomene Long

a legend
passed
and
in her
wake
rubies
dance
above
the flame.

past participles...

Rude is the past participle of ignorant.

Who's Packing in Pakistan

The real story in the president's speech, on Wednesday, to the group Veterans of Foreign Wars isn't that he compared Iraq to Vietnam, but the fact that he didn't mention Pakistan when talking about his homegrown hallucinogen, otherwise known as the war on terror. Mr. Bush spoke of Afghanistan, Vietnam, Japan, but never once acknowledged General Perez Musharraf, president of Pakistan, who came to power as a result of a military coup, and whose dual role as president and army chief shows that he has as much respect for his country's constitution as this president has for ours.

Pakistan was conspicuous in its absence especially in light of the release, last week, of a declassified report, by the National Security Archives, which chronicles its role in funding, and arming, the Taliban in the seven years leading up to 9/11. The report shows not merely who's packing, but who's supplying them with the weapons. Documents recently obtained by the National Security Archive not only demonstrate what we already know, that Pakistan has provided safe haven for Osama bin Laden for years, but also that Islamabad has supported the Taliban not merely in the years prior to the World Trade Center bombing, but in subsequent years, as well. President Musharraf now says "There is no doubt that Afghan militants are supported from Pakistani soil." (NSA) Documents released a week ago indicate, too, that "the Taliban was directly funded, armed and advised by Islamabad itself."

Think about this: while American servicemen and women were in neighboring Afghanistan hunting down the Taliban, Uncle Sam was in bed with General Musharraf and a regime that we now know was working toward a Taliban victory in that country to the tune of billions of dollars since 2001. Moreover, just a day after release of these previously classified reports, the White House opted to "blacklist" Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. as a "terrorist" organization.

One wonders how the White House determines who is, and who is not, a terrorist group. Iran's Revolutionary Guard qualifies, yet Pakistan, where the mastermind of 9/11 has safely hid for more than half a decade, where journalist Daniel Pearl was savagely slain, where a Kashmiri group which is financed directly by the Pakistani government is allowed to grow and develop training camps together with Osama bin Laden, doesn't even receive honorable mention as a "terrorist organization." What's more, according to newly released documents, that country's own intelligence service has been "funneling supplies into Afghanistan and to the Taliban forces."

More than a decade ago, and five years before 9/11, the report discloses that Pakistani intelligence allocated approximately $45,000 a month to Harakat ul-Ansar (HUA), the Kashmiri militants who also sought out more funding from other terrorist groups, like Al Qaeda, and Osama bin Laden. It was noted, at that time, too, that Al Qaeda and Pakistani-funded HUA were collaborating in "terrorist training camps" inside Afghanistan. A leader in HUA also signed off on bin Laden's fatwah against the U.S.. And, exactly one year before 9/11, as noted in the 9/11 Commission's Report, Pakistani aid to the Taliban reached "unprecedented" levels.

If the U.S. knew, back in 1996, that Islamabad has been funding, and harboring not only the Taliban, bin Laden, but HUA,a splinter group with more egregious outreach to international terror groups, then why were U.S. troops sent to Afghanistan, and not Pakistan?

Further, when President, and General Musharraf readily acknowledges that country's ongoing support of Afghan militants, how can the Bush administration justify strongarming Tehran, and try to transform Ahmadinejad into the much-despised dictator that Saddam Hussein was, just before we executed him. After all, doesn't growing the Taliban, as well as a group which has a long, and well-documented history of working with Al Qaeda, and bin Laden, in Pakistan, qualify as grounds to cut off a designated state from Uncle Sam's purse, good graces, and diplomatic immunity?

While the rumblings of skepticism about Musharraf's Pakistan are said to be felt in Washington, D.C., there are no war drums beating for a military strike against Islamabad, but Tehran, and when Barack Obama says that he would put pressure on General Musharraf to cooperate in the fight against the robust Taliban, and the ever elusive bin Laden, he gets called over the coals for it.

Consider the irony that the U.S. is said to have "lost patience" with Iran for allegedly selling arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan (AP) in light of our infinite patience with Pakistan, a country that has not only armed, and funded the Taliban for more than a decade, but has done so on their own soil. Further, when Musharraf openly admits his country's ongoing support of Afghan militants, how can the Bush administration justify strongarming Tehran, and Ahmadinejad, while allowing the Pakistani president to thrive with impunity.

While Musharraf has the distinction of being dubbed a dictator from members of the left and right, in Pakistan, one must ask are all dictators created equally, or are some created more equally than others? Does bin Laden's taking refuge in Pakistan, and the fact that money is being funneled into the Taliban constitute grounds for a being dubbed a "terrorist state," as well as the need for a closer look at that country.

Next month, Pakistan will have an election. That country's highest court has just allowed the return, from exile, of Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister and leader who was ousted by General Musharraf's military coup in 1999. Notably, Sharif was at the helm, back in 1996, when more than $30,000 a month was given to the Kashmiri militant group HUA, which in turn made its way into the hands of bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Not surprisingly, after his ouster, in 1999, Sharif took refuge in Saudi Arabia where he has lived comfortably in exile, and is only now making noises, from London, about coming home. Oh, and quel coincidence, Saudi Arabia also happens to be Osama bin Laden's birthplace.

Our government is backing a country that has been home to bin Laden, and overtly finances the Taliban now, and has done so before the years leading up to the invasion of Afghanistan. If nothing else, we have come to see that America's relationship with so-called "terrorist groups," including the Freedom Fighters, is, in a word, incestuous.

It will be intriguing to watch, in the coming months, to see whether the Pakistani election will be allowed to proceed without interference from the General, and whether he will be sent packing. The election, in that country, will also reveal much about the Bush administration's "war on terror" if this White House endorses either a General who took power as part of a military coup, and in defiance of his country's constitution, or a returning exile from Saudi Arabia who, on his watch, started the insidious cycle of lining the pockets of a notorious Kashmiri militant group.

Either way, any attempt by the Bush administration, or Fox News, to give legitimacy to an attack against Tehran, and/or the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, while allowing Pakistan to operate with impunity will be exposed for what it is---hypocrisy, plain and simple.

Dean, maybe, but not the same one...

You know you've been into politics too long when you see the headline, "Dean makes landfall in Mexico," and think the article is about Howard Dean!

The Use of Dogs

In the fallout from yesterday's revelation that two charges were dropped against Army Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan for his role in the nightmare that has come to be known as Abu Ghraib, it was also revealed that another officer, Col. Thomas Pappas, was chastised and fined for allowing the use of dogs, during an interrogation, without first obtaining "higher approval." (AP) But, it must be asked, by whose authority can it ever be justifiable to use dogs as a method of interrogation.

Given that Pappas is acknowledged to have been the highest ranking officer at Abu Ghraib, and Jordan answered to him, investigators have every right to find out who it was, back in 2003 when these heinous acts of cruelty occurred, who gave the order to turn dogs on captives as part of an interrogation process. And, what a statement about the U.S., and the mainstream media, that we care more about the alleged execution of dogs by a football giant, Michael Vick, than we do about the exploitation of canines, as vehicles of torture, against mostly innocent Iraqi citizens, by our military.

We also want to know why it is that it took an investigator, Maj. Gen. George Fay, three years to wake up, and realize that he "misspoke" when he said he read Army Lt. Col Jordan his rights during their 2004 interview. Fay's epiphany has resulted in a military judge's decision yesterday to drop combined charges against Jordan which would result in his having to spend eight years in jail. While other counts, which mostly deal with the mistreatment of prisoners, still stand, the judge's decision effectively wipes out more than half of what would have been his sentence were the charges of obstruction of justice and making a false statement allowed to stand.

But, more importantly, how is it that some U.S. citizens are incarcerated without charge, and held in military brigs, labelled "enemy combatants," while this former director of Abu Ghraib's interrogation center is relieved of a substantial part of his sentence because the military court that tried him has decided to honor Miranda. Were the Miranda law and habeas corpus intended to apply only to those in the military?

Indeed, Lt. Col. Jordan is right to suggest he is a "scapegoat." Those who were the masterminds of that circle of horror, the photos of which will bear witness in infamy until the ends of time to the unassailable fact that the true arbiters of terror will get to live out their retirement years in plush anonymity, and at taxpayers' expense.

In the old days...

In the old days, I was depraved; now, I'm deprived.

Being Jose Padilla

Now that a U.S. citizen has been convicted of being a "terrorist," one can only hope that his treatment in the brig, which has been declared a "state secret," will be declassified so that it may see the light of day in appeals court which is where this case is heading.

Psychologists, and those who have visited with Jose Padilla over the past three plus years of his incarceration say that they see profound emotional wreckage as a result of his detention. Regardless of whether Mr. Padilla's treatment can be tweaked such that it conforms with his constitutional entitlements, as an American, there is no way in hell that anyone can justify turning an otherwise healthy 36 year old into the shell of a man. If the treatment he received at the hands of his captors is ethical and aboveboard, then why is it classified?

Clearly, too, the time has come to put the entire infrastructure of an illegal, and ominous so-called war on terror on trial, and show that those who maim, humiliate, kill, and psychologically torture in the name of counterfeit, homogenized purity are the true terrorists.

Padilla's conviction would not have been possible were it not for more than 300,000 FBI "wiretap intercepts" (AP) of conversations, many of which took place in Arabic.

Yesterday in a courtroom in San Francisco, the Electronic Frontier Foundation continued their fight against telecommunications behemoth AT&T for its assault on the Fourth Amendment as a result of complying with the government to illegally tap citizen's phones. The phrase "state secret" reared its ugly head, too, in this San Francisco district courtroom. An attorney working with EFF laments that if the case against AT&T is lost, it may be the last time that any court challenges the executive branch on warrantless wiretapping.

Any government that withholds information from court, regardless of the context, on the basis that the data withheld constitutes a "state secret" is not merely insidious, and pernicious, but is one that converts justice itself into a dirty bomb.

One can only hope that, on appeal, Mr. Padilla's lawyers will demand declassification of his days in the brig, and that each and every gruesome detail of how he suffered during confinement surfaces, so the word "terrorist" may be seen to mean about as much as the word "Communist" did during the Red scare days of the 1950's; only instead of hiding under a desk in a deserted classroom, justice now hides under the robes of counterfeit judges

Is it ever okay to compromise someone's sanity in the name of combatting an elusive enemy? Do the ends justify the means and, if so, whose ends are we justifying, and by what means? If this is what the framers had in mind by the Bill of Rights, they would have called it the Bill of Wrongs instead.

in the brig

The Christian Science Monitor today reports that Jose Padilla's "treatment" in the brig is "classified as a state secret."

On the resignation of Karl Rove...

one is reminded of the line from Samuel Beckett:

"Birth was the death of him."


We no longer have a government; we have a covert operation.

the first casualty...

Human nature is the first casualty of evolution.

Banning Harry Potter

Several weeks ago, a university professor was fired. Ward Churchill, who taught for more than twenty years at the University of Colorado at Boulder, was dismissed for an essay he wrote, shortly after 9/11, which expressed controversial views about 9/11. University of Colorado Interim Chancellor, Phil DiStefano, decided to terminate him for what the chancellor termed "academic misconduct." Churchill is not the only academic to face dismissal, or suspension, for espousing a viewpoint that is considered heretical, or anathema. But, the larger issue here is not academic freedom; the larger issue is censorship, and the insidious practice of this government to outlaw ideas, and convert communication into contraband.

What's more, it's not just what educators write, or talk about that has come under increasing surveillance. If it were up to some conservative Christian groups in California, New York, Minnesota, and Michigan, Harry Potter would be banned, and removed from classrooms, and school libraries on the grounds that the books promote interest in "the occult." (NCAC) Some other titles that made the top ten 2006 banned books list include "The Bluest Eye," by Toni Morrison, for its sexual content, "And Tango Makes Three," by Justin Richardson, for homosexuality, "The Chocolate War," by Robert Cormier, for sexual content," and "Scary Stories," by Alvin Schwartz, for the occult, and satanism.

When they fire academics for essays they write which assert contrarian, and unorthodox views, university chancellors demonstrate the same mindset that prohibits modern classics from being read by students in our public schools. This is a disgrace just as it is a disgrace that we have so-called "free speech zones" in which demonstrators may protest this president, and citizens being arrested for wearing anti-Bush teeshirts. As far as the founding fathers were concerned, the United States of America was meant to be a free speech zone. Yet, an even bigger disgrace is the fact that Paris Hilton got more coverage than the controversy over Harry Potter, or Ward Churchill. Ostensibly, this administration has managed to put a silencer on the press.

Last weekend, when Pearl Jam performed one of its songs, AT & T chose to turn the volume down when lead singer, Eddie Vedder's lyrics included some disparaging statements about President Bush. This same telecommunications giant elected to hand over private telephone records to the government, and thanks to recent measures passed by Congress, they will be able to do so with impunity in perpetuity, or until Congress enacts measures to prevent them from doing so. It is flat out unacceptable for any lyric to be muted out during a concert because it is derogatory just as it is flat out unacceptable that a college educator face expulsion for expressing dissenting views of a national tragedy, however repugnant those views may be.

It is equally unconscionable that the F.C.C. be allowed to issue "public decency" fines to networks for so-called wardrobe malfunctions, and the use of obscenity when no fines are issued to administration officials, like the attorney-general and others, who have lied under oath about warrantless surveillance of civilians, as well as illusory, and elusive weapons of mass destruction.
In late July, members of the Senate launched a bipartisan campaign for "filtering, and monitoring technologies" on the Internet on the grounds that they wish to protect children from sexual predators, and child pornography. Conspicuously absent from these hearings were members of civil liberties' groups who were not invited. (Press Esc) While the measures under consideration are meant to target children, and increase parental controls, there is no doubt that these technologies will set an infrastructure in place which may be used to monitor and filter Internet users of all ages, in future. The potential ramifications to the First Amendment are staggering, and should these filtering measures, which are suppported by Democrats and Republicans alike, pass, they will make the tweaking of FISA laws look like a walk in the park by comparison.

At stake here is a complacent, and apathetic public that is allowing itself to be railroaded, and manipulated by a top-heavy, power-hungry, radical right wing, neo-conservative Christian government which has had phenomenal success in regulating what we see, hear, as well as discuss in our college, and public school, classrooms. And, by extension, in our movie theatres, bookstores, and T.V.s,, too. The fact that a professor was fired without much fanfare, or the kind of media focus given to six men trapped in a midwest mine, or the collapse of a bridge, speaks to the values, and lack of perspective, which enables the same kind of Salem Bay mentality which led to previous witchhunts, and cries of heresy. Had Cryonics existed at the time of Senator Joe McCarthy's demise, and had he requested to be defrosted in Washington, D.C., in the year 2007, rest assured that he would feel perfectly at home there.

There is a cancer in the body politic that has metastasized, and has now spread to our classrooms, book shelves, television screens, newspapers, and public libraries. As with racism, it is not the overt display of prejudice that poses the gravest threat, but the more subtle, and subliminal, often unseen, forms of prejudice. That we can live side by side with space travel, and instant communications with those who live 9,000 miles away and, at the same time, countenance the kind of mind policing that results in silencing dissenting writings as heretical, and occult smacks of ethical leprosy. How can we not be impacted by what we are not allowed to say, or see, as well as what we stop ourselves from saying, and seeing.

Passivity, and acceptance, will prove to be our undoing. In the words of great Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, we must not "go gentle into that night," but "rage, rage, against the dying of the light."

Just when you think...

Just when you think you've reached the end of the line, you look up to find you still have another foot to go.

A high price to pay...

Congress needs to be reminded that it is not just another arm of the executive branch, but an independent body which was elected to preserve, protect, and represent the best interests of the American people.

In light of last Friday's signing of a new measure which enables this administration, and future administrations, to intercept, and monitor electronic, and telephonic communications without a warrant, and with no congressional oversight, the only judicious response is outrage at the subservience of our elected officials to the whims, and excesses of a runaway executive branch.

The time has come for both the House and the Senate to stand up to the president, vice president, and attorney-general, and restore dignity to the Constitution which has been ravaged, in recent years, along with the democratic process. When the framers devised the Bill of Rights, they didn't have planned obsolescence of our civil liberties in mind.

While this latest bill comes with the victories of greater taxes on oil companies, and environmental earmarks, the dangers posed by this latest measure to spy on civilian communications, without warrants, far outweigh those gains.

Make no mistake, acquiescence is complicity. When the six month period expires, members of Congress, on both sides of the aisle, will be held accountable for this precarious, and precedent setting legislation not just by those who elected them, but for generations to come.

Quote of the Day

"I think age is a very high price to pay for maturity"

Tom Stoppard

Under Pressure

Confiding today that they were "under pressure" from the president to pass new legislation that enhances the government's ability to eavesdrop, intercept, and monitor communications without a warrant and in defiance of F.I.S.A., the House passed the controversial measure. And, while the bill comes with a six month expiration date, one is not convinced that the institutional lethargy which has seized Congress, over the past six years, in the face of executive hubris, will subside, and give way to much-needed discourse on what constitutes terror, who gets to decide that, what constitutes a legitimate threat, and how to deal with it. (NYT)

If nothing else, passage of this legislation proves that the reign of abstraction launched by this administration ,in the days after 9/11, is thriving, and is no longer limited to phrases like "war on terror," but now extends to granting permission to wiretap, eavesdrop, and otherwise interfere with personal communications, without oversight, as long as those communications "concern a person abroad." Given all those who qualify as persons abroad, one can only surmise that this monitoring ability covers a lot of territory.

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, asserts that the measure "does violence to the Constitution," (NYT) which is all well and good, but can we have some specifics please. Americans have the right to know exactly what changes are being enforced for the next six months, what new powers are being vested in this attorney general (who can use a bit of surveillance himself), as well as what constitutes "overseas" communications, who is covered by the phrase "overseas," what paramaters, if any, are in place to ensure that eavesdropping is limited only to those under suspicion. One has come to believe, over the past six years, that everyone is under suspicion, and this is totally unacceptable.

Administration claims that the F.I.S.A. law, of thirty years ago, which requires warrants, is outmoded, but disabling the Fourth Amendment, and setting up an infrastructure in which illegal search and seizure is justified merely by invoking the shibboleth "terrorism suspect" sure as hell isn't workable either. And, as for taking comfort in the fact that this measure is scheduled to sunset in 6 months, keep in mind that the USA Patriot Act was also originally intended to sunset, in a matter of months, and this president managed to bully Congress into finalizing that legislation, too. Congress is conspicuously quiet with regard to the Patriot Act some sections of which are especially pernicious, such as Section 215 which allows federal agents to pressure librarians into turning over records in open-ended investigations.

It's high time that Congress take the vice president's lead, and secede from the executive branch. If Democrats, in Congress, have been bullied, as they claim, into signing this measure, it's only because they've allowed themselves to be overpowered by an executive whose authority knows no bounds. Clearly, this administration is hiding behind abstractions, and a circus of fear. Had members of the House and Senate taken the time needed to closely read the USA Patriot Act, it would never have passed, in the first place, let alone been finalized. An attorney general who, while White House counsel, showed up to the hospital bed of his predecessor to pressure him to endorse a dubious program must be suspect, and any legislation that enhances his power must be equally suspect.

This latest insult to the Constitution should not have been allowed to pass. It is up to voting Americans to demand from all prospective presidential candidates that they carefully articulate, and delineate their stand on the NSA, as well as a program that legitimizes governmental eavesdropping. Set your alarm clock, there needs to be accountability, and answers, when the six months are up.

Parsing Purgatory

Too bad Dante isn't around to see some of the political posturing, and chicanery coming out of the mouths of embedded hypocrites, and purveyors of the status quo, in the Bush administration. He would have especially liked the specious reasoning now used to rationalize Attorney General Gonzales' testimony before the Senate.

Instead of discussing the Terrorist Surveillance Program, current and former "officials" who were "briefed" on the program now contend that Gonzales met with Ashcroft, in 2004, to discuss data mining. (NYT) And what, pray tell, is data mining if not a form of "terrorist" surveillance. My, my, isn't there a visible point of confluence between the collection of personal information and the monitoring of so-called terrorists? One sure would think so.

If checking out people's web surfing habits doesn't constitute surveillance then what does, or does that, too, depend upon what one's "definition of the word sex is?" Anyone who suggests that eavesdropping on telephone calls and e-mails and collecting personal information aren't part and parcel of the same process is using the same kind of twisted logic that justified hanging Saddam Hussein and razing Baghdad despite the absence of weapons of mass destruction because Saddam was a bad guy, after all.

But, the larger question here is why is it that an attorney general who has made a career of unabashed butt-kissing, who has alluded to even more pernicious intelligence programs which Congress never bothered to investigate, who has attempted to obstruct independent inquiry into his own misconduct, and egregiously misrepresented a totally inappropriate, and unwarranted visit to the hospital bed of his predecessor, why is he being given an opportunity to "correct" his misstatements? For cripe's sake, the guy has done more ducking, dodging, and evading than has been witnessed since the Iran-Contra days. Tweaking testimony, and censoring inconvenient facts in scientific reports appears to be an irrevocable Bush Co. legacy.

That said, how is it that a former president, William Jefferson Clinton, was impeached, and disgraced, for lying under oath before a grand jury about what amounts to little more than a love tryst in the Oval Office while an attorney general can not only get away with lying under oath before Congress, but have key congressional figures give him the ammunition to get away with doing so. One would expect to find the practice of covering one's ass only in hell, and surely not in purgatory. One can only wonder how it is that the chief law enforcement officer of a country can not only lie under oath, but be aided and abetted by official enablers, many of whom we've elected, who are working overtime to help him cover his tracks.

Yes, Dante would have loved a day like this, and he would have devised a special circle in hell for those who sodomize the truth, and condemn it to political purgatory. Clearly, the vice-president isn't the only one in Washington, D.C. who needs to have his battery replaced.

Acronyms and Other Toxins

Okay, so maybe it's a coincidence that the vice president's initials, "D.C." are also the initials following the name of the nation's capital. Likewise, it may also be coincidental that the attorney general's initials, " A.G.," not only stand for attorney general, but match his name: "Alberto Gonzales." Not to put too fine a point on this, one thing both fellows seem to share is the obdurate belief that theirs is an innate, and invincible claim to power. Since the nearly six year anniversary of 9/11, we've become a nation that has sought refuge in comfort food, and comfort acronyms; witness "TSP" for "Terrorist Surveillance Program," and "NSA" for National Security Agency."

But, it seems that the only qualifying factor, for this attorney-general, is that he happens to bear the same initials as the position he holds. Even a cursory look at the job description of a federal attorney-general is enough to make one shudder, especially when one considers the disparity between Mr. Gonzales' sworn testimony before the Senate earlier this week, and official documents that reveal there is cause for Congress to consider perjury charges against him. What exactly is the U.S. attorney general appointed to do? For openers, he (or she) must function as the primary law enforcement officer who represents the country in all legal affairs. The attorney general also heads the Justice Department. And, in addition to advising the president, the attorney general is the one who defends the executive branch, before the Supreme Court, should such such defense be necessary. So, what does it say when the attorney general himself not only lacks credibility, but is impeachable on charges of perjury and, quite possibly, obstruction of justice?

When members of the Senate, even some leading Republicans, now call for a special prosecutor to investigate "misconduct" at the very department that is under the aegis of the attorney general, this speaks to the corruption of the framework of government. The vice president's aide, I. Scooter Libby, was charged and convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. He was absolved by the self-same governing body that is now acting not only in contempt of Congress, but in defiance of the rule of law.

While many may have participated in the bungled burglary known as Watergate, it was the brain child of one former president, Richard Nixon. Clearly, the same does not hold true here. The contagion, in this government, results from a collaborative effort from which no member of the Bush administration may be said to be immune. One can only hope that the very fabric of our system of government can recover from thie virus of leadership that continues to damage us daily.

Senator Feingold is right to move for censure, and others are right to suggest impeachment, but when an attorney general refuses to step down in the face of the kind of controversy that would render any head of the Department of Justice impotent, and when a president provides shelter from prosecution for those closest to him who refuse to cooperate, and testify under a subpoena, Rep. Sensenbrenner is right to suggest that maybe it's up to the court to decide what constitutes "executive privilege," and what does not. If these constitutional matters do come before the Supreme Court, consider whose job it is to defend this executive branch, and consider the gravity of the Senate's call, earlier this week, to weigh charges of perjury against this attorney general.

There's no denying that we face the gravest threat to this Republic we've ever faced. The 2008 presidential election is a distraction from the continuing redefinition of "terror" threats to include what formerly came under the umbrella of criminal activity. The effort to blur the lines between national security, and law enforcement represents a deliberate, and methodical campaign, by this administration, to abandon reason, and oulaw dissent.

Ubiquitous Privlege

Help me out here: which Woody Allen movie was it that depicted Allen's mother flying over Manhattan like the Goodyear blimp? Well, lest you missed it yesterday, the Washington Post reports the White House has now decided to replace her. Check out their new and improved version of executive privilege which now allows for blanket of immunity for anyone the president takes under his wing to protect from contempt charges for refusing to testify before Congress.

It's okay to defy Congress, the justice department, and who knows---maybe even the Supreme Court as long as you do so while standing in the president's shadow, or so the administration now claims. This isn't your mother's executive privilege; indeed, this is executive privilege on human growth hormones, and renders justice impotent when it comes to prosecuting anyone who falls under the umbrella of the unitary chief.

Congressman Henry Waxman is right to suggest that the president might as well disband the justice department altogether, and save taxpayer dollars. Some even suggest that this latest flexing of White House muscle "is saying the president's claim of executive privilege trumps all." (WaPo) Those who are astonished by this latest move to offer blanket protection to all those who play the game by White House rules are themselves rather astonishing. What have they been doing for the past few years, watching re-runs of "Sex and the City?" One has only to look at the protection from being charged with war crimes given to Mr. Bush and his cronies by the Military Commissions Act of 2006 which reversed the War Crimes Act.of a decade earlier.

This notion of ubiquitous privilege, and broadband immunity, which applies to any and all who follow the president's commands to defy Congress by refusing to testify as we witnessed with White House aides, and former presidential counsel like Harriet Miers, is serious stuff. This is the stuff dictatorships are made of. One wonders if the unitary executive will next grant itself immunity from charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, as well as assert its overreach to entirely nullify whatever it wishes to nullify including Supreme Court rulings. This is one presidency whose hubris clearly knows no bounds.

Maybe it isn't an omnipotent Jewish mother that hovers over Manhattan like a bloated blimp, but a president who measures his circumference by the coattails that continue to elude him.

something to remember...

"For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."

II Timothy 1:7,

Growing Insurgents

Over the past few days, the Los Angeles Times and the mainstream media have been making noises about the rising threat of an imminent terror attack, and one timed, conveniently, to coincide with a burgeoning presidential campaign season, as well as chatter from Condoleezza Rice about the looming danger of Iran.

Too bad Gogol already wrote "Dead Souls" as one might just as easily believe that both the secretarys of state and defense had done so given what appears to be palpable padding of the number of Iranians involved in the Iraqi insurgency. Curiously, however, we hear little about five Iranians held by the U.S., in Baghdad, since January, on charges of being members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. They have only just been allowed to have a consular visit. despite the fact that the Iranian government insists they are members of the diplomatic corps. (Reuters) Imagine being jailed for more than six months, in a foreign country, without access to those able to secure your release? This is something many we detain at Guantanamo Bay, and elsewhere in covert locations, deal with every day.

Yet, while there seems to be so much emphasis on the fact that, despite every best effort to spin it otherwise, a classified report released now reveals that Al Qaeda is regaining strength, and is more pernicious today than it has been since the attacks on the World Trade Center, there is only token coverage of the growing resistance to this administration's policies, as well as the inescapable truth that, while we were out chasing "Al Qaeda" in Iraq, bin Laden, and his homeboys, have been working out in their caves in Pakistan. If nothing else, this demonstrates that our government is vastly superior to any, in recent memory, with respect to growing insurgents.

Excuse me, but if the National Security Agency has shown themselves to be so adept at data mining, with impunity, for half a dozen years, why haven't they been able to come up with bin Laden's cell phone number? E-mail address? Doesn't he have a niece living here? Yes, yes, of course, she's estranged from her uncle, but...

More to the point, since we did such a great job of growing a resistance to occupation in Iraq, why are we having such a hard time here at home? Why does Congress simply roll over to the excesses of a runaway executive branch which has turned the Supreme Court into its enabler? Why have the politics of terror been allowed to distract, and deflect attention away from the egregious, increasing disgust the American people have for those who lead them? How can an attitude of business as usual be allowed to prevail in our nation's capital where the speaker of the house regales herself in dreams of manana. How is it that a president who has the dubious honor of being tied with another president, Richard Nixon, who was forced to step down in disgrace is allowed to continue his imperial delusions? Mr. Nixon had the good sense to step down. How are we to believe this president and his cronies ever will? The only thing that looms larger than another terror attack is the threat of another president appointed by the Supreme Court.

More important than the president, per se, is the presidency. How can the framework of government not be forever corrupted when a pattern of lies, deceit, secrecy, hubris, and contempt for common sense are allowed to run amok?

The time has come for the Democrats, or any leadership worth its salt, not only to challenge the infamous claim made by the Bush regime that any actions they've taken, since 9/11, have made us one ounce safer, but to demand accountability from those who have misled this nation. It's time for those who have consistently opposed the argument that invading Iraq had anything at all to do with a war on terror to take back the hackneyed assertion of creating a stronger defense. One has only to look at the foreign policy foibles of the past 50 plus years to see that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats can make that claim.

But, in order to move forward, in order to believe that our vote even means anything, Congress must expose these deliberate, and premeditated liars for what they are, and ensure that the dignity of the executive branch is restored. Anything less reeks of acquiescence on the level of Nuremberg; anything less is an insult to the vision of America that hangs like false hope on a desperate planet.

blocker corporations

In his not to be missed article in today's New York Times, David Cay Johnston reveals "how the tax system actually operates at the highest levels of the economy"quoting from tax lawyer Lee Sheppard...

“These guys have figured out how to turn paying taxes into an annuity... the private equity managers, the investment bankers, all the financial intermediaries, are in control of their own taxation and so the debate in Washington about what tax rate to pay misses the big picture.”

"some passion..."

"Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age."

James Joyce

from "The Dead"

Another Wardrobe Malfunction

Another wardrobe malfunction, this time by the White House. Somebody's exposing something big, well, maybe not "big," but bigtime, in the president's directive to "defy congressional subpoenas" today. But, one would hardly expect an administration that decided to go to war unilaterally to cooperate with other branches of government

Quel irony that an administration which once boasted of "openness" and "transparency" now will only let former aides Harriet Miers and Sara Taylor testify "off the record and with no transcript." (AP) What they are showing by trying to hide...my, my...

What a statement, too, that the aides are under command, by the president, to break the law, and refuse to honor a subpoena. But then, as Senator Specter suggests, who's going to believe that criminal charges will be brought by a Bush appointed U.S. attorney? And, what are the odds of going up against a 5-4 Supreme Court? The deck is stacked against accountability, and the buck now can only stop where it began.

Fred Fielding, counsel to the White House and a pro when it comes to claims of executive privilege, notion that the president has "the right to hire and fire his own political appointees" is not without validity, and Congress has the right to investigate those firings, too.

But, somebody in Washington, D.C. has been watching too many John Wayne movies, and needs to be reminded of their inaugural oath to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States," cause that ain't happening, and this executive needs to learn as much about Billy Shakespeare as Billy the Kid, too. One need only to look at the record number of times the Freedom of Information Act has been invoked during the Bush years to understand the perniciousness of this current rabid claim of "executive privilege."

The people have rights, too, like the right to fire and hire their political appointees. Indeed, Congress has been elected to represent us with respect to that right. It's time to consider firing those who continue to expose their vehement, and toxic disrespect for those documents, and deeds which have defined us as a country for more than two hundred years.

Even the president of the United States doesn't get to hide behind an American flag.

Standing to Sue

Congress is currently in the process of demanding that President Bush provide "a detailed justification of his executive privilege claims," as well as account for all the documents he is withholding from the House and Senate with respect to the controversial firing of nine U.S. attorneys (WaPo) It will be fascinating to see just how much the executive branch thinks it can hide under the umbrella of "state secrets." Ostensibly, this president's claim of "executive privilege" is, in essence, no different from invoking the Fifth, which is appropriate given that he has taken the First and Fourth Amendments and buried them, like so many bones, in his backyard.

While the White House claims to be "standing on principle" in not cooperating with congressional investigations, a federal appeals panel, in Cincinnati, last week upheld the National Security Agency's controversial surveillance program by questioning plaintiffs' "standing to sue." (NYT) You'll recall that the warrantless monitoring of citizens was ruled unconstitutional by a district court judge last year.

While far from unanimous, the court's decision to dismiss the lawsuit by attorneys and journalists who assert that government's program of intercepting their "international" e-mails and telephone calls, without warrants, or official notification, has been injurious to them represents a huge victory for the Bush administration. The court claims to have dropped the charges because plaintiffs were unable to present "concrete" evidence that the NSA program was directly, and tangibly, deleterious, thus they have no "standing," or cause, and are not entitled to sue.

One member of the appeals panel, Judge Gibbons, appointed to the bench by the president, suggests that the case was dismissed based on "the single fact that the plaintiffs have failed to provide evidence that they are personally subject to the program." (NYT) Indeed, one of the reasons plaintiffs may be unable to prove that they are personally affected by the program is because that evidence is "privileged," protected under "state secrets privilege," hence inadmissible in court. Ironically, another judge on the panel, Judge Batchelder, appointed by the president's father, George H.W. Bush, says that the case presents what she calls "a cascade of serious questions" as to whether the surveillance program violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as well as both the First and Fourth Amendments. At stake here is not merely whether FISA and the Constitution have been compromised, but whether the government can be allowed to use confidentiality to preclude the admission of evidence, into court, which demonstrates government wrongdoing.

Steven Shapiro, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, expressed alarm by the most recent appeals court decision which challenges that of district judge, Anna Diggs Taylor, who declared the Agency's spy program unconstitutional. Shapiro says that the court decision, in effect, "insulates the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance activities from judicial review and deprives Americans of any ability to challenge the illegal surveillance of their telephone calls and e-mails." (NYT) But, this decision goes deeper than that insofar as it reinforces the right of the government to withhold from evidence any information it deems to be secret, or classified, especially information which may be inconvenient, and/or actionable.

There was yet another case in which the state secrets argument surfaced, and led to a suit against the government being dismissed. Last April, in a district court in San Francisco, the U.S. government filed a statement in a class action lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation saying that they would assert "state secrets privilege" to obtain the dismissal of E.F.F.'s lawsuit against AT&T in which the group alleges that the telecommunications behemoth illegally monitored its networks. The Justice Department's statement established dismissal as the default position for any case that requires the release of what the DOJ considers classified information. And, as we've seen, the classification and de-classification of material, by this administration, has more to do with political expediency, and covering one's posterior, than national security.

As John Dean, former White House counsel to Richard Nixon, points out, for more than two centuries, the U.S. has functioned without an official state secrets act unlike other countries which criminalize divulging government information deemed to be potentially damaging to national interests. As early as 2003, Mr. Dean argued that, despite the cost to free speech and the First Amendment, "President George W. Bush has created the equivalent of an official secrets act for America…by cobbling together provisions from existing laws, Bush's Justice Department has effectively created one." (Findlaw) And, while we have no official state secrets act, there is a "state secret privilege," which amounts to an evidentiary rule, used by the government, in which the courts may be compelled to exclude any material, or testimony, that is deemed a threat to "national security."

Next month, a federal appeals court, in San Francisco, will hear another challenge to the NSA spy program in which two lawyers of a Muslim charity allege that they were "personally injured," and have had access to a document that demonstrates that the government has intercepted their exchanges. Their argument that their attorney-client privilege was damaged by the government's intrusion into their confidential affairs, according to legal experts gives them standing to sue.

The A.C .L.U. is not taking the decision by the federal appeals panel, last week, lightly, nor should we. They are even considering taking this appeal court's decision to effectively validate the administration's surveillance of American citizens all the way to the Supreme Court. And, if the Supremes can be prevailed upon to consider the legality of government's unauthorized monitoring, without a warrant, of our private conversations, they will be opening Pandora's Box as, not only is the Bush administration acting in defiance of F.I.S.A, but they will have a hard time ignoring allegations that they're in violation of the Constitution, too. We may yet get to see just how "conservative" judicial activist Bush appointees like John Roberts and Samuel Alito really are, and whether they have any standing to judge..

Firefights and the Fourth of July

While waiting for the fireworks, consider this: last weekend, in Iraq, U.S. troops stormed the slums of Sadr City, a largely Shiite stronghold in Baghdad, "blindly" killing 26 innocent Iraqi civilians. A local resident describes a pre-dawn raid intended to target "Iranian-linked militants," in chilling terms: "At about 4 a.m., a big American convoy with tanks came and began to open fire on houses—bombing them." Another Iraqi woman says her family was hit while "peacefully sleeping."

Even an Iraqi police officer alleges he was also injured when soldiers started to randomly bomb houses, and fire at civilians. Three members of one family were killed during the attacks which Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, the officer in charge, called "an intense firefight." Garver claims that all the victims were "terrorists" who were shooting at the troops at the time, thus his men acted in self-defense. (AP)

Regardless of who is telling the truth here, Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has expressed justifiable outrage at the raids, and refusal of the U.S. military to comply with his orders that prohibit any operation without "pre-approval from the Iraqi military command…Anyone who breaches the military command orders will face investigation." Presumably, the "anyone" to whom the prime minister refers includes American military personnel. Think about the irony implicit in defiance by American military command of Iraqi military command. Is it any wonder that the Iraqis want us out given that we show no more respect for them, or their "democratically" established hierarchy than Saddam Hussein did. While the officer in charge asserts that any structure, in Sadr, that came under assault was "being used for hostile intent," the question is why were his troops there in the first place, against the wishes of Iraqi leadership? This is only one, of many, questions that bear repeating if, and when, Lt. Col Garver goes before court martial.

Even if he has his day in court, keep in mind that Garver, too, takes orders from someone and as we have seen far too often over the past four years, those who most deserve to be brought up on charges manage to slip between the cracks. We witnessed the dignified "retirement" of former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, with no questions asked about what, if any, role he played whether in ordering or implementing, the systemic torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

When an American military operation views sleeping women and children are "terrorists," we have to wonder not just about who's carrying out these heinous acts, but who's giving them the orders to do so.

Ominously, too, the intentional blurring of the line between civilian and insurgent, as well as between insurgent and member of al-Qaeda, in an effort to spin an unpopular war, has been consistently employed to justify everything from "alternative interrogation techniques" such as we've seen in Abu Ghraib, an Iraqi prison which housed mainly Iraqi criminals, not "enemy combatants."

If you happen to be a citizen of an occupied country where there is an active resistance to occupation, does that make you fair game? Increasingly, the media feeds us the party line that we are no longer fighting insurgency, in Iraq, but al Qaeda. One can no longer be a citizen of Iraq, but they are, by default, either terrorists, or terrorists in training. What does it say about our attempt to bring law and order to Baghdad when our own military acts with brazen disregard for Iraqi law?

When just a day or two ago, we heard the president speak about commuting Scooter Libby's jail sentence, but leaving his conviction and $250,000 fine in place because he thinks there's a need for "accountability," (AP) one can only look to him as commander-in-chief, and expect that he hold himself fully accountable, too, for the horrific wholesale slaughter of two dozen innocent sleeping Iraqi civilians.

While the world witnessed the kangaroo trials of service members for their crimes against humanity at Abu Ghraib, so far, senior members of the Defense Department, going up the chain of command as far as possible, have not been brought to justice. Donald Rumsfeld got to return to private life with impunity. Clearly, Rumsfeld took commands, too. Yet, those who gave the original orders continue to function in secret, without oversight, and without accountability despite their alacrity for encouraging others to take responsibility for their own misdeeds. A Pentagon consultant remarked, when the horrific photographs of the systemic abuse of Abu Ghraib detainees first surfaced, that "the basic strategy was 'prosecute the kids in the photographs but protect the big picture." (The New Yorker)

But, whose "big picture" are we really protecting? In the final analysis, accountability for firing blindly on civilians, for massaging the language of war such that those who actively resist occupation, in Iraq, become "al Qaeda," and the enemy morphs into a ubiquitous mass that includes sleeping men, women, and children; in the final analysis, accountability is a four letter word: B U S H. When the Army revises its induction manual, and military legislation labels what were formerly widely recognized as human rights abuses as "alternative interrogation techniques," one needn't do a Google search to find out who's responsible. The buck often stops where the buck begins.

"I make a judgment, a considered judgment. I stand by it," the president acknowledged when he spoke, earlier this week, about his decision to commute the sentence of Libby, a convicted felon. Clearly, this commutation wasn't the first "considered judgment" this president has made. He made the judgment to invade Iraq, to oust its leadership, to bomb and plunder Baghdad, to destroy more American lives in the name of a "war on terror" than have been lost as a result of 9/11, as well as to revise the War Powers Act such that he, and his cronies, are immune from prosecution for war crimes.

On this day we celebrate our independence, and self-determination, this president continues to make the "considered judgment" that it's acceptable to deny Iraq its own sovereignty.

We have exported many things to many different parts of the world, but independence isn't one of them. Independence Day, for the Iraqis, will come when America goes home.

Charmed Lives

President Bush has just commuted the 30 month sentence of former White House aide, I. Scooter Libby, who was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice.

In a previous post that dealt with Paris Hilton, I predicted that she would spend more time behind bars than Scooter Libby, and I was right. It's time for all those who demanded that Hilton, the child of privilege, do her 23 day sentence to speak up, and demand, too, that this Washington, D.C. insider, the pimp of privilege, take his medicine like a man, and serve his sentence instead of hiding behind the White House's skirt.

Arguably, the larger question is: who will commute the president's sentence? Surely not history who will find this presidential reprieve to be consistent with the cronyism, chicanery, and pathology that has not only permeated the nation's capital, but run amok globally, since this administration occupied our government.

Some of us lead charmed lives. The rest of us clean up after them.

Before the Big Bang

Martin Bojowald, a scientist at Pennsylvania State University, said it may be possible to glimpe before the big bang...

"The eternal recurrence of absolutely identical universes would seem to be prevented by the apparent existence of an intrinsic cosmic forgetfulness."

(I want some of whatever he's smoking...)

courtesy of Yahoo News

From the Bench to Benchmarks

While the Supremes have managed to take our focus away from the war in Iraq, over the past few days, with their latest aggravated assault on affirmative action, it's important not to allow what Bush calls "political theatre" to distract us from what will prove to be crucial discourse on Iraq, in the coming months, and confusion as to the difference between troop withdrawal, and withdrawal of our presence in Iraq.

All prospective presidential nominees, of both parties, must account for their position on an "American presence" in Iraq, and asked to clarify exactly what that means. When we hear candidates, from both parties, say they support troop withdrawal, we need to listen to whether or not they propose ending the occupation totally, which must include sending home those military, and private contractors who are making barrels of money off the civil war, carnage, and plundering of Baghdad.

More often than not, the word "benchmark" when applied to Iraq, is thinly guised code for the ongoing presence of Halliburton, and others, to maximize profitability with no end in sight. Arguably, American deconstruction of Iraq may well have been intended not merely for the obvious access to that country's oil, but for the lucrative reconstruction contracts, as well..

It's essential that "benchmarks" be exposed for what they are---euphemisms for corporate deployment and redevelopment. Any candidate for president who claims to have a deadline to bring the troops home must say exactly when they plan to end the occupation, and withdrawal of the mercenaries, as well as the soldiers there.

Some Final Thoughts on Murdoch's Revenge....

While no one can doubt that Murdoch's muscular pursuit of Dow Jones is politically-timed, and politically-motivated, rest assured that if he is reasonably secure in the belief that his new pal, Hillary Clinton, will be more likely to support "benchmarks," i.e. leaving American contractors in Iraq long after the troops withdraw to maximize profit margins, then he will ensure that Fox, Newscorp, and the WSJ are in sync with a Hillary presidency. And, sync or swim, any editor, or journalist, who doesn't fall into place will quickly find themselves out of work.

Yesterday's one-day national walkout by Wall Street Journal reporters, as their press release indicates, to speak up in favor of "journalistic independence" while laudable was too short-lived and, more importantly, little more than symbolic in light of reports that a "tentative deal" with the Wall Street Journal would give Murdoch, and News Corp., autonomy with regard to hiring and firing the paper's editors. Those who have had access to the agreement call it "a far cry" from the newsroom, and editorial, independence insisted upon by the Bancrofts. (Reuters)

Moreover, whether the new owner of Dow Jones, and The Wall Street Journal, should decide it's in his best financial interests to support a Democrat over a Republican as the next president, keep in mind that what motivates Murdoch is not ideology, or even ideas; it's money. Arguably, he'd get into bed with Stalin if the price were right. After all, he got into bed with Beijing.

That said, make no mistake, Rupey is the symptom not the disease. As Bill Moyers points out brilliantly, in his essay, "On Murdoch," the disease is newspaper consolidation. Indeed, if Mr. Murdoch were to withdraw his bid for the Journal, fold his hand, and go home to Australia, the recent hair raising trend of newspaper buyouts and mergers would still exist. Ultimately, consolidation poses a graver longterm threat to editorial independence than Rupert Murdoch ever could.

from Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer...

comes quote of the day.courtesy of The New York Times..

“It is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much,” Justice Breyer said.

Breyer was referring to a landmark ruling yesterday, by the Supremes, to limit the use of race as a determining factor which will have profound, and longterm influence on affirmative action.

While many seem shocked by this ruling, few can be surprised given that dismantling of affirmative action, as well as Roe v. Wade were among the principal objectives of the Bush administration's initial push for the presidency, and are consistent with the neo-conservative bent of the Repub lican party, a mindset which has been dormant, of late, but which will doubtless rear its ugly head in the upcoming 2008 presidential election.

Look for the rapid detumescence of moderate Repubican candidates like Rudy Guiliani, and the clear cut emergence of John McCain as the Republican nominee for president. Look for the takeover of The Wall Street Journal, by longtime McCain friend and ally, Rupert Murdoch, as a step in the direction of buying the presidency. Murdoch's hot pursuit of Dow Jones is, unquestionably, politically-timed, and politically-motivated.

Behind Closed Doors

In the last week or so, there has been a lot of important talk taking place behind closed doors. A former attorney general, John Ashcroft, met with members of Congress, in closed session, presumably to disclose why he refused to sign off on the president's NSA domestic surveillance program, and who tried to bully him in to submission. We, who pay his salary, were not privy to that discussion. No doubt, Ashcroft spoke, too, about the original program, and what it contained, in depth.

Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee issued subpoenas to the executive branch, including the president and vice president, as well as the Justice Department. These subpoenas, no doubt, also arise from testimony which took place in secret. Defiance of Senate subpoenas casts a long shadow on the Bush White House's previous efforts to depict itself as the high priestess of putative transparency.

Chair of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Patrick Leahy, describes the efforts of this administration to cover their tracks, and to avoid testifying as "stonewalling of the worst kind." (NYT) Indeed, Mr. Leahy is being kind. This isn't just about stonewalling, or evasion; the efforts of this administration are nothing short of subrogation of the process of discovery, and are in contempt of Congress.. And, while he may contest his parking space in the executive branch, no one but the vice president can deny that he's become too big for his britches; indeed, Mr. Cheney has become Richard Nixon on human growth hormones.

But, the refusal to comply with demands for information, and/or release of documents, as well as an almost aberrational insistence on private meetings aren't limited to the executive branch, and the Justice Department. Earlier this month during his confirmation hearings, the incoming counsel of the CIA, John Rizzo, refused to answer some "tougher" questions, on the NSA program, by the Senate Intelligence Committee, saying he preferred to respond "in closed session." (NYT) One wonders just how much testimony about unwarranted, and unlawful interception of e-mails and telephone communications will be heard secretly, as well as how much information about which telecommunication companies were co-respondents, and enablers, of this program will surface, how much will be suppressed and whether or not the American public will have to wait another 30 odd years for these "family jewels" to surface, too.

Senator Charles Schumer, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, reportedly confessed that "alarm bells went off" when he first heard former deputy attorney general, James Comey's testimony about the Gonzales hospital visit to John Ashcroft, and that it seemed to him "clear that there had been an effort to circumvent the law." (NYT) While we applaud the expressions of outrage made by members of the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, one can't help but wonder why there isn't a more aggressive push for transparency, and the admission of the press, as well as public hearings? After all, the Committee for Un-American Activities met in open session, and I, for one, can't recall any activities, with the exception of the burglary at Watergate, more "un-American" than the ones we've witnessed in t he past 6 plus years.

While we may be incapable of doing a fast rewind on the Ashcroft closed door hearing, as well as any others, Cryptome reports that there will be a meeting of the Defense Science Board, a panel of about 40 that advises the Pentagon on scientific, or manufacturing acquistion matters of national security, "in closed session" from August 6-16th at the Beckman Center in Irvine, California. The role of the DSB, as Undersecretary of Defense, Kenneth J. Krieg, sees it is to address the "growing threat of missiles, information warfare and biological, chemical, and nuclear weaponry."

With the growing recognition of a failed mission in Iraq, and troop withdrawal all but inevitable, as well as the growing plausibility of some military action against Iran and North Korea, and with all the so-called interest in citizen vigilance to avoid another terrorist attack, how ironic that "all sessions of these (Defense Science Board) meetings will be closed to the public. " Arguably, there are times when release of certain information will pose a clear and present danger to our national security, but at the moment, withholding of information poses a far greater challenge to our own security, as well as world peace.

Whether it's testimony, in Washington, D.C., about tweaking borderline legislation so that it has the illusion of legality, or a Defense Science Board meeting, in Southern California, to discuss "Challenges to Military Operations in Support of National Interests," when information is privileged, and access restricted, oversight can be nothing more than an abstraction.











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Quote of the Day

Comes from an article, by Gardiner Harris, in today's New York Times which reports that psychiatrists top the list in drug maker gifts...

"According to their income statements, drug makers generally spend twice as much to market drugs as they do to research them."

Beneath Contempt

Okay, so will somebody please explain to me how it is that on the eve of among the biggest corporate take-overs, Murdoch's acquisition of The Wall Street Journal, a move so ominous that reporters nationwide for that newspaper walked out today in protest, and on a day when the president and vice president of the United States were subpoenaed by the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer questions about their subrogation of the Constitution via an illegal NSA spy program, CNN could devote a full hour of programming to that latest American fetish, Paris Hilton. Yes, and while we're at it, please explain, too, how on a day that Congress prepared to vote on controversial immigration legislation, the blogosphere lit up with reports of a cat fight between Ann Cobra (ooops, I mean Coulter) and a presidential candidate's wife? Clearly, desire for big advertising bucks has infected not merely the mainstream media, but the mainstream blogs, too. Yes, yes, greed is an equal opportunity destroyer.

Despite any claim she may have to be a product of the cave she crawled out of, Ann Coulter is beneath contempt, and unfit to clean Elizabeth Edward's shoes. She has shown, like many of her conservative colleagues, that she is expert at weapons of mass distraction. Ann Coulter is the "Roseanne" of political discourse, only Roseanne was funny; Ann is simply sadistic. She's making a fortune proving that while crime doesn't pay, cruelty sure as hell does.

It is immensely disturbing to watch anyone profit, and hugely, off personal attacks intended to deflect attention away from their own overpriced, and over-rated vacuousness.Yes, I know, as the Virginia Slim advertisement goes---"You've come a long way, baby." We now witness the entrance, into politics, of alpha females like Ms. Coulter who borrow the "by any means necessary" ethos from their Republican male counterparts and, in essence, out-Herod, Herod. And for those who have all but given up hope on the women's movement, and all the so-called progress made over the past 30 plus years, we have someone like Elizabeth Edwards to show that one can be brilliant, strategic, make a compelling argument, and manage to hit above the belt. If all women were aspire to be even half as evolved as Elizabeth Edwards, the world would be a far saner, and safer place.

Not only are personal attacks beneath contempt but, ultimately, they show the vulnerability of the attacker. One who tries to capitalize on what they think are another's weak points is not only showing their own intellectual limitations, but their own insecurities. The only thing more contemptible than Ms. Coulter's unprovoked, and unwarranted, diatribes against the Edwards is the willingness of the media, press, and blogosphere to go along for the ride, and take much-needed attention away from the ongoing travesties and outrages of an administration that continues to ride roughshod over our rights.

"D.C." doesn't stand for Dick Cheney

an open letter to the vice president...

Dear Messr. Cheney,

The purpose of this letter is to inform you that entitlement is no longer a gentleman's sport. Indeed, the blood of thousands has been shed in the name of protecting, and defending a document that outlines a priceless vision of freedom which has recently been trampeled and eviscerated. While no one is suggesting this is solely your doing, your fingerprints are everywhere in sight.

And, though it may have felt like it at times, over the past six plus years,the nation's capital was not named after you. Indeed, the letters "D.C." stand for District of Columbia, and not Dick Cheney. What's more, the president was inaugurated, back in January, 2000, not coronated, which means there can be no exemption from adhering to the laws, even if they were of his own devising. Being elected means always having to be accountable.

There's only so far massaging the truth can get you, and only history, not elected executives, has immunity. A quick refresher course in Constitution 101 will assure you that yes, the vice presidency finds itself in the executive branch of government, and the oath of office doesn't exempt one from congressional, and judicial oversight. Adherence to the law is not a matter of convenience, or conscience; it is a pre-requisite for leadership.

When the framers wrote about "checks" and balances, they weren't referring to the kind made payable to Halliburton.

The I.C.E. Man Cometh (Take 2)...

Just last week, in Los Angeles, agents from the office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted a massive raid in which they reportedly collected thousands of illegal immigrants in that city who in addition to being in the U.S. unlawfully, they claimed, had also engaged in criminal activity. This is not the first time an I.C.E. visit resulted in huge wins. Other states, like Florida, have been successful in major sweeps.

It's nice to see I.C.E. making such progress in clearing out illegals in Los Angeles. Now, if only they would make the same inroads in eliminating those, in Washington, D.C., who are there illegally.

Rocky Days in L.A.

It's virtually impossible to read The Los Angeles Times these days without seeing marathon coverage of alleged transgressions by city attorney, Rocky Delgadillo, a Democrat. There have been charges of misconduct before, but since his press release, in late February, in which Delgadillo went public with his sponsorship of legislation to "criminalize homeless patient dumping," and go after corporate HMO monoliths like Kaiser Permanente, the mania to find and pin dirt on him has been relentless. This isn't so much to ask whether the numerous allegations against the city attorney are justified; this is simply to question their timing, and their purpose.

Shortly after announcing criminal charges against Kaiser Permanente Hospital, last November, the onslaught of invective, and nonstop investigation into wrongdoing began digging back to 1998 for evidence not merely against the city attorney, but against his wife. "Kaiser Foundation Hospital, part of Kaiser Permanente, the largest HMO in the nation will be held accountable for violating state law, and its commitment to its patients," he announced. Michael Stoops, National Coalition for the Homeless, calls Rocky Delgadillo's suit against Kaiser "a precedent" which will "send a notice to institutions that dump homeless patients," (USA Today) but who cares about the rights of homeless patients in a town smitten with celebrity, greed, and corporate lust?

Clearly, efforts by Delgadillo to speak out against the brutal, wanton practice of homeless dumping helped spark some of the outrage that led to a recent move by California Health Regulators to call for revoking the license of Martin Luther King, Jr. Hospital where, early last month, a 43 year old woman, Edith Rodriguez, was left to writhe in pain, and die on the Emergency Room floor, but who cares about uninsured indigents who go dying from neglect, and hordes of homeless dumped on Skid Row, and what do the monied folk try to do with a man who tries to stand up for their interests? Crucify him for nonpayment of five parking tickets?

It's not only HMOs, and corporate health care giants, Delgadillo has taken aim at. In April, he announced tough new legislation to "put an end to the rampant outdoor advertising blighting our communities," and less than a month later, he detailed efforts to advocate for the rights of those who are victims of domestic violence, obtaining a $100,000 grant from Verizon Wireless to develop tools to enhance the ability to prosecute those who abuse women and children. Nobody's trying to depict Rocky Delgadillo as Robin Hood, but simply ask if he's being railroaded for trying to do something about the city's many disenfranchised.

Okay, yes, Rocky went after Sheriff Lee Baca, too, for wanting to give Paris Hilton a free pass to do house arrest as Delgadillo thought that keeping her in jail would be more just given the gravity of driving on a suspended license. And, yes, this is ironic in light of recent revelations that his wife faced an outstanding warrant for her arrest as a result of a nearly decade's old traffic case in which she failed to appear in court and face charges of driving without insurance, with a suspended license , and in an unregistered car. The Los Angeles Times reports that the Delgadillos were "chronically late in paying fines" for several parking tickets, and the prosecutor has also admitted to occasionally letting the missus drive his city owned vehicle, without a license, to run errands; he himself acknowledges driving without insurance for a year.

He doesn't deny either that when Mrs. D. was involved in an accident in her husband's SUV, a few years ago, taxpayers picked up the tab for repairs. And, earlier this month , the Los Angeles Ethics Committee approved more than $11,000, in fines, for 30 counts of campaign finance law violations for his failure to account for how some of his 2004 and 2005 campaign funds were spent. These dubious expenditures included meals, flowers, and gifts, as well as payments to consultants. Delgadillo conceded wrongdoing, and settled with the committee. (LAT) In fact, if only the chief executive, and his chronies in the executive branch, were to be half as forthcoming with mea culpas as Mr. D. has been, we would no longer have troops stationed in Iraq.

Undoubtedly, the desire by the state ethics panel to investigate Rocky was not without merit. The allegations of campaign finance law infractions alone would have been sufficient cause to justify a panel inquiry. It is serious when the top prosecutor for a major city enlists "staff members to run personal errands and babysit his children," but it is more serious when those reporting the story fail to address why it is that these allegations have surfaced now, and place them within the context of his ongoing efforts to criminalize those whose inhumanity results in the egregious dumping of homeless people, by hospitals, onto the streets. Tabloid journalism whose focus is advertising revenue leads to mob justice in which a citizen is tried by photo-op, and not by fairness, in the interest of boosting sluggish newspaper sales. From Paris to Rocky, instant celebrity results in high ratings for the media, as well as an intellectual, and ethical climate that contributes to a witch hunt mentality.

When questions that deserve to be asked go missing; questions such as why have all these moving violations managed to surface only months after Delgadillo's legislation to impose criminal penalties on among the largest HMOs in the country for dumping hospital patients, the result is daunting. One cannot fail to see the connection between SB 275, the bill Delgadillo co-authored last year, which prohibits hospital staff from the dumping homeless patients on Skid Row, making violations of this provision "punishable as a misdemeanor," and the current feeding frenzy to divest this city attorney of his job. HMOs, and the folks who stand to profit the most from them, don't like those who champion for the rights of anyone, or anything that cut into their bottom line.

Arguably, Rocky Delgadillo stepped on one too many toes. But, more importantly, what does it say about the press that, rather than expose the possibility that there's a corporate posse actively trying to dig up as much dirt as possible on this Democratic city attorney, are instead cooperating with those interests?

It is hoped that all those who consider the charges against Rocky Delgadillo, city attorney of Los Angeles, will do so within the context of those causes he's championed, and also challenge the timing of the release of allegations against him.
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Mr. President, Tear Down This Wall

Nearly 20 years ago to the day, on June 12, 1987, Ronald Reagan admonished Russian President Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin wall. Several years and several thousand miles from that historical moment, on Capitol Hill today, a former attorney general of the United States met behind closed doors with a House Intelligence panel to discuss, in secret, whether or not the president's clandestine NSA electronic surveillance program broke the law.

Not only was this meeting withheld from citizens, and those who pay congressional salaries and Mr. Ashcroft's pension, but the press was kept out, too.. Indeed, it would seem that reporters were fed tiny morsels of bread by Mr. Ashcroft, as well as Intelligence Committee members, such as chair Silvestre Reyes, who said only that "there was robust and enormous debate within the administration about the legal basis for the president's surveillance program." (AP) Arguably, "robust" is an adjective that might work better when describing Chardonnay than when detailing an admission on the part of one of the framers of the president's "war on terror," an undeniable appearance of wrongdoing on the part of this commander-in-chief and his chief henchmen. But, then, we live in the age of phrases like "unlawful enemy combatants," so why not splurge a little.

And on this day when one is at a loss to find any "good guys" left anywhere comes news from California congressman Henry Waxman, chair of the House Oversight Committee, that the vice precedent has decided to secede from the executive branch, and declare himself exempt from the procedures required to protect classified information. How very KGB-ish. What's more, Mr. Cheney suggests that if the National Archive doesn't want to grant him immunity, then simply get rid of the offending agency within the archive, or maybe get rid of the whole bloody thing. Hell, why not throw out the Supreme Court, too, if they get out of line---wait a minute, not a good idea, after all, he wouldn't be the vice president now were it not for the Supreme Court. And, if Gorbachev wouldn't go for this logic, Kafka sure as hell would.

Well, I have some breaking news for Mr. Ashcroft who refused to take questions from the press after his closed door meeting, and for Mr. Cheney who thinks he is above the law, and can rewrite the Constitution, as well as for those members of Congress we elected to represent us--we, the people, find your secrecy and simultaneous assault on our privacy to be not merely contemptible, but thoroughly unacceptable. There isn't a hangar wide enough for justice, nor a closet large enough for any who violate the public trust to hide. And, we the people, a portion of whose paycheck, every week, every year, goes to pay for your children's education and fight your wars, we say, yet again, no taxation without representation; you do not get to mete out the truth, and nuance facts, from your foxhole; there can be no representation behind closed doors.

Mr. President, tear down this wall! It is America now that is cowering, and hiding its tracks like a rogue state. It is up to Congress to insist on a change of course, and to demand transparency, glasnost. It is up to members of the House and Senate investigating this duplicitous and dastardly breach of the oath of office to uphold the Constitution, to tell those who break the law then try to make it law, that we see right through them. We see right through their chicanery, mendacity, will not allow ourselves to be spoonfed spin, and then told it's manna. We will not let these born again jihadists turn the White House bought and paid for with our blood, the blood of our ancestors, and with our tax dollars, into the axis of their ugly, hellish white lies.

If, as Mr. Ashcroft contends in his first official statement, he's concerned that "the framework we have for defeating terror, defending the liberty and security of the United States in the context of our Constitution...remains intact," (AP) then let him come out from behind closed doors, let us hear the whole truth, the whole story, and let the chips fall where they may.

Quote of the Day

Today's quote comes, courtesy of The Huffington Post, from a letter to Vice President Dick Cheney by Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the congressional Oversight Committee, in response to the vice president's statement that his office does not fall under the umbrella of the executive branch. A refresher course in Constitution 101 appears to be in order.

Chairman Henry Waxman writes: "I question both the legality and wisdom of your actions. ... [I)t would appear particularly irresponsible to give an office with your history of security breaches an exemption from the safeguards that apply to all other executive branch officials."

Somebody needs corrective lenses, and it isn't Henry Waxman.

Anthony Romero on Habeas Corpus

On June 26th, thousands of activists will gather in Washington, D.C . to speak out against the Military Commissions Act, and other imperious legislation that has come down the proverbial pike courtesy of the current regime.

In the words of Anthony Romero, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union:

"So on June 26th, we have an opportunity to tell our story and an obligation to speak to Americans in ways that will bridge the partisan divide...It is a story of American strength and American values--of 13 colonies that went to war with a global empire who listed the suspension of the right to trial by jury as a serious grievance against the British King in Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence."

Yes, and history has shown that the Declaration of Independence is a work in progress. By the simple act of overturning the Military Commissions Act of 2006, the empire will strike back, and we will, once again, live in a country that would make Thomas Jefferson proud.

Thank you Anthony Romero, and the A.C.L.U., for continuing to remind us that, more often than not, those who fight the wars aren't those who write the laws.

Forget the Gipper; Score One...

for the Ripper...


President Bush made good on his pledge to veto the stem cell research bill today saying that he cannot endorse legislation that supports the destruction of embryonic life. "If this legislation became law, it would compel American taxpayers for the first time in our history to support the deliberate destruction of human embryos," contends the president.

Apart from the fact that there is no substance to his voodoo science; quel irony given that such concern comes from the mouth of a commander-in-chief who has bled taxpayers, and the public trust, blind to "support" his own personal crusade, the ongoing and deliberate destruction of human life in Iraq.

For this administration, it pays to be an embryo. As far as they're concerned only in the womb is one entitled to privacy, and a fair shake.