Category Archive

On July 5th, I posted one plausible reason why the Democratic leadership in Washington has been so reluctant to institute impeachment proceedings against a clearly corrupt White House. Basically, I suggested that they were waiting until Bush was out of office to begin any prosecutory action in order to avoid any attempts by the alleged president to pardon his minions for their criminal wrongdoing.

I’d like to retract that post, along with anything nice I may ever have said about the Democratic congressional leadership.

The always excellent Glenn Greenwald certainly shot my theory down yesterday. (Not that he was actually taking aim at it or anything. I’m sure he has far better things to do with his time than read my humble little blog.)

In his column at Salon.com (which I strongly encourage reading in full), Greenwald very neatly summarizes the evidence that in fact the principal reason for the Democrats’ inaction is that key members of the Democratic leadership (including Nancy Pelosi) were briefed early on about two of the biggest scandals to come out of this administration: the torturing of detainees in Gitmo and elsewhere, and the illegal wiretapping program that our Democratic-controlled Congress so graciously granted Bush and the telecoms immunity for last week.

Suddenly, the reason for their willingness to roll over on these issues becomes clear: because any investigation in conjunction with impeachment proceedings (or any other prosecution) will inevitably reveal that these key Democrats knew what was going on, and yet said and did nothing to stop it.

Can we just impeach all of them? Now, please? Do we really have to wait until November to throw these people out of office?

-jane doe

Ever since the Senate vote on the FISA POS yesterday, I’ve been trying to puzzle it out, and I still don’t get it.

Why did Barack Obama vote for the bill?

What could possibly have motivated him to vote the way he did?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m plenty ticked off at all the other Democrats who caved to pressure from either the White House or (more likely) campaign contributors associated with the telecoms. They’re all on my shit list at the moment, and the Day of Retribution shall come, when they shall be Mocked Most Thoroughly for their total lack of backbone, intestinal fortitude, and/or principles.

I write a mean poison pen letter.*

But Obama’s decision to vote in favor of the bill completely mystifies me. I really cannot come up with a single rational explanation for his decision to support this bill.

It was a foregone conclusion that, no matter how he voted on the matter, McCain (who managed not to vote on the bill) will criticize his vote during the campaign. If he voted against it, he was soft on terrorism. If he voted for it, he was flip-flopping. (And by the way, McCain: Hello? Pot? Kettle? Glass houses?) So I’m not seeing much gain there.

Some have theorized that this is part of his effort to move a bit toward the center, since he is currently being portrayed by some on the right as being the senator who is furthest to the left on the political spectrum. But aside from those of us on the left who are active in these matters, my sense is that this issue hasn’t drawn a huge amount attention from the middle-of-the-road crowd. So the way I see it, he alienated his base on the left for very little potential gain in the middle.

And boy, has he ever alienated his base. From today’s Wall Street Journal, we have this little tidbit:

Obama’s own campaign Web site has become a hotbed of debate over his support for the compromise bill, spawning four groups in which opponents of Obama’s position vastly outnumber supporters—22,957 to 38. The “Get FISA Right” group blog on MyBarackObama.com was flooded with disappointed supporters after Wednesday’s vote, with more than 60 writing in within 90 minutes of the vote.

“Christopher from Cleveland” wrote, “All those people saying that we should relax, and take it easy, since it’s only one issue, are wrong because Barack is breaking his promise to us!”

“Dan in Holland,” said he was a Michigan voter who would no longer vote for Obama, adding “I just lost an enormous amount of respect for Mr. Obama and his vote on the FISA bill and the amendment to strip telecom immunity.”

Certainly, the blogosphere is up in arms about how he voted. Promises of no further campaign contributions and refusal to vote in November abound. (But really, are these people likely not to vote? Hell, no. When it comes down to it, I think we can all agree that what we do not need is for the next four years to look like the last eight years.)

Perhaps he fears a terrorist attack will take place on US soil between now and November. If there is one, a “no” vote on this measure really could hurt him in the polls. (See my previous posts on terror management theory for why.) So that might explain it.

There’s another possibility, and it’s a disturbing one. Maybe he actually wanted the measure to pass. Maybe he wanted to have that warrantless wiretapping ability should he win the election in November.

For the record, I think that the last option is pretty unlikely. I don’t believe we’ve all misread him that badly. I don’t want to believe that.

Still, with his vote on this issue, I think he’s changed the dynamic in the race a bit. It was nice having a candidate we could get excited about, instead of feeling like we were voting for the lesser of two evils. And now, I think a lot of us are going to be asking the question, “What else is he going to change his position on?”

Hopefully, by this November, he’ll have reassured us all a bit in that regard. There’s plenty of time between now and then to convince us that he’s still the leader we saw in the primaries.

But we’re not going to forget about this. He voted to betray the constitution, just like everyone else who voted yes on that goddamn bill. He sold us out like the rest of them.

-jane doe

* Hey, I’m a graduate student of limited means, living in Redstatesville, which is a drive of approximately thirteen and two-thirds cassette tapes** from Washington, D.C. (if you allow for traffic). My response options are somewhat limited. Sometimes a Strongly Worded Letter is the best I can manage.

** Some people measure travel distance in miles. I measure it in music. Though that’s becoming more difficult, because lately, on long drives, I listen to my iPod instead of cassette tapes, and that’s just not very convenient as a measure of distance, because you have to count actual songs which is kind of a pain. On the other hand, with gas prices going up the way they have, long roadtrips will soon become a thing of the past, so the methodology for calculating distances becomes kind of moot.

Surprising no one, the Democrats in the Senate caved on the FISA warrantless wiretapping and telecom immunity measure today. They pretty much gave Bush everything he had been asking for.

All the usual suspects have been writing about it, but I can’t right now. You see, I have to go pound my head against this brick wall, here. Maybe if I do it hard enough, I’ll effectively lobotomize myself. That way, when we finally cross the line completely to become a totalitarian fascist regime, I will neither understand nor care anymore.

-jane doe

Glenn Greenwald, over at Salon.com, has been following the whole FISA fiasco carefully with a lawyer’s eye. He has a great post from yesterday that rather neatly lays out exactly what the Democrats are caving in to, and I strongly encourage anyone who is concerned with privacy and the rule of law to check it out. You’ll have to watch a brief ad before you can read the column, but it is worth it, as he explains the problem far better than I have or likely could.

-jd

U.S. News and World Report reported today about the large number of international travelers who have been having their laptops and/or USB drives “temporarily” seized by US customs officials when entering or leaving the country. According to the article:

The extent of the program to confiscate electronics at customs points is unclear. A hearing Wednesday before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on the Constitution hopes to learn more about the extent of the program and safeguards to traveler’s privacy. Lawsuits have also been filed, challenging how the program selects travelers for inspection. Citing those lawsuits, Customs and Border Protection, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, refuses to say exactly how common the practice is, how many computers, portable storage drives, and BlackBerries have been inspected and confiscated, or what happens to the devices once they are seized. Congressional investigators and plaintiffs involved in lawsuits believe that digital copies—so-called “mirror images” of drives—are sometimes made of materials after they are seized by customs.

…

The security value of the program is unclear, critics say, while the threats to business and privacy are substantial. If drives are being copied, customs officials are potentially duplicating corporate secrets, legal records, financial data, medical files, and personal E-mails and photographs as well as stored passwords for accounts from Netflix to Bank of America. DHS contends that travelers’ computers can also contain child pornography, intellectual property offenses, or terrorist secrets.

Excuse me, but what ever happened to probable cause? I agree that it makes sense to check electronic equipment before boarding a plane to prevent explosives from being smuggled onboard the aircraft. This is an entirely different level of intrusion, however, and one that I find difficult to justify.

When customs officials open a suitcase chosen at random from a group of incoming travelers, the intrusion is over within minutes if no contraband is found, and the person is free to go on their merry way.

But confiscating someone’s laptop for a few weeks? That can disrupt someone’s travel plans or completely defeat the purpose of taking the trip. And making a mirror image of the hard drive? That’s the general equivalent of making photocopies of every single page in a person’s planner. Think about all the personal information someone might have jotted down in the typical Franklin-Covey binder: credit card numbers, medical information, bank account PIN numbers, computer passwords. They can also find all your internet search history, so give a thought when you Google in foreign lands. Mirror imaging the drive can even give them copies of documents you think you deleted that haven’t been overwritten on the disc yet.

The good news, I guess, is that Congress is apparently holding hearings about all of this. The bad news? That doesn’t mean things will change any time soon. The Democrats have been showing a rather distressing lack of spinal material when it comes to standing up to the executive branch.

I’ve written before about disturbing things the government is doing in connection with our ability to travel freely to other countries. Things seem to be getting worse.

And I just don’t understand the relative lack of outcry over all this.

Actually, I do understand: people are scared of making themselves targets for this sort of treatment if they make waves. Just keep your head down, don’t make noise, and everything will be fine.

Too bad that’s a lesson I never learned. I wonder how thick my folder at the Department of Homeland Security is?

I find this all very troubling. Especially since I’ve got this real yearning to go elsewhere. See the world a bit, you know, before it’s all destroyed by global warming, war, and corporate exploitation.

Oh, well. It’s not like I can afford to travel, anyway, what with increasing fuel prices, the decreasing value of the dollar, and my mountain of student loan debt. Ah, the glamorous life of a grad student!

Just add it all to my list of reasons why Bush and Cheney really ought to be impeached.

-jane doe

Finally got to see War, Inc., last weekend when I was in Chicago. The showing I saw was on Sunday afternoon, and at that hour, unfortunately, the theater was more empty than full. Still, a fine time was had by all, I think.

Looking around on the net, one sees that War, Inc., has gotten rather mixed reviews from mainstream sources, and I can only conclude that those people don’t get it.

Me? I loved it.

War, Inc. is subversive, rebellious, twisted, and, most importantly, funny. The filmmakers made their political and social points without being heavy-handed, and clearly had fun doing so. This is what a good satire should be like.

The film stars John Cusack (who also co-wrote and co-produced it) as hitman Brand Hauser. Hauser is hired by Tamerlane, a US-based corporation run by a former Vice President (Dan Aykroyd) which has just successfully invaded a country called Turaquistan in the first-ever entirely corporate-fought war, to kill a competitor who has the temerity to build an oil pipeline in his own country in competition with Tamerlane.

Whew. That was a lot of info to fit in one sentence.

Tamerlane is a rather deliberate hybrid of Halliburton and Blackwater, and any resemblance between Iraq and Turaqistan (or between Aykroyd’s character and Dick Cheney) is purely intentional, I’m sure.

Hauser’s cover on this assignment is that he has to act as the trade show host for Tamerlane, which is showcasing all the wonderful products the company makes to help rebuild the country…sort of…most of the products seem to be things like inflatable prisons, weapons, security devices, and artificial limbs. Does any of this sound familiar?

While on assignment, Hauser is aided by his super-efficient assistant, Marsha Dillon (played by sister Joan Cusack). The relationship between these two characters seems very reminiscent of the roles the two Cusacks portrayed in Grosse Pointe Blank, but it works in this movie, too.

Hauser also finds himself interacting with lefty reporter Natalie Hegalhuzen (Marisa Tomei), an about-to-be-married 18-year-old Middle East pop star named Yonica Babyyeah (Hilary Duff), her piggish husband-to-be, Ooq-Mi-Fay (I’ll leave it to you to figure out the piglatin translation), their entourage, and the voice of an OnStar-like guidance system (Montel Williams).

Mayhem ensues.

I’ll refrain from detailing the storyline more than I already have, because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone. Suffice it to say, there is sufficient plot excitement to keep the film moving along at a good pace, but probably no huge surprises as the story unfolds.

The performances from all the major actors are great. Cusack is again wonderful in the conflicted hitman/everyman role. Marisa Tomei, Ben Kingsley, and Dan Aykroyd all nailed their parts. And much to my surprise, Hilary Duff was great as Yonica, the Middle East’s Britney Spears. I’m not familiar with her earlier work, and I’d kind of assumed that her acting talent would be about on par with Britney Spears, as well, but she showed a great ability to disappear into the character - I really wouldn’t have recognized her if I hadn’t already known she was playing the role.

There’s a lot going on in this movie at any point in time, beyond the main focus of the scenes. The advertising signs scattered all over the place in Turaquistan were hilarious, and there was a lot of funny stuff that you would miss if you blinked. I’m really looking forward to getting this movie on DVD, so I can figure out some of the things that went by too fast on the screen to be appreciated.

The soundtrack is good, which is no surprise since Cusack has shown a real talent for pulling together nice soundtracks in earlier movies where he’s been involved in the production (e.g., the Grosse Pointe Blank soundtrack, which is awesome). A fitting selection of tunes for the big scenes, plus some original songs written by Paul Hipp for Yonica’s performances in the film, like her trade show number, I Want to Blow You…Up, which, as you might expect from its title, is heavy on the innuendo, hold the subtlety.

My overall recommendation on this movie is this:

If you are a neo-conservative, don’t bother. Either you won’t get it, or it will piss you off. Of course, from the absence of badly-spelled troll-like comments I receive on this blog, I assume not many neocons are reading this, anyway.

For everyone else: If you are sick of the Iraq war, if you are tired of the way the Bush White House is running this country for the benefit of its corporations instead of its citizens, go see this movie.

Make a little noise.

Get rowdy.

And don’t forget to VOTE in November.

-jane doe

This evening, I had originally planned to post a nice review of War, Inc., which I finally got to see when I was in Chicago last weekend. It really is wickedly funny, and all the more topical given yesterday’s announcement about certain American and British oil companies going back to work in Iraq on no-bid contracts (read about that here). I’ll have to write that review tomorrow, though. Sorry.

The simple fact of the matter is, I’m too angry at the moment to write a good review.

The House Democrats sold us out today, folks. There’s no other way to describe it. And in doing so, they’ve pushed us a bit closer to that blurry, indistinct line that separates our democracy from fascism.

That’s assuming we haven’t crossed that line already. I’m really not completely sure, since it’s never been precisely clear to me what the defining characteristics of fascism are. There certainly seems to be a lot of debate about that on the internet. And it’s not like any modern government or political party will announce that it is hoping to institute a fascist form of government anymore, not since World War II. Still, we’ve seen the Bush White House use a lot of tactics that seem to come out of the Hitler playbook. Yes, I know that remark is likely to bring comments about Godwin’s Law — or it would if any of you, my dear non-existent readers, ever left comments, anyway. I don’t care. Sometimes, the Hitler analogy is appropriate from a historical perspective, and it has been increasingly so as this administration’s tenure has progressed.

But I digress.

The Democrats have a controlling majority in the House of Representatives. It’s not like the Senate, where they can only claim to have a majority because Joe Lieberman is still caucusing with them (even if he doesn’t vote with them on anything). So they didn’t have to cave.

They didn’t have to give in on the so-called compromise FISA measure. which grants the president expansive powers to spy on us without warrants — our phone calls, our e-mails, our internet surfing habits.

They certainly didn’t have to give the telecoms immunity. How the fuck does that make us any more secure, I ask you?

Yet this is precisely what they have done today. In doing this, they are giving us government not of the people, by the people, and for the people, but of, by, and for the major corporations. And for Big Brother.

In doing this, they betrayed us. The American people.

And it’s leaving me wondering what to do now?

See, here’s the thing. I used to be this corporate attorney. Big law firm, big business deals, big money. Well, big money for the number of years I was out of law school, anyway — lots of people were making a lot more money than me. I wore designer suits, I ate in nice restaurants, and I had a lovely office in…well, you don’t need to know which city, and I don’t want to make it too easy to identify me, for reasons I’ve already discussed elsewhere in this blog.

At first, the work was real easy to rationalize. Most of the clients I did work for were non-profit corporations performing essential services. So there I was, on the side of the angels, right? But the reality was, they were in competition with for-profit corporations, and in order to continue their operations, they had to engage in some of the same practices that the for-profits did just to remain financially viable.

This was very disturbing to me.

I tried going in-house at an organization that I believed then and still believe now to be very ethically run, but the business aspects were still getting to me. And when I have trouble believing in what I’m doing, I do not perform at my best.

Seven years out of law school, I was completely burnt-out.

I decided to go back to grad school to re-tool for a new career. I figured I would get my PhD, and then I could start working with certain organizations to educate legislators at the state and federal level about what scientific research was telling us about the field, and what the implications of that were for making policy applicable to that field.

Seems like a good fit, right? See, I already speak lawyerspeak, and politicianspeak and bureaucratspeak are both really just dialects of that language. So I thought I could help translate the scientific research (another language of its own) for the people making the policy, so that we don’t end up with policy that is so at odds with what all the research is telling us about certain things. (And yes, I’m dancing around the field I’m studying in, as well as the field I concentrated on in law. I’m trying to remain anonymous, remember.)

But then I watch things like what happened today, with the Democrats caving in to the President and the telecoms, instead of upholding the constitution. And I think about how the Democratic leadership has made it clear that impeachment is off the table. And I look at all the ways that the Democrats could have stood up for us since the 2006 election — on the Iraq war, on the economy, on our civil rights, on health issues, on torture and habeas corpus and corruption and no-bid contracts and the use of the Department of Justice for political ends and… the list just goes on and on and on.

And I wonder, am I fighting the wrong fight?

Should I be working within the system to bring about change?

Or should I be trying to change the fucking system?

I just don’t know anymore.

Any suggestions?

-jane doe

Yup, it’s another Keith Olbermann Special Comment.

This one is largely a rehash of his January 31st Special Comment, updated in light of the House of Representatives’ refusal (despite Bush’s efforts to scare them into submission) to pass the FISA extension today in a form that Bush would be willing to sign — that is, one that includes immunity for the telecoms who have helped the White House illegally spy on Americans.

The key point of the comment: assuming Bush is correct that extending the FISA statute as soon as possible is critical for our nation’s counterterrorism efforts, Bush’s repeated threats to veto any bill that doesn’t include telecom immunity is putting the financial status of the telecom companies above the lives and safety of American citizens.

Oh, there is one significant amendment from the previous special comment. Keith Olbermann calls George Bush a fascist, subject-verb-object. He even suggests that Bush have a t-shirt made up with the word fascist emblazoned on it.

About time someone in the mainstream media had the guts to say it.

As usual, I’m sure Crooks and Liars will get the video up quickly. Go watch it, especially if you missed the earlier Special Comment on this subject.

It all points out, once again, why Bush and Cheney really ought to be impeached.

- jane doe

Just got done watching Keith Olbermann’s latest Special Comment. (The video is already up on Crooks and Liars, as is the transcript.) Once again, Keith showed what a strong voice he has been against the many outrages of this administration.

This Special Comment was about Bush’s insistence that any extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) include immunity for the major telecom companies “believed to have assisted” the administration in its illegal spying on American citizens (though of course, that’s not how Bush described it).

He raised a number of excellent points in the course of his commentary. Chief among these: if, as Bush claims, the extension of FISA is critical to our national security, then why is the alleged president threatening to veto any such extension that doesn’t include telecom immunity?

Here’s how he opened tonight’s Special Comment (excerpt courtesy of The News Hole):

In a Presidency of hypocrisy, an Administration of exploitation, a labyrinth of leadership, in which every vital fact is a puzzle inside a riddle wrapped in an enigma hidden under a claim of executive privilege supervised by an idiot, this one is surprisingly easy.

President Bush has put protecting the Telecom giants from the laws…ahead of protecting you from the terrorists.

He has demanded an extension of the FISA law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, but only an extension that includes retroactive immunity for the Telecoms who helped him spy on you.

Another quote, this one focusing on some equivocating language from Bush’s SOTU speech earlier this week:

If you, sir, are asking Congress and us to join you in this shameless, breathless, literally textbook example of fascism - the merged actions of government and corporations who answer to no government - you still don’t have the guts to even say that the telecom companies did assist you in your efforts? Will you and the equivocators who surround you like a cocoon never go on the record about anything? Even the stuff you claim to believe in?

I could go on and on here, quoting gems from his diatribe, but since the entire text is already posted elsewhere, that seems like unnecessary effort on my part.

On the whole, I would say that this Special Comment was very good, though probably not his best one to date. Nevertheless, it is well worth checking out online if you missed Countdown this evening (or don’t get MSNBC).

And it points up one more reason why Bush and Cheney really ought to be impeached.

- jane doe

Paging George Orwell!

Wired blog Danger Room is reporting that Donald Rumsfeld is proposing creating an agency within the government for the purpose of promulgating propaganda. Sharon Weinberger, the author of the article, quotes Rummy as follows:

“We need someone in the United States government, some entity, not like the old USIA . . . I think this agency, a new agency has to be something that would take advantage of the wonderful opportunities that exist today. There are multiple channels for information . . . The Internet is there, pods are there, talk radio is there, e-mails are there. There are all kinds of opportunities. We do not with any systematic organized way attempt to engage the battle of ideas and talk about the idea of beheading, and what’s it’s about and what it means. And talk about the fact that people are killing more Muslims than they are non-Muslims, these extremists. They’re doing it with suicide bombs and the like. We need to engage and not simply be passive and allow that battle of competition of ideas.”

* * *

In Rumsfeld’s view, the free press can co-exist with government sponsored/produced/paid news. “It doesn’t mean we have to infringe on the role of the free press, they can go do what they do, and that’s fine,” says Rumsfeld. “Well, it’s not fine, but it’s what it is, let’s put it that way.”

Frankly, I am astounded that anyone who has ever been associated with the Orwellian nightmare that is our current administration would have the nerve to suggest a plan so blatantly ripped from the pages of Nineteen Eighty-Four. It screams to be called Minitrue, and should probably be referred to as such should this plan ever go anywhere.

Now I know, some of you are saying, “Well, shouldn’t the government be able to get its message out there to the masses?” And of course, the government has numerous ways of doing so: White House press briefings, photo ops, appearances by representatives of the administration on the Sunday morning talk shows, et cetera. That is kind of the point: if the government wants to get its side of the story out there, it has numerous legitimate means of doing so. Planting stories in the media — including alternative media like blogs and podcasts — without making clear that the story was written by some government agency instead of an at least nominally neutral reporter is just disturbing.

Hey, I know! The administration could start its own newspaper and blog, in order to get its unfiltered story out to the people. They could call it The Truth. Better yet, they could use that phrase’s Russian equivalent:

Pravda.

- jane doe

Actual quote from a White House press briefing about the whole mess in Pakistan (h/t to Jason Linkins at HuffPo):

Reporter: Is it ever reasonable to restrict constitutional freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism?

Dana Perino: In our opinion, no.

Wow. That’s all I can say. Just, wow. That is some really impressive Doublethink on the part of Ms. Perino, there. Frankly, I’m in awe. To see someone who is an integral part of an administration that has done more to restrict our constitutional freedoms than any other in recent memory state that it is never reasonable to restrict constitutional freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism — the mind boggles. Pardon me while I go pound my head against a brick wall for a few minutes.

Which ultimately just provides one more reason why I really think that Bush and Cheney ought to be impeached.

-jane doe

It bears repeating. Tonight’s Special Comment was probably his best yet. News Hole already has the transcript up, of course, and I am sure that Crooks and Liars will post the video clip shortly. Go watch it, or read the transcript.

Tonight, Keith talked about how the Bush presidency has been transformed into an operation designed around one purpose: to keep Bush, Cheney, and their minions out of prison for repeated, flagrant violations of our laws and our constitution. He talked about Daniel Levin, the lawyer at DOJ who, when tasked with determining whether waterboarding was torture, went to a military base and had himself waterboarded. The lawyer who, when he concluded that waterboarding was indeed a form of torture, was forced out of his position at the Department of Justice, so Alberto Gonzalez could come up with a memo more favorable to the president’s position without fear of contradiction.

For once, the story apparently did not break on the blogs — at least as far as I know. It broke in the mainstream media, on ABC News, in a rare instance of them getting it right before it became common knowledge in the blogosphere. This is not some minor difference of opinion. This is a major instance of our government doing something appalling and inhumane, something flagrantly illegal, allegedly in the name of keeping us safe.

But Keith correctly points out the darker aspect of all this, which goes back to my concerns about how Terror Management Theory is being used by this administration to manipulate the public. Because ultimately, torture does not produce good intelligence. We have been hearing this repeatedly from military and intelligence experts — most often retired intelligence experts who are safe from retaliation by the administration. What it produces is a lot dubious information which the victim of torture makes up in a desperate attempt to make the torture stop.

But perhaps, as Keith points out, Bush doesn’t really care if he gets good intelligence. Because what he really wants is continued ammunition in his war against the constitution, and that means keeping the American public scared of threats from outside. Because most people will countenance any number of abuses, any expansion of executive authority, if they come in the guise of keeping us safe.

But safe from whom, I wonder? False intelligence certainly won’t protect us from future attacks. Meanwhile, our government is becoming increasingly dangerous to us, to our rights, to the essential liberties guaranteed by our founders.

Which brings me back to what I have said here repeatedly. Bush and Cheney really ought to be impeached. Now. Before it is to late.

-jane doe

Addendum: Crooks and Liars now has the video of tonight’s Special Comment up here.

Am I the only person who finds it really alarming when a former Reaganite warns that the current administration is perhaps months away from instituting a full-on police state? Much of what this guy is saying is consistent with some of my posts on terror management theory from last month. Nice to know I’m not the only person venturing into Paranoid Conspiracy Theory Land.

Can we please, please impeach Bush and Cheney now?

-jane doe

…but you already knew that, didn’t you?

Frankly, the idea that the FBI has spyware is hardly surprising. I assume that anything I post, any website I visit, and any e-mail I send is being logged, read, or intercepted somewhere along the way. Sure, I blog under a rather obvious pseudonym, but a competent hacker could probably track me down in thirty minutes or less.* Which doesn’t seem to slow me down in posting to this blog, because frankly I’m kind of an idiot that way. No self-preservation gene, or something.

The point is, unfortunately, that you, my dear non-existent readers, should make similar assumptions. We’ve lost a lot of civil rights over the past few years, and so far the Supreme Court has not stepped in to stop it. Therefore it’s up to each of us, as individuals, to use our discretion and take whatever steps we feel are appropriate to protect our own privacy.

On the upside, only 545 days until Bush and Cheney are out of office — assuming they don’t declare some sort of national emergency, cancel the election, and impose martial law or something. Which, frankly, is an assumption I am very hesitant to make at this point.

I can’t remember ever being this scared of my own government at any point in my life before now.

Which brings me around once again to the point that I really, really think that Bush and Cheney ought to be impeached.

-jane doe

* Note to any hackers: that comment is not intended as a challenge, please don’t post my real name here or elsewhere. Just because the NSA could track me down pretty quickly doesn’t mean we should make their job any easier for them. Thanks!

Well, if it were anyone else testifying before Congress, this would be the point were I would start jumping up and down saying, “See! See! I told you so!” Back in May, when Comey testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, I noted that the way he was tap-dancing around exactly what secret spying program was at the heart of his race to beat Alberto Gonzalez to John Ashcroft’s hospital bedside made me suspect that maybe there was another program we didn’t know about yet. So you don’t have to go searching through my old posts, here’s what I said at the time:

Several sources I have read that commented on the Comey testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee seem to take it as a given that he is talking about the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. A careful listen to the actual testimony – at least the clip that Crooks and Liars has posted – makes it clear that Comey is going to great pains not to identify the specific nature of what he and Ashcroft were analyzing and objecting to. Now, it is possible, even probable, that the gentlemen in question were talking about the warrantless wiretapping program. The apparent timing of the conversation and the events Comey spoke of certainly makes that a possibility.

I want to raise another possibility for your consideration, my dear non-existent readers – one that I have not yet seen mentioned in the blogosphere: perhaps they were talking about some other program or activity then under consideration by the current administration – something we, as members of the general public, are not yet aware of. After all, if they were talking about the warrantless wiretapping program, why the careful dancing around the specifics of the discussion? The alleged president has already admitted that it is happening, so there would be no real need for so much reticence on Comey’s part.

Now today, in his most recent Congressional testimony, Gonzo is making just that suggestion — that the race to Ashcroft’s hospital bedside was about something else. Except, well, this is Gonzo, and I don’t believe anything that comes out of his mouth any more. Plus, as I noted in an addendum to my earlier post, other stuff at the time made it appear more likely than not that Comey was talking about the warrantless wiretapping program after all. So now I don’t know what to think.

I’ve been away for a few days, so I haven’t said it recently: I really think that Bush and Cheney (and Gonzales) ought to be impeached.

-jane doe

As this is the 231st anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the document that started our removal of a tyrant from power over the United States, I thought I would go through that grand old document and catalog which of the crimes of England’s King George have been committed by our own current (in his own mind, anyway) King George. I was only going to include the applicable ones in this post, but since that turned out to be the majority of them, anyway, I just left in all of them. Happy reading!

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

The first Iraq financing bill this year, which would have set real benchmarks and started the process of bringing our troops home. Stem cell research. There probably would have been more, but since he had a rubberstamp congress for much of his administration, there have been relatively few vetoes.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

Not really. Though should we consider his “signing statements” a failure to pass laws, in that he is denying the laws should apply to him, the answer to this one could change.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

No, though prior to the current term of Congress, members of the Republican party forced their opposition to hold hearings that were unfavorable to his administration (to the extent they could hold them at all) in a cramped basement room rather than a regular hearing room.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

Not yet. Give him time. For now, he just ignores them.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

See above. Also, consider his use of “temporary” appointments of U.S. Attorneys in the wake of the firings last December, to avoid having to seek Senate confirmation of same. Not strictly on point, but more or less the functional equivalent.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

Well, not exactly, but heaven knows immigration is a mess at the moment.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

No, but he has of course endeavored to stack federal courts, and particularly the U.S. Supreme Court, with justices favorable to his point of view, and then whined that the Democratic Party was being obstructionist on those few occasions when they attempted to block his less qualified or more appalling nominations.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

No, but change judges to United States Attorneys and you would have something here. Clearly, he has tried to subvert the ability of courts to hear matters within their purview – e.g., by gutting habeas corpus.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

Department of Homeland Security, NSA (okay, that’s not really new), TSA, anyone? Also, let us not forget his (often successful) attempts to politicize the ways that various agencies carry out their duties and/or use those agencies to further the election of Republican Party candidates, in blatant violation of the Hatch Act.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

Well, he hasn’t done this here, since obviously we have consented to the maintenance of a standing military, but I imagine people in other parts of the world might have something to say about this one.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

Hello, Military Commissions Act, goodbye, habeas corpus.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

Some might point to the WTO, though that predates Bush. So, no, not really. However, he has repeatedly subverted provisions of our Constitution and our laws, so I think that counts as a practical equivalent.

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

Well, this is more a complaint among the various countries we are occupying…still, he hasn’t done this here.

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

Okay, this doesn’t involve troops, and there was a real trial by jury, but I would argue that his commutation of Scooter Libby’s sentence is the moral equivalent of this.

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

How about destroying our country’s reputation in all parts of the world – does that count?

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

Does running up a huge national debt that we will eventually have to pay off through our taxes in order to pay for the war he lied to get us into count? I’d call that one close enough.

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

Hello, we have a winner! See the Military Commissions Act, and Guantanamo.

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

What do you think happened in the case of most of those people locked up in Guantanamo – it now appears that the vast majority of them didn’t really do anything that would justify locking them up for five years without trial, then creating some sort of mockery of a judicial process to avoid having them tried in U.S. courts where there are procedural safeguards.

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

Um, well, okay, this one he hasn’t done yet. Though he has gone a country with a functioning if oppressive government – a country which we now know and should then have known was not a threat to us – and overthrown that government and introduced a system of chaos, death and destruction. I think that’s probably close enough on the whole scale of moral wrongs.

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

I think the gradual destruction of our civil rights under the U.S. Constitution, as well as his expansion of presidential authority outside the bounds of Constitutional authority, his hobbling of congressional oversight capabilities, and his institution of the infamous “signing statements” that purport to excuse him from violations of the laws passed by Congress all qualify under this grievance, don’t you?

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

Again, I would say the signing statements amount to a presidential grab of Congressional authority.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

Not quite, but I would argue that his repeated violations of the civil rights of American citizens qualifies as the substantive equivalent to waging a covert war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

Hmm – plundered our seas? Check. Ravaged our coasts? Katrina is close enough – he ravaged New Orleans by inaction (and recent reports suggest he and his buddies are getting set to ravage its ruins for oil). Burnt our towns? No, he did that to the Iraqis. Destroyed the lives of our people? Hmm, how many U.S. Soldiers dead in Iraq as of today? Also, if destroying the livelihoods counts, then consider the whole Valerie Plame fiasco which has happened on his watch.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

Ding ding ding! We have another winner! Well, foreign to the Iraqis, anyway. Can you say, Blackwater?

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

Um, give me a few minutes, I’m sure I can think of something here…okay, maybe not.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

No, all the insurrections he has incited against him are foreign in nature…so far. Though of course the Iraq war has increased the terrorist threat against us beyond what it was at the time of 9/11, so we’ll call this one a “yes”, too, shall we? And let’s also not forget his party’s tactic of accusing anyone who disagrees with Bush of treason, whipping up hatred against Democrats and liberals.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Ding ding ding! We have another winner!

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.

Replace “British” with “White House” and you have another winner, see the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, the parade of civil rights violations at the White House’s direction, and various other high crimes and misdemeanors.

For all these reasons, and for others perhaps not stated herein, I really think that Bush and Cheney ought to be impeached.

Happy Fourth of July, everyone! Do something really patriotic: go out and protest this administration’s actions!

-jane doe

At long last, the Senate Judiciary Committee has finally gotten around to issuing a subpoena on the whole alleged legal basis of the White House’s warrantless wiretapping program! It’s about time, guys!

While you’re at it, Dems, I really think that Bush and Cheney ought to be impeached.

-jane doe

I had occasion to look up the precise wording of the first amendment to the U.S. constitution the other day, and as long as I was in the neighborhood, I decided to re-read the rest of the Bill of Rights, as well. When I got to the fourth amendment, I was reminded of some arguments I had with various individuals around the time word about our beloved president’s warrantless wiretapping program first came out.

Everyone was focusing on whether the program was permissible under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA (it wasn’t). What struck me at the time was that many people in the media seemed to be ignoring the provisions of the fourth amendment, which governs unreasonable search and seizure. The precise wording of the amendment follows:

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

Now, I can imagine the verbal gymnastics Gonzo must have engaged in to justify the warrantless wiretapping program: “Well, let’s see, we’re acting without warrants, so that avoids the whole probable cause issue. And the constitution only talks about unreasonable searches and seizures. Well, given the magnitude of the terrorist threat, I think these searches, in the form of telephone wiretaps, aren’t unreasonable at all. Hey, presto, no fourth amendment problem!”

The problem is, of course, that there is long-established legal precedent for the argument that telephone wiretaps are in fact among the types of searches that require warrant. In a normal criminal law case, a prosecutor attempting to introduce evidence from a warrantless police wiretap of a suspect’s telephone would be laughed out of court unless he or she could show that some very narrow exception to the warrant requirement was met under the facts and circumstances of the case.

Thus, I believe that even if the Bush administration could legitimately argue that the warrantless wiretaps were permitted under FISA, it would not cure their fundamental unconstitutionality. Any evidence obtained through such a wiretap would be illegal in any court in the United States. And if they ever get around to trying anyone with that illegal evidence, it would be thrown out.

Furthermore, under a legal doctrine known as “fruit of the poisonous tree”, any evidence that was obtained as a result of the illegally obtained information from one of these wiretaps would also have to be excluded from any court case unless the government can also show that they would have discovered the evidence even without knowing about the illegally obtained information, either as a result of other (legally-obtained) evidence or in the normal course of searching. Bye-bye prosecutor’s case.

The Bush administration knows this, for all its protestations that the wiretaps are a legal and appropriate exercise of the president’s constitutional authority. That is why they have been going through the whole rigamarole with the Military Commissions Act. Because if these cases are ever heard in a real court, where due process and other rights exist and are regularly upheld, they are going to have to let a whole bunch of people go free. Even if the evidence indicates that the people held in Gitmo are actually guilty of anything (something I am not at all convinced of, with respect to most of the prisoners).

The simple fact of the matter is that if the government truly had any legitimate cause to suspect any of the people whose phone they have wiretapped – any at all, really – they could have gotten a warrant from a court that was specially created under FISA solely for the purpose of hearing such requests. People on the court have appropriate security clearances for such matters and are carefully screened, so the risk of disclosure is minimal. And in the entire history of the FISA court, it has apparently only rejected a couple of requests for warrants, out of literally thousands of requests. Obtaining such warrants would automatically bless any government action taken under the warrants with a cloak of constitutionality, removing any threat of evidence being excluded.

All of which raises the very interesting question, why didn’t the Bush administration obey the law and the constitution and seek the warrants from the FISA court?

I submit to you that the reason is that the wiretaps have been far in excess of anything that anyone, even the rubberstamp FISA court, would deem a reasonable exercise of governmental powers. What little we know about the wiretapping program is pretty appalling – ask yourself, how much more is there that we don’t know?

And furthermore, I think that Bush and Cheney really ought to be impeached.

-jane doe

Several sources I have read that commented on the Comey testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee seem to take it as a given that he is talking about the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. A careful listen to the actual testimony – at least the clip that Crooks and Liars has posted – makes it clear that Comey is going to great pains not to identify the specific nature of what he and Ashcroft were analyzing and objecting to. Now, it is possible, even probable, that the gentlemen in question were talking about the warrantless wiretapping program. The apparent timing of the conversation and the events Comey spoke of certainly makes that a possibility.

I want to raise another possibility for your consideration, my dear non-existent readers – one that I have not yet seen mentioned in the blogosphere: perhaps they were talking about some other program or activity then under consideration by the current administration – something we, as members of the general public, are not yet aware of. After all, if they were talking about the warrantless wiretapping program, why the careful dancing around the specifics of the discussion? The alleged president has already admitted that it is happening, so there would be no real need for so much reticence on Comey’s part.

Questions? Comments?

-jane doe

6/7/07 Addendum: Well, it appears that subsequent Comey testimony makes it clear that he really was talking about the warrantless surveillance program when he talked about the race to Ashcroft’s bedside, which is something of a relief. I mean, really, do we need another White House/Justice Department scandal right now? We have enough of those on our plate at the moment. -jd

I would prefer to blog under my real name. I am not ashamed of my views, and feel like I should stand behind them. I blog under my blatantly obvious pseudonym because I work someplace where we occasionally have to deal with politicians of both political parties and my boss worried that if someone were to Google my name and find a link to this blog, it might limit the sorts of projects he could have me work on.

Recently, though, I read this article (h/t Crooks and Liars), about a political science professor and retired Marine who was informed at the airport that he was on the terrorist watch list. Apparently he was told by airline employees that marching at antiwar rallies or giving speeches critical of the government was sufficient to get someone added to the list.

Yes, you read that right. Protesting the war makes you a candidate for the terrorist watch list, which affects your ability to travel both internationally and within the country.

This is profoundly disturbing and seems like a violation of our constitutional liberties. If the government will do this to a decorated war veteran, what more might it do to the rest of us?

-jane doe

Book review time: Lately I’ve been reading Joe Conason’s newest book, It CAN Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush. Following are my thoughts:

Read this book. Seriously. Go to your library, go to a bookstore, steal it from your brother-in-law, whatever you need to do, but get yourself a copy of this book and read it. It lays out very clearly and concisely exactly how the alleged president and his evil minions have been dragging us toward authoritarianism.

It is chilling. It is alarming. And it is high time people started screaming about this.

This is not paranoia. This is happening.

–jane doe

P.S. I will review the book here once I finish it, probably this weekend. Don’t wait until then to get the book, though. You need to read it.

The New York Times has a story I find incredibly disturbing. According to the story, our beloved alleged president has signed a directive creating a “regulatory policy office” in each of the federal agencies, to be filled a political appointee whose job it will be “to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries” — in other words, to make sure that agency actions conform to Republican party dicta. The article continues:

The directive issued by Mr. Bush says that, in deciding whether to issue regulations, federal agencies must identify “the specific market failure” or problem that justifies government intervention.

Besides placing political appointees in charge of rule making, Mr. Bush said agencies must give the White House an opportunity to review “any significant guidance documents” before they are issued.

Simply put, it appears from this story that Duhbya is using a directive to increase his power unilaterally, installing apparatchiks to make sure that any new policies promulgated by federal agencies conform to his wishes, and allowing the White House to quash any guidance documents that it disagrees with. And requiring issuing agencies to identify “specific market failures” as a condition of issuing new regulations clearly subverts the will of Congress expressed through many existing laws relating to regulatory agencies — it may mean requiring time for the market to act, react, and fail to react appropriately before the regulatory agency can intervene. In the meantime, all sorts of things can go very, very wrong.

It will be interesting to see what the political fallout from this directive is.

Of course, I don’t know why I’m so surprised by this. After all, the shrub has already done more to subvert our Constitution than any president in history. What’s one more extraconstitutional action? Just put it on his tab.

-jane doe

Planning on flying through Phoenix anytime soon? You may want to reconsider that decision. The voyeurs at the TSA are going to be testing the use of a prison x-ray screening system at that airport in the coming months. It has supposedly been modified to “blur” certain areas, and the screen will supposedly be viewable only by TSA employees, not other passengers. Know what? I don’t care. This is way too invasive for routine use against law-abiding Americans.

This is getting out of control, folks. Just how much privacy do we have to give up? I don’t want to go through one of these, and I defy you to find a woman who would be comfortable with this, no matter how allegedly safe backers claim the system will make passengers. Who the hell wants TSA employees perving on their bodies? Sure, some things may be blurred a bit, but this is still more revealing than your average bathing suit.

-jane doe

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation website (sometimes mistakenly referred to as the Electronic Freedom Foundation), we are told that our beloved government is preparing to make “risk assessments” of all U.S. travelers as they enter or leave the country. Risk assessments will apparently be maintained in government records for forty years, and you will not be able to gain access to your risk assessment score. That’s okay, though. Everyone else, including police, airlines, federal, state and local government agencies, and their contractors (hello, Halliburton!) will have access to your information.

Somebody, remind me – what country are we living in? ‘Cause, I thought this was America, not Cold War-era East Germany or the Soviet Union. This is terrifying to me, and (aside from my thoughtcrimes recorded in this little blog) I would not be considered the slightest risk to anyone. What about Islamic American citizens whose only crime is practicing a religion not shared by the alleged president? What about political activists who have pissed off the high and mighty? Are they/we to be prevented from exiting (or returning to) the country? Will airlines start refusing to sell tickets to those whose risk scores are too scary? Remember, you cannot access your score (legally, anyway), and there is no way to appeal it. It will be kept for forty years – hell, even bankruptcies are only maintained on your credit report for seven years.

Does anyone out there have any good recommendations for countries where they still have civil liberties, in case things get a little to scary here? It’s a difficult question, because this used to be the country fled to in order to escape oppression. Now, it would appear that we are the oppressed…

-jane doe

Okay, here’s the most giggle-inducing editorial in recent memory, on the Department of Health and Human Service’s recent laughable abstinence-only program for…

…wait for it…

…all adults under the age of 30. I’ll give you a minute to stop laughing and wipe the coffee off your monitor.

But here’s the thing — wasn’t abstinence a major theme in Orwell’s 1984? Ah, yes, here we go…from the Wikipedia entry on 1984:

“The Party imposes anti-eroticism on its members (sponsoring the Junior Anti-Sex League, etc.), since sexual attachments might diminish exclusive loyalty to the Party.”

Well, there you have it. The Republican Party is hereby officially dubbed the Big Brother Party of No Fun. Of course, we’ve suspected as much along, but it’s always nice to have official confirmation of these things.

-jane doe