A1. Bragging that you’re cheating on your wife with two other women, then saying it was all “just talk,” dragging one of your so-called conquests through the mud along with you; or:
A2. Listening to one of your cohorts, who’s on the Committee on Utilities and Commerce, brag about cheating on his wife with two other women, one of of whom is a utilities lobbyist, and and not reporting the conversation, especially when both of you are on the Assembly Ethics Committee.
In the wake of the shocking revelation about Bluehost shutting down Web sites of Zimbabwean and Iranian dissidents (and one Belarusian national living and working in the U.S.) on the grounds that Bluehost was just following federal law (which is a crock), this naturally caught my eye:
A Practical Guide to Internet Technology for Political Activists in Repressive Regimes
EFF Releases ‘Surveillance Self-Defense International’ for Iranian Dissidents and Other Protestors
SAN FRANCISCO — July 21, 2009 — The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) released “Surveillance Self-Defense International” (SSDI) today, a practical guide to help activists from around the world use the Internet safely under repressive regimes.
President Barack Obama is morphing into George W. Bush, as administration attorneys repeatedly adopt the executive-authority and national-security rationales that their Republican predecessors preferred.
In courtroom battles and freedom-of-information fights from Washington, D.C., to California, Obama’s legal arguments repeatedly mirror Bush’s: White House turf is to be protected, secrets must be retained and dire warnings are wielded as weapons.
“It’s putting up a veritable wall around the White House, and it’s so at odds with Obama’s campaign commitment to more open government,” said Anne Weismann, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a legal watchdog group.
Certainly, some differences exist. …
But not enough for our comfort. War, warantless wiretapping, equality… Read on at the link.
… “The city sympathizes with the concerns that plaintiffs have expressed,” Assistant City Attorney Gary T. Smith said in court documents. “Nonetheless, the city believes that the Public Records Act obligates it to disclose the records at issue.” …
Arguing in support of his own request, Irvin offered the court an accounting of instances in which he perceives the city has discriminated against him because of his conservative views.
On several occasions, Irvin has attempted to join or become involved in numerous city-affiliated activities aimed at gay or minority employees. Among other allegations, he asserts in court filings that a dance for gay and lesbian youth was canceled when he volunteered to chaperon and was barred from attending a LGBT event when he attempted to attend with a formerly gay minister.
Describing himself as a civil-rights leader, Irvin said he sees himself as the victim of bigotry by the city and intends to form an employee group for former homosexuals.
“The city is organizing employees to march in the gay pride parade and I intend to march in it with the mayor,” Irvin said in an e-mail. “If I don’t demand equal treatment then I am accepting that (my) values about sex are inferior.” …
Evil.
P.S. to Phil Irvin: If there is a Hell, Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn are waiting for you in the Ninth Circle. Eagerly.
The City of Bozeman has made a change in hiring policy, just two days and one worldwide reaction after we broke the story, Bozeman will no longer ask applicants for social networking user names and passwords.
“Effective at noon today the city of Bozeman permanently ceased the practice of requesting that candidates selected for positions under a provisional job offer to provide their usernames or passwords for candidates Internet sites,” said Chris Kukulski, Bozeman City Manager.
Kukulski says that following a 90 minute staff meeting held on Friday morning, officials decided asking applicants to provide their passwords to sites such as Facebook or MySpace, “exceeded that which is acceptable to our community”.
Kukulski also apologized for the negative impact the issue has generated from news organizations and blogs around the world. …
See? Sometimes, public shaming is the only thing that works to make somebody do what they should have done in the first place — ditch this rotten idea of such a massive invasion of privacy.
Actually, no, I wouldn’t, for three reasons: 1) You’d never catch me in Montana long enough to need a job, 2) I’d rather starve to death in the gutter than compromise my privacy like this, and 3) Greg Sullivan and the rest of the City of Bozeman can get knotted.
Dear Obama Supporters: I won’t wait for your apology. But you owe me one. A big one.
Just read — but don’t weep. Be pissed — at Obama, and at yourself if you voted for him in the primaries, and especially if you voted for him in the primaries and ever called anyone who disagreed with you a racist, a Hillbot, a Repuke troll, a PUMA, or any of your other terms of affection for anyone who dared warn you that Obama was a right-winger in a nice suit.
I get no satisfaction in saying, for the umpteenth time: I TOLD YOU SO.
Two articles/links after the jump, with more to come.
Well, well, well… So, it’s a horrible invasion of privacy to publicize the names of people who donate to anti-gay ballot measures and sign anti-gay petitions — but it’s a righteous mission of truth and justice to publicize the membership of an LGBT employee organization, which was never publicly accessible in the first place?
Don’t Grant Rick Warren a Prominent Platform at Historic Inauguration
Millions of people are finalizing their plans to travel to Washington, D.C. on January 20, 2009, to be part of your historic inauguration as the 44th president of the United States. We are all hoping to relive the joy of election night when we stood side by side believing that, together, we can change our country and our world for the better.
Today, we are disheartened that one of the voices that may be privileged to be part of this historic moment is that of Rick Warren. His delivering the invocation would be an insult to all of us, women and men, who support women’s right to self-determination. His presence is offensive to all of us, gay and straight, who support equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people.
We understand your desire to engage people from opposing sides of many issues. But dialogue requires treating your opponents with respect. Rick Warren has compared abortion to the Holocaust and stated that he would not vote for a “Holocaust denier.” He implies that those of us who support abortion rights are equivalent to Nazis.
Rick Warren worked to take away the rights of LGBT people in California by supporting Proposition 8, calling it a “moral issue that God has spoken clearly about” and stating the “homosexual marriage is one of the five issues that are not negotiable.” He calls LGBT people “unnatural.”
Words do matter, President-elect Obama. Words lifted you to the White House and all of us to a place where we felt included in your vision. By choosing Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration you have deeply offended progressive people who worked and voted for you in record numbers. This is not the tone we hoped you would set on this historic day — and giving a platform to a messenger of intolerance does not send a message of acceptance and change.
There are limitless opportunities for your administration to work with people who do not agree on every issue, but who nonetheless agree that we must end poverty, address climate change, and achieve human rights for all. We are deeply disappointed that you have made a different choice and hope that you will reconsider Rick Warren’s inclusion in this important and historic celebration.
President-elect Obama, you can still select a minister who will speak to our collective vision for hope, change and the promise that we will all be part of this great country, and we urge you to do just that.
(in a high-pitched mocking tone): “We’re being persecuted for our beliefs! They’re singling us out! They’re targeting us! They’re ruining our reputations! They don’t have the RIGHT!”
Yeah, well, my reply is “Bite me.” Not only do we have the right under the First Amendment — that little thing that allows you to practice your deeply held bigotry — (until you find a way to take that away from queers), but I fart in your general direction at your stunning hypocrisy.
I decided it’s time to update Conservative Babylon — which I do anyway, every time some right-wing pervert does something worth mentioning (like Robert McKee going to prison yesterday) — but sometimes I get in the mood to backfill ConBab with profiles I should have done already, but just haven’t gotten around to.
The whole purpose of ConBab (which I started in 2003) is simple: to expose the self-appointed regulators of “morality” as the lying, cheating hypocrites they really are, leaving the reader to ask: “Gee, if Newt Gingrich has burned through four wives already, dumping two while they were facing life-threatening illnesses, should I really be turning to him for guidance about the ’sanctity of marriage’?”
ConBab, not surprisingly, is by far the most popular section of any Web site I’ve ever owned; it gets a steady stream of traffic whether I update it every day or every six months. It also draws some fascinating reactions, from zombie-like followers of long-dead child molester Bob Gray, to the occasional subject himself — and my response (as it was to a certain homophobe who, out of the blue, phoned me at my home and demanded I remove my remarks about him on the Newswire, because he didn’t see himself as a bigot) is always: “You show me where I’ve written anything that is factually incorrect, and I’ll retract it. Until then, tough noogies.”
So, where was I? Oh, yeah. People don’t like it when you show the rest of the world what abominable hypocrites — and bigots — they are. When they can’t convince you it’s just not “right,” they scream about how you’re violating their privacy. Which is supreme bullshit, at least as far as I go about it: Nothing I write about these gay-bashers can’t be found in some public or publicly-accessible record, somewhere. What cracks me up the most are the anti-marriage Mormons who scream about being “outed” as Mormons, how they’re the target of a witch hunt (I say, OK, if you want to call yourself a “witch”…), and how alerting the rest of the world to the fact that they’re Mormons and they waged war on my rights is a violation of federal law. IANAL, but I think they’d be right about the lawbreaking if I (or Nadine Hansen) went around knocking on doors asking about Joe Missionary’s religious beliefs and practices while posing as an FBI agent doing a background check.
Where their complaint falls apart is in the fact that their religious choice is already public knowledge. To cut to the chase: If you don’t want the world to know you donated $10,000 to subvert the California constitution, then don’t make the donation, ’cause it’s gonna show up in the Secretary of State’s public records, and if you don’t want anybody to know you’re a Mormon, then you tell BYU to take your name off its alumni newsletters, and you stop giving newspaper interviews as the representative of the local Mormon Historical Society, and you stop crowing on message boards about how special your temple recommend is like you just won the Miss America pageant, and you stop bragging on your corporate Web site biography page about how eight of your sixteen sons are currently serving missions to convert the unwashed heathens of Dumbfuckistan to the Church of Joseph Smith of Latter-Day Made-Up Stories About Golden Plates Translated By A Con Man Putting A Rock In A Hat.
You know (she says, as she digresses even further) what’s really funny, in the ha-ha way: the threats I’ve seen across the Web from the anti-gay brigades threatening to out people who donated to No On 8. Uh, hey, dummies, go ahead. In fact, I’ll help you: My name is Joyce Rogers, and you can look up the sum of my three donations ($1,500 — I told y’all I’m dirt-poor) right here. There’s only one of me in the entire country who donated to No On 8. It’s never been a secret, and, unlike you, I am proud to stand up for doing what’s right.
(Am I afraid of some violent bigot hunting me down now? No more worried than I was two days ago.)
So there, I’m outed. Bite me.
Anyway — and yes, I do have a point — back to ConBab. Since we’ve been left with no recourse in this attack on our lives, I’m whiling away my time working on the Prop 8 donor database I’ve mentioned (and am getting ZERO help with from people who should be helping, but that’s another story), and doing some backfill on ConBab. My attention right now is naturally drawn to the institution that worked harder than any other to destroy my equality (you guessed it), the Mormon church.
I figured I’d find just a handful of “bishops” whose sexual peccadillos might be worthy of mention, but what I found was an epidemic, systemic disease of sexual abuse that rivals that within the Catholic church.
But then, you don’t have to have a bunch of diplomas on your wall to know that the more sexually repressed an institution (or a society), the sexually sicker (and more rabidly anti-gay) it is.
Leaving that thought lie there for the time being, I’ll tell you what all this is leading up to: the correlation between anti-gay religionists who rail against being outed as the bigots they are, and their own deeply-ingrained compulsion of doing it themselves, to each other.
I keep telling you: The anti-gay bigots are positively consumed by projection — projecting what they hate most about themselves onto us.
So, in doing my current ConBab research, I ran across the following — which, trust me, is only representative of dozens, hundreds, countless similar stories. Via my favorite cult-hunter, Rick Ross:
Being excommunicated for apostasy by the Mormon church is one thing, but Lyndon Lamborn is livid that his stake president has ordered bishops in eight Mesa wards to take the rare step of announcing disciplinary action against him to church members today.
Uh, it’s not that “rare.” But, never mind, go on…
“I thought if he could go public, so can I,” said Lamborn, a lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who said his research into church history gave him “thousands of reasons the church can’t be what it claims to be.”
Stake President R. James Molina acknowledged Friday he intends to have Lamborn’s excommunication announced to the wards at men’s priesthood meetings and womens Relief Society gatherings, even with Lamborn now taking his case public. Molina, as well as officials at church headquarters in Salt Lake City, call such a public warning about an ousted member extremely rare.
(*clearing throat*) No, not “extremely rare” at all. Maybe seldom done quite so officially, but not at all rare.
They say, however, church members must be protected from what discordant ex-followers may say to damage the church.
In a letter to Lamborn dated Sept. 2, Molina noted that a disciplinary council had been held Aug. 19 and excommunication was ordered. Lamborn, 49, a Mesa resident who has been a priesthood leader for 20 years, was informed he was no longer a church member, could not “enjoy any membership privileges, including the wearing of temple garments and the payment of tithes and offerings.”
He could attend public meetings if his conduct is orderly, but would be denied giving any talks, offering prayers, partaking of the sacrament or voting.
“Because of the nature of your excommunication and your involvement with people in this area, an announcement will be delivered to the Melchizedek Priesthood quorums and Relief Society in each of the wards in our stake … on Sunday, September 23, 2007, that you have been excommunicated for apostasy,” Molina wrote.
“We need to let people know if there is a danger to them, such as him teaching doctrine that is contrary to what is taught by the church,” Molina said Friday.
Yeah, well, if Lamborn had raped or murdered somebody, that would be different — but he taught doctrine that is contrary to that taught by the church! OMG! The horror! The sin!
Lamborn, a member of the Thunder Mountain Ward, said his Mormon roots go back generations, with a great-grandfather in the famed Mormon Battalion that trekked from Iowa to San Diego in 1846 and 1847.
Lamborn served a two-year Mormon mission in 1977-79 in Belgium, was elders quorum president four times and led a Mormon Boy Scout troop. Most recently, he said he was assigned to teach older men in his ward and held other roles.
But everything changed in early 2005. Lamborn, an engineer employed at Boeing in Mesa for nearly 25 years, was asked by a work colleague about the wives of church founder Joseph Smith. She had read “Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith” by John Krakauer…
…and asked Lamborn if what she had read was accurate.
Smith, the first LDS prophet and president, had at least 33 wives by many accounts. “Well, I had no knowledge of multiple wives, so I did some research, including using the church’s own genealogical Web site, familysearch.org,” Lamborn said.
He found the information concurred with the book. “Nonmembers seemed to know more about the personal life of Joseph Smith than me,” he said.
Lamborn conducted further research, which led him to question many church teachings. He said he went to Molina with his questions, but received no definitive answers.
Lamborn has been attending the three-hour ward meetings with his wife and 16-year-old son. His two daughters, 22 and 24, “are totally out of Mormonism.”
He said he learned that his five brothers “were doing the same research and arriving at the same conclusions” and doubts, he said. The same was true for his best friend since childhood. In a meeting earlier this summer with Molina, Lamborn acknowledged that he wanted to give up his church membership.
“I was planning to leave the church quietly, but was denied that opportunity, presumably because I was speaking openly to other members about my findings and (was) writing things down,” Lamborn said.
Lamborn has compiled his research into a lengthy testament called, “Search for Truth 6/07,” in which he states: “There comes a time in the life of many church members when the desire to know the truth about the church becomes stronger than the desire to believe the church is true.”
He said he intends to continue to accompany his wife, Nancy, to ward services. “It is tough to go, tough to attend, but I enjoy the fellowship,” he said.
He said he has no desire to join another church, adding that the Mormon faith has many merits, such as its strong family values and its internationally recognized welfare system to help those in need.
The public announcement of his excommunication will be toughest on his wife, Lamborn said. “There’s the embarrassment,” he said. “Friends won’t know how to treat her. The awkwardness. It is going to be tougher on her than anybody.”
Clark Hirschi, manager of the area relations division in Salt Lake City, said Friday he talked to Molina after the stake president was contacted by the Tribune.
“Despite the fact that he has told you this is going to happen, it is up to the priesthood leaders,” Hirschi said. “There may be a letter read to some of the adult members this Sunday. It might be in a few weeks. It may not happen. That is going to be at the discretion and call of the stake president.”
Hirschi said he has never been in a meeting in his own 20 years as a Mormon where a public announcement about an excommunication has been made. He said he had only heard of one being made in a neighboring stake.
“Last Sunday (November 2) Drew Stoeckel went to Cornerstone Church, a large conservative congregation that helped organize a Yes on 8 rally in Fresno, to see what they would talk about. Jim Franklin, the pastor at Cornerstone said that he and mayor Alan Autry had received death threats because they support proposition 8. Both were speakers at the Yes on 8 rally held at Fresno City Hall on Sunday, October 26. There were rumors that Pastor Franklin was going to encourage his congregation to disrupt the No on 8 rally at Fresno City Hall, planned for later in the day. Drew became the object of unwanted attention by Cornerstone security and the Fresno Police Department, apparently because he had a No on 8 button on his shirt.”
Group Also Asks Secret Intelligence Court Not To Exclude Public From Any Proceedings On New Law’s Constitutionality
NEW YORK — July 10 — The American Civil Liberties Union filed a landmark lawsuit today to stop the government from conducting surveillance under a new wiretapping law that gives the Bush administration virtually unchecked power to intercept Americans’ international e-mails and telephone calls. The case was filed on behalf of a broad coalition of attorneys and human rights, labor, legal and media organizations whose ability to perform their work — which relies on confidential communications — will be greatly compromised by the new law.
The FISA Amendments Act of 2008, passed by Congress on Wednesday and signed by President Bush today, not only legalizes the secret warrantless surveillance program the president approved in late 2001, it gives the government new spying powers, including the power to conduct dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international communications.
“Spying on Americans without warrants or judicial approval is an abuse of government power — and that’s exactly what this law allows. The ACLU will not sit by and let this evisceration of the Fourth Amendment go unchallenged,” said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. “Electronic surveillance must be conducted in a constitutional manner that affords the greatest possible protection for individual privacy and free speech rights. The new wiretapping law fails to provide fundamental safeguards that the Constitution unambiguously requires.”
In today’s legal challenge, the ACLU argues that the new spying law violates Americans’ rights to free speech and privacy under the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution. The new law permits the government to conduct intrusive surveillance without ever telling a court who it intends to spy on, what phone lines and email addresses it intends to monitor, where its surveillance targets are located, why it’s conducting the surveillance or whether it suspects any party to the communication of wrongdoing.
Plaintiffs in today’s case are:
• The Nation and its contributing journalists Naomi Klein and Chris Hedges
• Amnesty International USA, Global Rights, Global Fund for Women, Human Rights Watch, PEN American Center, Service Employees International Union, Washington Office on Latin America, and the International Criminal Defence Attorneys Association
• Defense attorneys Dan Arshack, David Nevin, Scott McKay and Sylvia Royce
“As a journalist, my job requires communication with people in all parts of the world — from Iraq to Argentina. If the U.S. government is given unchecked surveillance power to monitor reporters’ confidential sources, my ability to do this work will be seriously compromised,” said Naomi Klein, an award-winning columnist and best-selling author who is a plaintiff in today’s lawsuit. “I cannot in good conscience accept that my conversations with people who live outside the U.S. will put them in harm’s way as a result of overzealous government spying. Privacy in my communications is not simply an expectation, it’s a right.”
The ACLU’s legal challenge, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York today, seeks a court order declaring that the new law is unconstitutional and ordering its immediate and permanent halt.
In a separate filing, the ACLU asked the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to ensure that any proceedings relating to the scope, meaning or constitutionality of the new law be open to the public to the extent possible. The ACLU also asked the secret court to allow it to file a brief and participate in oral arguments, to order the government to file a public version of its briefs addressing the law’s constitutionality, and to publish any judicial decision that is ultimately issued.
“The new law allows the mass acquisition of Americans’ international e-mails and telephone calls,” said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project. “The administration has argued that the law is necessary to address the threat of terrorism, but the truth is that the law sweeps much more broadly and implicates all kinds of communications that have nothing to do with terrorism or criminal activity of any kind.”
In 2006, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA) to stop its illegal, warrantless spying program. A federal district court sided with the ACLU, ruling that warrantless wiretapping by the NSA violated Americans’ rights to free speech and privacy under the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution, ran counter to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and violated the principle of separation of powers. The Bush administration appealed the ruling, and an appeals court panel dismissed the case. However, the court did not uphold the legality of the government’s warrantless surveillance activity and the only judge to discuss the merits of the case clearly and unequivocally declared that the warrantless spying was unlawful. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case earlier this year.
“A democratic system depends on the rule of law, and not even the president or Congress can authorize a law that violates core constitutional principles,” said Christopher Dunn, Associate Legal Director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “The only thing compromised in this so-called ‘compromise’ law is the Constitution.”
Attorneys on the lawsuit Amnesty v. McConnell are Jaffer, Melissa Goodman and L. Danielle Tully of the ACLU National Security Project and Dunn and Arthur Eisenberg of the NYCLU. Attorneys on the motion filed with the FISC are Jaffer, Goodman, Tully, as well as Arthur Spitzer of the ACLU of the National Capital Area.
More information, including today’s complaint, a video discussing the ACLU’s legal challenge, plaintiff statements in support of the lawsuit and the FISC motion, is available at: www.aclu.org/faa
Mr. No-Show actually showed up this time and voted!
Other than that, his “yea” vote is par for the course for Barack Obama (DINO-Ill.), and while we’re not at all surprised, we’re as disgusted as ever with him.
Oh, and didja hear? Hillary Clinton voted AGAINST it.
Barack Obama joined every Senate Republican (and every House Republican other than one) by voting in favor of it, while his now-vanquished primary rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, voted against it. John McCain wasn’t present for any of the votes, but shared Obama’s support for the bill. The bill will now be sent to an extremely happy George Bush, who already announced that he enthusiastically supports it, and he will sign it into law very shortly. …
With cloture approved, the bill itself then proceeded to pass by a vote of 69-28 … thereby immunizing telecoms and legalizing warrantless eavesdropping. Again, while Obama voted with all Republicans to pass the bill, Sen. Clinton voted against it.
Now, before you Obama kids start whining, “Even if Obama had voted against it, it would have passed!” that’s not the point. This is the point:
Obama’s vote in favor of cloture, in particular, cemented the complete betrayal of the commitment he made back in October when seeking the Democratic nomination. Back then, Obama’s spokesman — in response to demands for a clear statement of Obama’s views on the spying controversy after he had previously given a vague and noncommittal statement — issued this emphatic vow:
To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.
But the bill today does include retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies. Nonetheless, Obama voted for cloture on the bill — the exact opposition of supporting a filibuster — and then voted for the bill itself. A more complete abandonment of an unambiguous campaign promise is difficult of imagine. …
With their vote today, the Democratic-led Congress has covered-up years of deliberate surveillance crimes by the Bush administration and the telecom industry, and has dramatically advanced a full-scale attack on the rule of law in this country. …
Greenwald goes on to blast all the Democrats responsible for this travesty (hullo! Pelosi! Reid!), and rightly so.
We’re as disgusted with the lot of them, too — but even more disgusted that Barack Obama — the de facto leader of the Democratic Party and the lone “Democratic” contender for the White House — is now officially nothing more than a BushCo enabler, who did indeed flip-flop — or outright lied (you decide) to his blinded-by-the-Kool-Aid cult, who are responsible for forcing this snake-oil salesman down our throats.
Thanks for murdering the Fourth Amendment, Obama. And thanks for destroying the Democratic Party, Obamaniacs. It is your fault. You should have listened. You should have listened.
I hope your buyer’s remorse turns into the deepest shame humanly possible, so it prevents you from making such a boneheaded mistake in the future. I can’t predict the extent of the damage you’ve wrought already — but if you stay on this singleminded, simpleminded track, you’re going to destroy a lot more than the Democratic Party.
I have zero compassion for them. Anyone who supported Obama after March 2008 is clearly either a delusional Obama cultist or a head in the sand idiot. This one is on you.
You had better more experienced choices, say Senator Joe Biden. You had better more principled candidates who live their convictions, say Representative Dennis Kucinich. You had a reform-minded committed populist, say former Senator John Edwards. And then you had Hillary Clinton who despite some flaws encompassed all the best qualities of the aforementioned. You dug the Democratic Party’s grave, now wallow in it for all I care.
For months, countless voices of reason have pointed out time and again, Obama is an empty suit… Obama is a fraud. He lacks experience. He has no relevant qualifications. He has no conviction other than his own political welfare.
His past behaviour is troublesome. He threw Alice Palmer and four others off the ballot. His rise through the labyrinth of Chicago politics took him down some worrisome alleys and forged alliances with a cast of characters include Louis Farrahkan, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the Reverend James Meeks, Antonin Rezko, Rashid Khalidi, William Ayers, and Bernardine Dohrn. Now he pals around with Donnie McClurkin, Father Michael Pfleger, and Jodie Evans.
For months committed liberals like Paul Krugman, in column after column, demonstrated how his proposals weren’t that progressive or even centrist. I’ve grown hoarse pointing out Obama’s lobbyist connections and his ties to the oil, gas, coal and nuclear industries. …
But you would not listen. You were mired in a speech that Obama gave in 2002. I hope that speech keeps you warm the next four years because that’s is the extent of his progressive record, a speech. His real record is far more centrist (that reach out across the aisle and ream someone kind of record), or perhaps corporatist is a better choice of words. Six billion dollars in subsidies to the oil & gas industry and $12 billion in subsidies to nuclear power industry. …
His votes in the Senate were more pro-Bush than Hillary’s, than Biden’s, than Dodd’s, than Edwards’. Progressive Punch ranked Obama the 42nd most progressive member of the Senate. There are 49 Democrats and one Socialist and one “Independent” in the Democratic Caucus. Forty-second out of 51. Funny how that is. Laughing yet?
Now, you are upset that he is backtracking. News flash: he says what he thinks will please his audience at the moment and then he does whatever he thinks will advance his career the most. And what a career it is. Zero legislative accomplishments. Zip. Name one. He has missed 42% of the votes in the Senate this year. Over the comparable period, Hillary missed 30%. That’s over a quarter more votes missed. Not trivial and by design. He and his handlers don’t want him to have a record to run on.
You think his vote on FISA was shocking. Really? He is the candidate of corporate interests, the candidate of the anti-Clinton Democratic establishment. …
Obama is the designated one, the annointed one, but you satistified yourselves with silly speeches and satiated yourselves with empty platitudes galore. You went for the hip and the flash, a no-hit wonder who hasn’t even come to bat yet. He moves from one on deck circle to another never fully entering the game. …
So far he’s trampled on the Fourth Amendment, a women’s right to choose, the health care of all Americans and now the cornerstone of what brung him to the dance in the first place, that magical speech in 2002 that had to be re-recorded so it could be replayed again and again and use your opposition to a fruitless war as his springboard to power. …
It’s a long one, and worth the full read, so do click the link and settle in.
About the only point I disagree with is the idea that a McCain presidency would be superior to an Obama presidency; I sincerely believe they would be equally disastrous.
Other than that, I’m left wondering — as I have been since Obama started coming clean about who he really is and what he really represents — whether Hillary Clinton actually might have a chance at the nomination after all. No, that’s not the wishful thinking of a dedicated Hillary supporter (I’m a Kucinich woman, remember — although at this point I would give my eyeteeth to have Clinton beat the pants off McCain); I’m simply observing that the convention hasn’t happened yet, and wondering how many superdelegates are rethinking their commitment to Obama.
I also wonder why Obama is showing his hand now, rather than after the nomination is safely in his pocket. I know of no constituency whose votes are up for grabs on the basis of support for illegal wiretapping, or delaying an Iraq pullout — or, in short, whose votes rest on a Republican candidate who happens to have a D after his name. Obama is embracing much of the agenda the American public is dying to get away from — the Bush agenda — which is the sole reason the Democratic Party was practically assured of a lock on the White House: the people want a radical departure from anything Bush. (Emphasis on the word “was”; blind Obama worship has put the Democratic Party in a tenuous position; the White House is no longer a sure thing. And with the spectacular failure of do-nothings Pelosi and Reid, I am beginning to doubt my once near-certain prediction that Democrats will pick up some 30 or 40 seats in the House alone this November.)
That’s what’s got the Obama supporters in such a tizzy: Obama sold himself on the ideal of “change” everybody wanted, and then pulled the rug right out from under those gullible enough to buy the hype without taking a critical look at the man himself. They bought into that “blank screen” business.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you look at Obama and see no “there” there.
If you’re an Obama supporter, nothing gets your goat like a Clinton supporter saying Obama is all style and no substance.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you ask Obama supporters to show you Obama’s substance.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you tell Clinton supporters that Obama is a “blank screen” onto which you’re supposed to project all your own hopes and dreams.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, the “blank screen” line just means there’s no “there” there.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you get angry when the Clinton supporters dismiss the “blank screen” concept.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you ask the Obama supporters to explain, in their own words, what Obama intends to actually do.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you direct all Clinton supporters to Obama’s Web site, to read somebody else’s words — and then complain that nobody reads Obama’s Web site.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you’ve combed through Obama’s Web site, repeatedly, and find no “there” there.
Sometimes it’s eerie when your own words are even clearer to you in reflection than they were the day you wrote them.
Why, Mark Crispin Miller — rightful darling of the so-called “progressive left” now marching in lockstep to the tune of “I Will Follow Him” (“…follow Him wherever He may go…”), but now a pariah, since Miller has the audacity to call it like it is:
Obama’s FISA Statement is a Mess (Just like his Stand on Faith-based Programs)
Obama’s recent rightward moves — concerning BushCo’s faith-based programs, and the FISA bill — have both been loudly justified by commentators who would certainly deplore them if it weren’t Obama who had made them.
The thinking goes like this: “Obama’s our guy, and he’s really cool, the candidate of ‘change,’ so we should cut him all the slack he needs, so he can get elected president. In any case, this recent stuff is not so bad. So let’s all lighten up — or else. Because he has to make such moves, or he will lose; and those who criticize him now are only helping the Republicans.”
That view is wrong on every count. …
Find out why. Click the link and read the whole piece. It’s more than worth it.
House Approves Unconstitutional Surveillance Legislation
WASHINGTON, DC — June 20 — Following a vote in the House of Representatives sanctioning warrantless wiretapping and handing immunity to telecommunications companies for their role in domestic spying, the American Civil Liberties Union expressed outrage at representatives who voted for the unconstitutional legislation. The bill, H.R. 6304, or The FISA Amendments Act of 2008, passed the chamber by a vote of 293-129, and is expected to be voted on in the Senate next week.
The following may be attributed to Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office:
“It’s Christmas morning at the White House thanks to this vote. The House just wrapped up some expensive gifts for the administration and their buddies at the phone companies. Watching the House fall to scare tactics and political maneuvering is especially infuriating given the way it stood up to pressure from the president on this same issue just months ago. In March we thought the House leadership had finally grown a backbone by rejecting the Senate’s FISA bill. Now we know they will not stand up for the Constitution.
“No matter how often the opposition calls this bill a ‘compromise,’ it is not a meaningful compromise, except of our constitutional rights. The bill allows for mass, untargeted and unwarranted surveillance of all communications coming in to and out of the United States. The courts’ role is superficial at best, as the government can continue spying on our communications even after the FISA court has objected. Democratic leaders turned what should have been an easy FISA fix into the wholesale giveaway of our Fourth Amendment rights.
“More than two years after the president’s domestic spying was revealed in the pages of the New York Times, Congress’ fury and shock has dissipated to an obedient whimper. After scrambling for years to cover their tracks, the phone companies and the administration are almost there. This immunity provision will effectively destroy Americans’ chance to have their deserved day in court and will kill any possibility of learning the extent of the administration’s lawless actions. The House should be ashamed of itself. The fate of the Fourth Amendment is now in the Senate’s hands. We can only hope senators will show more courage than their colleagues in the House.”
Did you really think I wouldn’t take Obamaniacs — not mere supporters, but Obamaniacs — to the woodshed on this one?
I’m not talking about his AIPAC speech, his endorsement of (and TV ad for) warmongering, Bush-tax-cuts-loving, right-wing Democrat John Barrow, or even the appalling notion that DADT darling Sam Nunn really is on his short list of VP picks — all blogworthy topics, but all of which pale in comparison to Obama’s sell-out on…
…you know what I’m going to say. G’head, say it with me: FISA.
Grab a cold one, sit back, and get comfortable.
Statement of Senator Barack Obama on FISA “Compromise”
Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike, while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. There is also little doubt that the Bush Administration, with the cooperation of major telecommunications companies, has abused that authority and undermined the Constitution by intercepting the communications of innocent Americans without their knowledge or the required court orders.
That is why last year I opposed the so-called Protect America Act, which expanded the surveillance powers of the government without sufficient independent oversight to protect the privacy and civil liberties of innocent Americans. I have also opposed the granting of retroactive immunity to those who were allegedly complicit in acts of illegal spying in the past.
After months of negotiation, the House today passed a compromise that, while far from perfect, is a marked improvement over last year’s Protect America Act.
Under this compromise legislation, an important tool in the fight against terrorism will continue, but the President’s illegal program of warrantless surveillance will be over. It restores FISA and existing criminal wiretap statutes as the exclusive means to conduct surveillance — making it clear that the President cannot circumvent the law and disregard the civil liberties of the American people. It also firmly re-establishes basic judicial oversight over all domestic surveillance in the future. It does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I will work in the Senate to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses. But this compromise guarantees a thorough review by the Inspectors General of our national security agencies to determine what took place in the past, and ensures that there will be accountability going forward. By demanding oversight and accountability, a grassroots movement of Americans has helped yield a bill that is far better than the Protect America Act.
It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives — and the liberty — of the American people.”
So, how ya feelin’, Obama supporters, now that your guy, Mister “Constitutional Lawyer,” has just peed all over the Constitution — or, more acurately, driven a stake through the heart of the Fourth Amendment?
Sorry (no, actually, after the rotten way you’ve treated me and every other non-Obamaite, I’m not sorry at all) to rub salt into your freshly opened wounds, but I told you so: He was bound to disappoint you, in a big, big way. Me, I’m not “disappointed” or at all surprised, because this is exactly the sort of behavior I — and more real Democrats than you want to know about — have expected of him. The signs have always been there. You just stuck your fingers in your ears and went “Lalalalalalala! I can’t hear you! Lalalalalalala!” — that is, when you weren’t channeling the dis-ease of cognitive dissonance into making schoolyard-bully, ad hominem attacks on the people who have been trying to force you to see Obama for what he is: just another slick, old-school politician — and worse, in my book, a gen-u-ine DINO.
Telling Americans that we have to give up basic constitutional rights — and allow rampant lawbreaking — if we want to save ourselves from “the grave threats we face” sounds awfully familiar. He says he will work to remove amnesty from the bill, but once that fails, will vote for the “compromise.” Obama has obviously calculated that sacrificing the rule of law and the Fourth Amendment is a worthwhile price to pay to bolster his standing a tiny bit in a couple of swing states. …
Nobody should be fooled by Obama’s vow to work to remove telecom amnesty from this bill. Harry Reid is already acknowledging that this “effort” is likely to fail and is just pure political theater: Reid said: “Probably we can’t take that out of the bill, but I’m going to try.” The article continued: “Reid said the vote would allow those opposed to the liability protection to ‘express their views.’”
We should continue to demand that amnesty is removed from the bill — and fight it to the bitter end — but this whole separate vote they’ll have in the Senate on whether to remove amnesty is principally designed to enable Obama, once he votes to enact this bill, to say: “Well, I tried to get immunity out, and when I couldn’t, I decided to support the compromise.” It’s almost certainly the case that Hoyer secured Obama’s support for the bill before unveiling it.
Either way, Obama — if amnesty isn’t removed — is going to vote for warrantless eavesdropping and telecom amnesty, and his statement today all but sealed the fate of this bill. There is no point in sugarcoating that, though we ought to continue to fight its enactment with a focus on removing amnesty in the Senate.
— Glenn Greenwald
I kept telling you: Obama is no liberal. Obama was never a liberal.
But you let him pull the wool over your eyes. And we are all going to pay for it.
Today, from what I’ve been observing on the pro-Obama blogs and boards, half of you are sick to your stomachs over Obama’s FISA sell-out (and those rational Obama supporters who dare to criticize Teh Chosen One are getting eaten alive by the Obamaniacs; wade through the hysteria at Democratic Underground yourself if you want evidence), while the other half are still in denial, grasping desperately at straws; i.e., “Obama probably knows something we don’t, and he just can’t talk about it publicly right now! This is all part of a big plan that’s for the greater good! We have to trust him!” (And where have you heard that kind of talk before? I’ll tell you: from Bush supporters.)
And then there’s this oft-seen apologist justification: “Obama can’t be seen as soft on terror! Once he gets into the White House, then he’ll roll back FISA, completely! We have to trust him!“
So you’re worried about being seen as “soft on terror,” eh? So the Obamapologists, like the spineless, mealy-mouthed House Democrats who passed this ugly thing, are stuck in the same old groove: always running defense, in the position they allow Republicans to put them in. Some leadership. Some change.
If you can’t hold Mr. Accountability accountable now, do you really believe he’s going to give two shits what you think when he’s the one basking in all that unfettered power he’ll have inherited from Bush? (How’d ya like the juxtaposition between “the President cannot circumvent the law and disregard the civil liberties of the American people” and “I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary …”?)
In short, Barack doesn’t want to forfeit all that nice, juicy, limitless power George W. Bush has right now.
I know y’all are sick to death of us gays and our silly little civil-rights “wedge issue,” but damn it anyway, I’ll say it again: Didja notice how Obama didn’t give two shits about what the gay community had to say during the Donnie McClurkin flap? That was a sign — a big sign to those of us on the receiving end of Barack’s blatant F.U. But you wouldn’t sit up and take notice then, because it didn’t impact you. Well, now, this FISA thing impacts everybody. How’s it feel to know Obama doesn’t give a damn about your civil liberties anymore than he does our civil rights?
I agree with my man Thoreau that telecom immunity is a genuine test of Barack Obama’s bona fides on civil liberties. It’s also a genuine test of the liberal side of any liberal-libertarian fusionism.
I think it’s very possibly a test that Obama has already failed. I have a sneaking suspicion that, as the de facto leader of the Democratic Party, Obama could have kept the bill from getting even this far with a quiet word or two. Nothing stopped him from dragging Steny Hoyer and Harry Reid into the same corner where he buttonholed Joe Lieberman. If the House and Senate leadership really did sneak the bill past him last week, which I’m not inclined to believe, still nothing stopped him from shutting them down this week. Except if he either doesn’t consider it important enough to be worth his time and credibility, or if he’s just as happy that the measure might pass.
— Unqualified Offerings
Really, kids, when are you going to face reality? Obama going back on his word over public campaign financing should have been a big clue of what was to come (namely, something even bigger), but which had little effect on your insistence that Obama is the best thing to come along for democracy since the invention of the printing press. You know what I saw most of the Obamaniacs saying at DU? That public campaign financing was a non-issue. That the American people don’t care about public campaign financing. That the American people are too ignorant to even understand public campaign financing. That the MSM was creating a mountain out of a molehole. That this, too, shall pass.
But you didn’t get it. Whether or not anyone cares about or understands public campaign financing (which plenty of us do), those who don’t do understand the one thing you wish they didn’t: Obama did commit to public campaign financing, and he went back on his word. (I’d quote the headline in Time magazine that says it all, but it’s an AP source; let’s just say it echoes what I wrote two days ago: Obama decided to forgo integrity in favor of cold, hard cash.)
No matter how many months you’ve spent convincing yourselves that those of us who don’t live in ObamaWorld are just a bunch of bitter, old, hormonal morons, that right there should have forced you to realize that we haven’t just been talking out of our butts — and that our very real issues with Obama are just that: issues, and not the manifestion of Hillary worship.
“Work to remove” telecom immunity should be rewritten to “maybe show up to vote on some amendment that will surely be struck down and then whimper away.” What a colossal failure of leadership.
Obama earns a Wanker of the Day from Atrios. And it’s well-deserved. I thought he’d issue some vague statement of disapproval and then miss the vote. This endorsement of a X’ing out the Fourth Amendment is waaaay out of bounds.
— Digby
You should have known.
Today, at least, you’re not claiming that Obama’s FISA flip-flop is a non-issue, or that the American people are too apathetic — or stupid — to care about it. You’re upset, angry, and disillusioned. As you should be.
What you shouldn’t be is surprised.
Taylor Marsh (whom you Obama supporters love to hate) nails it:
Not Exactly the Change You were Hoping For
Democrats caved. Speaker Pelosi led the cave in, along with Steny Hoyer and so many others.
Including the Democratic nominee for president, with a teaser. About that telecom immunity he supports giving companies like AT&T, Senator Obama “will work… to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses.” …
Not that I’m in the least surprised.
Way to go Democrats! You showed them, er… Way to stand up, um… No caving to fear-mongering from you all…eh… #*@$! Spineless, the lot of them who caved on this just to make sure Republicans couldn’t say they were “soft on terrorism.”
As long as Republicans get to lead top Democrats, including our nominee, around by the nose on national security we will forever be taking a back seat to these Spy Now No Consequences Later Republicans. Pathetic in every sense of the word.
Now we wait for Senator Obama to “work” to remove the immunity so Democrats can “seek” accountability. And when he falls short of the votes what then? I suspect he’ll suck it up like all the rest of these pantywaist “war on terror” toadies. Again, not that I expected anything different from him. But I bet his supporters are having a rude awakening of what they got from this guy right now. It’s been quite a week for Senator Obama: walking away from public financing (good move, which I predicted from the start); now a cave in of all cave ins complete with a weasel word fog of monumental proportions.
Not much change so far. Keep hoping!
So, what is there to do about it? Go ahead, write all the letters you want. Obama knows he’s already got your vote. The party is “married to Obama” now, realized one DU poster (grossing me out with the allusion to the idea of “falling in love with” and “coming to” Obama; one blogger even said she feels “a little jilted. Ick.)
If “you go to the polls with the shitty candidates you have, and not the not-so-shitty candidates you wish you had” — and you keeping voting for those shitty candidates, how the hell do you ever expect to get something better than shitty candidates?
As someone once said to me: “How are we going to hold their feet to fire if they know they’re going to get our votes no matter what they do?”
…Or how loudly we bitch — and then vote for them anyway?
So, gnash your teeth and rend your garments all you want — Obama’s still got your vote (if not your money and time), and he knows it.
Me, I don’t know how to change this. I don’t have an answer. He’s your Golden Child. You know his soul, intimately, in some arcane, otherworldly way the rest of us don’t. You figure out what works.
It’s out of my hands — and has been, from the moment I wasn’t given a choice in the matter of who will best lead us.
There’s going to come a day when I won’t have to comment at all on anything (don’t cream your jeans just yet, Patel*!), because everybody else has finally caught up with us Lefties, and is finally saying everything we’ve been saying since beforeCommander Cuckoobanas commandeered the republic. Yesterday, it was Bob Roehr; today it’s Doug Thompson:
Scum-sucking traitors to their country
The next time some loudmouth partisan puke Democrat gets in my face and starts yapping about how much better things would be if his party were running the government in Washington, I’m going to pull out the vote tally sheet for the USA Patriot Act in Thursday’s Senate session and ram it down his lying throat.
Where was his party when it came time to take a stand for freedom in this country? Hiding like a coward, that’s where. Only nine Democrats and one independent — former Republican Jim Jeffords — had guts enough to vote against reauthorizing the fascist piece of crap called the Patriot Act.
The rest, including Harry Reid, that scum-sucking capitulator who claims to be the Senate Democratic leader, dropped their pants, bent over, grabbed their ankles and handed George W. Bush the k-y jelly…
What about the leading contender for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination, the so-called “gentle lady from New York,” Hillary Rodham Clinton? Oh, she let Bush and the rest of the Republican party gang bang her like frat boys in a horny drunken brawl. …
This is the opposition party? This is the party that partisans claim will save this country from the abuses and excesses of too many years of Republican domination? …
Only these 10 voted against the act: Daniel Akaka (D-HI), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Carl Levin (D-MI), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Ron Wyden (D-OR), James Jeffords (I-VT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Patty Murray (D-WA), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Robert Byrd (D-WV). The rest voted with Bush and against freedom.
Oh those who voted for the act will give us some propagandistic pap about adding protections for civil rights but those canges are just cosmetic crap. The act itself is a Constitution-evading invasion of basic American rights to privacy, and an abandonment of long-standing protections against illegal search and seizure. …
Oh, and, yeah, I am sorely disappointed in my senator, Barbara Boxer. (I’ve only got one senator; DINO Di-Fi Feinstein jumped the shark, in, like, the nanosecond between the time Dan White pulled the trigger and the moment she was sworn in as Mayor of San Francisco.)
Babs, you listening? Babs…?
Hmmm. No, I guess you’re not.
* Patel is an old nemesis of mine, from my earlier blogging days. I’m waiting for him to come back, tail-betwixt-legs, to admit I was right. But I’m not holding my breath.
Akron students will be fingerprinted beginning this fall to identify them in school lunch lines.
After a lengthy debate, school board members voted 5-2 Tuesday to spend $700,000 on a controversial, modernized cafeteria system.
Board members Rebecca Heimbaugh and Mary Stormer voted “no,” mirroring the concerns of parents about the cost and privacy issue involved with fingerprinting students.
“I do not believe that any parent or any student has ever had the expectation that in order to go through the lunch line or to buy a cookie or carton of milk that they or their children would be requested to first be fingerprinted,” said Heimbaugh, who says she will probably refuse to have her three children in the Akron schools fingerprinted. …
The system will replace the meal-ticket method that has been used in Akron middle and high school cafeterias for nearly two decades. It will not be used — at least initially — in elementary schools.
Students’ fingerprints will be put into a scanner that will make a template of binary numbers corresponding with the unique swirls and arches of each print. When students go through the lunch line, they will place their finger on a scanner that will identify them based on the stored template.
Designers of the system say the original fingerprints will be deleted.
School board members received numerous phone calls and e-mails from parents with privacy concerns about their children being fingerprinted. Those opposed to the system will have the option of having their children use an identification card. …
Board President Linda Omobien said the system will enable cafeteria workers to more easily track the number of free and reduced lunches, which they now accomplish by hand-counting meal tickets. She said this is “ludicrous” in modern times. …
Debra Foulk, coordinator of the Akron schools’ Child Nutrition Services, said these methods were less reliable and cost about the same as the one relying on fingerprints. She said children often lose cards — just as they now misplace meal tickets — and forget PINs. …
Raymond Vasvari, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, said systems like the one adopted by Akron raise serious privacy issues. He said school leaders need to take steps to ensure that the fingerprint images don’t end up in the wrong hands.
“The question remains — is there information that would be useful to someone and how can you be sure this information is not shared?” he said.
Oh, God forbid some kid should go through the line for an extra Kit-Kat Bar!
Now, seriously, folks, this is scary stuff. If you’re already opposed to the idea of a national DNA database, or a national identification card — or if you’re a traditional conservative who actually cares about the individual’s right to privacy — I don’t have to explain why this bogus excuse to start collecting bio-info from Akron’s schoolchildren is positively bone-chilling.
But, hey, if you need some talking points for your born-again, Bush-lovin’ family or co-workers (or just want to scare them half to death — which can be fun, too), you could always remind them that this is just the first step toward Revelation 13:16-18:
And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
Of course, if they’re really fanatical, they’ll just welcome this as a sign of the coming Rapture… the belief in which, actually, contributed significantly to putting Bush into the White House in the first place.
Huh? How can I say such a crazy thing? Well, one of these days, I promise, we’ll delve into how Bush — and in fact, the bulk of U.S. foreign policy — is driven by Christian fundamentalism (as well as the Bush administration’s willingness to exploit American Christianity for all it’s worth).
But this isn’t the time to get into the scary world of religious fundamentalism — you’ve got enough real facts to think about this morning.
Enjoy your conversation around the water cooler today.
Alaska Passes Anti-Patriot Act Resolution; Second State to Oppose Feds
Alaska has joined a growing national rebellion against the USA Patriot Act, voting to oppose the massive federal anti-terrorism law passed by Congress soon after Sept. 11, 2001.
The state Legislature used some of the strongest language yet in passing a resolution condemning USA Patriot, following the lead of Hawaii and 112 cities, towns and counties around the country that have passed similar resolutions against the law.
But Alaska’s measure goes further than most, advising police and other state agencies not to “initiate, participate in, or assist or cooperate with an inquiry, investigation, surveillance or detention” if there is not “reasonable suspicion of criminal activity under Alaska State law.”
“We have a concern that [the Patriot Act] could be abused. The potential for abuse is too great,” said Rep. David Guttenberg, a Democrat who co-sponsored the resolution. “America is an open state. There’s a cost to that. Where are we willing to sacrifice for that? Guys are dying on the battlefield to protect our freedoms. It’s up to us to protect those freedoms here at home.”
“We hope that a resolution like this, with the bipartisan support that it has, will urge Congress to re-examine the provisions of the USA Patriot Act that challenge the individual freedoms that make this country great,” said Rep. John Coghill, a Republican from North Pole who co-sponsored the resolution. “If we sacrifice our freedom, we let terrorism win.” …
Read on, and you’ll see the expected rebuttal from “federal law enforcement sources,” who insist that that the civil-rights-gutting Patriot Act is essential for fighting the “war on terror,” yada, yada, yawn.
For some real doublethink, check out the last line of the last paragraph in the article:
Defending the Patriot Act, officials said the “hysteria” over reports that the FBI was watching libraries was stunning. The act does not specifically mention libraries, but library records would be considered business records, which are covered in the law. One senior official said surveilling libraries would be an “enormous waste of time and … would be an asinine use of FBI resources.”
Then why do you reserve the right to do just that — “surveilling” (which isn’t even a bloody word!) libraries — not to mention the plethora of ways the Act tramples the Bill of Rights?
Yeah, yeah, just another case of “Move along, nothing to see here.”
Well, hail, Alaska! I normally don’t dig on the Frozen State’s conservative politics, but the Patriot Act may turn out to be the one thing that really does unite liberals and traditional conservatives in the U.S. — at least temporarily. It goes completely against one of the most solid tenets of traditional conservatism and liberalism: keeping government small, and out of your private life.
The neocons running the country right now seem to know nothing of traditional conservatism. They’re so far off the scale that they’re actually pushing your average American lib and your average American con closer together, ideologically, than Joe American realizes.
If you don’t have an account with the online version of The New York Times, you should; fickle left-right pendulum swings (it’s never “neutral”) and Jayson Blair aside, its op/ed pages are nearly unbeatable. (I said “nearly”; the NYT is still consistently too far to the right for my liking.)
And it’s worth registering (for free, mind you) just to read the piece below in its entirety:
Is President Bush a religious zealot, or does he just pander to that crowd? …
[Mr. Bush’s public piety] contributes to an image of crusading arrogance abroad, and to a fear of invasive moralism at home. Most recently, the president’s reluctance to offend Senator Rick Santorum — a Catholic theocrat who believes that states should have the power to arrest gay lovers in their bedrooms, or even to criminalize couples who use contraceptives — was an occasion to wonder what, exactly, Mr. Bush was born-again into. …
I’ve long suspected the essential fact about Mr. Bush is that God was his 12-step program. … This kind of born-again epiphany is common in much of America — the red-state version of psychotherapy — and it creates the kind of faith that is not beset by doubt because the believer knows his life got better in the bargain. …
It is probably not entirely irrelevant to our international relations that Tony Blair is, as one British columnist put it, “the most overtly pious leader since Gladstone,” while Jacques Chirac of France and Gerhard Schröder of Germany are adamantly secular. Mr. Schröder was the first German chancellor to refuse to end his oath of office with the customary “so help me God.” …
So God is a kind of fraternity handshake. … Mr. Bush’s frequent invocation of the Almighty in his speeches grates on the ears of worldly Europeans, who, when the president says, “God bless America,” imagine they hear, “And to hell with everybody else.” But it is a tradition of long standing in America, where our dissident origins, First Amendment protections and entrepreneurial spirit have created the most diversely religious population in the world. Mr. Bush comes nowhere near the profuse sectarian language of, say, Lincoln or the Roosevelts. He is also the first president to expand the routine homage to “churches and synagogues” to include “mosques.” That amendment came long before 9/11, and was welcome, even if it was motivated by the awareness that American Muslim voters constitute a growing, unexploited voter pool. …
His advocacy of faith-based social programs, for example, clearly grows from his conviction, based on personal experience, that religion can bring an extra charisma to problems like drug abuse. If that also happens to win him religious votes and to coincide with the Republican aversion to government social programs, so much the better for Mr. Bush. …
Perhaps the most important effect of Mr. Bush’s religion is that, for better or for worse, it imparts a profound self-confidence once he has decided on a course of action. This has been most conspicuous since Sept. 11 in the way he has talked about his mission to make the world safe for democracy. Some listeners take it as presumptuous, messianic, even blasphemous. …
As for the enduring notion that Mr. Bush takes his instructions from the organized Christian right, it misses a much more interesting story: as an independent political structure, the Christian right is dying.
For one thing, the organizations that hit their stride in the 1980’s have waned. The Moral Majority is long gone. The Christian Coalition is withering. Bombastic evangelical power brokers like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson have aged into irrelevance, and now exist mainly as ludicrous foils. …
At the same time… many local activists have gravitated into the Republican Party as county chairmen and campaign consultants. Once an independent force hammering at the president and Congress, they are now an institutional part of the party base. They must be kept mollified — but in balance with other parts of the coalition, like business, and within the bounds of what a majority of voters will accept. Karl Rove, the White House political genius, has a master plan for enlarging that ecumenical array of believers — churchgoing Catholics, Mormons and Jews as well as the evangelicals — and welding them permanently into the Republican mainstream.
The interesting story, then, is not that Mr. Bush is a captive of the religious right, but that his people are striving to make the religious right a captive of the Republican Party.
The Savannah Morning News reported in November 1999 that a teacher at the Windsor Forest High School required seniors to obtain permission slips before they could read Hamlet, Macbeth, or King Lear…
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