Angry Letter-Writing Liberal

Hi Mr. Troll!

2009-03-12T17:41:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed that I've engaged the "moderate comments" option. Which means that you aren't going to come in here like a deranged monkey and spray invective all over the place like so much doo-doo all over the walls of your pen. Bye now!

Carrying on the Prop. 8 battle

2008-12-29T02:36:00.000-08:00

Here's a letter I wrote to the L.A. Times, which apparently published it this Sunday, although I still can't find a link for it on the site. The articles referenced are found here.

Editor -

The Times provides a perfect portrait of everything that's wrong with Prop. 8 and its supporters ("Carrying on the Prop. 8 battle," Dec. 21). Already condemned to a life of suffering and familial rejection, Cody Horton and Christopher Lewis want nothing more than to be able to declare their love for each other and create a life together.

Secure in a life of wealth and privilege, untroubled by their own hypocrisy when it comes to the "sanctity" of marriage, the Ferreira family pick and choose which parts of the Bible apply to them, feeling free to cast judgment on homosexuals, unmoved by the knowledge that they are helping to destroy loving families. They unquestioningly repeat the lies told by their pastor, claiming that Prop. 8's failure would have meant that homosexuality would have to be taught in schools.

People like the Ferreiras are about as far from Christ's example of universal love as possible. The sooner Californians of all religious stripes and sexual preferences reject their politics of intolerance, the better.

With friends like these ...

2008-11-13T11:10:00.000-08:00

Let's take a moment to absolutely smack the ever-lovin' shit out of both the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the Blue America PAC - both ostensibly Democratic-leaning organizations - for these disgusting attack ads, used against Republican candidates:

Shame on them both. Howie Klein, who runs the Blue America PAC, is himself gay.

... yeah, what an unbelievable asshat.

Let me be clear: If you think tactics like this are ever acceptable, you are not on my side. You are the enemy. Go sign up for the Mormon church and be done with it, hatemonger.

Up is down, black is white

2008-11-06T11:59:00.001-08:00

I guess we can nip that whole "America is a center-right nation" bullshit in the bud right now:

And I'm struggling to remember all the conservative pundits - you know, the ones saying now that Obama MUST govern to the right - saying in 2000 or 2004 that Bush had to reach out to liberals. In fact, I seem to remember that Bush's 2004 victory - by a smaller popular AND electoral margin than Obama's - was a "mandate" to govern right. Look at the map again, guys. Check the totals. America has chosen progressive policies and representatives. So shut up.

Hey Sarah Palin!

2008-11-05T13:40:00.000-08:00

Remember when you were all, "What's the difference between a small-town mayor and a community organizer?"

That's the difference.

Pride.

2008-11-05T03:12:00.001-08:00

I feel it.

Is Barack Obama having a homosexual affair with ... SATAN?

2008-10-27T14:04:00.000-07:00

So my roommate got two emails from a friend - the first, asserting that ... well, take a look:

Barack Obama certainly is no Hitler or a Billy Graham, but for many Americans riding on the Obama Tidal Wave it is just like a surfer who might be ecstatic and euphoric while riding a tidal wave, but the reality of the ride is what happens when it hits shore.

The other asserted that the UK was no longer teaching the Holocaust in school because they were afraid to offend Muslims. So here was my response:

I was going to spend a lot of time attacking the mindset of the person who would write this garbage or forward it, but I'll try to stay on point:

Whoever wrote this email about the Holocaust in the UK is a big, fat liar. You should not believe what they say. And if you do believe it, you need to ask youself why you did, because it took me about 15 seconds of Googling to find the truth. It's an e-mail. It offers not one bit of demonstrable proof of its assertions - and oh, would you look at this!

The Historical Association is disturbed to learn that false and misleading claims about the teaching of the Holocaust are being made on the internet to the effect that English schools are being discouraged from teaching about the Holocaust in case it might offend Muslim pupils or their parents. These claims appear to have their origin in a serious misreading of the Association's 2007 report on the teaching of emotive and controversial issues in history (TEACH).

These claims are not true.

The T.E.A.C.H. Report

Golly, you mean the email was WRONG? Could it be that it was written by someone with an agenda, who doesn't really care about the truth? Perish the thought!

But we all know what this is about, right? I mean, there's only one "Muslim" candidate, right? And this bullshit email arrived right after that email comparing Barack Obama to Adolf HItler (oh, but we're not trying to create a negative association or anything). So let's get down to brass tacks.

Many right-wing tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy nuts still believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim. But, of course, this lie is told not to make you think Obama's religious beliefs are somewhat different than many of your own - it's to remind you that MOOSLIMS ARE TEH TERORISTS OMG!!1!!!11!

Except, of course, for Timothy McVeigh. And Eric Rudolph. And Ted Kaczynski. And James Kopp. (Google them if you're not sure who they are.)

But here are my questions for the "Obama-is-a-Muslim-I'm-so-scared" crowd.

1) Assume for a moment that Obama, is, in fact, a Muslim, even though the entire national media, outlets both left- and right-wing, have spent months digging into this story and still couldn't prove it. Do you believe that he is secretly plotting to ... well, what? Hand over the nuclear launch codes to Ahmadinejad? Declare Christianity illegal? Force you to wear a daishiki?

2) Really?

3) I mean, REALLY?

OK. If you actually believe that, there's probably not much I can do to convince you. There's probably not much I can do to convince you that the Earth revolves around the Sun and not the other way around, either, but, you know, enjoy the new "Left Behind" novel.

But for the rest of you - the ones who perhaps don't subscribe to the John Birch Society newsletter, and who might consider themselves moderate to conservative even though you might also think that people like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and the people who write these crazy emails are, well, dicks:

I'm not going to spend a lot of time trying to convince you to vote for Obama. If you want to vote for McCain because you think Obama is inexperienced, or you support McCain's health plan, or Republicans make you feel safer on national security, then do that. Seriously. I mean, hey, if you're open to a legitimate debate or an attempt at persuasion, email me and I'll try to convince you otherwise, using rational arguments and actual evidence to support my claims. But otherwise, like the man said, ain't that America.

But don't do it because you believed some crazy claim you saw in an email. It's a big Internet out there. There is more information at your fingertips than was contained in all the libraries of the world a century ago. When you get that email telling you that Obama is some kind of Manchurian Candidate, and it seems crazy, well, that's probably because it is. Resources like snopes.com are just a click away. Use them. Use reputable news sources (which, for you conservatives and Republicans, can include outlets like the Wall Street Journal and Investor's Business Daily if you are inclined to believe much of the media is biased leftward). But don't let your vote be motivated by ignorance and fear. None of us really wants to live in America governed by those emotions, do they? That's kind of why so many people are fed up with the Bush administration right now, isn't it?

This election will be over in 9 days. But there'll be another one in two years. And another in four. And on and on. And there are lot of important policy decisions that need to be made by responsible grownups - meaning you and I, as the voters, and the people we elect. There is too much at stake for you to be basing your decision on the Internet equivalent of a racial slur drawn on a bathroom wall. You deserve better. I deserve better. America deserves better.

Quoted text follows:

It is a matter of history that when Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead.

He did this because he said in words to this effect:

'Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses -because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened'

This week, the UK removed The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it¢ offended' the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. This is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it.

It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the, 6 million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests.

Who were 'murdered, raped, burned, starved, beat, experimented on and humiliated' while the German people looked the other way!

Now, more than ever, with Iran , among others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,' it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets.
This e-mail is intended to reach 400 million people! Be a link in the memorial chain and help distribute this around the world.

How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Center ,

'NEVER HAPPENED'

"The killing of a journalist"

2008-10-26T13:03:00.000-07:00

I've been telling my roommate, neighbors, friends, etc., to check this story out today, so it makes sense to post it here. If you know the story of Chauncey Bailey and Your Black Muslim Bakery already, go ahead and head straight to the latest story right now. If you're not familiar:

Chauncey Bailey was the newly-promoted publisher and editor of the Oakland Post, a 50,000-circulation community newspaper, when he was shot and killed on the morning of August 2, 2007. The gruesome shotgun slaying, performed in the light of early morning on a downtown street corner, was called an "assassination" by some, and rumors appeared immediately suggesting that Bailey had been targeted for investigating Your Black Muslim Bakery, a longtime Oakland institution known for promoting African-American economic independence - and less known for a history of shadowy links to criminal behavior both economic and violent. The bakery's founder, Yusuf Bey, died of cancer in 2003 while awaiting trial on 27 charges of the rape of four girls under the age of 14.

24 hours after the murder, police raided the bakery's headquarters, arresting Yusuf Bey IV, the 21-year-old bakery CEO and son of Yusuf Bey, along with 6 other bakery employees, on various felony probably cause warrants. Bey IV's rap sheet:

Bey IV has been in jail since his Aug. 3, 2007, arrest on charges of kidnapping and torturing two women in Oakland in May 2007. His half-brothers Yusuf Bey V and Joshua Bey were also charged. In a surprise move, Joshua Bey agreed to a plea bargain deal in exchange for his testimony against his half-brothers.
Bey IV is also charged in a videotaped rampage of two Oakland liquor stores in November 25, 2005.
Between 2005 and 2007, Bey amassed nearly a dozen criminal charges in four San Francisco Bay Area counties. The offenses range from speeding and shoplifting to such felonies as forgery, fraud, grand theft, assault with a deadly weapon and extortion.

The raid confirmed that police were focusing on the theory that Bailey was killed for investigating the bakery - specifically its finances, in anticipation of an expected bankruptcy filing. By the evening of August 3, Oakland police had announced a confession from Devaughndre Broussard, the then-19-year-old handyman at the bakery, saying that he and he alone had killed Bailey, because Broussard wanted Bailey to stop investigating the bakery. It was later revealed that the confession had come after police took the near-unheard-of step of putting Broussard alone in an interrogation room with Bey IV - his boss, himself a suspect in a felony kidnapping case, and certainly a person of interest - at the least - in the Bailey case.

The story today - one of many in an ongoing project - details how the lead investigator in the Bailey case, Sgt. Derwin Longmire, seems to have ignored a pile of evidence suggesting that Bey IV was a co-conspirator in the killing. We learn that Longmire and Bey IV have been friends for several years, but despite basic ethical guidelines suggesting that such a relationship disqualifies Longmire from working on any case Bey IV is linked to, he has not recused himself.

Police have not investigated cell phone records - obtained by the media project - that show Bey IV calling an acquaintance of Bailey's at the same time that a police-installed GPS device showed Bey IV's car was parked outside Bailey's home seven hours before the murder. Police said both Bey IV and Broussard admitted that they were in the car at the time.

It seems that all the questions being asked about the investigation have led to not one, but two investigations of the investigation - by the PD's internal affairs department, and by the district attorney's office. But as today's article points out, if Longmire is found to have violated ethical guidelines or even to have openly tampered with the case, it makes it easier for a smart defense attorney to pick apart any case the DA might try to mount against Broussard, Bey IV or anyone else.

I know some of the people at my workplace who knew Bailey - or at least, know his history as a former Oakland Tribune editor better than I do - are troubled by the project's pseudo-lionization of Bailey as, perhaps, more of a crusader for truth and justice that he really was. And I get that.

But no matter what you think of Bailey, killing journalists for doing their jobs is something that needs investigating. The very disturbing way in which police seem to be handling the case needs investigating. The apparent complicity of prominent politicians in the rise of what looks like a violent criminal enterprise under the auspices of a community organization - and in some cases, even the exercise of political cronyism to AID that criminal enterprise - certainly needs investigating.

Evidence Ignored (Oct. 26 story)

The Chauncey Bailey Project

Your liberal media at work

2008-10-26T01:25:00.001-07:00

"Are you joking? Is this a joke?"

I'd say that response was juuuuust right, Joe.

Right on, Soul Brother #1!

2008-10-20T00:26:00.001-07:00

Let me tell you - if there's ONE person in this great big country who really understands what it means to be black, it's George Will.

I like how he basically says, "There's absolutely no way to prove or disprove this crazy bullshit coming out of my mouth, but I'm going to say it anyways."

And what exactly do Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have to do with Colin Powell endorsing Barack Obama? Colin Powell, who has never been accused of being some kind of black power radical, is only endorsing Obama because he's black? Tens of millions of people are voting for him simply out of white guilt? Uh, then why weren't Shirley Chisholm and Jesse Jackson elected, George? It has nothing to do with the Republican Party fielding one of the worst presidents in U.S. history, and then following him with a presidential candidate who wants to continue Bush's disastrous policies, with the added bonus of being a belligerent hothead?

Gosh, if I didn't know better, I might suggest that George Will doesn't know FUCK-ALL about black people, and is, in fact, just an Ivy League cracker, talking out of his ass on a national platform that he doesn't deserve.

What Republicans think about black people

2008-10-17T14:03:00.000-07:00

Ha ha ha! It's just FOOD!

"I didn't see it the way that it's being taken. I never connected," she said. "It was just food to me. It didn't mean anything else."

Never forget. The GOP has revealed its true colors more explicitly than in any election in my lifetime. George Wallace would be proud.

What John McCain thinks about women's health

2008-10-17T14:02:00.000-07:00

Ha ha ha! "Women's health!" What a side-splitter!

The donation dance

2008-10-01T13:05:00.000-07:00

Editor -

Jason Scalese ("Prescriptions for America", Oct. 1) cites his parents' own experience in dealing with his ear condition as a child in supporting John McCain and his health care policy.
But buried at the bottom of Scalese's story is a key point - that $10,000 in out-of-pocket costs were covered by donations from his New England community. That's $28,000 in 2008 dollars.
Scalese was extraordinarily fortunate to receive this kind of community support, but is he suggesting that similar support is available to the millions of families struggling with rising private health insurance costs?
If not, how does he propose they pay those costs? Under McCain's plan, more families would be pushed into the individual insurance market, put at the mercy of underwriters looking to exclude 'costly' patients - in other words, families dealing with challenges exactly like Scalese's - to maintain the bottom line.
Barack Obama, on the other hand, will ensure that working families get meaningful coverage from their employers, or have access to a public insurance pool that will keep their costs down.
Scalese's story is heartwarming, but that $10,000 should loom large in the minds of any undecided readers. Under the McCain plan, Americans had better get ready to host a lot of neighborhood fundraisers.

Daniel Jimenez
Berkeley, CA

"Fundamentally, I'm a deregulator"

2008-09-20T22:53:00.000-07:00

John McCain had so much fun with the bank collapse, he wants to try it with health insurance, too!

Via Paul Krugman, here's McCain in Contingencies, the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

Wow. It'll be interesting to see how the campaign responds in the coming days, as this line gets more attention from the media. Because if you think the lesson American investment banks have taught us over the last 10 years is that deregulation is a good thing, well, you're a Republican.

Which means you're not fit to get within 100 miles of the governance of this nation's financial markets. Like John McCain.

What would Jesus do, indeed

2008-09-04T12:27:00.000-07:00

Time Magazine's Joe Klein, who has magically transformed from a cynical, GOP-talking-points-spewing shill into something much more thoughtful, echoes many others today in expressing surprise that Palin and the Republicans would devote so much energy to disparaging, well, the Lord's work:

So here is what Giuliani and Palin didn't know: Obama was working for a group of churches that were concerned about their parishioners, many of whom had been laid off when the steel mills closed on the south side of Chicago. They hired Obama to help those stunned people recover and get the services they needed--job training, help with housing and so forth--from the local government. It was, dare I say it, the Lord's work--the sort of mission Jesus preached (as opposed to the war in Iraq, which Palin described as a "task from God.")
This is what Palin and Giuliani were mocking. They were making fun of a young man's decision "to serve a cause greater than himself," in the words of John McCain. They were, therefore, mocking one of their candidate's favorite messages. Obama served the poor for three years, then went to law school. To describe this service--the first thing he did out of college, the sort of service every college-educated American should perform, in some form or other--as anything other than noble is cheap and tawdry and cynical in the extreme.
Perhaps La Pasionaria of the Northern Slope didn't know this when she read the words they gave her. But Giuliani--a profoundly lapsed Catholic, who must have met more than a few religious folk toiling in the inner cities--should have known. ("I don't even know what that is," he sneered.") What a shameful performance.

I know that helping the poor and unemployed get ahead in life isn't as much of an adrenaline rush as, say, shooting wild wolves from an airplane, but I'm nonetheless surprised by McCain and Palin's decision to bash people who actually, you know, work to make America a better place. I guess you can only put "Country First" if you're a Republican.

Random thoughts on Palin & the campaign

2008-09-03T11:17:00.001-07:00

Here's my comment from a thread on Feministing, which was actually about discussing Sarah Palin's (and John McCain's) positions on supporting working mothers, an issue thrust into the spotlight with the various revelations about Palin's family. It's fairly off-topic, but I guess I was just looking for an outlet to lay forth my thoughts on the pick:

Fair points all, but to be fair to "the media" (of which I am an extremely low-ranking member), Palin has next to no record on most major national issues, and very few interviews where she discusses those issues. And, of course, the McCain campaign STILL has not let her do a single interview since the announcement, which is very telling to me.

I agree that the rumors about the last baby AND the current pregnancy of her daughter are both off limits. I agree that since Bristol has already been forced into the spotlight, we should be discussing these issues as they relate to millions of American teens and their families, but giving that girl all the space and privacy she needs.

BUT it seems very clear to me that the McCain campaign WANTS us all to spend time talking about the pregnancy (Bristol's specificially, not the larger national issue). THEY are the ones claiming that the rumors about Trig are being made the main issue by the media - which is clearly a lie. This is as cynical a strategy as I've ever seen, but damned if it isn't working. The narrative about Palin, which was all about her lack of experience and simmering corruption/cronyism scandals on the first day after her announcement, is shifting toward being all about her daughter. On that count, the Dems can't win, ever. And the GOP can't lose.

What we on the left need to stay focused on is that this woman is the poster child for the right-wing fringe - anti-choice, anti-sex, pro-intelligent design in public schools, pro-gun, etc. etc. On top of that, her experience is laughable. Obama's State Senate district was one-third the size of the whole state of Alaska. On top of THAT, rather than being the reformer she and McCain portray her to be, evidence is mounting that she was just the latest generation to join the Alaska corruption brigade.

I'm a straight male feminist who hopes that we can have our first, second, etc. female president soon. I celebrate Hillary Clinton's courage and tenacity, even though I passively supported Obama in the primaries. But this selection by McCain is far worse than if he had just picked Romney, Pawlenty, et al. He has picked someone who is obviously unqualified, steeped in scandal, and most importantly, has neither the experience nor the policy positions that allow her name to be mentioned in the same sentence as Hillary's. It's a disgusting, pandering pick, and it deserves to be roundly rejected by the American people, not because Palin is a woman, not because she has a pregnant daughter, but because SHE is the wrong choice, and that wrong choice demonstrates that MCCAIN does not have the judgment to be a competent, let alone GOOD, president.

I pray that the Obama campaign is only waiting for the RNC to be over before it starts widely running an ad suggested by Josh Marshall of TPM:

A one-minute spot featuring Hillary Clinton herself, talking to the camera and laying into Palin on the issues, her complete lack of qualifications, and the temerity of the McCain campaign to think they could get away with this. Then she urges anyone watching who might have supported her to get out there and support Barack Obama.
Then it closes simply with Obama walking on to the set to shake Hillary's hand: "I'm Barack Obama, and I approved this message."

There was also this little bit of commentary I from an email exchange with my sister the day of the Palin pick. It's important to remember that come October, we're not going to be talking about vice presidents NEARLY this much:

What worries me is that if McCain is essentially ceding the argument about experience by choosing Palin, it is likely because he has something even nastier in mind for the fall campaign. (Ed. 9/03 - A few days later, this may not be the case. But that's only because the McCain campaign's initial response to questions about experience was to make the bizarre assertion that Palin's experience was not equal but SUPERIOR to Obama's, that being governor of Alaska counted as foreign policy experience because of the state's proximity to Russia, among other ridiculous claims)

But what I saw of Obama last night was so impressive and so unambiguously patriotic (sigh) and principled, he might be unstoppable. I feel like the debates loom large here - if McCain commits a serious flub or gets too testy, and Obama can exploit it without looking mean, that could be the ballgame. Of course, expectations for McCain will be pushed low ("Look, everybody knows Senator Obama's a great public speaker"), so if he emerges without an OMG moment, or even manages to effectively put Obama on the spot, he could squeak by.

I think Biden only needs to be reminded to make it about the Bush/McCain legacy and not be a bully toward Palin in their debate. Other than that, he is almost certainly going to slice and dice her. Sorry, Sarah.

After a summer of relentlessly negative, relentlessly empty attacks by McCain, his campaign is finally willing to acknowledge the truth:

"This election is not about issues," said Davis. "This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates."

There is your bottom line, folks. Ask yourself this question: Do you honestly believe that, regardless of your personal stance on any given issue, both Barack Obama and John McCain would govern as president in a way that they thought was best for the nation? I think another way to phrase the question is this: Do you believe that either candidate is actually some kind of fiendish supervillain, seeking the most powerful office in the world in order to wreak havoc and chaos across the globe? In order to destroy America and empower her rivals?

...

I didn't think so.

So issues - a window into the candidate's thinking - are all that should matter. But McCain, knowing that the American people strongly disagree with him on most of the issues, will try to make it about "character." Which means more POW hagiography and more negative, content-free attacks on Obama.

A lot of people I know are starting to get overconfident, starting to say that McCain's desperation is so obvious, Obama has to win. That is very, very dangerous thinking. A desperate campaign will stoop to any level. Do you think if Obama leads in most polls by double digits in October, McCain is simply going to roll over and go away? No. He's already hired two members of the Bush team that so savagely destroyed his reputation - and his candidacy - in the 2000 South Carolina primary, men that he all but swore a blood oath against. We may have only begun to see the depths of McCain's desperation.

UPDATE - 3:49 p.m.: Palin isn't the next Geraldine Ferraro; she's the next Dick Cheney.

Obama hits one out of the park

2008-08-05T14:00:00.000-07:00

"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant."

No frackin' kidding, Barack.

I am dumbfounded that McCain and the GOP can go so far out of their way to act so stupid. Obama points out that keeping your tires properly inflated can help increase your mileage - a fact supported by auto and tire manufacturers as well as oil producers - and the Republican Party responds by intentionally acting like morons.

They're actually handing out tire gauges stamped with the word "Obama's Energy Plan." They're claiming that Obama said the U.S. could simply solve the problem of oil prices if Americans kept their tires properly inflated.

As I said in the last post, though, this is really the only choice they have when running a bellicose, out-of-touch candidate, completely lacking in any sort of principle despite his "Straight Talk" misnomer, who can only be counted on to support the failed policies of George W. Bush.

It's pretty sad, though. I don't have many Republican readers, I imagine, but if I do, let me ask you this - has the McCain campaign thus far ever made you actually feel good about voting for him? Do you feel good about supporting the Republican Party? Have they really done a good job thus far of convincing you that they actually have ideas and policies to help Americans deal with the economy? To actually curtail our dependence on oil? You do know we're going to run out of oil eventually, right?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

"Where's the white women at?"

2008-07-31T22:11:00.000-07:00

These two comments pretty much sum up my feelings on John McCain's Britney/Paris/Obama ad. The post they're attached to was really more of a cravenly innocent, "gosh, there might be racism in this campaign, but let's not get too riled up about it, m'kay?" plea than actual derision of the idea that the ad in question - and this Republican campaign, like almost every Republican campaign of the last 40 or so years - might be steeped in racist code words, but I spent the better part of the day getting more and more pissed off about this - and McCain's unbelievable claim that Obama was playing the race card (dear lord, how I hate that phrase).

"If we crudely make (race) a regular part of the daily political maelstrom, no one is well served."
OK, Michael. In that case, I await your strong condemnation of McCain's Britney-Paris ad. Anyone who doesn't think that ad was made to be a racist dogwhistle is either willfully or woefully ignorant of the process of making political campaign ads (or ads of any kind, really).
Obama is not playing the race card, he's responding to it. The die was cast for racist Republican attacks the moment Obama took the nomination. What we're seeing now was inevitable. Running an out-of-touch, bellicose candidate who can only be believed when he promises to continue the failed policies of the last 8 years, what other choice did the GOP have?
I don't really care if people vote for Obama or not - but don't for a second believe those who assert that this ad is not racist, or not part of a racist strategy. They are lying to you, and themselves, to deny reality and quiet their own guilty consciences.

Michael -
You act as though using racist tactics and expressing outrage at the use of racist tactics are moral equivalents. Is that what you really believe?
Let's deal quickly with the ridiculous question of "presumptuousness." Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee for president. He essentially has a one in two chance of being elected. For years now, we have documented that appearing "presidential" is, like it or not, a requirement for a candidate to be elected. So the idea that him acting like he might soon be president is somehow unbecoming is incredibly, obnoxiously, willfully stupid. The end.
But I'm still focused elsewhere, Michael: The Britney/Paris ad was obviously designed to be a racist dogwhistle. Agree or disagree?
Because here's the thing: Saying that a prominent politician is a celebrity, is, well, a pretty stupid line of attack. McCain was the first sitting U.S. Senator to host SNL. Guiliani did, too. And Al Gore. Chris Dodd in 3-D glasses watching "Laser Cats" with Lorne Michaels, anyone? They all appear on late-night talk shows, Oprah, and the pages of People Magazine. Pat Leahy had a cameo in "The Dark Knight," fer cryin' out loud.
But if you're going to make the argument that Obama is an empty-headed liberal celebrity, couldn't you do better? What about Alec Baldwin or Tim Robbins? That would at least be an attack based on some sort of similar ideology.
No, this ad only has traction with the Britney/Paris images, which are, of course, what gets everyone talking. As others have pointed out, they're actually a dogwhistle double-whammy:
1) You get the "Black Snake Moan, oversexed white women threatened/stolen by scary black man" effect; and
2) you get the "Obama is an effete, fragile wimp" effect. +3 to this one when combined with Tucker Bounds' "fussiness and hysteria" comment today.
The Southern Strategy is real. There is no denying it, Michael. It is a huge part of modern Republicans' electoral legacy. And we're supposed to believe that it's not being used now that a black man is the Democratic nominee for president? Or that we should somehow be ashamed for confronting it head-on and fighting back? You have got to be kidding.
So long as this racist garbage is being put out there, we should be responding with full-throated outrage and publicly shaming those responsible. Nothing less will ever get them to stop.

There goes that job at the Times

2008-07-05T13:26:00.000-07:00

Editor--

Nancy Soderberg ("A good-enough spy law," July 5) uses so many demonstrable lies in service of defending the FISA compromise, it's hard to know where to begin.

She writes that some Democrats find it "objectionable" that the bill would give telecom companies "the right to have their cases reviewed in district court," adding later that the bill "allows the courts to determine the legality of these actions." This is an out-and-out lie. The telecom companies currently have the "right" to defend their illegal conduct in open court, and the courts have the right to determine whether the law was broken. Under the bill, any pending civil claim against the telecom companies would have to be dismissed if the companies produced a letter from the president asking them to violate the law. The bill would effectively end all court review of the illegal warantless wiretapping program, and has the net effect of codifying Nixon's odious "If the President does it, that means it's not illegal" claim.

Soderberg cites the president's "order" as evidence that the telecom companies were obligated to violate their customers' privacy. But since when does the president have the power to arbitrarily "order" a private citizen or company to do anything? So soon after the Fourth of July, I would think Soderberg might understand that what she's describing is, well, exactly the kind of leader that had the colonists all riled up 242 years ago. Even members of the military, who actually serve under the president's command, are bound not to follow an illegal order.

She argues that the bill would put domestic surveillance cases under the FISA court - which they already are. She argues that the bill would allow federal officials to spy first and seek warrants later in an emergency - which they can already do.

Soderberg says that Congress must protect private companies from liability so they can cooperate with the government when necessary to combat terror threats. But there has never been any threat to companies that comply with legal orders. The threat to certain telecom companies at this moment exists because they knowingly broke the law. The FISA court was put in place to ensure that there was a legal framework spelling out telecom companies' legal obligations to protect their customers' privacy - and a clear process that would grant the companies permission and legal protection to violate that privacy in narrowly-defined cases when the government could demonstrate a national security threat.

In this case, the Bush Administration decided the current framework was inconvenient, so they simply violated it, and certain companies went along. Soderberg complains that without legal protection, companies would exercise "lawyer-like caution" in dealing with such requests. Yes, Nancy, this is what the rest of us call "obeying the law" - so why are you against it?

One major company - Qwest Communications - recognized the illegal nature of the president's "order" and refused to comply. As a result, they faced exactly zero legal sanctions - but did, mysteriously, lose their lucrative government contracts, a fate that did not befall any of the companies that cooperated in this illegal venture.

If Americans are at all confused about whom to support in this blatant end-run around the Constitution, they should ask themselves why so many who support the bill cannot make a truthful, honest argument in its favor. Shame on Soderberg for twisting the facts so egregiously in service of enhancing the power of governments and corporations to violate the rights of ordinary citizens, and shame on the Times for giving her a platform to do so unchallenged.

Daniel Jimenez

-----

Editor -

I'm not sure what the Spanish equivalent of chutzpah is, but it would surely describe the arrogance needed for a man like Alberto Gonzales to complain about the "crucial elements of racial inequality" ("What Latinos want from their president", Opinion, July 4).

Under Gonzales' leadership, the talented career lawyers who served at the Justice Department's civil rights division were fired and replaced with a nearly all-white staff. More importantly, these new employees seemed to think "civil rights" meant "protecting white Republicans," as much of the CRD's attention shifted from actual civil rights work to defending voter ID laws that, well, just happen to exclude lots of non-white, Democratic voters. How does disenfranchising thousands of minority voters count as fighting racial inequality, Mr. Gonzales?

The department's inspector general just released a blistering report condemning hiring practices for the department's honors program under Gonzales and John Ashcroft, showing that even the most elite candidates, if perceived as "liberal," were passed over in favor of conservative applicants. Not surprisingly, those hired tended to view racial discrimination as a thing of the past, an attitude reflected in their work. How does throwing out the only people capable of recognizing actual discrimination count as fighting racial inequality, Mr. Gonzales?

In any case, welcome to the cause of racial equality, Mr. Gonzales. Maybe your first task should be working to undo the damage you did to our nation during your tenure as Attorney General.

Daniel Jimenez

Moooooonsanto sucks

2008-03-11T00:47:00.000-07:00

A new advocacy group closely tied to Monsanto has started a counteroffensive to stop the proliferation of milk that comes from cows that aren’t treated with synthetic bovine growth hormone.

The group, called American Farmers for the Advancement and Conservation of Technology, or AFACT, says it is a grass-roots organization that came together to defend members’ right to use recombinant bovine somatotropin, also known as rBST or rBGH, an artificial hormone that stimulates milk production. It is sold by Monsanto under the brand name Posilac.

...

AFACT has come together as a growing number of consumers are choosing milk that comes from cows that are not treated with the artificial growth hormone. Even though the Food and Drug Administration has declared the synthetic hormone safe, many other countries have refused to approve it, and there is lingering concern among many consumers about its impact on health and the welfare of cows.

The marketplace has responded, and now everyone from Whole Foods Market to Wal-Mart Stores sells milk that is labeled as coming from cows not treated with the hormone. Some dairy industry veterans say it’s only a matter of time before nearly all of the milk supply comes from cows that weren’t treated with Posilac. According to Monsanto, about a third of the dairy cows in the United States are in herds where Posilac is used.

...

So Afact has embarked on a counteroffensive that includes meeting with retailers and pushing efforts by state legislators and state agriculture commissioners to pass laws to ban or restrict labels that indicate milk comes from untreated cows.

Last fall in Pennsylvania, Dennis Wolff, the agriculture secretary, tried to ban milk that was labeled as free of the synthetic hormone because, he said, consumers were confused. Mr. Wolff’s office acknowledged that it had no consumer research to back up his claim, and he eventually had to scale back his plans when consumer groups and Gov. Edward G. Rendell balked.

...

A Consumer Reports survey last summer found that 88 percent of consumers believed that milk from cows not treated with synthetic hormones should be allowed to be labeled as such.

I don't feel the need to write a long-winded diatribe on this topic, but I'll agree strongly with the masses here and add an overarching product-labeling philosophy: If information on a product label is accurate, the government should have no interest in censoring it - and this holds especially true in a case where a) the ban would be on behalf of monied interests seeking to enhance their bottom line; and b) the American people, typically fractious and disagreeable, have spoken overwhelmingly on their preference - a preference for unrestricted information about a product they put in their bodies.

Fighting on a Battlefield the Size of a Milk Label (New York Times)

Berkeley loses its mind

2008-02-11T00:56:00.000-08:00

This happens from time to time.

BERKELEY — Hey-hey, ho-ho, the Marines in Berkeley have got to go.
That's the message from the Berkeley City Council, which voted 6-3, with Gordon Wozniak, Betty Olds and Kriss Worthington dissenting, to tell the Marines that its Shattuck Avenue recruiting station "is not welcome in the city, and if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders."
It also voted 7-2, with Wozniak and Olds dissenting, to explore enforcing its law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation against the Marines and to encourage the women's peace group Code Pink to protest in front of the station.

So I says to myself (and my city councilman, Darryl Moore):

Dear Sir--

If I'm reading today's Oakland Tribune correctly, you voted in support of the City Council's move to restrict military recruiting in general and against the U.S. Marines specifically, with the added bonus of enabling Code Pink extra access for protests by giving them a sound permit and a parking pass.

What were you thinking, sir?

I have strongly opposed the Iraq war from its inception. I think President Bush's decision to attack Iraq was foolish, illegal and borderline genocidal.

But the City Council's move will have *ZERO* effect on that war. You and your colleagues have achieved nothing in opposition to that war. Code Pink can't stop Marine recruiting, and neither can you.

More importantly - and I can't believe this needs to be said - the Marines are *not* the enemy. No matter what you think of U.S. foreign and military policy, the Marines don't make the choice to go somewhere and fight. They are sent there by this country's civilian leadership. If a man uses a club to start attacking people without provocation or reason, you blame the man, not the club. The men and women who volunteer to defend this country deserve our respect and support, and you have offered them the back of your hand.

As far as the decision to grant Code Pink special protest access, how can that possibly be constitutional? Is the City Council now in charge of deciding which protest groups are favored and deserve special status? What about the UC tree-sitters? Will the council begin sending them care packages of food and toiletries? What if you decide that the "Brad Pitt Lady" of Telegraph Avenue has something important to say? Will the council enact special funding to buy her new hard hats and stickers? Not likely. The decision by the council to grant special favor to Code Pink is an egregious abuse of your power in service of your personal agenda.

So if attempting to kick the Marines out is wrong, and favoring Code Pink is wrong, what have you achieved, then? You have provided grist for the right-wing mill, to once again hold Berkeley up to ridicule as anti-military, anti-American, anti-whatever.

More importantly, this city has real issues that need real solutions. Continuing to advance a green agenda, minding the planned expansion of the UC campus, managing development, finding a way to get some of our city's homeless back on their feet and off our streets - these are the things you were elected to do. This mindless escapade takes up time and energy that could have been devoted to those issues. In my mind, that's a dereliction of *your* duty. As a result, I won't be supporting you when you are next up for re-election. I hope taking a meaningless stand, offending thousands of current and former U.S. Marines, and subjecting the people of this city to nationwide humiliation was worth it.

Sincerely,

Daniel Jimenez

When crazy liberals like me think you've gone too far, you know you've gone too far.

Of course, the only thing worse than a politician who can't see the forest for the trees is one who doesn't have a backbone either. Not surprisingly, the council will be revisiting the issue at its next meeting. Coffee, orange drink and humble pie are expected to be served.

UPDATE: To which Councilman Moore kindly responded:

Dear Mr. Jimenez,
I do apologize for offending you, but unfortunately the language that was passed during the January 29th City Council meeting was not as clear as we intended it to be. The intention of the item was not to condemn our military men and women, but to reiterate out strong opposition to the war in Iraq and demonstrate that we will not be complicit in helping to recruit the youth of our community. Attached is the language that clarifies the City Council's position, an item that I co-sponsored on February 12th's City Council agenda. Thank you very much for voicing your concerns and I hope that our item addresses those concerns.

Sincerely,
Darryl Moore, Councilmember
City of Berkeley, District 2

So I says to Mabel, I says:

Dear Mr. Moore,

Thank you for your reply. However, there are several points from my original letter you have not addressed:

1) Why is it the council's business to state opposition to the war in the first place? I don't recall seeing discussion of your - or any other council candidate's - foreign policy experience or platform during the last campaign. I don't recall hearing you state an intention to try to force the Marines out of town. I'm guessing that this is because it's not your job to take that stand. Your job, as I previously stated, is to worry about potholes, crime, development and any number of other local issues. They say that politics ends at the water's edge; to borrow that phrase, your mandate to lead ends at the city limits. No matter the phrasing of the original resolution or any mistakes made in shepherding that resolution through the approval process, the council should never have taken it up in the first place. Do you think that the opinion of most Berkeleyans about the war is not already well-known? People worldwide know where Berkeley stands.

2) How, exactly, is it that you believe that giving special treatment to CodePink, in the form of free parking and noise permits, can be constitutional? Why are other protest groups not being offered the same courtesy? I believe the council has not only committed an egregious breach of its duty to be impartial, but you have violated a basic constitutional principle - that all individuals and groups should be held equal under the law. Telling CodePink "we approve of your intent, and therefore are offering you special privileges that are not available to the general public at large," is patently unfair.

I look forward to your response to these concerns.

Sincerely,

Daniel Jimenez

And finally:

Hi Mr Jimenez,
To clarify, the particular item that brought about this entire controversy did not originate with the City Council. It was the Peace and Justice Commission that brought this item before us and requested that some sort of action be taken. It was not an attempt at foreign policy as much as it was taking up an issue that one of our local commissions had brought before us. In regards to the Code Pink has not been given special privilege. Any and all groups can apply for parking and noise permits. Moving America Forward, a pro-troop organization, was granted a sound permit for their protest at our last meeting. The only difference was that Code Pink applied for a fee waiver, something that is also open for any other group to apply for, but it must come before the full City Council and approved. None to date has applied for such a waiver about this issue. I hope this clarifies the situation and I appreciate you taking the time to voice your concerns. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Darryl Moore, Councilmember
City of Berkeley, District 2

At which point I retired the issue with a simple note of thanks to the good councilman. We'd both made our points, and most of the time, getting 2 responses from an elected official is a jackpot for a cranky letter-writer like myself.

Priorities

2007-10-15T11:29:00.000-07:00

I hate to say "I told you so"

2007-09-04T00:42:00.000-07:00

Well, that's not true. I love to say it. But still, the point is that what is news to the New York Times is not news to me:

When Emily McLain decided to enroll at the University of Oregon, a significant part of the appeal was low tuition. She had not counted on all the fees that unexpectedly appeared on her bill.

“I had my dad calling me asking, ‘What’s this for?’ ” said Ms. McLain, 22, a political science and international studies major now entering her last year at the university.

This year, for instance, the university is charging a $51 “energy surcharge” for rising electricity costs. A $270 “technology fee” for computer service. There is the $371.25 fee for the campus health center, a $135 fee to maintain buildings and grounds and a $624 “incidental fee,” for student activities. And more.

All told, fees add up to $1,542, or nearly an additional 40 percent on top of tuition of $3,984. That does not even count additional fees charged for taking certain courses.

College administrators say public universities are increasingly tacking on fees for the same reasons that some are experimenting with differential tuition for different majors: state support for higher education has languished, and legislatures shy away from approving tuition increases. Fees can often be set by individual campuses.

As Support Lags, Colleges Tack on Student Fees (NY Times)

But, Gentle Reader, you ask, who could have been so prescient as to see this trend some two years ago?

Who, indeed.

But inflated "fees" like this are a patchwork cure for a serious illness: California's refusal to acknowledge that fully funded higher education benefits the entire state.

As CSU officials confront annually shrinking budgets and increasing enrollment, they are making increasingly unpopular choices.

...

Take a look at your tuition bill, or the schedule of fees on the SF State Web site. In addition to basic tuition, students pay fees for athletics, student health services, the student center, a general "instruction-related activities" fee, and more.

How many fees will there be in 10 years? A fee to support the political science department? Theater? Psychology?

...

The idea behind public education is simple: taxpayers benefit directly if they attend a public university, and they indirectly reap the benefits of living in an educated society. Public university students are subsidized, the theory goes, so that they can become successful, taxpaying adults, who will generate great returns on that education investment.

Economists of every stripe, who rarely agree on anything, will tell you that education is the spark that
lights the twin engines of growth and development. This state's staggering economic explosion of the last century was nurtured by one of the finest public education systems in the world.

But we cannot continue to build the California we envision in our dreams without strengthening our state's educational foundation with our tax dollars today.

But since the days of Proposition 13, the people of this state have apparently decided that they can pay for education on the cheap and still maintain their high standard of living.

Prodded by the anti-tax movement, legislators have handed ever-slimming budgets to public higher education systems at every level in recent years. Schools have responded by slashing programs and raising tuitions.

Make no mistake; the proposed cuts to athletics are a beginning, not an end. People don't just suddenly decide that they want to pay more taxes, and the university's troublesome budget problems won't just go away.

With Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger talking about streamlining state government, pandering to anti-tax crusaders and offering cosmetic fixes to California's serious revenue problems, help is not just around the corner.

Without a doubt, there will come a point when the people of California realize their mistake; the question is how long students will have to bear a disproportionate share of the burden for them.
Students are rarely handed the chance to determine their own college costs. Use this chance to send the message that education is a price to be paid by all the people of this state.

Students Shouldn't Pay Taxpayer's Tab (Golden Gate Xpress)

Creepy sexual harassment in the workplace ... and YOU ARE THERE!

2007-08-14T13:18:00.001-07:00

I had been waiting for someone to YouTube this. From a Chris Matthews interview with CNBC correspondent Erin Burnett:

Um, Chris? You're a douche, and you owe Erin both a personal and an on-air apology (and judging by this incident, I'm guessing this isn't the first time you've objectified a colleague, so you probably owe a lot more to other women in your workplace).

Interestingly, this interview also made a bit of news in the blogosphere for what Burnett said right before Matthews turned into a leering jackal:

The "scaremongering" she refers to involves complaints about the apparent lack of safety regulations in China, which has made news in recent weeks with reports of poisonous toothpaste, fish and other foods loaded with chemicals and toxins, defective tires and toys and charms made with lead. So, she seems to be arguing, we should just learn to accept dangerous/poisonous products because at least they're cheap at Wal-Mart.

Sorry, Erin. I'm going to wager that a vast majority of Americans would be willing to pay a little bit more for food and products that won't, you know, kill them.

Enabler for the Dissembler

2007-08-14T10:27:00.000-07:00

Editor, SF Chronicle -

A mere one day after Karl Rove announces his resignation, the revising of history begins. Debra Saunders offers her column as a platform for Rove to perform the ultimate spin, portraying himself and President Bush as humble public servants, valiantly reaching across the aisle to embrace the Democrats, who snubbed them in a fit of irrational partisan rage.

That Rove would have the chutzpah to claim this after 6 years of relentless "you're with us or you're against us" rhetoric, painting Democrats as cowards and traitors for not blindly supporting everything Bush and Rove demanded, is, well, not surprising.

That Saunders would allow Rove's outrageous and demonstrably false assertions to go unchallenged shows that to her, allegiance to the conservative cause is more important than truth or responsible governance. Having read her column for years, that's not surprising to me, either.

Daniel Jimenez
Berkeley, CA

America's Moron

2007-08-13T18:40:00.001-07:00

I never felt Rudy Giuliani should be considered for the presidency. His main campaign plank - to this day - seems to be "I looked tough for the cameras on 9/11, thus I would make a good president." But the more we find about ol' Rudy, the more troubling the possibility of his being elected becomes.

We already know about his laughingly simplistic view of foreign policy, the root causes of radical Islamic attacks on the West, and a sensible response to them.

The other day he had the audacity (mendacity?) to suggest that he was the equal, in terms of risk and sacrifice, to the rescue workers who spent days, weeks and months toiling at Ground Zero in New York, breathing in poisonous air despite the government's claims that everything was OK and the air was safe to breathe. Take a look:

He was quickly forced to backtrack on this claim when outraged 9/11 rescue workers pointed out their ongoing health problems, including increased rates of leukemia and serious breathing problems.

Today, a blog called My Two Sense dug up this quote from a speech Giuliani gave to a 1994 forum about crime in NYC:

We look upon authority too often and focus over and over again, for 30 or 40 or 50 years, as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.

"Freedom is about authority."

Well, as a matter of fact, Rudy, no, freedom is not about authority. It's about responsibility. It's about the responsibility of the governed to act in the manner of civilized society, but more importantly, it's about the responsibility of the governors to recognize the awesome power they wield, and to use it judiciously. "Lawful authority" should only be exercised to curtail freedom where absolutely necessary to prevent harm and serve the greater good.

Now, I'm not suddenly announcing a switch to libertarianism or anything - there are a great many ways in which I feel the exercise of that lawful authority is justified. Individuals cannot always be trusted not to murder, rape or steal, and so we have police and the courts. Food producers can't always be trusted to make and sell a safe product, so we have the FDA (neutered though it is by the current crop of free-market conservatives). Employers can't always be trusted to treat their workers properly, so we have OSHA and the NLRB.

But the presumption should always be that, all things being equal in the equation balancing freedom and authority, freedom wins, every time. Those who seek to expand the state's authority over the people have a heavy burden of proof to satisfy.

And anyone who thinks that freedom is about submitting to authority is not fit to govern these United States of America.

But you knew that already, didn't you, Faithful Reader?

Your "right" to keep your d!@k in your pants

2007-08-03T01:38:00.001-07:00

Editor's note: Obviously, my frequency of posts has gone waaaay down of late, thanks to a new job at ANG Newspapers. I'll try to do better, but no promises.

Thanks to Consumerist, I was tipped to this little legislative gem proposed by a member of the Ohio State Legislature:

Led by Rep. John Adams, a group of state legislators have submitted a bill that would give fathers of unborn children a final say in whether or not an abortion can take place.
...
As written, the bill would ban women from seeking an abortion without written consent from the father of the fetus. In cases where the identity of the father is unknown, women would be required to submit a list of possible fathers. The physician would be forced to conduct a paternity test from the provided list and then seek paternal permission to abort.

Claiming to not know the father's identity is not a viable excuse, according to the proposed legislation. Simply put: no father means no abortion.
...
In addition, women would be required to present a police report in order to prove a pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.

Abortion law would give fathers a say (The Record-Courier of Ohio)

Ahem.

I hope, gentle reader, that I don't have to spend a lot of time explaining the outrageous nature of this ridiculousness. This trash amounts to creating a uterine "veto" for men to override a woman's decision as regards her own body.

No. No. No.

Perhaps predictably, a comment skirmish broke out at Consumerist, with numerous "men" complaining about how they have no control over the decision about whether to terminate an unplanned pregnancy, yet they are forced to pay child support if a woman chooses to carry that pregancy to term.

Which prompted me to reply:

To all the idiots whining about "father's rights":

Your options are simple.

DON'T want to have a baby?

A) Don't have sex.

DO want to have sex, but DON'T want to have a baby?

B) Use a condom.

DO want to have sex, DON'T want to have a baby, and DON'T trust birth control?

C) DON'T HAVE SEX.
If you choose to have sex anyway, you have accepted an inherent risk. Your partner is not obligated to make choices about her body according to your wishes when SHE is the one who bears the burden of your risk-taking. Pissed off that you have to pay child support? You accepted that risk by choosing to have sex when you knew that your birth control might fail. Again, if you are violently opposed to supporting a child that YOU fathered, on purpose or not, DON'T. HAVE. SEX.

DO want to have sex, DON'T want to have a baby on purpose, but DON'T want an unplanned pregnancy that you fathered to be aborted?

d) Discuss the possibility with your partner BEFORE you have sex. If she doesn't agree, DON'T HAVE SEX. Again, if you fail to do this, you have accepted the risk the your partner will become pregnant, and therefore you have ceded your right of control.

The bottom line is this: As long as men have the right to choose NOT to have sex, no man has ever been deprived of his "rights" by a woman's choice about an unplanned pregnancy.

You want to talk about the "rights" you "deserve" as a man?

Start acting like one.

For once, President Bush told the truth

2007-07-03T02:27:00.000-07:00

February 10, 2004:

"If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of."

I guess we know now what he meant by "taken care of."

I think it's safe to say at this point that the United States of America has never been led by an administration with such an incredible, obvious disdain for the rule of law. Seriously, George - at this point, even Nixon is looking up from hell and saying to himself, "Damn, that guy's got some balls."

Bush commutes Libby's prison sentence (CNN)

Shockingly sensible words from a prominent Republican

2007-06-12T03:36:00.001-07:00

It's not like I'd ever vote for Colin Powell - his embarrassingly fact-free, "hey, look at this vial of anthrax I'm holding, aren't you scared?" presentation to the UN on the eve of the Iraq war alone was enough to guarantee that - but damn, the man is occasionally capable of extraordinary clarity, albeit about five years too late:

Guantanamo has become a major, major problem for America’s perception as it’s seen, the way the world perceives America. And if it was up to me, I would close Guantanamo not tomorrow, but this afternoon. I’d close it. And I would not let any of those people go. I would simply move them to the United States and put them into our federal legal system.

The concern was, “Well, then they’ll have access to lawyers, then they’ll have access to writs of habeas corpus.” So what? Let them. Isn’t that what our system’s all about?

And, by the way, America, unfortunately, has two million people in jail, all of whom had lawyers and access to writs of habeas corpus. And so we can handle bad people in our system.

And so I would get rid of Guantanamo and I’d get rid of the military commission system and use established procedures in federal law or in the manual for courts-martial. I would do that because I think it’s a more equitable way to do it and it’s more understandable in constitutional terms.

I would always—I would also do it because every morning I pick up a paper and some authoritarian figure, some person somewhere is using Guantanamo to hide their own misdeeds. And so, essentially, we have shaken the belief that the world had in America’s justice system by keeping a place like Guantanamo open and creating things like the military commission.

We don’t need it, and it’s causing us far damage than any good we get for it.

(all emphases mine)

For once, you got it right, Colin. Well said.

"Meet the Press" transcript for June 10, 2007 (MSNBC)

Early front-runner for understatement of the decade

2007-06-02T17:38:00.000-07:00

From Think Progress:

Fox News’ John Gibson to (soon-to-be-former White House Senior Counselor to the President) Dan Bartlett today: “A lot has happened obviously in the Bush presidency, and there are undoubtedly things that, in private thoughts, people say, I wish I’d done that differently. What would you take as a do-over?”

Bartlett: “Well, there’s too many to count now.”

Ah, the idyllic romance of the DMZ

2007-05-30T17:59:00.001-07:00

White House Spokesman Tony Snow provoked a minor kerfuffle when he suggested that the long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq would be comparable to our presence in Korea - where we have maintained more than 30,000 troops in the 50+ years since the Korean War ended.

Those troops serve as a buffer between the deranged, aggressive, soon-to-be-nuclear-capable leadership of North Korea and the peaceful South Korean republic, along the edges of the De-Militarized Zone. If ever there was a misnomer, the DMZ is it - while the narrow zone itself is devoid of military personnel and equipment, there are estimated to be 1 million heavily armed troops within 180 kilometers on either side, ready to make war at the drop of a hat. The DMZ is sometimes referred to "the last front of the Cold War."

That the U.S. may be planning for a very long-term military presence in Iraq is not entirely a surprise, as many have asserted that we are already building as many as 14 permanent military bases in Iraq right now.

Leave it to a reader (named DS) at Talking Points Memo to put it all in perspective. Reprinted in its entirety, though broken into paragraphs:

I have believed, from the beginning – though I have always hoped to be proven wrong – that the Bush White House (i.e. Cheney) has had as its principal goal in Iraq the establishment of a permanent military presence in that country. The neocon dream of transforming the region (from the PNAC manifesto and elsewhere) has always envisaged such a military presence.

These people see America’s long-term national interest in terms of (overwhelmingly, though not exclusively) energy security and therefore the control of energy supplies. This means control of the flow of oil from the Middle East. [Relying on a mutual-interest-between-sovereign-states approach, à la western Europe, is considered naïve when it comes to Arab countries.]

Everything else – from the initial justifications for the war to the current rhetoric-of-the-day (we have to ensure stability, we have to fight them there or they’ll follow us here, etc.…) – is aimed at making such control, by means of long-term military presence, possible.

When 9/11 took Saudi Arabia off the table as a viable base, some other country had to be found – but of significant size. Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, et al. are simply not big enough.

Cheney, in particular, is vicious enough to contemplate a long-term presence at the cost of a daily toll in the dozens or hundreds as well as ongoing domestic opposition. He’s convinced that the US needs to be there to keep an eye on – and always to be in a position to intervene in the affairs of the region, with particular attention to the the Arabian Sea oil fields, but also the Caspian Sea oil and gas fields.

Bin Laden was the publicly accepted casus belli for the invasion of Afghanistan; but finding Bin Laden is irrelevant to the true purpose: to be on the ground, to have bases, to be able to project force in the region. [Remember that, within a month or two of 9/11, Bush and his people are known to have talked about going into Iraq in order to control the southern oil fields. This was explicit, and it has been widely reported, through seldom dwelt upon as explanatory of the whole enterprise.]

Similarly with Iraq: WMD, democracy, removing a tyrant, fighting Al Qaeda,… all offered for public consumption, but none of any real importance to the White House and all irrelevant to the actual goal. When the public rationales evaporate, or when events make the achievement of any of the rationales still being offered in fact impossible of achievement, the White House will still keep troops on the ground – even when their presence makes the stated goals even harder to achieve (e.g. reconciliation between Iraq’s factions), the White House will find some other justification for staying, no matter how weak.

Because staying is itself the objective.

Occam’s Razor supports me in this; the creation and maintenance of a long-term military presence is the only policy objective that unifies, aligns and makes sense of everything Bush has done. If any other goal is posited, his policies and actions are incoherent; but if this goal is posited, they all make sense.

The insanity of the Bush Administration thinking that a permanent U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf region will "preserve stability" is almost too overwhelming to consider.

Until you realize that it fits perfectly with the insanity of ... pretty much every other facet of Bush/Cheney's Middle East policy.

God help us all if DS is right.

UPDATE: TPM also points out that South Korea is ethnically and culturally homogenous, unlike Iraq, which has three internally warring factions. This wouldn't be about protecting Iraq from foreign invasion, like in Korea, it would be about protecting Iraq ... from itself. Ask the British how well that went for them last time.

The "free market" at work

2007-05-30T17:08:00.001-07:00

Goddamn. I love hamburgers and steak as much as the next guy, but are you kidding me?

The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease.

The Agriculture Department tests fewer than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. A beef producer in the western state of Kansas, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wants to test all of its cows.

Larger meat companies feared that move because, if Creekstone should test its meat and advertised it as safe, they might have to perform the expensive tests on their larger herds as well.

So one company wants to take extra steps to make sure its product is safe, and the government wants to stop them, because it would make it too expensive for the big meat producers, who value their bottom line over their customers' safety.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

Let's not forget to note that Republicans and conservatives are fond of telling us that government regulation is not necessary because markets will "self-regulate." They're also fond of telling us how much they support small business.

So here we have a Republican administration, exercising its power to prevent self-regulation in the beef market, and doing so in a way that destroys the competitive advantage a small business could gain over big beef producers. What's really been exposed here is the true Republican agenda: fealty to their big corporate contributors, and profits over public safety.

U.S. government fights to keep meatpackers from testing all slaughtered cattle for mad cow (International Herald-Tribune)

Priorities

2007-05-30T14:42:00.000-07:00

I meant to blog about this last week, but mea culpa, I forgot.

From the SF Chronicle, May 21:

As the costs for fixing the state's troubled corrections system rocket higher, California is headed for a dubious milestone -- for the first time the state will spend more on incarcerating inmates than on educating students in its public universities.

Based on current spending trends, California's prison budget will overtake spending on the state's universities in five years. No other big state in the country spends close to as much on its prisons compared with universities.

But California has all but guaranteed that prisons will eat up an increasingly large share of taxpayer money because of chronic failures in a system that the state is now planning to expand.

...

"California is just off the charts compared with other states in corrections spending," said Michael Jacobson, director of the Vera Institute of Justice in New York, a leading research organization. "Budgets are a zero-sum game, essentially. The money for corrections comes from other places. The shame of it is that California could have improved crime rates and a better funded higher education system if they ran things better."

In fact, even some supporters of the recent prison reform legislation, AB900, say they harbor deep doubts about the corrections department's ability to improve things, no matter how much is spent. But they say there is no choice, and that the result is that Californians are going to have to accept throwing billions of dollars more at the problem, while trusting a corrections department that has a history of failure.

"I'm not defending the damn department," said Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, R-Orange, the chairman of a state Assembly committee overseeing the state's prison construction efforts. "The department is a shambles. They couldn't build their way out of a paper bag. Everyone has a reason to be skeptical. Everyone is holding their breath, hoping that this time they're successful."

(Michael Genest, finance director for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger) said that one of the key drivers was the fact that the state pays the guards and other prison employees far more than any other state, a policy choice the state had made in past years. In addition, he said, the porous border allowed too many lawbreakers from Mexico to enter the state, where they eventually ended up in prison.

But Genest defended the increases in spending as needed to institute better rehabilitation programs, which would eventually save money, although he said it was uncertain when or if they would show results.

"It's not going to happen overnight, and no one can say how much it's going to save," said Genest. "But it should eventually save money."

...

Following the historic growth rates, in fiscal 2012-2013, prisons spending will come to about $15.4 billion a year while overall higher education spending will come to $15.3 billion.

...

"We all have a wish that prison spending would take a smaller percentage of our budget," said Spitzer. "However, that's a decade away, in my opinion. For another decade we're going to need large infusions of money to deal with this and our off-the-chart recidivism rates."

...

Jacobson of the Vera Institute said one of the greatest problems in California is not just that it spends so much on prisons but that it gets such poor results. New York state, for instance, is enjoying both a declining inmate population and declining crime rates.

Prisons' budget to trump colleges' (SF Chronicle)

It goes without saying that this should be a "WHOA, WHOA, WHOA. Slam on the brakes and stop this thing RIGHT NOW" moment. It also goes without saying that it's not, due to a variety of factors.

Regardless of levels of prison spending, what California has done to public funding for higher education in the past three decades is not only shameful, it's dangerous. It's beyond dispute that education is a key to economic development. Failing to keep the doors of California's public universities open is a betrayal of the state's ambitious Master Plan for Education, yet that's what we do every time we raise fees and cut services and staffing.

When I entered Santa Barbara City College in 1992, fees were $6/unit, meaning tuition for a semester of "full-time" classes was somewhere between $72 and $90. By the time I left, fees had more than doubled to $13/unit. They now stand at $20/unit, meaning that same $72 class load costs $240.

Though not duplicating the dramatic percentage increase of the community colleges, fees at CSU and UC schools have shot up in the same time period. All three of the state's public higher education systems have faced big budget cuts at the same time, meaning that students are paying a lot more and getting a lot less.

In the 2+ years I was at San Francisco State, the university fought to close or drastically restrict the work of the Gerontology and Russian departments, pushed unsuccessfully for other department closings, and cut back other course offerings while raising fees almost every semester.

If the crisis in university funding existed in a vacuum, that would be one thing. It would still be owed in large part to the disastrous Prop. 13, which resulted in a massive drain from state coffers to cities to make up for the shortfall in property taxes, but that's not the issue here.

That state leaders have presided over the slow bloodletting of higher education funding, while boosting prison funding to ridiculous levels, is outrageous.

This is, of course, not to say that we should simply be cutting back prisons just to make room for college funding. But if you read the entire Chronicle piece, you'll find one common thread among those interviewed: Not a single one of them claims that the prison administration in this state is anything but a huge failure.

The prison guards are one of the state's most politically powerful unions, and so they get what they want - the highest pay of any state in the country.

As noted in the article, California has some of the highest recidivism rates in the country, not surprising considering that most of our prisons are considered "gladiator academies," where convicts go not to be rehabilitated, but to be hardened and learn to become better criminals.

Somehow, almost every politician quoted in the Chronicle article seems to acknowledge those failures, but they all take a "well, we know throwing money at the prisons has failed before, but maybe it'll work this time" attitude. What an incredible dereliction of duty. California's elected officials need to start calling prison officials on the carpet, firing those responsible for these failures, and bringing in people who will make real change, starting right now.

But the embarrassing failure of California's prison administrators is not the only story here. We must look at what has fed the explosion in the number of prison inmates. A slightly off-topic word from David Rees, creator of the brilliant Get Your War On:

(Click to see the complete comic)

You get where I'm going with this, right?

I'm not saying we should be legalizing all drugs, across the board. But the number of nonviolent drug offenders rises every year (an 11-fold increase across the nation from 1980 to 1997, according to the Justice Policy Institute). We are clearly not doing something right.

First, the only thing that has been proven to work for nonviolent drug offenders, over and over again, is treatment. We need to drastically expand resources for drug treatment, and divert people who commit nonviolent possession offenses (and non-violent offenses to support their habits, like petty thefts and burglaries) into treatment.

Second, the hypocrisy over marijuana laws needs to be stopped now. Alcohol is a mind-altering, intoxicating, dangerous drug that is legal in every state in the union. So is pot (Edit - obviously, except for the "legal" part). The only difference I can see between the two, as pointed out by the great comedian Bill Hicks:

I just cannot, you know, believe in a war against drugs when they've got anti-drug commercials on TV all day long, followed by, "This Bud's for you." I got news for you, folks. A-1, alcohol is a drug, and B-2, and here's the real one, alcohol kills more people than crack, coke and heroin ... combined each year.

Pot is a better drug than alcohol - fact, and I'll prove it. You're at a ballgame, you're at a concert, someone's really violent, aggressive and obnoxious, are they drunk or are they smoking pot?
(Audience) Drunk!
The one and only correct answer, tell them what they've won, Johnny!

... cigarettes (are) legal, alcohol (is) legal, (but they) kill more people than all illegal drugs combined times one thousand, (yet) they are legal. Marijuana, a drug that kills ... um ... no one, and let's put in a time frame: ever, is illegal.

The continuing war on pot can never be won, and the sooner we recognize that we're wasting massive amounts of money and law enforcement resources criminalizing marijuana, the better.

The voters of Berkeley made marijuana the lowest law enforcement priority in 1979, and yes, while there are plenty of stoners here, it's not a hazy free-for-all of drug use. More importantly, violent crime has been dropping steadily in this city for years, hitting a 35-year low in 2004.

That prison spending will soon eclipse higher education spending should be an embarrassment to every Californian, none more so than those who foolishly vote for politicians who promise to be "tough on crime" without doing anything about its root causes, or those who vote for "three strikes" laws that lock up nonviolent offenders who need help getting their lives together, not a life sentence. The leaders and the voters of this state need to get their priorities straight, or we're only going to head farther down this dangerous path.

Why advertising execs are evil, Part 1,373,593

2007-05-23T11:17:00.000-07:00

Dear giant, soulless corporation trying to pretend you're cool:

Using famous dead people to hawk your product is only a few steps above baby-raping in my moral playbook (Edit - yes, this is hyperbole). And celebrity endorsements are to punk rock as Celine Dion is to gangsta rap.

So, it goes without saying that I find this pretty repugnant:

(Top to bottom, that's Joey Ramone, Kurt Cobain, Joe Strummer and Sid Vicious, for the terminally un-hip.)

Love,

A guy who used to like your boots

Editor's note: So much for the "I'm only going to write long-winded editorials from now on" promise I made just yesterday.

UPDATE: The big boot company has apologized, canceled the ad campaign, and fired Saatchi & Saatchi, the ad firm behind it all. To which I say, big deal. If you needed a big public outcry to figure out that this was wrong, your moral compass is still seriously misaligned. And to Courtney Love, who jumped on the bandwagon with her own statement of outrage: You're still the lady who's licensing Nirvana music for video games and a very special episode of CSI: Miami, aren't you? Yeah, that's what I thought.

The Return of the King

2007-05-22T12:43:00.000-07:00

I'm back, after a lengthy absence due to my ongoing love/hate relationship with Apple computers. Seriously, guys: Now that you're using the Intel chip, it's time to ease yourselves out of the hardware business. But I'm thankful that after 5 major repairs, cooler heads prevailed and finally replaced my iBook G4 (the beloved but cursed-from-birth Raoul) with a brand-new MacBook (now christened as Dwight), with the cool widescreen display and a built-in iSight camera. As predicted, it took my mom about 5 minutes after she found out about our new capacity to video chat to connect to me. I love you, mom.

I'll be back to updating as often as I can, but I've decided to try to return to my original mission, from which I strayed almost as soon as I declared it. That is, instead of being a links-with-commentary blog, I'd like to try to stay focused on the commentary part. The largest purpose, after all, is to provide future prospective employers with a reason to hire me to write editorials. So I'm going to try to work up longer pieces of commentary, with links only as a supporting evidentiary device.

One last note - as a beginning blogger whose traffic could be generously be described as "miniscule," it was very gratifying to start hearing from far-flung friends during my blackout that they were yearning for new topics and posts. When you're just starting out, it can be tempting to assume (even accurately) that next to no one is reading your stuff, and that the act of becoming yet another political blogger is largely an exercise in intellectual masturbation. Of course, these people wouldn't be reading my words if they weren't my friends, but it's heartening nonetheless. Thanks for reading, whoever you are.

"Seek truth and report it" - and what happens when reporters don't

2007-04-27T10:18:00.000-07:00

Bill Moyers remains one of the most valuable human resources in all of journalism, as evidenced by his excellent report, "Buying the War," which aired on PBS Wednesday night. Moyers synthesizes two hugely important stories - the Bush administration's brazen lying and factual manipulations in its case for war against Iraq, and the massive systemic failure by the national media to do its job - that is, to actually fact-check the claims the administration was making about Iraq's military capability and alleged (now disproven) ties to al Qaeda.

The first half of the report should serve as a sobering message to anyone who still believes the administration's biggest lies. Moyers and crew don't deliver any new revelations about the case for war, but they summarize all of the evidence showing - nay, proving that administration officials, and their enablers in the neoconservative punditocracy, knowingly lied over and over again, that they cherry-picked only that "intelligence" that fit their agenda, that they pressured career intelligence analysts to reach only the conclusions the pro-war cabal wanted. So many of these people belong in jail for their lies, it's hard to keep track of them all.

Shameless warmongers like Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer should have long since been drummed out of the profession of journalism not only for their lies, but for being so very, very wrong with all of their ridiculous predictions about how swell the Iraq war would be, but instead they have been rewarded with even more prominent platforms to spew their idiotic worldviews. (Time magazine just hired Kristol as a columnist - a decision that becomes totally indefensible if you know the breathtaking reach of the man's record of being wrong, wrong, wrong.)

Even more troubling to me, though, is the way Moyers shows how the "national media" - in this case, meaning the White House Press Corps and reporters for the most influential news outlets in the country - simply rolled over and accepted the administration's claims as fact, totally rejecting their responsibility to "seek truth and report it," to quote the Society of Professional Journalists' code of ethics.

These reporters' dereliction of duty becomes even more shameful when Moyers interviews John Walcott, Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel of Knight Ridder newspapers, which was acquired by The McClatchy Company in 2006. The two reporters and their editor were among the only ones to do their job correctly - that is to say, to take the administration's claims and actually investigate them instead of merely reporting them as accepted fact. Not surprisingly, the three describe themselves as shocked and befuddled when these claims were accepted as literal fact by so many, when their reporting was showing huge gaps in credibility for a lot of the administration's sources, and some claims that were demonstrably false.

But, as they point out, even though the combined audience of the Knight-Ridder newspapers is much larger than that of the New York Times, or the Washington Post, that audience lives way outside the beltway - which means the ruling class in Washington didn't have to pay them any mind. Even they admit that the pressure was tremendous on them not to challenge the Bush administration's case at a time when 9/11 had shocked much of the nation into believing the disgusting lie that dissent equaled being unpatriotic. Kudos to them for having the courage to stand up and refuse to surrender their professionalism - and the truth - to such an offensive tactic.

On the other hand, Moyers interviews enablers like Tim Russert, host of NBC'S Meet The Press. The most pathetic moment comes when Moyers juxtaposes interviews with Russert and CBS' Bob Simon. Simon talks about how easy it was for him to find and interview intelligence experts and engineers to probe the veracity of the Administration's claims - while Russert meekly asserts that he was really, really hoping "my phone would ring" with calls from the same experts. How anyone who simply waits for the phone to ring can call themselves a "journalist" is beyond me. To give Russert a sliver of credit, though, at least he had the courage to face Moyers' questions, unlike Kristol, Krauthammer, Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes, and a host of others.

"Buying the War" serves not only as a devastating post-mortem for the massive systemic failures of the Washington press corps in the runup to the Iraq war, but as a cautionary tale - a reminder that if we as a nation don't start demanding better from the press, we are just asking to be lied to again and again, by the next corrupt, war-fixated president.

You can watch the entire "Buying the War" program on PBS' Web site:
Buying the War

Republican discourse at its finest

2007-04-24T20:50:00.000-07:00

Two seemingly unrelated items from Think Progress:

First, Rep. Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA) says that if you think the U.S. should not be in the business of torturing innocent people, he hopes you and your family are attacked by terrorists. No, really:

At one point, Rohrabacher argued that imprisoning and torturing one innocent person was a fair price to pay for locking up 50 terrorists who would “go out and plant a bomb…and kill 20,000 people.” When members of the audience groaned, Rohrabacher said, “Well, I hope it’s your families, I hope it’s your families that suffer the consequences.”

Rep. Rohrabacher: ‘I Hope It’s Your Families That Suffer’ From A Terrorist Attack (Think Progress)

-----

Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani isn't having any of this vote-for-the-best-candidate nonsense. He knows the truth - that by virtue of party membership, all Republicans are inherently superior to all Democrats on the question of national security, and that the election of any Democrat means a new 9/11:

“If any Republican is elected president —- and I think obviously I would be the best at this —- we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it,” Giuliani said.

The former New York City mayor, currently leading in all national polls for the Republican nomination for president, said Tuesday night that America would ultimately defeat terrorism no matter which party gains the White House.

“But the question is how long will it take and how many casualties will we have?” Giuliani said. “If we are on defense [with a Democratic president], we will have more losses and it will go on longer.”

“I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense,” Giuliani continued. “We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense.”

Rudy didn't offer any explanation of why a former big-city mayor with essentially no national security or foreign policy experience, a mayor who, against the advice of disaster management officials, moved his city's emergency preparedness office into the largest terrorist target in the city - a complex that had already been attacked by terrorists once - is qualified to be President at all. I guess being a Republican carries even more weight than we previously thought - or maybe taking on squeegee men and Times Square adult stores somehow prepared him to deal with al-Qaeda.

Guiliani goes from blind party loyalty to unhinged craziness, though, when you juxtapose the following two quotes. No, really, he said these things in the same speech, so feel free to laugh out loud and enjoy the hilarity of his cluelessness:

He added: “The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us.”
...
Giuliani said terrorists “hate us and not because of anything bad we have done; it has nothing to do with Israel and Palestine. They hate us for the freedoms we have and the freedoms we want to share with the world.”

(Emphasis mine)

I suppose it's only hilarious for now, with the election some 18 months away. If you think Rudy Giuliani is enough of an expert on foreign policy and national security to deserve the presidency, well, that's just sad.

Giuliani warns of 'new 9/11' if Dems win (The Politico)

UPDATE: White House Spokesperson Dana Perino gets in on the fun too!

Americans are not the type that walk away in times of hardship, to leave people in Iraq flailing and defensless against an enemy who is determined to kill them. And withdrawal is like crying uncle. It's giving up.

That was a reference to the 60 percent of the American people who support withdrawal. The Bush Administration isn't even trying to hide its contempt for the will of the people at this point.

Now, I have no home

2007-04-24T10:28:00.000-07:00

I was sickened and infuriated to read about the latest chapter in the drama surrounding the Santa Barbara News-Press, my hometown daily newspaper, one of the oldest daily papers in California, and the place where I began my career in professional journalism as a humble intern some 12 years ago.

If you're not aware of the ongoing demise of the News-Press - a story that made national headlines when it erupted in a mass staff walkout last year - American Journalism Review published an excellent piece breaking down the breakdown. Go ahead and click through, I'll wait:

Santa Barbara Smackdown (American Journalism Review)

(The Santa Barbara Independent notes that the AJR author, Susan Paterno, is now the subject of a libel suit from McCaw. Paterno is aggressively defending herself, countersuing under California's Anti-SLAPP laws.)

The latest - and undoubtedly most shameful - step in this saga occurred Sunday, when the News-Press published an article that would not have passed muster at any reputable and fair-minded newspaper. Quoting Editor & Publisher:

A front-page story in the paper -- which carried no byline -- revealed that images found on the hard drive of a computer used by ex-editor Jerry Roberts (who with many others have left or been fired in the past year) included some 15,000 involving child or adult pornography. It cited a police as a source for this, but the paper itself had hired a data recovery expert last summer.

Roberts heatedly denied it, demanded a retraction and threatened to sue the paper, saying, among other things that he had merely inherited the computer used by previous editors.

Usually, I'd take a "wait and see, this is about more than one man's guilt or innocence" attitude to this sort of thing. But let me be crystal clear about this:

Wendy McCaw and the Santa Barbara News-Press have zero credibility. None. I have no doubt that their implied attack on Jerry Roberts is completely and patently false.

(An anonymous source with knowledge of internal News-Press matters - yes, even lowly bloggers like me can have such things - notes that the computer in question was in the custody of McCaw's company, Ampersand Publishing, for at least a week before it was turned over to police. If you know the pattern of behavior that led up to this incident, you might believe, as I do, that someone under McCaw's command planted these images on the computer in a pathetic attempt to smear Roberts. Go ahead and sue me too, you crazy b---h.)

Further, whoever wrote this article is not only a coward - proved by the lack of a byline - but not fit to carry the title of "journalist." At no time before publication did anyone at the News-Press make any effort to contact Roberts. This is a flagrant and intentional violation of the most basic of ethical rules designed to ensure fair coverage.

There was a time when the journalists who remained at the News-Press were fighting the good fight, trying to unionize the paper's staff and use that collective power to push back against McCaw. The publishing of this article signals the end of that era - those who remain behind now are simply enablers, putting their own personal convenience before any shred of professional integrity.

For all the good it'll do, here's the letter I sent to McCaw and about half of the News-Press' staff directory:

Editor--

With Sunday's publishing of an outrageous smear against former News-Press editor Jerry Roberts, the ownership and management of the Santa Barbara News-Press have proven that they will stoop to any level to pursue their vindictive agenda. It hurts my heart to see a once-proud newspaper, the place where I got my start in professional journalism, destroyed by such callous, cruel, revenge-minded people, who will trash the most basic ethical rules in order to slander a noble and decent man.

There is simply no defending the garbage you have printed, and the "reporter" responsible must know so, as evidenced by the cowardly choice not to put their byline on the story. Basic journalistic ethics require you to make a good-faith effort to contact a subject before publishing such a provocative accusation; you did not.

Responsible reporters have pointed out that the police have made it clear that the material in question could have been downloaded by any number of people in the computer's chain of custody, but this didn't stop you from attempting to link it to Roberts and Roberts alone.

Wendy McCaw and her enablers - including the "professional journalists" who bring dishonor to their craft by working in service of this vile woman and her outrageous, deranged personal agenda - are slowly dismantling a once-proud institution. Shame on you all.

Daniel Jimenez
Berkeley, CA

I <3 you, Stephen Colbert

2007-04-20T22:31:00.000-07:00

... and, I suppose, by extension, I <3 you too, Sean Penn and Robert Pinsky:

Shame on you, NBC

2007-04-20T13:56:00.000-07:00

As someone who's been involved in journalism on and off for the last 14 years, my mind is running in circles over NBC's decision to release portions of the Virginia Tech killer's "multimedia manifesto" after they received it. NBC executives and media critics quickly whipped out various versions of the "the public has a right to know" argument, but if they have a right to know, why not release all of it?

More importantly, if this is about the public's right to know, and not NBC's desire for publicity and the attendant ratings, why was it necessary to slap the NBC News logo on every single image released?

I can't be sure that he would agree with me on this point, but I'll quote the SF Chronicle's great Tim Goodman, who notes the icky nature of NBC's bated-breath promotion - and slowly and strangely timed release - of the material:

As Tucker Carlson said on MSNBC today: "It's a little bit like pornography. Should we air it?" Of course, the decision to air it has apparently already been made because NBC is hyping it for its "Nightly News" broadcast.

...

It also seems odd that NBC initially decided to sit on what is essentially a breaking news story until Brian Williams and the "Nightly News" could unveil it (at least for the West Coast audience).

...

Pretty much every media outlet is showing it as well, but not with the same kind of in-your-faceness that MSNBC seems to relish. Is this the ultimate "get" or just the kind of ethical burden MSNBC is now fumbling?

...

After Williams' newscast, MSNBC.com posted the show online. He noted that NBC was careful in the editing and that more - previously unseen - footage would air tomorrow morning on "Today." If that didn't fill you with syngergistic dread, then perhaps you're not as jaded as the rest of us.

(All emphases mine)

Later, NBC News President Steve Capus defended his decision:

"The news-value question is long gone," Capus said. "Every journalist is united on this. You can tell by their actions."

What a repugnant lie. The fact that many "journalists" followed NBC's lead proves nothing except that the drive for ratings and circulation is more powerful than ever in the news business.

If you want to air this material, Steve, we can argue about that all day. But don't you dare hide behind the phony argument of "news value" in order to provide salacious, attention-grabbing details from the mind of a deranged, murderous maniac, while cross-promoting it across every platform at your network's disposal.

Lies, damned lies and anything that Karl Rove says

2007-04-20T13:50:00.000-07:00

Posted without comment:

In a question-and-answer period after his speech, Rove was asked whose idea it was to start a pre-emptive war.

"I think it was Osama bin Laden's," Rove replied.

Rove warns of threat of terrorism (Akron Beacon-Journal)

Another Brick In The Wall

2007-04-20T10:16:00.000-07:00

(Image from Think Progress)

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee was an embarrassment - to himself, to the employees he "leads," to the President that selected him and who blindly refuses to see his incompetence, and to the American people, whom Gonzales supposedly serves. Differing counts put Gonzales' use of a variant of the phrase "I don't recall" at somewhere between 50 and 100, despite the weeks of preparation he was said to put into his testimony.

Conveniently, Gonzales' memory seemed to fail most often when he was asked about his level of involvement in the decisions about which attorneys would be fired, and why his explanation for the firings keeps shifting from immigration to gun control to pornography, despite the ever-growing trail of documents that have already proved him a liar.

Here's a very telling moment, as Gonzales is questioned by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois). Gonzales tries to hide behind the career professionals at the department, the very people whose work has been corrupted by Gonzales' and Bush's politicization. Durbin responds with the appropriate outrage - and a dead-on analogy:

Among Gonzales' worst moments was when he tried to claim that San Diego-area U.S. Attorney Carol Lam - the one who created "a real problem" by investigating possibly corrupt Republican congressmen and CIA officials - had been warned that her supposed lack of immigration prosecutions was a threat to her job. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) correctly points out that the sworn testimony of both Lam and Gonzales' deputy, Kyle Sampson, contradicted that claim:

Gonzales lamely tries to assert that Lam was aware of the problem because a few members of Congress had expressed their concerns to her. As Schumer and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) point out, Lam was not an employee of Congress, she was a DoJ employee. Why would the complaints of a few congressmen count as official notice?

Later, as Feinstein questions Gonzales, he suddenly backtracks to admit that while he meant to share his concerns with Lam, the message might not have actually been delivered to her.

Smelling the even bigger lie, Feinstein asks how the immigration issue can even be real when, two months before Lam was fired, Assistant Attorney General William Moschella assured the Senator that "immigration enforcement is critically important to the Department and to the United States Attorney's Office in the Southern District of California (Lam's district)." In his letter, Moschella went on to note that "fully half" of the office's prosecutorial resources were devoted to immigration cases, and that immigration prosecutions and border patrol corruption prosecutions had sharply risen under Lam's leadership.

But while Gonzales is clearly not fit to lead the Justice Department, it's important to consider the attorney purge scandal, and his role in it, within the context of the larger picture. Gonzales has always been a Bush loyalist and apologist first, abusing his authority to excuse the Bush administration's most egregious violations of the law and the public trust, whether through warrantless wiretapping, torture, or the discarding of habeus corpus.

President Bush has always rewarded Gonzales' kind of blind loyalty - and if there's one thing that will provoke Bush's most stubborn resistance, it's being told what to do. You might say that the more people that tell Bush that Gonzales must go, the more Bush will dig in his heels. I'm not saying Gonzales is safe - it's impossible to say that as the public and Congressional cry for his ouster grows. But remember how long it took Bush to get rid of the disastrously incompetent Donald Rumsfeld, and Bush fired him only after the 2006 elections delivered him an overwhelming political defeat.

The purge scandal is about more than Gonzales' leadership, or the lack thereof; all indications are that this initiative came from the highest levels, directed by Karl Rove and approved by the President himself. Taken in the context of the administration's politicization of all levels of the federal bureaucracy, it's just one more indication of the deep contempt President Bush and his cronies have for the rule of law, the responsibility of leadership, and the American people.

UPDATE: I should take a second to give credit and thanks to Talking Points Memo and its offshoot, TPM Muckraker, for posting Gonzales' testimony on YouTube and posting a massive amount of official documents as well. TPM also deserves a huge amount of credit for connecting the dots around the attorney purge scandal and doing a great amount of investigative heavy lifting on the story at a time when the mainstream media was completely unaware of, or at least completely ignoring, the issue.

The enemy is apathy: NARAL & today's decision

2007-04-18T21:07:00.000-07:00

Jane over at the always-excellent Firedoglake drops the hammer on NARAL (the National Abortion Rights Action League) for being quick to use moments like Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement to raise cash, then sitting on that war chest when extreme anti-choice candidates like Samuel Alito are put forth:

I'm sure (NARAL President) Nancy Keenan is licking her sweet chops over the latest SCOTUS decision. It is, after all, probably going to be the biggest fundraising opportunity she's had during her tenure at NARAL. Bigger even than Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement. Remember that one?

"NARAL Pro-Choice America surpassed its fundraising goals in the hours following Justice O'Connor's announcement," said President Nancy Keenan. Donors "are deeply concerned that President Bush will choose to further divide this nation by nominating a radical right-wing conservative."

Moderation is not the tone of fundraising appeals in the nomination contest. "This is big, people. Huge," NARAL wrote to supporters. "It's true, there is no freedom without choice. Without choice, we are not free."

And what did they do with all that cash? They sat (on) it and didn't do a damn thing, didn't lift a finger to fight Samuel Alito. Worse yet, when the Gang of 14 decided to vote in favor of cloture, they said that they did not consider cloture votes "significant" and would not be considering them in their scorecard. They then went on to add insult to injury by asking their membership to thank Lincoln Chafee and Joe Lieberman for the beatings they delivered with their "aye" cloture vote by pretending that their "nay" floor votes were significant. They then poured salt into the wound by endorsing both "short ride" Lieberman and Chafee over their opponents who made it clear that they would not have voted for cloture for Alito, which gave us the 5-4 decision we have today.

Don't reward failure. Tell your friends. Don't give money to NARAL when they come knocking on your door to tell you that choice is going down the crapper unless you give them a lot of money, because what you'll be giving money for is Nancy Keenan's ability to point her little pinky over tea at Washington cocktail parties and tut-tut over the state of choice in this country at the hands of the fundamentalists. She'll take no responsibility for the fact that NARAL will not fight, will not back those that fight, and worse yet, that NARAL sucks up all the pro-choice money so nobody else can mount a meaningful fight, either.

(All emphases mine)

To be fair, Jane does get around to turning the post into a solicitation for the Blue America PAC, but Blue America is unyielding in their stance on choice - if you, as a candidate, won't speak loudly and act forcefully in the defense of reproductive freedom, you won't be getting their money. No support for lying traitors to the cause like Lieberman and Chafee.

Organizations like NARAL are at the mercy of their contributors - if the money dries up, and they know why it's drying up - namely, their refusal to do the heavy lifting of fighting for reproductive freedom - they will have only two choices: adapt or perish.

Don't Reward Failure By Giving Money to NARAL (Firedoglake)

SCOTUS: "The sanctity of life" applies to fetuses, not adult women

2007-04-18T12:39:00.000-07:00

Today's announcement of the Supreme Court decision regarding a federal ban on late-term abortion, specifically a procedure known as intact dilation & extraction, is exactly what President Bush had in mind when he appointed Samuel Alito and John Roberts to the court.

It's disappointing and infuriating that a decision to restrict women's reproductive freedom was made by five old men, who will never know what it's like to be pregnant, to face the excruciating decision about whether to have an abortion, to have their own life or health put in jeopardy because of their pregnancy.

I'm still in the process of reading the court's opinions, no easy task for a layman, but the lead passage of the dissenting opinion, written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, suffices as a good summary:

Today's decision is alarming. It refuses to take Casey and Stenberg seriously. It tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). It blurs the line, firmly drawn in Casey, between previability and postviability abortions. And, for the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception safeguarding a woman's health.

I dissent from the Court's disposition. Retreating from prior rulings that abortion restrictions cannot be imposed absent an exception safeguarding a woman's health, the Court upholds an Act that surely would not survive under the close scrutiny that previously attended state-decreed limitations on a woman's reproductive choices.

(All emphases mine)

The Center for Reproductive Rights points out the obvious - that by rejecting its own precedents, the Court has set the stage for the battle that anti-choice advocates have been spoiling for all along: overturning Roe itself and criminalizing abortion entirely.

Today, in its ruling upholding the Federal Abortion Ban case, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively overturned 30 years of precedent and announced that women’s health is no longer a paramount concern. The Center for Reproductive Rights said the Court's decision paves the way for state and federal legislatures to enact additional bans on abortions as early as 12 weeks, including those that doctors say are safe and medically necessary.

The Supreme Court's decision gives the states a green light to criminalize safe, medically-necessary abortions as early as 12 to 15 weeks in pregnancy. According to the Center's report What if Roe Fell, the legal building blocks are already in place to dramatically or entirely overturn Roe. Thirty states are ready to criminalize all abortions within a year of Roe being overturned.

A bird and a bottle points out the twisted logic in the majority opinion, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, once considered the "swing vote" on the court after Justice Sandra Day O'Connor retired:

Kennedy wrote in the opinion that the opponents of the act ”have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases.” Which makes little sense to me at first blush. Just because in the majority of cases a law is not unconstitutional as applied means that it does violate the rights of some. Backwards logic if I ever saw it — a failed attempt to justify an obviously political decision that is bound to do damage to the Constitution.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who notoriously dithered and obfuscated during his confirmation hearings when asked direct questions about his opinions on Roe v. Wade and subsequent cases dealing with abortion, did manage to give a somewhat straight answer when asked about respecting legal precedents and the legal principle of stare decisis:

I do think that it is a jolt to the legal system when you overrule a precedent. Precedent plays an important role in promoting stability and evenhandedness. It is not enough -- and the court has emphasized this on several occasions -- it is not enough that you may think the prior decision was wrongly decided. That really doesn't answer the question, it just poses the question.

...

I think one way to look at it is that the Casey decision itself, which applies the principles of stare decisis to Roe v. Wade, is itself a precedent of the court entitled to respect under principles of stare decisis. And that would be the body of law that any judge confronting an issue in this area would begin with; not simply the decision in Roe v. Wade, but it's reaffirmation in the Casey decision.

That is itself a precedent. It's a precedent on whether or not to revisit the Roe v. Wade precedent. And, under principles of stare decisis, that would be where any judge considering an issue in this area would begin.

Less than two years after his confirmation, Roberts has apparently changed his mind, deciding to overturn a precedent barely seven years old.

The bottom line: the attack on reproductive freedom is long since underway. The appointment of Justice Alito to fill Justice O'Connor's seat was a huge victory for anti-choice forces, as evidenced by today's decision. Though the Democrats control Congress, President Bush would still certainly veto the Freedom of Choice Act if they managed to pass it, and there are enough anti-choice Republicans in Congress to sustain the veto. But it's never too late to make change, and a new President is less than two years away. A clear majority of Americans still supports reproductive freedom - we just have to figure out how to translate our power into political action.

I'm watching for any announcement of an emergency rally in support of reproductive freedom in the Bay Area, like the one being planned in New York City. If I find one, I'll post details here immediately.

UPDATE: ACOG expressed its reservations about banning the intact D&E procedure in its amicus filing in the case:

The Act purports to ban so-called "partial-birth abortions;" however, "partial-birth abortion" is not a medical term and is not recognized in the field of medicine. The Act defines "partial-birth abortion" in a way that encompasses a variation of dilatation and evacuation (D&E), the most common method of second-trimester abortion, in which the fetus remains intact as it is removed from the woman's uterus. The Act's definition also encompasses some D&E procedures in which the fetus is not removed intact.

Over 95% of induced abortions in the second trimester are performed using the D&E method. The alternatives to D&E in the second trimester are abdominal surgery or induction abortion. Doctors rarely perform an abortion by abdominal surgery because doing so entails far greater risks to the woman. The induction method imposes serious risks to women with certain medical conditions and is entirely contraindicated for others.

The intact variant of D&E offers significant safety advantages over the non-intact method, including a reduced risk of catastrophic hemorrhage and life-threatening infection. These safety advantages are widely recognized by experts in the field of women's health, authoritative medical texts, peer-reviewed studies, and the nation's leading medical schools. ACOG has thus concluded that an intact D&E "may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of the woman, and only the doctor in consultation with the patient, based on the woman's particular circumstances can make that decision." [ACOG Statement of Policy on Abortion (reaffirmed 2004)]

ACOG objects to the 2003 federal ban because it exposes women to serious, unnecessary health risks and does not include any exception to protect women's health. In addition, ACOG objects to the Act's vague and overly broad terms because doctors will be unable to determine whether their actions are prohibited by the Act. As a result, the Act will deter doctors from providing a wide range of procedures used to safely perform induced abortions.

(Emphases mine)

It should also be emphasized that the Court, even in the majority opinion, acknowledged that a number of Congress' "factual findings" made in support of the ban were demonstrably false. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Those who would deliberately lie in service of a political agenda - especially in the course of writing laws - have no place in government, and should be stripped of their office.

UPDATE 2: Think Progress points out that the supposedly impartial justices of the majority chose to discard impartial medical terms in favor of the overheated rhetoric of the anti-choice movement:

...the majority — Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito — dismiss the medical community’s opinion and instead adopt political rhetoric intended to appeal to the right-wing base. Some examples:

Abortion methods vary depending to some extent on the preferences of the physician and, of course, on the term of the pregnancy and the resulting stage of the unborn child’s development. (p. 3)

The law need not give abortion doctors unfettered choice in the course of their medical practice, nor should it elevate their status above other physicians in the medical community. (p. 33)

When standard medical options are available, mere convenience does not suffice to displace them. (p. 37)

As Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg explains in her dissent, the majority opinion’s language seems to be based on a deep hostility to women’s rights, rather than on sound scientific evidence or jurisprudence:

The Court’s hostility to the right Roe and Casey secured is not concealed. Throughout, the opinion refers to obstetrician- gynecologists and surgeons who perform abortions not by the titles of their medical specialties, but by the pejorative label “abortion doctor.” A fetus is described as an “”unborn child,”” and as a “”baby,” second-trimester, dissenting previability abortions are referred to as ““late-term,” and the reasoned medical judgments of highly trained doctors are dismissed as “”preferences”” motivated by ““mere convenience.”

(Emphases from Think Progress)

Supreme Court Rhetoric Reveals Deep ‘Hostility’ To Women’s Rights (Think Progress)

On Virginia Tech & Gun Control

2007-04-16T15:01:00.000-07:00

My heart goes out to the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings and their families and friends, and the entire VA Tech community. It is an awful tragedy, and there are no words to properly express the sorrow.

I see that many have already begun using this incident to stir up the debate about gun control. I have strong opinions about this, and I'll share them with you in the weeks and months to come. But at this moment, mere hours after this event, it is not the time to do so. This tragedy will not result in some sort of immediate change in such a hard-fought issue, and decisions of such a large potential impact should not be made on the basis of raw emotion. Those who seek to use this opportunity to push - for or against - changes in the law are just that: opportunists. Perhaps at least some of the deep-seated political cynicism in this country can be traced to people feeling as though events like this are just another excuse for some to make political hay.

Oops, the server ate my homework

2007-04-12T00:29:00.000-07:00

It was bad enough when it was revealed that White House officials were using Republican Party e-mail addresses in an apparent attempt to get around record keeping requirements for Executive Branch employees.

Well, now that the House Governmental Affairs Committee is on the case and asking for the e-mails, look what happened:

The White House said Wednesday it had mishandled Republican Party-sponsored e-mail accounts used by nearly two dozen presidential aides, resulting in the loss of an undetermined number of e-mails concerning official White House business.

Congressional investigators looking into the administration's firing of eight federal prosecutors already had the nongovernmental e-mail accounts in their sights because some White House aides used them to help plan the U.S. attorneys' ouster. Democrats were questioning whether the use of the GOP-provided e-mail accounts was proof that the firings were political.

Bush Aides' Use of GOP Mail Probed (SF Chronicle/Associated Press)

Assuming that you're not an employee of the Republican Party, does this strike you as even remotely credible? Can this be anything other than the deliberate destruction of evidence? Perhaps some people might deserve the benefit of the doubt - but not these people. They have been caught in multiple lies and misleading statements from the beginning of the U.S. Attorney purge investigation. Anyone who believes this latest claim is just a fool looking to get taken.

And if you believe the White House's story on this one, meet my friend Rose Mary Woods.

One final note - why is this story getting so little traction in the national media? I know you didn't send all of your reporters to cover the vital Anna Nicole paternity story, CNN - you can't spare one for this?

The NFL's selective morality

2007-04-10T14:20:00.000-07:00

The National Football League wants you to know that its players must uphold high standards of ethical conduct.

Adam "Pacman" Jones of (The) Tennessee (Titans) was suspended Tuesday for the 2007 NFL season and Chris Henry of (The) Cincinnati (Bengals) received an eight-game suspension -- both for numerous violations of the NFL's personal conduct policy.

"We must protect the integrity of the NFL," commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. "The highest standards of conduct must be met by everyone in the NFL because it is a privilege to represent the NFL, not a right. These players, and all members of our league, have to make the right choices and decisions in their conduct on a consistent basis."

In a letter to each player, Goodell wrote: "Your conduct has brought embarrassment and ridicule upon yourself, your club, and the NFL, and has damaged the reputation of players throughout the league. You have put in jeopardy an otherwise promising NFL career, and have risked both your own safety and the safety of others through your off-field actions. In each of these respects, you have engaged in conduct detrimental to the NFL and failed to live up to the standards expected of NFL players. Taken as a whole, this conduct warrants significant sanction."

Jones' off-field conduct has included 10 incidents where he was interviewed by police. The most recent took place in Las Vegas during the NBA All-Star weekend. Las Vegas police have recommended felony and misdemeanor charges against Jones after a fight and shooting at a strip club that paralyzed one man.

Henry was arrested four times in a 14-month span, resulting in two benchings by coach Marvin Lewis and a two-game league suspension. He was one of nine Bengals arrested in nine months.

Now. I am in no way defending either Jones' or Henry's conduct. But let me share with you a story about a player named Leonard Little.

Leonard Little is a defensive end for the St. Louis Rams. He has played for the Rams since he joined the NFL in 1998.

In 1999, Leonard Little celebrated his 24th birthday with friends. When his party was over, Little got into his Lincoln Navigator with a blood alcohol level of .19, ran a red light and slammed into Susan Gutweiler's car. Gutweiler, 47, mother to a then-15-year-old son, suffered a broken neck and collapsed lungs. She died the next day.

Little pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter. His sentence: 90 days in jail, 1,000 hours of community service and four years of probation. Neither Little or the Rams organization ever apologized to Gutweiler's family. The NFL's punishment: a whopping 8-game suspension, half of what Jones was given today, even though he has not yet been convicted on his most recent charges.

Little was arrested again in 2004 for drunk driving, going 78 mph in a 45 mph zone. Little first attempted to have the case thrown out when a judge named him a "persistent offender," then won acquittal when his defense attorneys succeeded in impeaching the credibility of the arresting officer for using field sobriety test procedures that were not officially sanctioned. It must be noted that Little refused to submit to blood alcohol testing at the police station, even though Missouri is an implied consent state, where refusal to take a BAC test means an automatic one-year suspension of your drivers license.

The NFL is wrong, wrong, wrong on this issue. Little engaged in conduct that more than "risked both his own safety and the safety of others" - HE KILLED AN INNOCENT WOMAN. That fact alone should have been enough to earn him a lifetime ban, regardless of the criminal court's findings. His second arrest should have CERTAINLY been enough to earn him that ban. As shown in the Jones case, the NFL is under no obligation to conform to the premise of "innocent until proven guilty."

That Little is still playing to this day - and earning millions of dollars for it - while the NFL puffs its chest about "the highest standards of conduct" is a travesty of the highest order.

What passes for "news"

2007-04-10T14:01:00.000-07:00

Memo to CNN (And to be fair, probably every other television news outlet, and a lot of print outlets, as well):

You suck.

-----

THIS. IS. NOT. NEWS.

That is all.

P.S. Note the quote in the story blurb. "My baby's gonna be coming home pretty son." So not only do you have horrible news judgment, you can't spell, either.

Perish the thought!

2007-04-10T13:05:00.000-07:00

Blah blah blah, Don Imus is a race-baiting loudmouth.

I have to wonder if the people getting all worked up over his "nappy-headed hos" comment have ever listened to talk radio.

This kind of overheated rhetoric is what the medium thrives on - and I'm including liberal talk radio in that statement, although it's plain to see that conservatives dominate talk radio.

Rush Limbaugh, anyone?

I pulled my copy of "The Way Things Aren't: Rush Limbaugh's Reign of Error" off the shelf and found these in about 30 seconds:

On NAFTA: "If we are going to start rewarding no skills and stupid people - I'm serious, let the unskilled jobs, let the kinds of jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do - let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work." (Radio show, as quoted in the Flush Rush Quarterly, Fall of 1993)

To a black caller: "Take that bone out of your nose and call me back." (Newsday, 10/8/90)

"Have you ever noticed how all newspaper composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?" (Newsday, 10/8/90)

To a caller who said that black people need to be heard: "They are 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?" (Radio; Flush Rush)

My point isn't just to pick on Rush, although he is a racist, sexist douchebag who pollutes the political discourse with lies and hate every day that he's on the air. My point is that most "political" talk radio thrives on "in your face" race-baiting and hateful rhetoric. If you're shocked that Imus said this, you haven't been paying attention. For the record, Imus should be fired, but he's far from the only one who deserves to lose his job, and this particular incident is not better or worse than many other less-publicized incidents in Imus' history.

Go Google "imus racist" and take a look at the many, many results.

You can read about Imus producer/on-air partner Bernard McGuirk calling Barack Obama a "young colored fella," telling the Hispanic governor of New Mexico to "Besa mi culo, Gordo" ("Kiss my ass, fatty"), and Imus himself referring to the "Jewish management" of CBS Radio as "money-grubbing bastards," and calling distinguished PBS News Hour anchor Gwen Ifill (who is black) a "cleaning lady." You'll find several comments by Imus and guests comparing black people to gorillas.

You can read Philip Nobile's piece about how Imus told a "60 Minutes" producer off-camera in 1997 that McGuirk's job was to do "nigger jokes," then tried to deny it when confronted on-camera by Mike Wallace. Nobile even pushed Imus to take a pledge, administered on-air by Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page in 2001, to stop making racist jokes about black people. You can see how well that went.

It's important to note that Imus' first reaction to complaints about the "nappy-headed ho" comments was, according to WNBC:

"... people should relax and not worry about 'some idiot comment meant to be amusing.'"

Those are the words of a man who just doesn't get it. No "apology" after the fact and no two-week suspension will fix that.

And no matter what happens to Imus, talk radio will remain filled with vile, hateful rhetoric, espoused by snickering morons.

Sluts or saints, ladies - you decide

2007-04-09T13:11:00.000-07:00

Thanks to feministing for pointing this out. Take a look at the flier for the Abstinence Clearinghouse's 11th Annual Abstinence Leadership Conference:

"Purity vs. Promiscuity." "It's a black & white issue."

That tells you everything you need to know about the people who run the abstinence-only movement - they think that by engaging in any form of pre-marital sex, even in a committed relationship, you're "promiscuous."

Just in case the abstinence warriors weren't aware:

pro • mis • cu • ous

1. characterized by or involving indiscriminate mingling or association, esp. having sexual relations with a number of partners on a casual basis.

I don't know what's worse - the antiquated worldview, or the ridiculous sanctimony.

I'm going with the sanctimony.

Is, this, like, one of them nucular-powered cars?

2007-04-08T13:10:00.000-07:00

Maybe new Ford CEO Alan Mullaly is worth all that money, after all.

From The Detroit News, via Think Progress:

Ford CEO Alan Mulally tells reporters that he had to run over and stop President Bush from plugging an electrical cord into the hydrogen tank of a hybrid car at the White House last week.

“I just thought, ‘Oh my goodness!’ So, I started walking faster, and the President walked faster and he got to the cord before I did. I violated all the protocols. I touched the President. I grabbed his arm and I moved him up to the front,” Mulally said. “I wanted the president to make sure he plugged into the electricity, not into the hydrogen ... This is all off the record, right?”

Mr. President, to avoid these types of dangerous situations in the future, I made a handy, simple flow chart for you:

Hydrogen
+
Electricity
=

(Probably.)

Plug it in, fire it up, Mr. President (Detroit News)

The last word on Pelosi-gate

2007-04-08T00:54:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to copy Glenn Greenwald's whole post here, but I'll try to summarize succinctly:

Newt Gingrich, along with any Republican, pundit or media figure who is criticizing Pelosi for her trip to Syria without placing it in the context of Gingrich's 1997 trip to China, needs to shut the hell up, right now.

You know what? Screw it. I will post big chunks of Greenwald's post, since he's mostly just quoting the New York Times anyway. Gingrich's brazen hypocrisy is outrageous, and you need to be made aware, oh Humble Reader who probably doesn't click on links when I tell you to.

New York Times, March 31, 1997 -- reporting on a trip to China by House Speaker Newt Gingrich, one week after Vice President Al Gore's trip:

Speaking with startling bluntness on an issue so delicate that diplomats have tiptoed around it for years, Newt Gingrich said today that he had warned China's top leaders that the United States would intervene militarily if Taiwan was attacked.

Referring to his meetings with China's leaders, Mr. Gingrich said: ''I said firmly, 'We want you to understand, we will defend Taiwan. Period.'"

Chinese leaders offered no public response to Mr. Gingrich today. But on Friday, Mr. Jiang urged him to treat the Taiwan issue with care... .

Asked about Mr. Gingrich's statements, a Clinton Administration official in Washington said Mr. Gingrich had received briefings about American policy toward China, but that Mr. Gingrich ''was speaking for himself'' in his conversations with Chinese leaders.

The White House issued a statement saying that the policy of the United States was to ''meet its obligation under the Taiwan Relations Act, including the maintenance of an adequate self-defense for Taiwan,'' and that the Administration would maintain its ''one-China policy, the fundamental bedrock of which is that both parties peacefully address the Taiwan issue... ."

In an interview on Friday, Mr. Gingrich said he had spoken with Mr. Clinton, and with Mr. Gore on several occasions, to make sure that their messages to Beijing dovetailed. At the time, he did not mention his message on Taiwan.

Several days later, Gingrich's remarks in China led to this -- New York Times, April 4, 1997:

China admonished the United States today to speak with one voice on foreign policy and accused Newt Gingrich of making ''improper'' statements on Washington's commitment to defend Taiwan from any military attack by the mainland.

...

The visit followed Vice President Al Gore's first trip to Beijing. Both men spoke on issues of contention between Washington and Beijing, but Mr. Gingrich's remarks were noteworthy for their directness and for exceeding the normal State Department formulations on American commitments to Taiwan.

(All emphases mine)

Soak it in for a moment. Gingrich went to China, directly contradicted established U.S. policy, and, without the president's approval, made threats against another superpower on the United States' behalf, inflaming an international situation that could still be the spark for the next World War. He deliberately hid his position from the President when he briefed him on his plans for the trip.

Speaker of the House or not, Gingrich had exactly *zero* legal authority to make threats about the deployment of U.S. military force. Only one person makes the decisions about how to deploy U.S. military assets - the Commander-in-Chief.

And people think Pelosi should be locked up for exchanging pleasantries at a photo-op, with Republicans in tow?

Newt Gingrich's 1997 trip to China (Glenn Greenwald/Salon)

Let me get this straight

2007-04-07T20:07:00.000-07:00

Nancy Pelosi makes a diplomatic trip to a nation that, like it or not, plays a central role in Middle Eastern politics, and she's hurting America, according to the White House.

But this is somehow OK?

Three months after the United States successfully pressed the United Nations to impose strict sanctions on North Korea because of the country’s nuclear test, Bush administration officials allowed Ethiopia to complete a secret arms purchase from the North, in what appears to be a violation of the restrictions, according to senior American officials.

The United States allowed the arms delivery to go through in January in part because Ethiopia was in the midst of a military offensive against Islamic militias inside Somalia, a campaign that aided the American policy of combating religious extremists in the Horn of Africa.

Good thing Ethiopia's not the kind of nation that violates human rights or anything.

North Koreans Arm Ethiopians as U.S. Assents (NY Times)

What it takes to be President of the United States

2007-04-06T16:15:00.000-07:00

Today I found myself reading a post from TPM Cafe's Michael Bérubé, who points out a recent Gallup poll indicating that the concept of "religious freedom" only goes so far for most Americans:

Between now and the 2008 political conventions, there will be discussion about the qualifications of presidential candidates -- their education, age, religion, race, and so on. If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be …, would you vote for that person?

The category that catches my interest is the last one, atheists.

I was raised in the Methodist church, because as my mother explained, she wanted me to have at least an understanding of Christianity before I made my own choices about religion. For a long time I categorized myself as "agnostic," but I've since come to understand that I am, in fact, an atheist. I don't discount the possibility of a supreme being or beings; but if He or They exist, they gave me a mind that processes information logically and the gift of free will, and I have used those tools to consider the question and answer it myself.

Yes, I often fall back on the argument of "If God exists, and is a being of infinite love and power, why do unspeakably horrible things happen to the innocent?" I've never heard an answer to the question that satisfied me. If there is indeed a plan for us all, why bother with the illusion of free will?

The ancient nature of the Bible is not enough to convince me of its validity. There are many ancient religious texts that make conflicting claims about the nature of man, God(s) and the universe. Someday far in the future, assuming human civilization survives, books about Xenu may be considered "ancient religious texts." Does that make them true?

I try not to denigrate people of faith (but if I'm being honest, snarky comments do spill forth from my lips/keyboard on rare occasions). I think faith and religious belief are the inspiration for a lot of the good works done on our humble little planet. There's also no denying that faith and religious belief are the motivators behind some of humanity's darkest moments - wars, murders, torture and genocide.

As an American who wants his vote to count, if I'm playing along with the two-party system, I have no choice but to vote for a candidate whose faith I do not share. I don't have a problem doing that, with one big exception: I will not vote for a candidate who wishes to legislate their faith - i.e. "the Bible says it's wrong, therefore we should ban it."

But back to the poll. Americans love to celebrate their religious freedoms - freedom to worship in a way of one's choosing is one of the reasons the colonists chose to revolt against King George, we're taught in school. (There may have been something about the freedom to make money without the monarchy's excessive taxation in there, too.)

But this poll says to me that, if you aspire to the highest elective office in the land, your "religious freedom" only applies so long as you are religious. (And who are we kidding - note that Gallup didn't even bother asking about Muslims, so by "religious" we really mean "Judeo-Christian.") Atheists need not apply - more Americans would vote for a homosexual than they would an atheist, and we know how many Americans feel about homosexuals.

On the even more extreme end of this discussion is the so-called "Religious Right," which demands not only fealty to religion - to Christianity - but only to certain fundamentalist divisions of Christianity. Witness the always-noxious James Dobson of Focus on the Family, who approached a reporter from U.S. News & World Report to offer his "expertise" and rate possible Republican presidential candidates:

Focus on the Family founder James Dobson appeared to throw cold water on a possible presidential bid by former Sen. Fred Thompson while praising former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is also weighing a presidential run, in a phone interview Tuesday.

"Everyone knows he's conservative and has come out strongly for the things that the pro-family movement stands for," Dobson said of Thompson. "[But] I don't think he's a Christian; at least that's my impression," Dobson added, saying that such an impression would make it difficult for Thompson to connect with the Republican Party's conservative Christian base and win the GOP nomination.

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Thompson, took issue with Dobson's characterization of the former Tennessee senator. "Thompson is indeed a Christian," he said. "He was baptized into the Church of Christ."

In a follow-up phone conversation, Focus on the Family spokesman Gary Schneeberger stood by Dobson's claim. He said that, while Dobson didn't believe Thompson to be a member of a non-Christian faith, Dobson nevertheless "has never known Thompson to be a committed Christian—someone who talks openly about his faith."

"We use that word—Christian—to refer to people who are evangelical Christians," Schneeberger added.

Apparently "the things that the pro-family movement stands for" don't include fidelity between a husband and wife, or even simple human compassion. Gingrich, who Dobson praises as "brightest guy out there" and "the most articulate politician on the scene today," is the man who:

• Confessed on Dobson's radio show that he was having an extramarital affair at the same time he was leading the charge against Bill Clinton for his affair with Monica Lewinsky;

• Urged his wife to discuss settlement terms and sign divorce papers - while she was recovering in the hospital after her third surgery for cancer.

Back to the poll again: The breakdown by political ideology is fairly predictable - 67 percent of self-identified liberals said "yes" to the hypothetical atheist candidate, while only 29 percent of conservatives would do the same.

Again, I'm not using this brush to tar all Americans of faith. But it's clear to me that many Americans of faith view atheists as amoral, as though the two terms were interchangeable, as though morality can only be derived from religious faith, and a majority obviously believe that the mere fact of one's atheism is enough to disqualify them from office.

That's a shameful position for people who ostensibly believe in the "freedom of religion."

EDIT: I should note that while I don't know Bérubé's motives, I can state for myself that this post was not tied to the Easter weekend for any suspicious reason. It just happened to be something I read about on the afternoon of Good Friday.

Life imitates art

2007-04-06T13:57:00.000-07:00

So, yeah, I saw the footage of Dick Cheney lurking ominously in the bushes to the side while President Bush gave his press conference outside the White House the other day.

I didn't have any reason to post or discuss it until some genius found the perfect musical soundtrack for the clip.

I wanna have control
I want a perfect body
I want a perfect soul

I want you to notice
when I'm not around
You're so fuckin' special
I wish I was special

But I'm a creep
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doin' here?
I don't belong here, ohhhh, ohhhh

Imagine if they actually made a profit

2007-04-05T19:18:00.000-07:00

From CNN Money:

Struggling Ford Motor Co., which posted a record $12.7 billion net loss in 2006, gave its new CEO Alan Mulally $28 million for four months on the job, according to the company's proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission Thursday.

The Ford pay package for Mulally comes on top of the $7.4 million that aerospace company Boeing had previously reported paying him for his eight months running that company's commercial aircraft unit before he made the move to Ford at the beginning of September.

...

The details of the compensation packages and costs come as Ford moves ahead with plans to close plants and cut more than 30,000 hourly positions from the company in an effort to stem losses.

Obviously, it's foolish to claim that the $13 billion loss is Mulally's fault. Ford was in big trouble long before he arrived, and one man can't possibly hope to stem that tide.

But you cannot make any argument that will validate to me the outrageously high pay that major corporate CEOs receive. I don't care how hard they work, how desperately a company wants to attract a top candidate, or how successful the company is. Taking home tens of millions of dollars - in the most extreme cases, hundreds of millions - while your employees struggle to survive on low wages, while you lay workers off and cut their health care - is the act of a person without conscience.

According to the Economic Policy Institute:

In 2005, the average CEO in the United States earned 262 times the pay of the average worker, the second-highest level of this ratio in the 40 years for which there are data. In 2005, a CEO earned more in one workday (there are 260 in a year) than an average worker earned in 52 weeks.

The ratio peaked at 300-to-1 in 2000 before the post-9/11 stock market slowdown brought it back down to 143-to-1 in 2002.

The EPI also confirms something I've known for a while. A traditional way that economies emerge from recession is through gains in productivity - as companies become more efficient, wages increase, infusing more money into the economy and allowing for increased hiring as markets expand.

You may recall a lot of people wondering before the last election why it seemed that we were recovering from the early-2000s recession even as many average Americans expressed concern over the economy in general, and unemployment and inflation in particular. Well, there's a reason for that - those gains in productivity were never shared with the average worker:

The economy expanded in 2005, but many families did not benefit from that growth. A new EPI Snapshot finds that all of the incomes gains of that year – the most recent year available for this data – only went to households in the top 10 percent.

EPI president Lawrence Mishel and senior economist Jared Bernstein examine new data on income inequality by focusing on gains by percentile. Income growth among the top half of the top 1 percent—a group whose average annual income is already $1.8 million—was up 16 percent in 2005 alone. Meanwhile, income stagnated for the bottom 90 percent. The Snapshot suggests that factors such as diminished union presence and surging CEO pay are funneling growth to the top of the income scale.

(Emphasis mine)

I'm not advocating that we simply legislate CEO pay back down to some nominal level. But executive pay has exploded in large part because corporate oversight has been so heavily gutted in recent years, and as corporate boards and compensation committees become more and more inbred and covered in conflicts of interest, you have executives scratching each others' backs through these massive payoffs. The average shareholder can do little to stop it.

A more vigorous SEC - one of the primary victims of the Republican Congress' overzealous deregulation - would be a a good first step.

It could be much worse

2007-04-05T12:35:00.000-07:00

It's easy to get caught up in the myriad domestic political squabbles here in the United States. It's easy to look at the long list of the Bush administration's legal and ethical transgressions and think that it can't get any worse.

Tell that to the people of Zimbabwe, who are routinely brutalized by their own government for the "crime" of wanting freedom from the oppressive regime of Robert Mugabe.

Even stepping forward as a critic of Mugabe and his corrupt government is an invitation to be murdered. Two weeks ago, one opposition leader was severely beaten for the crime of attempting to attend an international summit in Europe.

A two-day general strike has left the streets empty, as opponents of Mugabe's dictatorship are afraid to even protest peacefully for fear of being attacked by police.

The state-run newspaper printed an explicit death threat against a British diplomat on its front page this week:

The state Herald, a government mouthpiece, called (British Embassy political officer Gillian Dare) "the purse holder and financier" of an alleged violence and terror campaign by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

"It will be a pity for her family to welcome her home at Heathrow Airport in a body bag just like some of her colleagues from Iraq and Afghanistan," wrote David Samuriwo in an article prominently displayed on the newspaper's leader page.

It said Dare, "labeled in some sections of the media as a British spy, could one day be caught in the crossfire as she plays night nurse to arrested MDC hooligans."

Mugabe, who has ruled with an iron fist for 27 years, made headlines in 2000 with the violent seizure of white-owned farms, and has presided over an economic implosion that has led to 80 percent unemployment and the highest inflation rate in the world - 1,700 percent.

Ever the shrewd politician, Mugabe has framed this as the fault of Western sanctions against his government, though the Congress of Trade Unions blames government corruption and mismanagement. Inexplicably, Southern African leaders recently stood in support of Mugabe.

I'm not enough of a historical scholar to dissect the larger issues at work here - the lasting effects of Western colonialism and ongoing neglect of the African continent - but I know enough about freedom to say that any leader who so brutalizes his own people should be imprisoned, not supported.

Be thankful for the comparative freedom we have here in the United States.

Zimbabwe troops, police out in force for strike (CNN)

I really hate being right sometimes

2007-04-05T00:18:00.000-07:00

Little did I know when I said that "Nancy Pelosi meets with terrorists" would become a right-wing media talking point that the "right-wing media" I was talking about would be CNN.

How very disappointing.

Captured by Crooks and Liars:

Get your head out of your ass, CNN. Becoming a Fox News ripoff is not a good business plan, and it's not good journalism. It's just pathetic and sad.

Classy.

2007-04-02T21:39:00.000-07:00

From the Washington Post, h/t to Talking Points Memo:

Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA): "The Democrats' honeymoon is fixing to end. It's going to explode like an IED."

In the words of Josh Marshall himself, "Maybe he can go try that one out on some of the kids over at Walter Reed."

Democrats to Widen Conflict with Bush (Washington Post)

No Question of Corruption

2007-04-02T15:02:00.000-07:00

CBS' "60 Minutes" remains the best investigative journalism program on television. Though last night's coverage of the disastrous Medicare/prescription drug bill passed in 2003 was a little late, it was welcome nonetheless.

Steve Kroft connects all the dots around the bill's passage, showing not only how bad it is for Americans, but how those in Congress who did the heavy lifting to get the bill enacted into law are deep in the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry.

The corruption at work in this bill is overwhelming, until you realize that this is just how things work in Congress - industry lobbyists actually write the text of bills, the rules are bent and broken to make sure that big contributors get their way, and congressional representatives see no ethical breach in doing the bidding of the pharmaceutical industry while ostensibly representing "the people," then leaving Congress to take well-paying jobs as industry lobbyists.

There is much shame to go around in this debacle, but the biggest portion undoubtedly goes to Thomas Scully, former Medicare administrator, and his bosses at the White House. Richard Foster, the Medicare actuary, knew before the bill was passed that the stated cost of $325 billion over 10 years was wrong - it was about $200 billion short of the real cost. He knew because congressional representatives were asking him to definitively state what the cost would be. Scully threatened to fire Foster if he told them the truth.

He threatened to fire a man if he told Congress the truth.

Instead of rotting in a jail cell where he belongs, Scully is now a partner at a New York law firm that - wait for it - lobbies on behalf of the drug industry. He'll share his health care expertise with you, too, for, uh, somewhere between $15,000 and $25,000 a pop.

Watching former congressman Billy Tauzin - who led the charge and did the strong-arming to pass the bill, then left office to become a drug industry lobbyist - smirk and laugh when asked about this obscene moment in congressional history makes me want to vomit. What kind of person is so transparently corrupt and feels not one iota of shame about it?

When I talk about "outrage fatigue," it's because of incidents like this. We have a bill that protects the most profitable industry in the United States, at the expense of millions of Americans who are faced with the choice of bankruptcy or poor health - and possibly death. The people in power lied and broke the rules to get the bill passed, and rather than being held in contempt as the money-grubbing whores they are - and imprisoned for their disgusting violation of the sacred trust between voter and representative - they are rewarded with lucrative jobs.

America is broken. Unfortunately, the only people with the legislative power to fix it are the people who are the cause of the problem - politicians lining up to feed at the trough.

A Question of Corruption (CBS News) (Link to the full video on the right side of the page)

Things that make you go, WTF?!?!

2007-04-01T20:05:00.000-07:00

This guy...

...is now...

...this guy.

Unfit to serve

2007-04-01T19:15:00.000-07:00

If you find yourself someday inclined to vote for either former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney or former NYC Mayor Rudy Guliani - both candidates for the Republican nomination for president - never forget a simple fact:

Both men aren't sure whether the President of the United States should have the power to lock up American citizens without judge, jury or trial.

It's an easy question. Either you believe in the rule of law and the sanctity of the U.S. Constitution, or you don't. We know how the current occupant of the White House feels about the issue. He's not fit to hold his office, and if you agree with him on this issue, you're not, either.

From Glenn Greenwald:

Various Republican candidates attended a meeting of Club for Growth, and afterwards, National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru spoke to Cato Institute's President Ed Crane about what they said. This brief report from Ponnuru is simply extraordinary:

Crane asked if Romney believed the president should have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens with no review. Romney said he would want to hear the pros and cons from smart lawyers before he made up his mind.

Mitt Romney can't say -- at least not until he engages in a careful and solemn debate with a team of "smart lawyers" -- whether, in the United States of America, the President has the power to imprison American citizens without any opportunity for review of any kind. But in today's Republican Party, Romney's openness to this definitively tyrannical power is the moderate position. Ponnuru goes on to note:

Crane said that he had asked Giuliani the same question a few weeks ago. The mayor said that he would want to use this authority infrequently.

Two of the three leading Republican candidates for President either embrace or are open to embracing the idea that the President can imprison Americans without any review, based solely on the unchecked decree of the President. And, of course, that is nothing new, since the current Republican President not only believes he has that power but has exercised it against U.S. citizens and legal residents in the U.S. -- including those arrested not on the "battlefield," but on American soil.

What kind of American isn't just instinctively repulsed by the notion that the President has the power to imprison Americans with no charges? And what does it say about the current state of our political culture that one of the two political parties has all but adopted as a plank in its platform a view of presidential powers and the federal government that is -- literally -- the exact opposite of what this country is?

(Emphasis mine)
Your modern-day Republican Party (Glenn Greenwald/Salon)

EDIT: It occurs to me that if you asked either man the same question in a vacuum - that is to say, in a world where 9/11 never happened, in a world where the current president had not already asserted the power to do exactly what we're talking about - their answers might be different - meaning, they might be more likely to reject the idea outright.

If this is true, it makes their answers to the question in the world of today even more heinous and wrong - the equivalent of Nixon's famous "Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal." Either they're approving of this affront to the Constitution because Bush has already done it, which makes them cowards for the sake of party politics, or they're approving of it because of 9/11, which just makes them plain old cowards.

Putting aside those hypotheticals, we're left only with Mitt Romney and Rudy Guliani - not candidates for the office of the President, but rather just a couple of aspiring dictators. Shame on them both.

McCain visits the Green Zone...via Neverland

2007-04-01T18:46:00.000-07:00

Sen. John McCain's propensity for "Straight Talk" seems to have progressed into "Crazy Talk."

Two weeks ago, there was the shocking moment when McCain couldn't bring himself to answer an easy question with an irrefutably factual answer. An exchange about the use of taxpayer funds to distribute condoms, filled with McCain's long pauses and awkward attempts to hedge his answer, led to this:

Q: “So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?”

No matter how you feel about premarital sex, condoms, abortion, religion or anything else, the answer is the same, and it's indisputable:

Yes, they do.

Back to the exchange in question, then:

Q: “So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “You’ve stumped me.”

Q: “I mean, I think you’d probably agree it probably does help stop it?”

Mr. McCain: (Laughs) “Are we on the Straight Talk express? I’m not informed enough on it. Let me find out. You know, I’m sure I’ve taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was. Brian, would you find out what my position is on contraception – I’m sure I’m opposed to government spending on it, I’m sure I support the president’s policies on it.”

Q: “But you would agree that condoms do stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Would you say: ‘No, we’re not going to distribute them,’ knowing that?”

Mr. McCain: (Twelve-second pause) “Get me Coburn’s thing, ask Weaver to get me Coburn’s paper that he just gave me in the last couple of days. I’ve never gotten into these issues before.”

Whoever that reporter was, he gave McCain three chances to clarify his answer, to demonstrate that he had even the most basic knowledge of the medical facts on condom use and HIV. McCain wouldn't take the bait.

As the saying goes, Senator, you're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.

Last week, it was McCain's suggestion that "there are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today.” This outrageous lie was in service of the even bigger lie, peddled by McCain and so many other Republicans desperate to paint a happy face on their disastrous war, that things are much better in Iraq than the traitorous media would have you believe.

McCain further suggested that Gen. David Petraeus frequently travels the streets of Baghdad in an unarmed Humvee, an idea that was met with derisive laughter by Petraeus' staff, who pointed out that he travels in an up-armored Humvee, surrounded by heavily armed troops in other vehicles. Confronted the very next day after he had made these comments on multiple network news shows, McCain said, "Well, I’m not saying they could go without protection. The President goes around America with protection. So, certainly I didn’t say that."

Huh?

But McCain had a chance to prove his mettle today, traveling to an open-air market a whole three minutes away from the Green Zone. After he had returned from his trip, a reporter asked him again about that assertion that there are neighborhoods that people can walk freely in.

McCain's response: "Yeah, I just came from one."

Uh, Senator? Most people don't travel around with over 100 troops, three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships. Oh, and wearing a bulletproof vest.

McCain is the worst kind of politician - one who portrays himself as a "straight talker," when it's clear that he will simply, brazenly lie whenever it's necessary.

This Post is Rated HSMS for Hypocrisy, Stupidity and Moral Sanctimony

2007-04-01T00:20:00.000-07:00

I just finished watching "This Film Is Not Yet Rated," an eye-opening documentary about how the Motion Picture Association of America determines film ratings. Director Kirby Dick starts by reviewing the history of the ratings system. The so-called "Hays Code" or Production Code was instituted in 1930, containing a detailed list of images, actions and words that could not be used in film, an attempt to bring "morality" to film.

By the 1960s, however, the broadening social awakening had led to filmmakers yearning to be free of the Code's restrictions, and the major studios were beginning to see their audience erode as people spurned censored works that didn't reflect the world around them. When new MPAA president Jack Valenti took over, he scrapped the Code and instituted a new ratings system in 1968. That system - with ratings of G, M, R and X - still exists today, though the individual ratings have been replaced and supplemented by the PG, PG-13 and NC-17 ratings.

What's interesting to see in "This Film Is Not Yet Rated," though, is how the ratings panel has itself become a de facto censor board. True, filmmakers are free to put almost anything on the screen that they see fit, but the reality is that an NC-17 rating is essentially a death knell for a film's potential box office - the major studios won't pay to market NC-17 films, and the major theatre chains won't book them. The message is clear: play ball with the ratings board and cut your movie to get an R rating or face the consequences - cinematic obscurity.

But the ratings board itself operates like a star chamber - their identities are kept secret by the MPAA, even from the filmmakers who have to work with them. They don't give filmmakers clear guidelines on what the line between R and NC-17 is, and filmmakers appealing their ratings cannot compare scenes in their film to similar scenes in other films that already have their ratings. The process of dealing with the board, given from the view of the filmmaker, appears torturous and completely nonsensical.

While brutal violence routinely makes it into R-rated films, the ratings board shows a perverse (pardon the pun) obsession with sex, and the ways that it can be portrayed on screen. Veteran filmmakers joke about the unspoken "hump" limit, the number of sexual thrusts that can be displayed on screen. The missionary and cowgirl positions seem to be acceptable for an R, but anything else is off-limits. Scenes of homosexual sex often get an NC-17 for depicting sex in almost identical ways to scenes of heterosexual sex that get an R.

Actress Maria Bello notes that she watched an R-rated film, "Scary Movie," which opened with a scene where Carmen Electra is cut up by a knife-wielding maniac, blood pouring from the wound where he cuts out her breast implant, around the same time that the ratings board gave Bello's film, "The Cooler," an NC-17 for a momentary flash of her pubic hair - in a pivotal scene of lovemaking between two characters whose romance is the central plot point of the film.

Think about that. A violent stabbing is more acceptable to this ratings board than a flash of pubic hair. What kind of priorities are these people trying to teach our children?

Matt Stone, co-creator of "South Park," makes an excellent point in the film - the MPAA is fond of quoting its own internal polls that show that parents support its ratings system. But if the only option is no rating at all, of course parents will support it. That doesn't mean it's working well, and when serious films that deal honestly with adult content are essentially tossed into the trash heap, it's definitely not working well.

"This Film Is Not Yet Rated" is out now on DVD. It will also premiere on television Sunday night at 11 p.m. ET, 11:30 p.m. PT, on IFC, followed by the unrated cuts of "Leaving Las Vegas" and "The Cooler."

We're on a road to nowhere...

2007-03-30T16:49:00.000-07:00

I must admit, I cringed when I saw that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is about to meet with officials in Syria, which was officially designated as a state sponsor of terrorism in the U.S. long before the "War on Terror" began.

I agree with the position that we must engage our "enemies" diplomatically, and I think it's childish for the Bush Administration to refuse all contact with nations like Iran and Syria on principle. If we're not going to attack them militarily to solve our mutual "problems," then diplomatic engagement is the only other option.

But Pelosi's trip reeks of political grandstanding. She is not authorized to negotiate on behalf of the United States. If Pelosi wants the U.S. to engage Syria, she should use her considerable congressional power to pressure the administration to do so.

As things stand, it's only a matter of time before "Nancy Pelosi meets with terrorists" becomes a GOP talking point. True or not, the right-wing media machine will use this to pound every Democrat in sight. This doesn't make it right, but you just wait and see if it happens.

And what will we have gained?

UPDATE: OK, so "reeks of political grandstanding" may be a little harsh - after all, this story came to my attention only because White House spokeswoman Dana Perino was asked about it today. All things considered, her response was fairly tepid - a gentle admonishment, at best. That didn't stop CNN from pouncing all over it and posting it as their top story.

UPDATE 2: Well, well. It would seem that this is even more of a non-issue that I previously thought - considering that there are Republican congressmen on the trip with Pelosi, and that a U.S. Assistant Secretary of State and numerous U.S. Senators, including Kerry, Leahy and Specter, have all visited Syria and met with Syrian officials in recent months. I don't know who looks worse - the White House, for taking the opportunity to bash Pelosi selectively, or CNN and all the other major media outlets that are picking up this "story" and making it look like some kind of Pelosi-Bush showdown.

Republican Delegation Currently Visiting Syria, Spared From White House Attacks (Think Progress)

More "civility" from the SF Chronicle Letters Page

2007-03-30T14:55:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to attack every person that attacks liberals. But read this letter, published in the Chronicle today, and ask yourself - what is the point of publishing this at all? Who gains knowledge from reading this lunatic's opinion? I'm not mad at Brad Fry for being a deranged ideologue - I'm angry at the Chronicle for publishing this letter as though it has anything to offer to the political debate.

Wrong as wrong can be

Editor -- Only left-wing moonbats and liberal Democrats can live in a country that enjoys the most freedom been (sic*), but see only oppression. Only the left can live in the least imperialistic nation the world has ever seen, but see only the ultimate in imperialism. Only the left can live in the least bigoted nation that has ever existed, but see racism lurking behind every shadow.

The left is not only wrong on every major issue of our time, it is wrong as wrong can be. The left is diametrically opposed to what is good and right and successful. In fact, it will invariably choose and preach behaviors that lead to failure, rather than those that lead to success.

It is in its blood ... its genetic code. The left will always side with evil. How do these people think that they are making a better world by siding with Saddam Hussein, terrorist organizations and by promoting the destruction of the only democracy in the Middle East?

Brad Fry
Stockton

* I hate putting the (sic) in there, because I view that as the mean-spirited editor's way of saying "look, this person is so dumb they made spelling/grammatical errors in their submission!" to try and undercut their credbility. But that truncated sentence appears both in print and on the Chron's Web site. Being a past victim of bad letter editing at the Chronicle myself, I will assume that the sentence was written as something along the lines of "the most freedom there has ever been" and then cut up by a copy editor who was not paying attention.

My response:

Once again, the Chronicle sees fit to publish an unhinged, fact-free rant against liberals ("Wrong as wrong can be," Letters, March 30). Writer Brad Fry claims that "the left is diametrically opposed to what is good and right and successful ... the left will always side with evil."

Once again, I am forced to ask - what does this contribute to the political discussion? How does this "maintain civility and raise the level of discourse in public debate," in the words of Opinion Page Editor John Diaz?

I have no doubt that the Chronicle receives plenty of thoughtful letters to the editor from a broad range of readers of all political stripes. So why do you choose to publish a vitriolic screed based on blind ideological hatred?

UPDATE: A nice response from John Diaz himself. I've met him on more than one occasion and found him to be a thoughtful, polite professional who takes his job very seriously. Thanks, John! (Now, just don't do it again.) ;-)

Dear Mr. Jimenez:
Your point is very well taken. Thank you for the reminder of our need to maintain a level of civility and substance in public discourse. I appreciate your taking the time to write this note - as well as your submissions to letters to the editor.
All the best,
John Diaz
Editorial Page Editor

UPDATE 2: Watch the letters page in the Chron on Monday for the possible appearance of your Angry Letter-Writing Liberal.

UPDATE 3: Published, though once again the editing goblins got me, changing a question mark into a period, and therefore a question into a somewhat puzzling sentence.

There are no paralyzing spiders on "The Wire"

2007-03-29T17:11:00.000-07:00

As long as I'm playing TV critic, let me say that everything you've read about HBO's "The Wire" is true - it is easily one of the best shows on television. To call it a "police drama" would be a gross oversimplification - though the show centers around police work, the cast of characters extends to drug lords, their minions on the street, bit players, "regular" people and powerful (and often corrupt) politicians.

This is a show that does not pander to the lowest common denominator in the audience - the storylines are complex and engaging, and things are never wrapped up neatly in a bow at the end of each episode. There are bits of dark humor, the realistic portrayal of messy adult relationships, wry observations on the harsh realities of the "war on drugs" and the toll it takes on America's big cities, and an understanding that no one - from the drug kingpin, to the police chasing him, to the top city officials running the show - falls easily into categories like "hero" and "villain."

If you're comfortable only with the easily digestible format of "cop shows" like "Law & Order" or "NYPD Blue" - body found in the first 5 minutes of the hour, killer confesses in the last 5 minutes - this may not be for you. But if you're patient enough to invest yourself in characters who blur the line between good and evil, and to challenge yourself with a story that shows the complex connections between pusher, police and politician, the payoff is tremendous.

Here's a scene from Season 3, which I just finished watching (out on DVD now, the recently-aired Season 4 should be out soon). You're looking at Avon Barksdale (seated), drug kingpin of West Baltimore. Recently paroled, Avon has returned to the streets to find his empire is crumbling. He's sent one of his main muscle men, Slim Charles (tall guy), and Cutty (bearded guy), to kill a rival dealer, Marlo, an assignment they have botched. Cutty himself is out on parole after a 14-year sentence, and he's found that his heart isn't in "the game" anymore - he had the rival dealer dead in his sights, but couldn't pull the trigger.

(Warning - graphic language)

You can see the fear in Cutty's eyes - he hadn't realized until this very moment that he has to leave the life, and he's terrified by how Avon might respond. Chad Coleman's quietly intense portrayal of Cutty is just one great performance among a stable of great actors on "The Wire."

What you don't see here is the emotional buildup to Cutty's decision - Simon & Co. let us see his transformation bit by bit, spooled out over the entire first half of the season. More importantly, Cutty's choice is not the end of his story - even after he has left "the game," he attempts to make a legitimate life for himself by building a boxing gym to train the lost youngsters of the Baltimore streets. But Cutty soon finds that good intentions are not nearly enough in a city where old-school politics rule, and a lot of "at-risk" youth, who grew up watching drug dealers rule the streets and rake in the cash, don't believe they need saving. Through it all, we share the joy of his triumphs and the heartbreak of his disappointments.

Everything you were afraid to ask about "The Wire" (Salon)
"What drugs have not destroyed, the war on them has" (Interview with Creator David Simon) (Salon)

P.S. I won't go into great detail here, but "Friday Night Lights" is another great show you should be watching (and judging by the ratings, you're not). If you're saying to yourself, "I don't care about football, so I don't care about this show," keep in mind that it's about football the same way "The Wire" is about police work - that is to say, it's a jumping-off point to stories about much more, in this case, family, friendship, love and loyalty. Give it a chance.

To the writers of the television show "Lost"

2007-03-29T00:06:00.000-07:00

I was on board from the beginning. I convinced more than a few people to watch.

But if tonight's episode is an indicator of how things are going to go from now on, you might as well take this old dog around back and put it down with a rifle, right now.

Embarassing. Terrible. Awful. Awful. AWFUL.

If you're not going to answer the roughly 10 billion questions you've already left hanging, just stop making the show. Leaving the questions unanswered would be better than another season or two of the garbage you put on the air tonight.

AWFUL.

Navel-gazing

2007-03-27T14:39:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged in several days, mostly because I wanted the below video to stay at the top of this page for a bit, to strongly encourage people to watch it.

If you haven't yet, do so now - it may be long, but the emotional power cannot be denied.

Living in a place like Berkeley, dead soldiers can almost seem like an abstract concept - I know a few U.S. servicemembers tangentially, but there's no one in my life (to my knowledge) that's suffered the kind of direct loss seen in the video.

It's important to realize that their loss is our loss, yours and mine, no matter how you feel about the war in Iraq, terrorism, or the Bush Administration. Every one of the lives lost in this war is precious; every death is a tragedy. My opposition to the war does not change that one iota.

But I've also spent the last several days thinking about the tone of this blog. A lot of things got me thinking about this - the natural activity of self-examination, conversations with friends from across the political spectrum, and a cursory reading of some of the nastiest exchanges the blogosphere has recently had to offer.

I don't want to be involved in those nasty exchanges - whether the nastiness in question falls in line with my belief system or not. (That's not likely to be a problem anytime soon, considering my minscule readership, but this is about principle).

For as long as I've been interested in politics/policy/culture/debate, I've become increasingly aware of the problems inherent in making sweeping generalizations, and the danger of hyperbole. I've had a growing internal filter that's kept me from making statements that could be described as either generalization or hyperbole - with one notable exception: Republicans/conservatives.

That's not fair and it's not right.

Publishing a blog titled President Bush & The Republicans Hate Our Troops, for example, is an egregious violation of that standard. In answer to the rhetorical question I asked in the first line of that post, yes, there are other ways to explain the neglect of troops at Walter Reed. I may not like those explanations, but to substitute that kind of hyperbole and crass generalization does nothing to raise the level of discourse.

I am an out-and-proud liberal. If I aspire now to the kind of prominent position of punditry that would allow me to speak my opinions to a large audience - and hopefully to influence the debate and make real change - I would never want to do it by becoming yet another frothing-at-the-mouth ideologue. I wouldn't want to do it by twisting facts to suit my agenda; a political victory built on lies and distortions is not a victory at all, it's a con job.

This is not to say that I won't ever criticize President Bush, prominent Republicans, or Republicans/conservatives in general ever again; but there's a bright line between legitmate criticism and the ad hominem. The actions of a few in power do not necessarily reflect the wants of those who voted for them; I voted for President Clinton, only to be disappointed by a lot of what he did in office, both politically and personally.

This blog, the opinions posted and the man behind it are all ever-evolving; all I can promise you, dear reader, is to keep trying to do better.

Sacrifice

2007-03-20T18:30:00.000-07:00

Iraq Veterans Memorial

How to spot a liar

2007-03-20T15:30:00.000-07:00

As a journalism student, you are taught that the passive voice is *not* your friend (yes, I'm aware that sentence is written in the passive). Avoid it at all costs, they tell us, because it confuses the reader and often leads to awkward sentence structure.

Keep that in mind anytime you hear someone utter a variant of the phrase "mistakes were made," as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales did during his press conference the other day about the U.S. Attorney purge.

When they say "mistakes were made," it's because they don't want you to know who made them.

What do they have to hide?

2007-03-20T13:52:00.000-07:00

The good thing about "document dumps," if you're a politician facing a scandal-hungry press and an angry public, is that they enable you to bury incriminating evidence in a pile of paperwork, like the 3,000 or so pages dumped by the Justice Department last night.

The bad thing is, at some point, somebody is going to get around to reading all 3,000 pages, and they'll find whatever it is you're looking to bury.

Salon's Glenn Greenwald points out a very disturbing revelation found in last night's document dump.

One of the reasons given for the ouster of Arizona district U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton was that he wanted to institute a policy, against the wishes of the DoJ, to require that federal agents record their interrogations of suspects.

Memos included in the document dump provide a reason for the department's opposition to such recordings - they worried that certain interrogation techniques used by federal agents, while still legal, might look coercive to a layperson sitting on a jury.

But as Greenwald points out, in a hypothetical case where the defense alleges that a suspect's testimony was coerced, defense attorneys would almost certainly cross-examine federal agents about their interrogation tactics, in front of the jury. The only point of not having an accurate record of an interrogation, then, would be if those agents intended to lie under oath about what happened in the interrogation room.

Initially, the conduct of agents in interrogations would only be at issue where the defendant was claiming that the statements or confessions were coerced -- or otherwise obtained using methods that cast doubt on the reliability of the statements. In such cases, federal agents -- in the absence of a recording -- would still be asked about what they said and what they did in order to prompt the responses or confessions. Thus, even in the absence of a recording, their conduct during the interrogation would be known to the jurors -- unless they lie about what they did and conceal their behavior.

The difference between recording v. no recording is not whether the conduct of federal agents will be an issue in a trial. The difference is whether there will be an accurate or inaccurate record of what these law enforcement agents are doing to extract statements and obtain confessions. Yet here, every federal law enforcement agency is expressly arguing against recordings because they want to conceal from the jury what they did (or because they want to conceal what the defendant actually said).

Jurors, by definition, are randomly selected citizens from the communities in which defendants are tried. If they collectively find behavior of law enforcement agents to be coercive, unconscionable or excessive -- and therefore likely to engender involuntary or unreliable statements and confessions -- that seems to be rather compelling evidence that agents should not be engaged in that behavior.

Federal agents seek to conceal their behavior in obtaining confessions (Glenn Greenwald/Salon)

How generous.

2007-03-20T13:20:00.000-07:00

The White House has magnanimously announced that it will allow Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to testify to Congress about the U.S. Attorney purge.

In a closed hearing. Without being sworn in. And transcripts would be forbidden.

Gee, it's almost like they have something to hide.

UPDATE: Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, responds by putting White House Counsel Fred Fielding in his place:

"It is not constructive and it is not helpful to be telling the Senate how to do our investigation, or to prejudge its outcome," said Leahy. "Instead of freely and fully providing relevant documents to the investigating committees, they have only selectively sent documents, after erasing large portions that they do not want to see the light of day."

"Testimony should be on the record, and under oath. That's the formula for true accountability," said Leahy. "I hope the president will agree to be forthcoming. The straighter the path to the truth, the sooner we will finally know the facts."

(Emphasis mine)
Senator: Unsworn interviews with Rove, Miers won't work (CNN)

UPDATE 2: Seriously, can anyone make an argument that the insistence on not testifying under oath is anything but another way of saying "I am going to lie to you"?

That's all, folks.

2007-03-20T02:11:00.000-07:00

Phew. Enough old posts for now, although sometime soon I'll also probably copy and post some of my editorial work from Xpress as well.

One final note - seeing the word "housekeeping" in post titles over and over again reminded me that I wanted to post the following:

An Open Letter to Carol Burnett

Dear Carol,

It's called parody. You built a career on it. Call off your lawyers and get over yourself.

Sincerely,

A Fan (really!)

Housekeeping (VI) - Dubya Pedals While Rome Burns

2007-03-20T01:57:00.000-07:00

(Originally posted on May 12, 2005)

(This was an unsolicited, extra-credit op-ed column submitted for an opinion writing class. It refers to an incident that was fairly big news for a brief moment.)

Thursday's White House press briefing played out like a George Orwell fever dream, with Press Secretary Scott McClellan attempting any number of linguistic contortions as he was mercilessly bludgeoned by the White House press corps.

Reporters were demanding to know more about Wednesday's security breach, when a small plane entered the restricted area over the nations capital. The wayward single-engine Cessna 120 came to within less than three miles of the White House, which was evacuated, along with the Capitol and Supreme Court buildings.

First Lady Laura Bush was whisked to a secure bunker and Vice President Dick Cheney was evacuated to a secure off-site location. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was literally snatched out of her shoes by the Capitol Police as members of both houses of Congress immediately halted all business and ran from the building.

The plane changed course only after armed fighters and a Blackhawk helicopter used international distress signals and dropped flares in its path three separate times - a last-ditch effort to get the pilots to respond, while top officials discussed whether to order that the plane be shot down, according to MSNBC and Fox News. Two men, members of a Pennsylvania amateur flying club, were arrested and questioned, then released after authorities determined their actions were simply pilot error.

That error led to the deepest breach of the heavily restricted airspace over the capital since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Still, as 30,000 government officials and tourists were hurriedly evacuated from federal buildings, the White House stood at "red alert," national security officials discussed possibly shooting down a civilian plane, and millions wondered whether the nation was again under attack, President Bush was blissfully unaware.

The president was enjoying a mountain bike ride in the Maryland back country. Apparently his Secret Service detail decided that he was not in danger so far removed from Washington, and no one in the military or homeland security chains of command thought it was necessary to inform the commander-in-chief of the events unfolding.

This is the man who so often refers to himself as a "wartime president." He is the man who donned a flight suit and rode a Navy S-3B Viking onto the deck of an aircraft carrier during a live press conference to declare "mission accomplished" in Iraq - there were 140 U.S. military dead at the time; more than ten times that many have died since.

Military fighters are desperately trying to head off a plane headed straight for the White House, every government official in sight is being evacuated, the decision to fire is being discussed, and no one thought the president should be told?

The reporters were understandably incredulous: "Did nobody here at the White House think (of) calling the President to say, 'By the way, your wife has been evacuated from the White House, we just want to let you know everything is okay?'" asked one.

McClellan was a rock, stubbornly staying on message as reporters tried to get him to concede the humiliating - and disturbing - nature of the communication breakdown. What most of the scribes were seeking to know was who decided a "red alert" and the decision to attack didn't rise to the level of presidential notification, and why the president himself had not previously indicated that he wanted to know about any serious threat to the nation, or be involved in any decision to fire.

"Actually, all the protocols were followed ... you have to look at the circumstances surrounding the situation," McClellan said, using the two phrases that would repeatedly tumble from his lips during the 30-minute verbal smackdown.

McClellan pointed out that the president's military aide, who travels at his side at all times, was in contact with the White House Situation Room during the crisis.

"Nobody thought to say, 'By the way, this is going on, but it's all under control?'" came the reporter's reply.

Of course, the decision looks like slightly wiser considering that the incident ended without harm.

But this is not the first time the president's men haven't seen fit to interrupt his schedule in a security crisis. Remember those seven extra minutes the president spent with "The Pet Goat" as the nation stood under attack on Sept. 11?

The Bush administration has spent the last four years trying to convince us all that they are prepared for any threat against the nation. The president's re-election campaign was all about how focused he was on the threat of terrorism, and how he was the man who would make the tough decisions to keep America safe.

But yesterday, minutes away from one of the toughest decisions he'd ever have to make - shoot down a possibly innocent civilian plane, or risk a terror attack of unknown proportions - the president had no clue what was going on.

McClellan emphasized Thursday that under the system installed after the 2001 attacks, other high-ranking military officials were empowered to authorize shooting down planes that violate restricted airspace, meaning the president did not have to make the call himself.

But that should be the worst-case scenario - if the nation is under attack already, if the president is cut off from communication or worse, then the generals get to decide. Certainly they are not allowed to make presidential-level decisions simply so the president's leisure time is not disturbed.

What kind of leadership is that?

Housekeeping (V) - Showdown in Cowtown

2007-03-20T01:50:00.000-07:00

(Originally posted on May 20, 2005)

Editor and Publisher reported yesterday that one John Gibson, the principal of East High School in Bakersfield, had removed a package of articles about homosexuality to be published in the final issue of the student paper, The Kernal. The student editors told the Bakersfield Californian (subscription only) that the articles presented the issues from a variety of perspectives, and the E&P article notes that they also interviewed students opposed to homosexuality. The paper's adviser said Gibson told him he was blocking the stories out of fear that student sources would become targets of violence, even though all the gay students interviewed were already out, and the students and their parents both gave written approval to the stories' publication.

The final issue of the year will be published on May 27, with or without the stories. Here's the letter I sent to Principal Gibson. Feel free to drop him a line. And keep those ACLU memberships current, people!

Mr. Gibson--

I read an article on the Editor & Publisher Web site regarding your decision to remove a package of articles regarding homosexuality from the East High student newspaper, The Kernal. Putting aside the question of legality (the ACLU knows a lot more about the law than I do), I just wanted to urge you to reconsider your decision for the sake of the student learning process.

Obviously, I can't speak to any of the specifics of the articles in question, not having read them. But from the brief description in the Bakersfield Californian, it sounds as if the students have at least made an effort to present different sides of the issue, and to do so responsibly and fairly. To me, this is a sign of the kind of mature, inquisitive minds we all want young people to have.

If you have specific concerns about the possibility of violence after the articles' publication - concerns that seem unfounded, since the student interviewees in question seem to already be living as openly gay - you could address them by directly reminding all students, in any one of the many public forums you're probably having as graduation approaches, that violence on campus, for any reason, is completely unacceptable and will be dealt with severely. Personally, I'm of the mind that the kind of person who would violently attack another person simply because they are gay doesn't usually read newspapers.

It's not too late for you to show your students that if they are mature enough to thoughtfully consider adult issues, you will respond in kind by treating them as adults.

Sincerely,

Daniel Jimenez

UPDATE (5-25-05): A judge has refused to order publication of the stories in the May 27 issue, but will hear the case and rule on whether the stories can run in the first issue of the 2005-06 year.

UPDATE 2 (3-20-07): A November 2006 ACLU press release trumpets a then-pending agreement to set students' free speech rights in stone, apparently the ending to the East High School saga.

Housekeeping (IV) - "If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide."

2007-03-20T01:36:00.000-07:00

(Originally posted May 18, 2006)

Here's a little something to keep in mind as you watch the news and debate over the NSA's domestic wiretapping and data-mining programs.

A good friend of mine recently opined that she didn't mind if the government were, in fact, listening to her phone calls, because (to the best of my knowledge) she's not some kind of international criminal. Fair enough. Odds are, if the government is listening to our phone calls without warrants and gathering massive databases of personal information about us - phone records, health records, employment and personal spending records - most of those being monitored will have nothing, or at least nothing on the order of terrorist involvement, to hide.

But America is not just a place, it's an ideal. If you asked people the world over to describe what America stands for in one word, I'd bet you'd get an overwhelming number of responses that said "freedom." Under the American ideal, the average citizen is free to live their life as they please, within our own socially constructed framework. When government would intrude into that citizen's private life, it does so under a great burden to demonstrate a need to do so to protect the public welfare, and a high standard of proof to show that there is a reasonable suspicion that the citizen(s) being targeted are engaging in criminal behavior.

What we've seen from this administration completely betrays that ideal. In order to combat terrorism - a true threat, yes, but certainly, statistically, not one that would jeopardize this nation's future - they have simply evaded the law wherever necessary, offered little beyond their own word to prove that "suspects" are linked to terrorism, and violated the presumed privacy of huge swaths of Americans - certainly not in any discriminate manner.

The law is very clear - if the NSA is listening to phone calls originating within the country without warrant, they have broken the law. If telecommunications companies have handed over customer records without warrant, court order or subpoena, they have broken the law.

From Wired News' The Eternal Value of Privacy, by Bruce Schneier:

The most common retort against privacy advocates -- by those in favor of ID checks, cameras, databases, data mining and other wholesale surveillance measures -- is this line: "If you aren't doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?"

...

Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect.

Two proverbs say it best: Quis custodiet custodes ipsos? ("Who watches the watchers?") and "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

...

We do nothing wrong when we make love or go to the bathroom. We are not deliberately hiding anything when we seek out private places for reflection or conversation. We keep private journals, sing in the privacy of the shower, and write letters to secret lovers and then burn them. Privacy is a basic human need.

A future in which privacy would face constant assault was so alien to the framers of the Constitution that it never occurred to them to call out privacy as an explicit right. Privacy was inherent to the nobility of their being and their cause. Of course being watched in your own home was unreasonable. Watching at all was an act so unseemly as to be inconceivable among gentlemen in their day. You watched convicted criminals, not free citizens. You ruled your own home. It's intrinsic to the concept of liberty.

...

How many of us have paused during conversation in the past four-and-a-half years, suddenly aware that we might be eavesdropped on? Probably it was a phone conversation, although maybe it was an e-mail or instant-message exchange or a conversation in a public place. Maybe the topic was terrorism, or politics, or Islam. We stop suddenly, momentarily afraid that our words might be taken out of context, then we laugh at our paranoia and go on. But our demeanor has changed, and our words are subtly altered.

This is the loss of freedom we face when our privacy is taken from us. This is life in former East Germany, or life in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. And it's our future as we allow an ever-intrusive eye into our personal, private lives.

Too many wrongly characterize the debate as "security versus privacy." The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide.

(All emphases mine)

With all due respect to those who disagree with Mr. Schneier and myself on this particular issue, I see those who would so readily hand over their essential freedom - especially to fight terrorism, a tactic that will live forever, not an ideology that can be discredited or disproven - as a sort of traitor to the ideal that America stands for. Now, "traitor" is an inflammatory word, and I obviously don't mean it in its truest sense.

But to so easily give up on an ideal that those who founded our nation held so dear - the concept that that freedom and liberty are the natural rights of every man (ignoring for a moment the founders' own blind spots towards women, non-whites and non-landed gentry), and that restrictions on them must be demonstrably vital to preserve the existence of the Republic itself - to give up on that idea seems to me to giving up on the promise of America itself. Think about the number of people who have been killed by terrorist attacks on America in your lifetime. All of those lives were precious, yes, and their loss is tragic; but are they worth decimating America's legacy of freedom?

Americans have unparalleled Constitutional and legal protections to express grievances and to openly criticize government at all levels. It means that the terrorists or other extremists would find less fertile ground to build networks in the US because local support would be harder to come by and because local opposition would be more certain.

In this sense, our liberties are a powerful antidote to violent extremism.

This is not an academic point for me. It is an observation from a career of watching the domestic consequences of repressive regimes elsewhere in the world including US-friendly Islamic governments such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
--John Gannon, former CIA Deputy Director for Intelligence

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power.
-- Benjamin Franklin

Housekeeping (III) - Gone & Forgotten?

2007-03-19T23:59:00.000-07:00

(Originally posted on June 3, 2005)

By way of an UPDATE, let me point out what you already know: The Natalee Holloway story was huge. Tragically, Holloway was never found, but even more tragically, Alex Buckman was. The pages for Miguel Morin and Lolita Lewis have been pulled from the Web site for The National Center For Missing & Exploited Children, which could either mean they were found alive or found ... not alive. Siee Smith was found and returned to his family, and one page I found says that Kiara Carey was "recovered," which is a strange term whose meaning I won't attempt to parse. Christian Ferguson and Alexis Bourgeois remain missing - and with the obvious exception of Holloway, all of these children's stories remain untold.

Which is more worthy?

Pulling up CNN.com this afternoon, there were two links to what appeared to be the same story, about a missing teenager, so I clicked through. An Alabama girl, Natalee Holloway, has been missing for 5 days. She is blonde, white and pretty. She disappeared early Monday morning during a trip to Aruba celebrating her high school graduation. The Dutch and Aruban police, the FBI, the State Department and hundreds of volunteers are aiding in the search for Holloway.

Out of curiosity, I decided to see if other major news outlets were giving Holloway the same prominent play that CNN.com was. Holloway's story, as of 5 p.m. Friday, was linked in the top right position on the home pages of CBS, MSNBC, Fox News, and USA Today. ABC covered the story, though they did not list it on their home page, and the New York Times does not appear to have covered the story yet. Google News listed 496 stories under the Holloway headline.

Meanwhile, I found exactly one story on Google about Alex Buckman, a Spartanburg, SC 17-year-old who went missing March 24 after witnessing a murder. Alex is a black male. Sadly, Alex is not alone; I'd like you to meet Miguel Morin, a Houston 1-year-old who's been missing for over 6 months. Meet Lolita Lewis, a Fredricksburg, VA 17-year-old, missing for almost a month. Did you ever hear the story of Christian Ferguson, an 11-year-old from St. Louis? He was in his parents' car when it was stolen in June 2003. The car was recovered, but Christian is still missing. He is severely developmentally disabled, and requires special medication and a special diet, lest he slip into a coma. Yet he's been missing for almost two years now, and I've never heard of him. Have you? Where was the nationwide alert when he was taken? Where was the spotlight for a helpless little boy who may have long since been lost forever?

Meet Ayanna Bourgeois, and her husband, LaRon:

They appeared at the 2002 convention of the NABJ to beg for more coverage of the case of their daughter, 7-year-old Alexis, who disappeared after being dropped off for school three years ago.

Why did they have to beg at all?

Think hard about this, especially since most of the people reading this are likely to be journalism students, like myself, who (hopefully) keep up with the news more than your average person:

When was the last time you saw the national media's attention focus on a missing person who wasn't a young white woman/girl?

When was the last time you saw a massive manhunt and 24-hour constant coverage when a black child, a Latina teenager, an Asian-American woman went missing?

This cannot be anything BUT racism and sexism on the part of the people who choose the news. There is no other explanation; stories about missing people are, by their nature, emotional and heart-wrenching, so the idea that Holloway's disappearance is somehow more compelling than say, Buckman's or Bourgeois's is nonsense. Thousands of people go missing each year; there are many tales to choose from, but the tales chosen by editors at big media outlets always seem to feature women like Laci Peterson or the "runaway bride," Jennifer Wilbanks.

This isn't to say that the stories of Holloway, Peterson, and other white women/people who go missing aren't just as important. But when the media - and I'm especially looking at you, my friends in broadcast journalism - gets hold of a story like this, they lose all perspective. According to CJR Daily, during the two-day period between noon April 30 and 2 p.m. May 2, while Wilbanks was on the loose, CNN had all of the following guests on its air to discuss the story:

The mayor of Duluth.
A pastor from Wilbanks' Baptist church.
A spokesperson from the Albuquerque police department.
The Albuquerque police chief.
Wilbanks' fiance.
A friend of Wilbanks' fiance.
An FBI investigator.
An FBI spokesman.
A mental health expert discussing how the family can "heal."
A clinical psychologist speculating on why Wilbanks took off.
Another clinical psychologist.
A Georgia district attorney.
A New York criminal defense attorney.
A law professor and civil rights attorney.
Another "almost-bride," who talked about "getting cold feet."

Imagine if the network had spent even half that time - or the time they may inevitably spend documenting every facet of the photogenic Holloway's life to this point - showing pictures and discussing the stories of any of the other thousands of children and adults who go missing every year. How many could have been found? If it were even one, wouldn't it be worth it?

UPDATE - June 6, 2005 - Google News has almost 1,800 stories about Holloway. Her disappearance, and the arrest of two men thought to be connected to the case, was the top story on CNN until Bolivian President Carlos Mesa announced his resignation Monday night. Still no mention of Buckman, Lewis or any other missing children, including 8-year-old Siee Smith, who disappeared from Peoria, IL, on Thursday, or 15-year-old Kiara Carey, missing from Jacksonville, FL since May 31.

Housekeeping (II) - "Justice" & the death penalty

2007-03-19T23:22:00.000-07:00

So when I got this thing started, I promised to post some old stuff from my previous blog, posted one item and then just sort of left it at that. Since I want to get some of this stuff on here, and I know my own ability to procrastinate all too well, I'm going to go on a marathon tonight and post it all. This is the first of several items, a brief editorial I wrote for an opinion writing class. The assignment was to write an editorial pegged specifically to the subject of the (then-imminent) execution of Donald Beardslee, which is why I spend the first couple grafs discussing his case even though it seemingly has little to do with my main point.

“At the end of the day, perhaps the best argument against capital punishment may be that it is an issue beyond the limited capacity of government to get things right.”
- Scott Turow, author and former federal prosecutor

In 1981, Donald Beardslee murdered two young women in a complex plot to recoup a debt owed to a drug dealer in Redwood City, Ca.. He was on parole for a 1969 murder at the time. Beardslee was executed by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison in January, some 20 years after he was convicted and sentenced. But the length of Beardslee’s stay on Death Row does not serve as an endorsement of the appeals process in capital cases. Rather, it points out the utter fallibility of a system so vulnerable to human error and malfeasance that even decades’ worth of legal hearings cannot guarantee that the innocent will not be executed.

This is not to say that Beardslee himself is innocent, though some questions remain about his culpability in the murders. His lawyers unsuccessfully tried to have his conviction thrown out based on new evidence suggesting that Beardslee may have suffered long-term brain damage that affected his ability to distinguish right from wrong. But questions of Beardslee’s guilt or innocence cannot obscure the larger issue: A mountain of evidence shows that innocent people are sentenced to death with alarming frequency in the United States.

There can be no question that innocent people have been condemned to die. Over 100 convicts have been exonerated since 1973, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Taken together, those “criminals” served over 1,000 years in prison between their sentencing and exoneration, an average of 9 years each.

The DPIC’s latest report, “Innocence and the Crisis in the American Death Penalty,” is filled with tales of the innocent being sentenced to death. The reasons are myriad – police and prosecutorial misconduct, false or fabricated eyewitness testimony, incompetent or overburdened defense lawyers. Remember that almost all of those exonerated are free solely due to the dogged efforts of a handful of lawyers, students and death penalty opponents. Now imagine what a fully-funded, government-sanctioned effort to investigate capital convictions would find.

An avalanche of evidence also exists showing that the death penalty is fundamentally racist in its application. Under almost any subdivision, ethnic minorities – especially African-Americans – are much more likely than whites to be condemned to die for similar crimes. Black killers of white victims are 16 times more likely to receive a death sentence than white killers of black victims, according to the DPIC. There is no “justice” in a justice system that so blithely murders the innocent and that is so open in its racism.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger should follow the courageous lead of former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, once a death penalty supporter himself. By the year 2000, Illinois officials had exonerated more condemned prisoners than they had executed since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1977. Confronted with this shocking exposure of the justice system’s failures, Gov. Ryan commuted the sentences of all condemned prisoners and ordered a special commission to investigate the state’s system of capital punishment. Until the people of California can trust that not one innocent life will be extinguished – a moment that may never come, in my opinion – this state must get out of the business of killing.

Just when you thought it couldn't get worse ...

2007-03-19T11:58:00.000-07:00

This could end up being really, really huge. The U.S. Attorney scandal has taken a very dark turn, as more evidence comes out that San Diego-area U.S. Attorney Carol Lam was forced out because she was too tough on corrupt Republicans. This is beginning to approach the territory of obstruction of justice and criminal conspiracy, and the stink of it permeates the White House. Think Progress has the details and sourcing, so I'll cut to their chase:

To recap, the White House awarded a one-month, $140,000 contract to an individual who never held a federal contract. Two weeks after he got paid, that same contractor used a cashier’s check for exactly that amount to buy a boat for a now-imprisoned congressman at a price that the congressman had pre-negotiated.

(emphasis in the original)
Was Carol Lam Targeting The White House Prior To Her Firing? (Think Progress)

The contractor in question is Mitchell Wade, who pled guilty to bribing a member of Congress, and the congressman is Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who pled guilty to taking those bribes. Lam is responsible for both of their prosecutions, and indicated that she planned to obtain and execute search warrants on former CIA official Kyle “Dusty” Foggo and that her investigation would also look at then-House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA). She was fired shortly thereafter.

No amount of spin can make this look right to me. Abandoning precedent to stuff previously nonpartisan offices with "loyal Bushies" is one thing; doing it in order to actively interfere with an ongoing criminal investigation is a far more disturbing matter.

But wait, there's more, courtesy of the incomparable Murray Waas of the National Journal:

Shortly before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales advised President Bush last year on whether to shut down a Justice Department inquiry regarding the administration's warrantless domestic eavesdropping program, Gonzales learned that his own conduct would likely be a focus of the investigation, according to government records and interviews.

...

Current and former Justice Department officials, as well as experts in legal ethics, question the propriety of Gonzales's continuing to advise Bush about the investigation after learning that it might examine his own actions. The attorney general, they say, was remiss if he did not disclose that information to the president. But if Gonzales did inform Bush about the possibility and the president responded by stymieing the probe, that would raise even more-serious questions as to whether Bush acted to protect Gonzales, they said.

Internal Affairs: Aborted DOJ Probe Probably Would Have Targeted Gonzales (National Journal)

Taken together, and added to the growing paper trail, these stories paint a picture of an administration willing to step over any law, any ethical rule, to protect their own people. Normally, I'd say something like "shame on them all," but clearly, shame is not an emotion these people are capable of feeling.

Is it obscene if the U.S. Government sells it?

2007-03-16T15:00:00.000-07:00

So, I guess by posting this, I have to admit that I sometimes glance at Fleshbot (Very NSFW - nudity and graphic sexuality), Gawker Media's snarky, often hilarious blog on the porn industry.

I read it for the posts, I swear ...

Anyways, today they linked to a fascinating article from Adult Video News, which offers a unique angle on the U.S. Attorney purge. I'm not sure that I buy AVN's theory that the brouhaha they describe actually helped provide a reason to push a U.S. Attorney out the door, but it provides a fascinating insight into the bizarre machinations of the government's efforts to prosecute the producers of porn.

Background: The Bush administration has, from its inception, displayed a near-obsession with prosecuting porn makers - not kiddie porn, mind you, but the stuff that features consenting adults, the stuff you can purchase anywhere on the internet, at your local porn shop or liquor store (well, in some communities, at least). This, despite complaints from career prosecutors and law enforcement officials that such prosecutions take resources away from investigations of child pornography, terrorism, organized crime - you know, stuff that doesn't really matter.

Under the Clinton administration, the Justice Department essentially stopped prosecuting makers of adult pornography, a policy candidate George W. Bush promised to reverse. Bush's first Attorney General, John Ashcroft, was an evangelical Christian whose sexual paranoia was so strong he ordered special curtains to cover the breasts of nude classical statues that stood in the background of DoJ briefings. He came into office planning a big new initiative of obscenity prosecutions, until ...

Sept. 11 changed everything, of course, and porn prosecutions were put on the back burner soon after the WTC towers fell. By 2004, though, Ashcroft had ramped things up again, indicting the owners of Extreme Associates, which made some truly vile stuff that was nonetheless legal until Ashcroft decided it wasn't.

Alberto Gonzales took the office of Attorney General promising to further increase the number of prosecutions, and indeed, he has.

Basically, it seems that the Justice Department has decided that the makers of what I'm going to call "icky" porn - really graphic stuff with lots of emphasis on domination and submission and the, uh, unsavory use of bodily fluids - present a greater danger to America than say, Osama bin Laden, corrupt Congressmen, kiddie porn makers and the like. Priorities, people.

But where this story gets interesting is when AVN started poring through the documents of one specific case in Arizona. What they've pointed out is that at the same time the government was attempting to prosecute the makers and vendors of certain "icky" porn titles, a U.S. government trustee was overseeing the management of a porn distributor that was selling those same icky titles, even after their makers were indicted:

AVN noted Wednesday that one of the interesting aspects of the recent Justice Department firing of several U.S. Attorneys was that two of them – Paul Charlton of Arizona and Dan Bogden of Nevada – were canned because they were "unwilling to take good [obscenity] cases" that had been presented to them by the Justice Department's obscenity unit.

But as we were examining some of the documents in the one obscenity case that Charlton did file – United States v. Five Star Video, LC, et al – an interesting coincidence leapt out ... and it's one that the Justice Department may have found so embarrassing that Charlton's firing may simply have been another casualty in the cover-up surrounding it.

The document in question was a Motion to Dismiss filed by Richard Hertzberg, attorney for Five Star and others, on Aug. 31, 2006. Note the date, because it's significant. The Five Star defendants have been under indictment since last May 23rd for selling four sexually-explicit DVDs, all manufactured or distributed by JM Productions, to FBI agents perpetrating a sting operation based in Virginia. Five Star has one retail outlet and an Internet sales division, both located in Tempe.

A few years ago, (rival Ariz. adult video seller) Castle Megastores had financial problems, and eventually declared bankruptcy, along with another adult distribution company called Dexter Distributing. While undergoing reorganization under the U.S. bankruptcy laws, Castle has been and continues to be ... "under the supervision of the U.S. Trustee's Office of the Department of Justice, and the United States Bankruptcy Court of the District of Arizona."

"During its tenure in bankruptcy," the Motion continues, "it purchased from wholesalers, and sold and rented, multiple copies of the four indicted titles in this case."

(Names of the titles in question censored by the Angry Letter-Writing Liberal because, well, my mom reads this blog. Click through to the AVN article if you're dying to know.)

In other words, while U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton was busy indicting Five Star and JM and their employees for interstate transportation of obscene materials – "obscene" under the community standards of the District of Arizona – trustees employed by the U.S. Department of Justice were selling and had sold those exact same titles ... and not just in Arizona, but had also shipped those titles to other Castle stores in Oregon and Washington state.

To say the least, this presents the U.S. Attorney's office in Arizona with a problem: How can it legitimately argue that the four features under indictment violate Arizona's community standards for obscenity when other stores in the same state, all under the control of U.S. government employees, have been selling those same features – and in two instances, sold one of the features in two different locations several days after the indictment came down?

Attorney Says Justice Dept. Sold Same 'Obscene' Material As His Client (Adult Video News)
(I'm linking to the printable version of the story to avoid explicit advertising. The rest of the AVN site is NSFW, though.)

I can't judge the legal arguments on their merits, but as a lay person, this just doesn't pass the smell test for me. If government employees were administering the sale of these "obscene" items, it seems like the DoJ must either indict the employee(s) in question, or drop its case against Five Star because of what seems like obvious selective prosecution.

More importantly, this re-raises a question I remember discussing in a class about free speech at SF State: What is a "community standard" in the age of the Internet? It's one thing to complain that the corner liquor store shouldn't stock pornography because it's offensive to "community standards" - though I find that claim specious, since those standards are almost always delineated by the most prudish members of the community.

But how is the community affected by someone who purchases and views legal adult pornography in their home, via computer or mail? The material goes directly from producer to consumer - and the community is none the wiser. Other than ensuring that all performers are, in fact, consenting adults, why is this the government's business at all?

It is worth noting that government "stings" in the case of mail-order pornography are intentionally set up in communities where the government believes the "standard" is more restrictive towards pornography. In other words, they would never set up a sting by ordering porn to be shipped to an address in say, San Francisco, because almost any jury in town would laugh them out of court. In the Bible Belt, however, they are much more likely to get a sympathetic jury - so that's where they set the "stings" up. Isn't that what they call "venue shopping" in the business of law?

Now. I'm not posting this to open a discussion about pornography in general, and the role it plays in forming (and yes, twisting) societal values regarding sexuality and women. There are very valid arguments to be made that pornography has a very negative effect on these attitudes - and I won't dispute them. There is also a lot of research indicating that viewing pornography may lead to sexually aggressive behavior, also a very serious problem. The performers themselves are at risk, not only from economic exploitation, but from the toxic atmosphere of the porn industry in general - including seemingly widespread drug and alcohol abuse, and the mental issues that can come with doing sex work (or the issues that lead people to get into sex work in the first place).

I'm certainly not going to get into the business of deciding which sexual proclivities are "acceptable," so long as those practices are performed by consenting adults. There's plenty of stuff out there that I find disgusting - but the very fact that it exists means that somebody, somewhere, is into it.

If you're asking me my opinion, I guess I'd say that I have no problem with the concept of (adult) pornography in the same way that I have no problem with prostitution - that is to say, in the abstract. I would have no problem with either in a perfect world:

• Where we could ensure that all sex workers are adults doing their work of their own free choice, not after being subjected to coercion (either through direct intimidation or the coercion of economic desperation);

• Where the worldwide slave trade that supports modern prostitution has been destroyed;

• Where the sex work industry is not a magnet for the already-abused, the drug- and alcohol-addicted, the downtrodden in general, and where the industry is policed to make sure that workers' physical and mental well-being is being monitored;

• Where men are taught to understand that a woman expressing her sexuality is not a creature put on earth to satisfy men's needs, but a human being, deserving of respect and care, and capable of making her own choices about sex.

This is not that perfect world, however. That is not to say that there are not emotionally healthy adults who do sex work because they enjoy it - I have no doubt there are, but they seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

But let's get something else straight - the prosecutors of porn are not acting out of a desire to help sex workers, or they'd be first pursuing child pornographers and slave traders who feed the prostitution business. They are acting on a puritanical instinct to restrict all expression of human sexuality that doesn't fit their narrow worldview.

The bottom line is this: At this moment, with the myriad problems America faces, it is unconscionable that we devote any law enforcement resources to prosecuting the makers of legal, adult material because some people find it offensive.

Technical Note

2007-03-15T14:53:00.000-07:00

Thank you, FeedBurner, for making the administration of this blog roughly 10 billion times easier.

Many more thanks to Mr. Ryan Lack, who pointed me to FeedBurner and helped me figure out what the hell I was doing.

Junkyard Dog Leahy

2007-03-14T20:33:00.000-07:00

I actually shouted "YES!" and pumped my fist in the air as I read the response of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to reports that White House officials had indicated that they won't be letting any administration officials testify to Congress about the U.S. Attorney purge. From CNN's Situation Room, via Think Progress:

“Frankly, I don’t care whether (White House Counsel Fred Fielding) says he’s going to allow people or not. We’ll subpoena the people we want,” Leahy said. “If they want to defy the subpoena, then you get into a stonewall situation I suspect they don’t want to have.” Asked whether he’ll subpoena Rove, Leahy answered, “Yes. He can appear voluntarily if he wants. If he doesn’t, I will subpoena him.”

Leahy also addressed the right-wing talking point that the U.S. Attorney firings are meaningless because there “was no crime.” Leahy said that while President Bush has the authority to fire attorneys at will, “if it is done to stop an ongoing investigation, then you do get into the criminal area.” Regardless, he said, the administration’s politicization of attorneys “hurts law enforcement. That hurts fighting against crime.” Asked if he thinks any Bush officials may have committed perjury, Leahy said, “We’ll find that out.”

Leahy Says He’ll Subpoena Rove, Discusses Potential Crimes Involved In Attorney Purge" (Think Progress)

Badass indeed, Sen. Leahy. Don't let up now.

UPDATE: (Mar. 15) - Hmmmm. The Judiciary Committee issued subpoenas for some the of the Department of Justice officials involved, but postponed issuing subpoenas for Rove, Gonzales or any other White House officials, apparently at the request of the Republican members of the committee. A postponement is one thing, Sen. Leahy, but don't let it last very long. We all know the White House will delay as long as they can. Don't let them.

Oh, and surprise, surprise - my man Arlen Specter is trying to have it both ways:

I think the subpoena issue has to be handled with great delicacy because when a subpoena is issued there is a suggestion that the person will not come in voluntarily," said Sen. Arlen Specter (R) of Pennsylvania. "When the person will not come in voluntarily, there is a suggestion that the person has something to hide."

OK, Senator, I'll take you at your word. If Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales refuse to testify under oath, voluntarily, then we'll know they have something to hide, right?

Why I won't vote for Hillary

2007-03-14T18:53:00.000-07:00

... probably.

And it isn't about this specific incident. If anything, this is just proof of the actual reason:

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Hillary doesn't have any balls.

Just two weeks ago, she was accepting accolades during her address to the Human Rights Campaign, telling gay and lesbian activists that she was proud to stand with them, and promising a new gay rights agenda would be part of a Hillary Clinton administration.

Today, ABC News asked for her opinion on the recent remarks by Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, labeling homosexuality "immoral." For a Democrat who has no hope of getting elected without the support of the party's base, she went out of her way not to answer the question - is homosexuality immoral, in your opinion?

"General Pace has clarified his remarks, but let's not lose sight of the fact that 'Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell' is not working," she said. "We are being deprived of thousands of patriotic men and women who want to serve their country who are bringing skills into the armed services that we desparately need, like translation skills. And one can argue whether it was a good idea when it was first implemented, but we know have evidence as to the fact that we are in a time of war -- when we really need as many people as we can to recruit and retain in an all-volunteer army -- we are turning people away or discharging them not because of what they've done but because of who they are."

But is it immoral?

"Well I'm going to leave that to others to conclude," she said. "I'm very proud of the gays and lesbians I know who perform work that is essential to our country, who want to serve their country and I want make sure they can."

Senator Clinton, unplugged (ABC News/Political Punch Blog)

That's a politician's answer, not a leader's. Suck it up, Senator - it's a simple yes or no question; any answer other than "no" indicates that you either

a1) do think homosexuality is immoral, in which case you're not fit to become "The Leader of the Free World;" or

b2) you are such a craven politician, you will say anything to get elected.

My money's on b2, but either way, Hillary, you obfuscate and dither at your own peril. This is a new Democratic party, in case you haven't noticed, and we're not about to let you lie your way through the primaries just to get the nomination.

At least, I'm not willing to.

UPDATE: What would I have said in response to the question, you ask? Here we go:

I think it's immoral that gay and lesbian people are often brutally attacked - and sometimes murdered - on a regular basis because of their sexuality.

I think it's immoral that teenagers, confused and scared about their own feelings, are sometimes ostracized and kicked out of the house by their own parents for being gay.

I think it's immoral that we tell gays and lesbians they can't serve their country in the Armed Forces because of who they love.

I think it's immoral that people who call themselves 'Christians' betray Jesus Christ's legacy by treating homosexuals as diseased freaks in need of a cure, rather than people in need of some simple human kindness and love, as Jesus himself would have done.

I think it's immoral that right-wing politicians find ways every two or four years to further marginalize gay people simply to stir up the most radically anti-gay portions of their political base.

But no, I don't think two consenting adult men or women loving each other is immoral. I think people loving each other is what makes the world a better place.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I will never be elected President. I'm waaaaaaaaaay too honest.

UPDATE 2 - March 30: I should have acknowledged a long time ago that Sen. Clinton came out the next day with a statement "clarifying" her position, saying that no, she does not believe homosexuality is immoral. And Barack Obama faced some of the same questions for his own response to similar questions. I guess, then, this becomes a story not just about Hillary, but about how the modern presidential candidate is so compromised by the act of running that they're afraid to express a strong opinion about anything.

Who gains?

2007-03-14T18:05:00.000-07:00

What state interest is furthered by imprisoning a woman dying of a brain tumor, because she gets high to relieve the pain?

The government's ridiculous, illogical, counterproductive, cruel beyond belief war on medical marijuana users needs to stop. Now.

A federal appeals court ruled today that an Oakland woman who says she smokes marijuana to help her deal with a brain tumor and other maladies has no right to claim medical necessity to avoid possible prosecution under federal drug laws.

Angel Raich, 41, had filed suit challenging the constitutionality of the federal Controlled Substances Act, arguing that her marijuana use was protected by the Constitution's Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth amendments.

Raich said she has a fundamental liberty to take the only medication that allows her to avoid intolerable pain and death, and that prohibiting her from taking medically necessary marijuana would violate the due process clause.

Court rules against Oakland woman with brain tumor (SF Gate)

Torture & Truth

2007-03-14T17:17:00.000-07:00

Um. We know, beyond any doubt, that prisoners at the United States' Guantanamo Bay facility are denied legal representation. We know they are subjected to "interrogation techniques" that fit the definition of "torture" under the Geneva Convention. We don't know much more about their treatment, because the government has so strictly restricted the access of outsiders. We know that torture is most successful at producing false confessions - the tortured tell their torturers whatever they want to hear to get them to stop. Wouldn't you?

We know that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, allegedly a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda, was subjected to "waterboarding" - a form of torture that involves convincing the subject that they are about to drown. We know this because the U.S. government had to pass on charging alleged dirty bomber Jose Padilla when they realized their case depended on the torture-produced testimony of Mohammed and another alleged al-Qaeda official. Testimony produced from torture is not admissible in any United States court - except the kangaroo courts (er, "military commissions") run out of Guantanamo.

Now, I'm not saying that Mohammed is not guilty of masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks. I just don't know. But if an American citizen were arrested by a foreign country, labeled a terrorist, spirited away to a secret prison where we know torture took place, and word came out that he had confessed to the crime, would you believe it?

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks on the United States, has admitted responsibility for those and other major al Qaeda operations, according to the transcript of a hearing at Guantanamo Bay released on Wednesday.

"I was responsible for the 9/11 Operation, from A to Z," Mohammed, speaking through a personal representative, said, according to the transcript of the hearing on Saturday at the U.S. military prison camp in Cuba released by the Pentagon.

Transcript: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confesses 9/11 role (CNN)

Your ass is destroying our children's future (literally)

2007-03-14T13:24:00.000-07:00

I don't want to waste a lot of time on this. But it seems like the local school board is now the last refuge of the obnoxious self-appointed morality police. There are undoubtedly issues of teacher conduct off school grounds that should be the under the purview of local school board officials. I'm not sure that a teacher appearing in bikini photos - or even something more explicit - is necessarily the business of the school board, but I'm willing to have the discussion.

However, showing one's butt cheeks on stage, for a brief moment, in a community theatre production of an Oscar-nominated film and Tony-nominated musical, is not one of those issues. Are the schools in Englewood, Florida in such great shape that this is a high priority? I doubt it.

A part-time Florida high school music teacher has run afoul of the school district because he is baring his bottom in a community theater production of "The Full Monty."

Jason Brenner, 28, said Tuesday that he refused to quit the show at the Venice Little Theatre despite receiving a letter from the school district last week with the ultimatum that he either cover up, withdraw from the show or resign his job at Lemon Bay High School.

"For me it's the principle of the thing, because I'm not letting anybody stifle my art," said Brenner, a fledgling musical director, vocal coach and performer who teaches music and chorus at the high school.

Brenner stars as one of the out-of-work steel workers who strip to raise money in the stage adaptation of the hit British movie. They bare their bottoms briefly in the finale of the show.

"Because teachers are held to a higher standard than most people, you have to look at how that affects the community and his role as a classroom teacher," said Barbara Melanson, the school district's director of human resources.

Florida teacher in trouble with school district over bare bottom (CNN)

Uh, I've looked at it, Barbara. All I see is a bunch of prudes with no understanding of art or culture.

I wonder how far Englewood is from Atlantic Beach, Florida, where a single complaint - from a woman apparently too scared to teach her own daughter the correct name for her body parts - forced a theatre to change its marquee from "The Vagina Monologues" to "The Hoohah Monologues" not too long ago.

It's sad that so many people have such an irrational fear of and hatred for the human body. It's even sadder that some of them are being elected to positions of power, presumably by people that share that twisted worldview.

Let's have some fun

2007-03-14T11:59:00.000-07:00

Lest ye think, Faithful Reader, that all I do is read depressing political news all day, I will admit to you that Best Week Ever is typically one of my daily reads too. Today they linked me to two great lists of fake commercials from Saturday Night Live. A few of my favorites:

Happy Fun Ball

"Ingredients of Happy Fun Ball include an unknown glowing substance, which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space. Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball."

-----

Taco Town

"It's 15 great tastes all rolled into one! The new Pizza-Crepe-Taco-Pancake-Chili Bag, only at Taco Town!"

-----

Woomba

"Woomba. It's a robot, and it cleans my business ... my lady business. And I like that."

-----

You can find the rest of the commercials here and here.

Back to depressing political news any minute now.

Civility & raising the level of discourse = A pox on my political enemies

2007-03-13T11:56:00.000-07:00

Editor--

Chronicle Editorial Page Editor John Diaz tells readers submitting their letters that one of the Chron's objectives for the letters page is to "maintain civility and raise the level of discourse in public debate."

How then, is this lofty goal served by printing the rantings of crazed ideologues like John Chase of Alameda ("World would be better under Pax Americana," Letters, March 13)? Chase asserts that the war in Iraq is "obviously to tame a barbaric ... Middle East," adding that democracy in Iraq will somehow prevent Iran - or "some country" - from "drop(ping) a nuclear device" on, well, someone, somewhere. Chase doesn't say who.

He wraps up by putting "a pox on all the liberals of this country." How is this civil? How does it raise the level of discourse?

Daniel Jimenez
Berkeley, CA

The march of morality

2007-03-13T11:14:00.001-07:00

After reading how Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had called homosexuality immoral and compared it to adultery, then vowed today not to apologize in the face of outrage from gay advocacy groups, I decided to drop him a little line, via the JCS comments page :

Gen. Pace--

Your views on morality are irrelevant to your position, so stop talking about them as though they matter. Polls have shown repeatedly that your views on homosexuality are far out of step with your soldiers' - some 70% of them say they are ready to accept gay troops fighting alongside them. The American public is ready to accept gay soldiers. The mismanagement of the "war on terror" has stretched our Armed Forces to the limit, and yet you feel comfortable kicking out some 10,000 troops in the last 6 years because of who they love, who they want to have sex with? These are talented, decorated soldiers, including the Arabic translators we so desperately need at this time.

On what set of moral values do you base your judgment? Do you consider yourself a Christian? If you do, your ignorance of Jesus' life work is overwhelming, or you would be following His example by accepting - nay, LOVING - all your fellow man, even the gay ones.

Your "moral" judgment is antiquated, anti-Christian and most importantly, it jeopardizes the security of the United States by inherently crippling our military. It's not too late to figure out how wrong you are, general.

Daniel Jimenez
Berkeley, CA

Defend and attack at all costs

2007-03-13T10:50:00.000-07:00

Defend the Army's reputation, that is, and attack the media.

That seems to be the strategy of interim Army Surgeon General Maj. Gen. Gale Pollock, who replaced Kevin Kiley after he was asked to resign this week. Not missing a beat, Pollock quickly adopted Kiley's strategy for tackling the horrendous conditions uncovered at Walter Reed Army Medical Center - pretend it's all the media's fault:

"I know everyone is extremely pained and angry about the media assaults on Walter Reed and our senior leaders," Pollock wrote in an e-mail obtained by The Washington Post. She added that she "articulated our displeasure at the misinformation about the quality of care" to a Post reporter after a congressional hearing last week but also acknowledged that she believes the stories could create momentum for changes that would better serve the Army.

She also wrote: "I know that your families and loved ones are affected by this event as well -- please reassure them that the media makes money on negative stories not by articulating the positive in life -- though that is something I will never understand."

Surgeon General of Army Steps Down (Washington Post)

Yes, I'm sure for the entire year that the Washington Post reporters spent digging through records, interviewing soldiers and sneaking around the Walter Reed campus to get the real story without the interference of PR flacks, they were thinking of the big, fat "negative news bonuses" they would get when their dastardly journalism was unleashed upon the world.

"The media makes money on negative stories?" One of the most prestigious papers in the country invests a comparatively massive amount of investigative resources to uncover sub-human treatment of the soldiers YOU are responsible for, and your response is that they're doing it to get rich?

Anyone involved in the chain of command that has so miserably failed to "support the troops" - and that includes you, Maj. Gen. Pollock - should keep their fool mouths shut about the media until their house is in order.

Oops.

2007-03-12T22:54:00.000-07:00

From the New York Times:

The White House was deeply involved in the decision late last year to dismiss federal prosecutors, including some who had been criticized by Republican lawmakers, administration officials said Monday.

Last October, President Bush spoke with Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to pass along concerns by Republicans that some prosecutors were not aggressively addressing voter fraud, the White House said Monday. Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, was among the politicians who complained directly to the president, according to an administration official.

The president did not call for the removal of any specific United States attorneys, said Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman. She said she had “no indication” that the president had been personally aware that a process was already under way to identify prosecutors who would be fired.

But Ms Perino disclosed that White House officials had consulted with the Justice Department in preparing the list of United States attorneys who would be removed.

Within a few weeks of the president’s comments to the attorney general, the Justice Department forced out seven prosecutors.

Previously, the White House had said that Mr. Bush’s aides approved the list of prosecutors only after it was compiled.

The role of the president and his advisers in the prosecutor shakeup is likely to intensify calls by Congress for an investigation. It is the worst crisis of Mr. Gonzales’s tenure and provoked charges that the dismissals were a political purge threatening the historical independence of the Justice Department.

White House Said To Prompt Firing of Prosecutors (NY Times)

Cowardice, courage and party politics

2007-03-12T19:34:00.000-07:00

Well, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is all over the map these days, isn't he?

On the one hand, he became one of the first to call for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' well-deserved resignation this week. He suggested that not only will the Judiciary Committee hold hearings to investigate the FBI's profound abuse of their new snooping powers under the Patriot Act, but that the hearings should include "very active consideration about withdrawing some of these powers."

Gonzales is urged to quit 'for the nation' (Los Angeles Times)

For the record, any legislation passed as a result of the type of blatant lying and misinformation the Department of Justice foisted on Congress in the Patriot Act hearings MUST be withdrawn, even if only on a temporary basis, until a fair, honest discussion and debate can be held.

But back to my man Arlen. Now, don't start thinking he's the next Republican to earn his moderate stripes by standing up the Bush Administration just yet. Keep in mind that he's also the man who's responsible for the provision in the law that allows the Bush administration to replace the 8 recently fired U.S. Attorneys while bypassing the traditional Senate approval. That basically means they can stock the positions with G.O.P. partisan hacks who will persecute Democrats and give Republicans a free pass.

Oops - turns out Specter says that clause was slipped in by his chief legal counsel, without the Senator's knowledge, at the request of the DoJ. Specter promises that he knew nothing about the provision, which means either a) he had no idea he was making a substantial change to the law or b) knew what he was doing and is lying about it now.

So for the time being, Specter remains another John McCain - that is, he puffs his chest for the camera, but caves and toes the president's line when it really matters.

But wait, there's good news! With its tail between its legs, the White House was forced to concede that it would not oppose any effort to repeal that controversial clause.

But swooping in at the last second, Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ) has promised to "object" to any such change. It's not clear yet whether that means he would use Senate rules to actually stop a vote, or simply register his "objection" in the debate and vote. It's also not clear if Kyl is just being a cantankerous lone gunman, or if he's executing Karl Rove's play behind the scenes.

Either way, he's defending a direct injection of politics into a process that was designed to be nonpolitical, so that U.S. Attorneys could be fair, nonpartisan defenders of the people's interests. Kyl, and every Senator, should be standing up to force the White House to submit candidates for Senate approval.

The tip of the treachery

2007-03-12T15:10:00.000-07:00

I'm on a Salon kick today, I guess. Truth be told, in recent years I've been turned off by the online magazine's growing propensity for fluffy "lifestyle" articles that appeal to what I assume is a largely suburban, upper-middle-class readership - at the expense of political reporting. But they can still bring it, as seen in their reporting on the Walter Reed scandal (detailed below), and in the addition of the verbose but meticulous Glenn Greenwald.

Today, Glenn puts together the pieces around the disclosure, by the Department of Justice's Inspector General, that the FBI had been abusing its power under the Patriot Act. It seems that beyond the invasive abuse of the privacy of thousands, maybe millions, of Americans, there's a little matter of the DoJ repeatedly and intentionally lying to Congress to get the Patriot Act re-authorized:

Many of the problems with the FBI's unsupervised use of NSL's (national security letters) to spy on Americans were disclosed -- by The Washington Post and others -- prior to the re-authorization of the Patriot Act in January, 2006. But those problems did not impede re-authorization because the Justice Department -- in letters to Congress and in classified briefings -- emphatically assured Congress and the public that the Post's claims were false. They insisted that the FBI's use of NSLs was subject to rigorous Departmental scrutiny, scrutiny which revealed that no such problems existed. The DOJ aggressively argued that the Post's NSL expose "presented a materially misleading portrayal of the FBI's use of national security letters."

Based on the DOJ's false assurances, Congress dismissed away the concerns of Russ Feingold and The Post and overwhelmingly voted to re-authorize the Patriot Act. In doing so, they re-authorized the dramatically expanded NSLs, which were first authorized (in expanded form) in September, 2001.

But now, as we know, the assurances given by the DOJ were completely false. As a result, when the Inspector General's Report was issued last week, the Assistant Attorney General, Richard Hertling, simultaneously sent a letter to Senators Specter and Leahy retracting the DOJ's prior statements about NSLs, and specifically retracted large parts of the November, 2005 letter sent by the DOJ designed to dispute the Post article.

In other words: all of those assurances we gave you in order to convince you that we were using NSLs in strict accordance with the law were false. Now that the IG Report proves that what we told you is false, we are retracting what we said, and when we get around to it, we will also correct the false testimony we gave at Congressional hearings and the false assurances we gave you in secret, classified meetings -- all of which successfully convinced you to re-authorize the Patriot Act.

It is inconceivable that these false assurances were made in good faith. They were plainly the by-product of either deliberate deceit or a reckless indifference to finding out whether those statements were true.

...

The DOJ's assurances given to Congress were plainly given without the slightest effort to determine whether those assurances were true. The DOJ simply denied that there was any wrongdoing with regard to NSLs but had they bothered to investigate the Post's claims even slightly -- rather than just reflexively denying any wrongdoing -- they would have discovered what the IG discovered.

But they were only interested in one goal: swindling the Congress into re-authorizing the Patriot Act, and so they repeatedly sought to assure Congress that concerns over the NSLs were unfounded even though they either (a) had no idea whether that was true or (b) knew that it was false. If we tolerate DOJ officials falsely denying accurate press reports of illegal surveillance -- all in order to induce Congress to enact legislation vesting vast powers of surveillance against U.S. citizens -- what don't we tolerate?

And this is hardly the first time this has happened. When Alberto Gonazles first testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the NSA scandal, he repeatedly made false and misleading statements which he was subsequently compelled to retract. Less than a month after he testified, he was forced to send a letter retracting multiple key assurances he gave the Committee once it became apparent that those assurances were false.

This is what the Bush DOJ has been doing for years. Reports of improprieties, illegalities, abuse, and related types of wrongdoing emerge with regard to how the President uses powers which are exercised in secret and with no oversight. The DOJ immediately and in every case defends the administration with the use of trite and empty buzzphrases about all the great and elaborate safeguards which exist and assuring everyone that there is no abuse and no wrongdoing. And in those rare cases when those assurances are investigated, they turn out to be false.

All of these NSL abuses were occurring in plain sight, right under the noses of the DOJ officials who publicly and privately assured Congress they were not occurring. They misled Congress and the public on a matter of the highest importance. A rotted and corrupt Justice Department is, of course, but one outgrowth of an administration which has existed outside of the law for virtually its entire tenure, but when instances of deceit are this flagrant, there just must be genuine consequences for the wrongdoers.

The Justice Department's False Statements (Glenn Greenwald/Salon)

Of course, Glenn is right. A long time ago (read: sometime in the first couple of years of the GWB presidency), I started using the term "outrage fatigue" to describe the feeling you get when every new day brings a new revelation of lying, incompetence, greed, or proto-fascist behavior from your own government. At some point, it becomes so overwhleming that almost nothing shocks you anymore, even when it can be clearly demonstrated that your government lied to you, blatantly, in service of renewing a law that violates your privacy rights.

If you can manage to summon just a little bit of outrage, I would encourage you to call the White House (202-456-1111) and share that outrage with them.

This is not a military blog

2007-03-12T14:33:00.000-07:00

... but so long as stories keep emerging that detail the government's shocking abuse of our men and women in uniform, I'll blog about them.

From Salon.com:

"This is not right," said Master Sgt. Ronald Jenkins, who has been ordered to Iraq even though he has a spine problem that doctors say would be damaged further by heavy Army protective gear. "This whole thing is about taking care of soldiers," he said angrily. "If you are fit to fight you are fit to fight. If you are not fit to fight, then you are not fit to fight."

As the military scrambles to pour more soldiers into Iraq, a unit of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Ga., is deploying troops with serious injuries and other medical problems, including GIs who doctors have said are medically unfit for battle. Some are too injured to wear their body armor, according to medical records.

(Emphasis mine)

The Army is ordering injured troops to go into Iraq (Salon)

Anyone involved in sending wounded, unfit soldiers into battle should be court-martialed. Period. There is no conceivable excuse that justifies this abuse.

-----

It should also be noted that Salon was way ahead of the curve on reporting the problems at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, posting articles in early 2005 and 2006 that documented the myriad ways the Army was failing to care for its wounded:

Before he hanged himself with his bathrobe sash in the psychiatric ward at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Spc. Alexis Soto-Ramirez complained to friends about his medical treatment. Soto-Ramirez, 43, had been flown out of Iraq five months before then because of chronic back pain that became excruciating during the war. But doctors were really worried about his mind. They thought he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after serving with the 544th Military Police Company, a unit of the Puerto Rico National Guard, the kind of unit that saw dirty, face-to-face combat in Iraq.

A copy of Soto-Ramirez's medical records, reviewed by Salon, show that a doctor who treated him in Puerto Rico upon his return from Iraq believed his mental problems were probably caused by the war and that his future was in the Army's hands. "Clearly, the psychiatric symptoms are combat related," a clinical psychologist at Roosevelt Roads Naval Hospital wrote on Nov. 24, 2003. The entry says, "Outcome will depend on adequacy and appropriateness of treatment." Doctors in Puerto Rico sent Soto-Ramirez to Walter Reed in Washington, D.C., to get the best care the Army had to offer. There, he was put in Ward 54, Walter Reed's "lockdown," or inpatient psychiatric ward, where the most troubled patients are supposed to have constant supervision.

But less than a month after leaving Puerto Rico, on Jan. 12, 2004, Soto-Ramirez was found dead, hanging in Ward 54. Army buddies who visited him in the days before his death said Soto-Ramirez was increasingly angry and despondent. "He was real upset with the treatment he was getting," said René Negron, a former Walter Reed psychiatric patient and a friend of Soto-Ramirez's. "He said: 'These people are giving me the runaround ... These people think I'm crazy, and I'm not crazy, Negron. I'm getting more crazy being up here.'

"Those people in Ward 54 were responsible for him. Their responsibility was to have a 24-hour watch on him," Negron said in a telephone interview from his home in Puerto Rico. While Soto-Ramirez's death was by his own hand, Negron and other soldiers say the hospital shares the blame.

In fact, repeated interviews over the course of one year with 14 soldiers who have been treated in Walter Reed's inpatient and outpatient psychiatric wards, and a review of medical records and Army documents, suggest that the Army's top hospital is failing to properly care for many soldiers traumatized by the Iraq war. As the Soto-Ramirez case suggests, inadequate suicide watch is one concern. But the problems run deeper. Psychiatric techniques employed at Walter Reed appear outmoded and ineffective compared with state-of-the-art care as described by civilian doctors. For example, Walter Reed favors group therapy over one-on-one counseling; and the group therapy is mostly administered by a rotating cast of medical students and residents, not full-fledged doctors or veterans. The troops also complain that the Army relies too much on pills; few of the soldiers took all the medication given to them by the hospital.

Perhaps most troubling, the Army seems bent on denying that the stress of war has caused the soldiers' mental trauma in the first place. (There is an economic reason for doing so: Mental problems from combat stress can require the Army to pay disability for years.) Soto-Ramirez's medical records reveal the economical mindset of an Army doctor who evaluated him. "Adequate care and treatment may prevent a claim against the government for PTSD," wrote a psychologist in Puerto Rico before sending him to Walter Reed.

Behind the Walls of Ward 54 (Salon)

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After fighting in heavy combat during the initial invasion of Iraq, Spc. James Wilson reenlisted for a second tour of duty. Now 24 years old, he loved the life of a soldier.

In the fall of 2004, his 1st Cavalry Division was mostly fighting in Sadr City, a volatile sector of Baghdad. On Sept. 6, Wilson was manning a .50-caliber machine gun atop a Humvee when a bomb or bombs went off directly under the vehicle, rocking his head forward and slamming it into the machine gun. A fellow soldier told Wilson that his Kevlar helmet had been split open by the impact. The heat from one blast felt like "a hair dryer" on his skin, multiplied "times 20," Wilson later wrote in his diary. To the best of his recollection, the force of the blast also knocked the gun from its mount, smashing it into his leg.

Although battered in the attack, Wilson didn't appear badly hurt -- on the outside, at least. But in the days that followed, the young soldier from Albany, Ga., says he often felt "really dizzy, lightheaded and dazed." Two weeks after the battle, Army medics felt Wilson was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and evacuated him out of Iraq for medical evaluation. Wilson was first flown to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where wounded troops are stabilized, and then sent to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., in October 2004.

After arriving at Walter Reed, Wilson repeatedly told doctors that he had experienced a hard blow to the head during combat in Iraq. He suffered from symptoms strongly associated with a traumatic brain injury, which occurs when the brain is rocked violently inside the skull, tearing nerve fibers: seizures, short-term memory loss, severe headaches with eye pain, and dizzy spells that have made him vomit. During a visit to the Pentagon around Christmas 2004, Wilson got so dizzy he vomited "all over" the carpet while meeting Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz in his office.

Despite Wilson's description of his injury and his symptoms, Walter Reed officials repeatedly questioned his mental state and the authenticity of his combat story. In a June 2005 memorandum from an Army Physical Evaluation Board, some Walter Reed doctors stated that Wilson exhibited "conversion disorder with symptoms of traumatic brain injury." Conversion disorder holds that symptoms such as seizures arise from a psychological conflict rather than a physical disorder. Col. James F. Babbitt, president of the Physical Evaluation Board, accused Wilson of being a liar. "I believe that the preponderance of the evidence available to the Board supports an alternative diagnosis - one of malingering," Babbitt wrote in that memo.

On Dec. 19, 2005, more than a year after he was admitted, Walter Reed finally sent Wilson to a neurological center to be treated for traumatic brain injury. Neuropsychological testing done at Walter Reed on Oct. 11, 2005, led officials to conclude that "there was no indication of malingering." According to a neurosurgeon with extensive experience treating combat head injuries, an October 2004 MRI of Wilson, combined with a description of his symptoms, showed that he should have been treated for a traumatic brain injury right then. Medical experts say the failure to treat a brain-injury victim promptly could hinder recovery.

Spc. Wilson is not alone among Iraq veterans who have been misdiagnosed or waited for treatment for traumatic brain injury. Other soldiers interviewed at Walter Reed with apparent brain injuries say they too have been deeply frustrated by delays in getting adequately diagnosed and treated. The soldiers say doctors have caused them anguish by suggesting that their problems might stem from other causes, including mental illness or hereditary disease. According to interviews with military doctors and medical records obtained by Salon, brain-injury cases are overloading Walter Reed. As a result, a significant number of brain-injury patients are falling through the cracks from a lack of resources, know-how, and even blatant neglect.

Exactly how many brain-injured patients are being missed, going without care, or left waiting, as opposed to those who get prompt, top-shelf treatment, is difficult to say. Walter Reed officials and doctors say the Army is getting better at treating brain-injured patients but admit cases like Wilson's are a significant problem.

Losing Their Minds (Salon)

-----

One final note - Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, the Army Surgeon General, became the latest fall guy for the Walter Reed scandal, as acting Secretary of the Army Pete Geren asked for Kiley's resignation with SecDef Robert Gates' approval. In a shocking demonstration of their indifference to this scandal, Geren and Gates had put Kiley in charge of Walter Reed after Maj. Gen. George Weightmann became the first victim of the scandal.

Unfortunately, it turns out that Kiley was already intimately familiar with the details of the neglect at Walter Reed. He just, uh, chose not to do anything about it:

"We are here to tell you that our soldiers and our veterans, and some of their families, are falling through the cracks," Steve Robinson, director of veterans affairs at Veterans for America, told Kiley at a meeting of the Department of Defense Health Board Task Force on Mental Health (in December 2006). Kiley co-chairs the panel, which was created by Congress to probe military mental-healthcare capabilities. "Hundreds and potentially thousands of soldiers are facing barriers to mental healthcare," said Robinson, "and are facing improper discharges" because of the Army's complex discharge and compensation system.

Robinson also warned Kiley, who ran Walter Reed from 2002 through 2004 and still has responsibility for it as Army surgeon general, that the scandalous situation threatened to become a media firestorm. "If we identify something," said Robinson, "we would much rather bring it to the chain of command than see it reported in [CBS'] '60 Minutes.'"

Kiley called the veterans' remarks "very important testimony," and allowed speakers to go beyond their allotted time limits, but there's no evidence that he has followed up. Since the Post stories broke, Kiley has mostly insisted that the outpatient problems are confined to poor building maintenance, and has denied any evidence of poor healthcare treatment.

Gen Kiley knew about vets' outpatient scandal (Salon)

Yeah, this is definitely the guy we should put in charge of fixing Walter Reed:

In 2004, Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) and his wife stopped visiting the wounded at Walter Reed out of frustration. Young said he voiced concerns to commanders over troubling incidents he witnessed but was rebuffed or ignored. "When Bev or I would bring problems to the attention of authorities of Walter Reed, we were made to feel very uncomfortable," said Young, who began visiting the wounded recuperating at other facilities.

Beverly Young said she complained to Kiley several times. She once visited a soldier who was lying in urine on his mattress pad in the hospital. When a nurse ignored her, Young said, "I went flying down to Kevin Kiley's office again, and got nowhere. He has skirted this stuff for five years and blamed everyone else."

Hospital Officials Knew of Neglect (Washington Post)

There is simply not enough shame to go around.

The president's lapdog lawyer

2007-03-11T21:46:00.000-07:00

A bit of brief background:

Events are moving very rapidly in the case of the eight United States Attorneys who were fired by the Bush Administration recently. Allegations that the unprecedented purge was done for political reasons - that the fired attorneys had not been aggressive enough in investigating and prosecuting Democratic leaders and perhaps too aggressive in pursuing corrupt Republicans - are gaining steam as we learn more about the firings.

Early White House claims that the firings were an issue of "competence" are dissolving as reporters find more glowing job performance reviews from the attorneys' personnel files. Republican leaders can barely keep their lies straight as the questions about who ordered the firings (Karl Rove, executing a political hatchet job? Perish the thought!) keep coming.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales attempted lamely to hold the line early by describing the firings as an "overblown personnel matter." As the smell of scandal grows, Gonzales finds himself on the hot seat.

Gonzales certainly wasn't helped by the release Friday of a report, compiled by the Department of Justice's Inspector General, that found that the FBI had "seriously misused" its new powers to secretly collect private information about U.S. citizens under the Patriot Act.

Now, the long view, courtesy of the New York Times editorial page:

During the hearing on his nomination as attorney general, Alberto Gonzales said he understood the difference between the job he held — President Bush’s in-house lawyer — and the job he wanted, which was to represent all Americans as their chief law enforcement officer and a key defender of the Constitution. Two years later, it is obvious Mr. Gonzales does not have a clue about the difference.

He has never stopped being consigliere to Mr. Bush’s imperial presidency.

...

It was Mr. Gonzales, after all, who repeatedly defended Mr. Bush’s decision to authorize warrantless eavesdropping on Americans’ international calls and e-mail. He was an eager public champion of the absurd notion that as commander in chief during a time of war, Mr. Bush can ignore laws that he thinks get in his way. Mr. Gonzales was disdainful of any attempt by Congress to examine the spying program, let alone control it.

The attorney general helped formulate and later defended the policies that repudiated the Geneva Conventions in the war against terror, and that sanctioned the use of kidnapping, secret detentions, abuse and torture. He has been central to the administration’s assault on the courts, which he recently said had no right to judge national security policies, and on the constitutional separation of powers.

His Justice Department has abandoned its duties as guardian of election integrity and voting rights. It approved a Georgia photo-ID law that a federal judge later likened to a poll tax, a case in which Mr. Gonzales’s political team overrode the objections of the department’s professional staff.

The Justice Department has been shamefully indifferent to complaints of voter suppression aimed at minority voters. But it has managed to find the time to sue a group of black political leaders in Mississippi for discriminating against white voters.

We opposed Mr. Gonzales’s nomination as attorney general. His résumé was weak, centered around producing legal briefs for Mr. Bush that assured him that the law said what he wanted it to say. More than anyone in the administration, except perhaps Vice President Dick Cheney, Mr. Gonzales symbolizes Mr. Bush’s disdain for the separation of powers, civil liberties and the rule of law.

On Thursday, Senator Arlen Specter, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, hinted very obliquely that perhaps Mr. Gonzales’s time was up. We’re not going to be oblique.

Mr. Bush should dismiss Mr. Gonzales and finally appoint an attorney general who will use the job to enforce the law and defend the Constitution.

(emphasis mine)

Amen. Gonzales has clearly put serving the president ahead of serving the nation, which makes him ... well, the same as every other member of the Bush administration.

Alberto Gonzales is a crony using his position to slowly dismantle the Constitution, take away Americans' freedoms and cover up the administration's malfeasance and incompetence. He must go, now.

Defending freedom ... by discriminating?

2007-03-11T15:24:00.000-07:00

From the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, via Think Progress:

There is not much more to be said. We have dismissed almost 10,000 servicemembers at a time when the military is overextended. We have dismissed Arabic translators at a time when radical Islamic fundamentalists have declared war on the United States. Any person who claims to support the defense of the United States cannot support the ban.

Any person who calls themselves American and supports the ban betrays America's legacy of freedom. Any person who calls themselves Christian and supports the ban betrays Christ's legacy of love for - and brotherhood with - every fellow human.

Attack of the 50-foot moron

2007-03-07T19:45:00.000-08:00

I've been wondering all week how best to address Ann Coulter and the controversy over her essentially calling John Edwards a "faggot" at CPAC last weekend.

But here's the thing: If you know anything at all about Coulter, are you surprised one bit? This is the kind of hateful punch line she has built a career on. She's not a great political mind - she's a useful (to the GOP) idiot who lobs rhetorical firebombs like this every time she has a book to plug.

So how do you respond to so ludicrous a figure, someone who doesn't even belong at the Responsible Political Debate table with the rest of the grownups? Do you spend a lot of time documenting all their outrageous, ignorant statements to make them look stupid? Or do you recognize that giving that adult attention just encourages them, and hold them up to simple ridicule instead?

The Center for the Advancement of Women wanted it both ways. Nice job, ladies.

Ann Coulter Does Not Speak For Me

Hell no, don't let him go

2007-03-07T12:28:00.000-08:00

There's a lot to be said about the conviction of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, on perjury and obstruction of justice charges related to the "outing" of CIA employee Valerie Plame. Plame came under fire after her husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, publicly asserted that Bush administration officials were lying when they claimed that Saddam Hussein had attempted to buy yellowcake uranium to make a nuclear bomb from the African nation of Niger.

The trial itself revealed beyond a shadow of a doubt that the White House executed a widespread campaign to discredit critics of its evidence justifying the invasion of Iraq. Libby was caught in bold-faced lies under oath to the FBI and a grand jury, attempting to blame the leak on NBC's Tim Russert (strong suspects in the actual leak include Karl Rove and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage).

But now that Libby is convicted, rumors are already flying that President Bush may pardon him. The Democrats have issued strong warnings against such a pardon, but the President has given no indication that he will - or won't - let Libby free.

Which leads me to today's question:

Why the hell is it legal for Presidents to pardon members of their own administration?

This is an obvious, huge conflict of interest. The worst case scenario is easy to imagine - it may have even happened in this case:

• President finds lackey to commit illegal act at the President's order - lie under oath, reveal a covert agent's identity, illegally monitor email traffic, or sell arms to Iran, then funnel the money to the Contras.

• Lackey is caught breaking the law, is put on trial, stays loyal to the President by keeping his mouth shut. Lackey is convicted and imprisoned.

• President pardons lackey, thus essentially pardoning himself for his own illegal order.

This is obvious and it is wrong. Presidential pardons serve a purpose, to be sure - many people think Gerald Ford's pardon of President Nixon was the right thing to do because it helped the country heal quickly after the Watergate scandal. (I am not one of those people.) There are occasionally "ordinary" people whose convictions defy law, common sense, and basic fairness, and having someone who has the discretion to carefully review those convictions and, in very limited circumstances, issue corrections to justice can be a very helpful thing.

But allowing Presidents to pardon members of their own administration essentially puts EVERY member of an administration above the law if the President is willing to accept the political fallout for the pardon (or, as has become the more common practice, if they issue pardons as they leave the White House for good - on the morning of their successor's inauguration).

To be clear, this is not a problem specific to the Bush administration - though perhaps I wouldn't be thinking about these issues today if Bush and his cronies weren't so corrupt, and so thoroughly disdainful towards the law. Any changes to the laws on presidential pardons would certainly take longer to enact than the 2 years left in Bush's term.

But to ensure that future presidents don't retain this power to encourage lawbreaking behavior on the one hand and wipe the slate clean with the other, Congress must figure out what it takes to place restrictions on the power of the pardon - my quick guess is a Consitutional amendment - and get the ball rolling.

"No, you're a doo-doo head!"

2007-03-06T11:55:00.000-08:00

As they are backed further into a corner by the indisputable evidence that the a) the planet is warming and b) it's related to human activity, anti-science zealots who oppose doing anything about global warming sink lower and lower with their attacks.

I respond with the righteous fury of, uh ... well, a dude who blogs from Berkeley. Trust me, there's plenty of righteous fury to be found among the hippies here.

Editor--

Debra J. Saunders once again displays a stunning intellectual dishonesty in her latest attempt to dismiss global warming ("Do as I say, not as I spew," Mar. 6).

Saunders parrots the latest right-wing attack line, that global warming must not exist because, uh, Al Gore owns a really big house. She mocks the Gores' use of carbon offsets as though the offsets don't actually reduce pollution and greenhouse gases - which they do. She omits any mention of the Gores' use of energy-saving technology in their own home, their installation of solar panels, or their signup for Green Power Switch, which provides renewable energy at a premium price.

Saunders resorts to mendacious, ad hominem attacks because she has no rhetorical leg to stand on. It's time for the Chronicle to find a new conservative columnist - one who has at least a passing relationship with the truth.

Daniel Jimenez