Dateline Pittsburgh:

So we stopped into an ice cream parlor in Newport, Kentucky, yesterday - Sean and I were the only ones in the shop - and struck up a conversation with the only employee in the place (Richard, according to his name tag). Or, rather, he struck up conversation with us. As has been happening frequently over the past few days, the "Hillary" buttons that we've been wearing have drawn a lot of comment, engagement, and discussion. Mostly, it's been middle-aged women, but we've had quite a few men (especially men of color) and, at Cincinnati University, we were getting high fives and "that's what I'm talking abouts" from a lot of female students - of all races. That's all been encouraging.

Then there was Richard the Ice Cream Guy.

The first thing he says (after determining that we were, indeed, canvassing for Clinton) is "Yeah, how could anyone support a Muslim candidate? They're the guys we're fighting." We've been getting a lot of that - and I mean a lot - so that wasn't so unusual. And, of course, we spent a few minutes explaining that Barack Obama is not a Muslim and that, even if he were, that wouldn't be a good reason for not supporting him. Then we had to go through the flag in nonsense - and the national anthem nonsense. Honest to God, it sometimes feels like we've spent as much time correcting misinformation about and spurious criticisms of Obama than we have discussing Clinton on the issues - and, frankly, after half a dozen such conversations, I've been seriously tempted to just say, "Yeah, how could anyone vote for a Muslim?" and move on. Conscience forbids.

Anyway, after we've dismissed the idiocy (one never knows how successfully), Richard the Ice Cream Guy moves on. "Don't worry," he tells us. "Obama will never make it to the White House." He then goes on - at length - about "one of the guys that lives in his house" who works for Army Intelligence and the background checks that he and his partner had to go through when this guy moved in and how all the neighbors had to be interviewed and how this housemate or whatever has the highest possible security clearance in INSCOM. Okay, a bit dubious, perhaps, but still within the realm of possibility, maybe.

Then the confidential tone sets in. Apparently, this guy-that-lives-in-his-house informed Ice Cream Guy that "if Obama even gets close to winning, they'll take him out". Huh? Who? "The government. They already have it all planned out. If Obama wins the primaries and it looks like he's gonna win the election, they're gonna kill him. The Army's gonna kill him."

This, remember, was all prefaced by "Don't worry." We grabbed our bowls of coconut chocolate almond and headed for the exit. "Are we going to sit out here," I asked Sean, referring to their outdoor seating area, "or are we getting as far away from Scary Ice Cream Guy as possible?"

"We're getting far away."

Tags: duly noted, politburo, tin-foil hat?, travelogue
humour: unnerved

Jack Cafferty summed up today's phone record revelation in sixty seconds or less on CNN's The Situation Room this afternoon:


Watch the video here. Seriously. Watch it.

And one thing Cafferty didn't get a chance to touch on was the follow-up on Qwest. Most of the reports that even mention the fact that Qwest refused to turn over its records attribute it to "privacy and legal concerns" and leave it at that. They fail to mention that Qwest asked for a court order before turning over the records - and were refused. And that Qwest requested FISA approval before turning over the records - and were refused. In short, these records were obtained without any legal, government sanction. This might as well have been a private request. Indeed, that may well be what it amounts to.

The point is that this database already exists. And Qwest was told by the NSA that the database could be used by other government agencies, including the FBI, the CIA and the DEA. All of these agencies, at least according to the unitary executive theorists, are under the direct command of the Oval Office.

Bush assured the nation during his impromptu press statement today that "our efforts are focussed on al-Qaeda and their affiliates" - the terrists. Ten million of them? Of course.

Say the Executive wants to know who Dana Priest's source was on the "black prisons" or James Risen's sources on warrantless wiretaps - after all, those were seditious acts, right? and you're either with us or you're with the terrists. So which traitors leaked the truth? Easy - just look at their phone records. Now who else might those sources or those reporters have emailed or phoned? More suspected traitors? More terrists? And what about those that emailed Priest or Risen at the time their stories broke? Fellow travellers? And who were they calling? Have they made any contributions to suspect groups like the ACLU or Planned Parenthood? Checked any seditious books out of the library? I'm surprised there are as few as ten million "al-Qaeda affiliates" in our midst. Aren't Bush's ratings lower than that??

There may be no government transparency under the Bush/Cheney regime, but there sure as hell is private citizen transparency.

Tags: media, politburo, tin-foil hat?
humour: not happy, not surprised

Ever since President Bush addressed the people of Iran in his SOTU address, I knew their time had come. "We respect your right to choose your own future and win your own freedom - and our nation hopes one day to be the closest of friends with a free and democratic Iran" may not be not quite as pithy as "Your enemy is not surrounding your country, your enemy is ruling your country", but the implication is startlingly clear. This years "sixteen words" actually run to twenty-seven: "The Iranian government is defying the world with its nuclear ambitions, and the nations of the world must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons." Perhaps this is an effort to curb eventual news coverage of the rationalization for carpet bombing a country that has not yet broken any international law, treaty, or agreement. Quoting a sentence of that length would push most cable news - and all network news - stories over their time limit.

In any event, it looks as though no time is being wasted. The Sunday Telegraph this morning reports that:


A Pentagon adviser claims that "this is more than just the standard military contingency assessment and that it "has taken on much greater urgency in recent months". Strategic Command planners are reporting to Donald Rumsfeld, devising "plans for action" should diplomacy fail - as it will. Or, at least, as it will be reported to have failed - just as the phantom menace of Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions are still being widely reported, despite the lack of foundation.

A bombing campaign of Iran has long been on the Bush administration agenda - perhaps as long as an invasion of Iraq - and nothing is apparently stopping them. Indeed, nothing has stopped this administration from doing anything to fulfill the PNAC dream of global hegemony. The current diplomatic assault on Iran was designed to fail and, as with the rest of our foreign policy over the past five years, the design is falling into place exactly - abetted by the American media, unopposed by the "opposition party", and made possible by Islamic pawns with limited options. So it looks like tehran's time might finally be at hand. The only question is: Will our attack on Iran work best before November or between elections?

Today's lead editorial in the New York Times (The Trust Gap) opens:


The op-ed mentions that we are to trust the administration to police itself in relation to warrantless wiretaps and the fair and judicious running of military prison camps, just as we trusted their assurance that Iraq possessed dangerous weapons and posed an immediate threat to the United States. Pretty heady stuff.

They fail to mention, however, that we are currently trusting their assurance that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program which poses an immediate threat of some description and that they - The New York Times - are just as complicit in the demonizing of Iran as anyone. Evidently, we are to wait until after the bombs are dropped again before we further question our trust. Then we can wring our hands with even more fervor - and continue to do nothing.

Tags: media, political rant, tin-foil hat?
humour: worried

Team Bush and their mob-lawyers have spent an awful lot of time looking for loopholes in the Constitution and the civil code of late, haven't they?

They have now rendered unto themselves the power to a) spy on, b) apprehend, c) imprison, d) torture, and e) disappear any citizen they see fit and can execute the entire process without a shred of oversight or accountability. Is there a better definition of despotism? Anyone?

The "9-11 changed everything" defense is still no excuse for the continuing infringement of due process. As every judge, lawyer, legislator, libertarian, or borderline fan of freedom in the world will tell you, if you don't like a law, you work to change it - you don't just break it. Why does Team Bush keep arguing as if critical needs cannot be secured except through illegal means? Have they even tested that proposition?

Of course, they constantly assure us that there's been no impropriety, that only known contacts of al-Qaeda are being targeted - which we're supposed to take on absolute trust. But, oh my, why are there are so many known al-Qaeda contacts still running around?

As with everything the Bush administration has done since coming into office, it is not necessarily the bold-faced deceptions or illegalities that should really have your average American riled up, it's that they have fuck all to show for it:



But it is the landscape of rank inadequacy and policy failure for which the Bush administration should be taking heat - the fact that all these self-declared powers, these breaches of civil liberties, and this trashing of the Constitution, have not produced results is what should really be causing the White House to be held accountable. In fact, the scale of unchecked powers insisted on by the President's handlers seems to grow in tandem with its ever-burgeoning corruption and ineptitude. This is a point that we must drive home to those still desperately clinging to the credibility of this administration. Because it's the truth.

What saved the asses of Bush I and Reagan back during Iran-Contra scandal was that the public a) found itall a bit hard to grasp and b) were actually somewhat comforted by the misguided belief that it had all worked out for the best, thwarting dangerously evil Commies at our back door.

But while Iran-Contra was a bit of a sideshow at the time, this is all Team Bush has - and they no longer seem to be in control of anything they've started.

An increasing number of Americans have gone beyond wondering if the Bush administration lied here and there to wondering if the president's manipulators ever - EVER - tell the truth. The current barrage of clips of him talking about how everything is being done legally and with warrants is downright chilling, given how typically smarmy he looks. There is no question but that the man is lying - and enjoying it. "Trust us" should no longer be reassuring to anyone.

While, on their own, many of this administration's abuses might be explained, if not excused, the fact that there's such a host of them - amidst suspicions of war profiteering, crony capitalism, and the unjustified expenditure of tens of billions of dollars - should make everyone feel like we're well on the road to becoming one of those archetypical banana republics whose ruling kleptocracy silences or imprisons its critics as "enemies of the state", while truckloads of national treasure head off to Switzerland.

Are we there yet?

We should all be wondering.

Since the FBI and the Pentagon have determined that a broad range of civil, domestic dissent is aligned with terrorism, how far of a leap is it to the assumption that a similar bleed ist occurring across the board, over at the NSA? Indeed, one may even assume that such broad purview over domestic affairs is precisely the reason for the seizure of such powers.

If these powers were being applied with due respect to the stated intent (i.e., protecting American lives by thwarting terrorist plots), why is the process so intent on avoiding accountability at every stage?

Again: American citizens can be spied on, apprehended (a.k.a. kidnapped), imprisoned, tortured and - well, with an unaccountable government, who knows?? That "who knows?" is an important question. In such a scenario, it's far easier to just terminate the innocent than it is to re-insert them back into the real world. Indeed, it is the logical conclusion of such a process.

So: are these the powers we wish to grant anybody, let alone managerial incompetents? Another important question, yeah?

Another reason why the existence of such secretive channels pose problems is that this grey world so loved by the neo-cons is also an excellent means by which foreign powers can penetrate and corrupt our national security. Although rarely discussed, the nature of spying is greatly assisted by the cover such operations provide. This parallel, privatized, presidential justice system is the perfect entreé for foreign agents seeking to manipulate or exploit our national security apparatus (do the fundamentalist adherents to a certain Middle Eastern religious figure whose birth is being celebrated today count as "foreign agents"?). The cloak of secrecy, while promoted as a necessity for security, may in fact provide the perfect cover our enemies need. This is a far more important issue than is credited. Has anyone seen a single mention of it anywhere?

Indeed, one might begin to wonder if the administration hasn't already been infiltrated - at every level - by people pursuing agendas of personal gain or ideology, people who can be corrupted and who can, under cover of national security, work to subvert the national interest and defraud the public purse. Indeed, I have seen some compelling speculation that Team Bush has already been manipulated by such foreign interests. At any rate, the combination of greed, stupidity, self-righteousness, and secrecy cannot possibly end well - can it?

Equally troubling in relation to Pentagon and FBI domestic surveillance, is the absence of known terrorist leaning militias and white supremacist groups. How is it possible, particularly after the Oklahoma City bombing, that such groups avoid scrutiny? Are they being "protected"? If Quakers and gay rights organizations are enemies of the state, are fringe religious zealots and armed militias friends of the state?

In New York, revelations about the NYPD's use of agents provocateur should also trouble us. If the excuse of stifling domestic dissent arises from their perceived capacity for violence, well... hmmnnn. Simply plant an agent to throw something at a cop and - hey, presto! - you can arrest the whole crowd. Damn, you could probably send them all to Gitmo - or Poland, even. (Don't forget about Poland! Or, as one friend moaned when hearing that we were using Stalin era secret prisons there, "Oh great, when do we re-open Auschwitz?")

How far away are we from declaring whistleblowers like former General Greenhouse enemies of the state? Would revealing details about a corrupt Halliburton contract make you an enemy combatant since to disclose such details regarding procurement is tantamount to aiding the enemy? Since we know that Team Bush has been a bazaar for all kinds of hucksters, hacks, and nepotistic second-raters, what assurance do we have that this system is not being used to facilitate and cover-up all kinds of other felonies?

For years, "humorists" like Ann Coulter have passed off their hate speech as mere free speech. But these repeated depictions of liberals as traitors ripe for a beating have placed our republic on the razor's edge of chaos. What would happen if opposition to the President's prerogatives grew in volume and intensity? What if riots and civil unrest grew? Is that what they are really preparing us for?

Sorry, but speaking of a police state is no longer hypothetical. The entire apparatus needed for one is in place - has been for some time. All that is missing is the will. We have no guarantees here - no assured liberties or rights. Not any more. All we have are the administration's assurances that we should trust them.

Our response - quite simply - must echo the Great God Reagan: "Trust, but verify." It is, after all, the American way.



Oh - Merry Christmas.

Tags: political rant, tin-foil hat?
humour: deeply troubled

I thought I had used up all of my outrage. I thought we had seen the worst that this administration could possibly do. I thought I could leave the political banter behind and focus on the victims of this tragedy, sending more donations, writing more letters, encouraging others to do so. I thought that not only the blogosphere, but also the mainstream media and politicians from both sides of the aisle were, at long last, being critical enough of the administration's criminal, willful neglect that they would be shamed into doing the right thing for the first time in their pathetic lives.

I was wrong.

Who has the Navy hired to restore electric power, repair roofs, and remove debris at three naval facilities in Mississippi? Who will be performing damage assessments at other naval installations in New Orleans as soon as it is safe to do so?



HALLIBURTON


I wonder how much they'll profit from this tragedy? I wonder how many billions of dollars in relief funds will disappear this time? I wonder how much Dick Cheney's retirement fund will swell with the blood of the poorest of the poor in New Orleans and Biloxi?

Their shamelessness knows no bounds. And, at this stage, I would put nothing past them. From the outset of this disaster, I felt that the neglect was intentional. This is administration would love to see as many poor blacks as possible dead. And leaving them to languish in toxic waters with no food, water, medical supplies, or shelter would not be enough for them. They allowed - encouraged? - the media to trump up the stories of violence and looting and made their real priority "quelling civil unrest" and protecting property before saving the lives of people. They allowed false reports of helicopters being fired on to be used as an excuse to halt evacuation. They have forbidden the Red Cross from entering New Orleans which can only lead to more death and destruction - more violence and unrest - a better excuse to be able to just open fire on every survivor in New Orleans. And it's not just so that they can blow away a bunch of Democrat-voting darkies. They want the city.

Bush promised yesterday that a gleaming new New Orleans would rise from the ashes of this tragedy - and I have no doubt that it will. But is it going to be a paradise of low-cost housing for the 100,000 poverty level citizens who are suffering the worst right now? Not on your life - or theirs. Speculators, developers, and contractors have been aching to level the poorer quarters of New Orleans for decades - but the preservationists and tourist commissioners and local population have stood in their way. Not any more. With the recent eminent domain ruling by the Supreme Court, there is nothing to stand in the way of the property being comandeered by the municipality and the state - with federal backing - and being turned over to developers at a hefty profit and turning it into high rent condos and casinos and making an even heftier profit - forever. George W Bush says he can't wait to sit on the porch of Trent Lott's new house. I'll bet.

In short, this looks like yet another LIHOP. And it benefits exactly the same people. We are witnessing the purest evil. We are witnessing genocide. For profit.

It is time to round up every member of the Executive, drive stakes of ash through their hearts, cut off their heads, stuff their mouths with garlic, and bury them at a crossroads. And I mean that literally.

Tags: political rant, tin-foil hat?
humour: enraged

Evidently, the Bush administration's ratings have hit their lowest - like ever. According to the American Research Group, his approval rating has finally broken into the thirties - 36%, in fact (with 58% disapproving of his overall performance as president). When it comes to his handling of the economy, it drops to 33% approval - with 60% disapproving. Let's not forget what happened the last time their poll figures needed a bit of a boost: 2,985 dead in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC.

At the very least, it looks like a pretty sure thing that we'll be attacking Iran (not that that wasn't a pretty sure thing already) - and, again, for no god-damned reason whatsoever. But do not be surprised if there's another terrorist attack on US soil in the not too distant future. Not, of course, that the Bush administration would have anything to do with it...

Tags: tin-foil hat?
humour: worried