In Which Senate Democrats Forfeit Their Place within Phylum Chordata Yet Again

Proving that breaking the law under this adminstration means never having to say you're sorry, since all you need to do is change the law to say that breaking the law back then doesn't really count any more, the Senate rather resoundingly agreed with President Bush that telecom companies complicit in illegal surveillance of American citizens should be immune from lawsuits brought by any of those citizens who feel their privacy was intolerably invaded.

Follow the link and check out the Democrats who crossed over to vote against the Dodd-Feingold amendment, which sought to remove immunity from the new surveillance bill. Obama voted for the amendment, adding another check mark in my column of very good reasons to support him for the nomination; Clinton was absent. Evan Bayh? Dianne Feinstein? Claire McCaskill? Hello? Why even bother showing up for work if you're simply going to knuckle under to the president as he continues to bully his way free of the constraints of law and constitutional authority?

Oh, and do you need to ask which way McCain voted? At least he was there, for a change; amazingly, Mr. Maverick voted in lockstep with the Bushites. All together now: John McCain is a douchebag.

Doddering... Ass-kicker!

Chris Dodd was the lone angry voice standing up for principle this week--albeit with the able assistance of Russ Feingold, Ted Kennedy, and others--and his threat of a protracted filibuster forced Harry Reid to pull the FISA reauthorization bill that would have included immunity for telecom companies that were complicit in warrantless wiretapping of US citizens.

"Today we have scored a victory for American civil liberties and sent a message to President Bush that we will not tolerate his abuse of power and veil of secrecy," Dodd said in a statement released after Reid pulled the bill. "The President should not be above the rule of law, nor should the telecom companies who supported his quest to spy on American citizens. I want to thank the thousands of Americans throughout the country that stood with me to get this done for our country."

The 64-year-old Connecticut senator indicated he would have been willing to keep the floor all night if needed to prevent the immunity provision from moving through the senate.

"I rarely come to the floor with this much anger," Dodd said. "I've never seen contempt of the rule of law such as this."

And good on him for it. AT&T may have jumped into bed--aw, who we crappin'--rather, hit its knees for Bush within two weeks of his inauguration, (h/t Top!Secret G-woman) setting up a system for combing all the phone and e-mail traffic routed through its New Jersey hub. Qwest, bless their crappy customer-servicing, rate-hiking souls, apparently told Bush to bugger off.

Reid is claiming Dodd's filibuster threats had nothing to do with him pullng the bill, saying instead that the year-end crunch caught up with him and left too little time to get the bill properly gift-wrapped and packed in peanuts. I mean, have you tried getting anywhere close to the post office this late in December?

Whatever, Harry. Thanks, Chris. Sorry for you that your presidential campaign never really got off the blocks, but glad for the rest of us since that allows you to have the courage to prove that, occasionally, Democrats can show some spine and challenge the administration in the service of what is right.

Breaking News: 9/11 Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry

Congress is ready to extend the NSA surveillance program, provided court-issued warrants for wiretapping continue to be required. Dubya has threatened to veto the legislation unless retroactive immunity is guaranteed for telecom companies that turned over customers' phone records to the government in the absence of warrants.

Bush warned that he would not sign the Democratic legislation unless it gives U.S. telecommunications firms retroactive immunity from lawsuits for lending assistance in counterterrorism investigations after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

After the September 11 attacks. After. That phrase is going to cause some problems.

A former Qwest Communications International executive, appealing a conviction for insider trading, has alleged that the government withdrew opportunities for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars after Qwest refused to participate in an unidentified National Security Agency program that the company thought might be illegal.

Former chief executive Joseph P. Nacchio, convicted in April of 19 counts of insider trading, said the NSA approached Qwest more than six months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to court documents unsealed in Denver this week.

Nacchio's account, which places the NSA proposal at a meeting on Feb. 27, 2001, suggests that the Bush administration was seeking to enlist telecommunications firms in programs without court oversight before the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. The Sept. 11 attacks have been cited by the government as the main impetus for its warrantless surveillance efforts.

September 11 changed everything? Not so much. January 20, 2001 changed everything? Much more like it. The government went to the telecoms scarcely a month after Bush took office to enact a spying program the adminstration insists is necessary to prevent another 9/11 attack. Except that the program was in place before 9/11, and 9/11 not only happened anyway, but was immediately thrust forward as the reason why the program is necessary. It's logic, Mobius-strip style. It's one more example of enacting a policy, based on deception, that immediately becomes an inescapable causality loop.

Pelosi, Reid, where are you? How many more times will you allow this administration to go all Uri Geller on our reality, bending the Constitution and our lives in one giant stage show designed only for the perpetuation of its own power?

Wow, Who Could Have Seen This Coming?

Fuck. Me.

The day after President George W. Bush marshaled political forces in Congress to grant him greater authority to engage in counterterrorism-related spying, the president stated that he would seek greater changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act when the legislative branch returns to work in September.

What changes would those be? Why immunity for telecom companies that were complicit in the illegal warrantless wiretaps that caused the first FISA firestorm, of course. Oh, wait. I mean allegedly complicit, of course, in the event that their illegal activities are somehow held up as being, yes, illegal.

"When Congress returns in September the Intelligence committees and leaders in both parties will need to complete work on the comprehensive reforms requested by Director McConnell, including the important issue of providing meaningful liability protection to those who are alleged to have assisted our Nation following the attacks of September 11, 2001," he said.

One constitutional scholar derided Bush's reasoning, particularly the tortuous language in his statement.

"Apparently 'allegedly helped us stay safe' is Bush Administration code for telecom companies and government officials who participated in a conspiracy to perform illegal surveillance," wrote Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin in a Monday morning blog post. "Because what they did is illegal, we do not admit that they actually did it, we only say that they are alleged to have done it."

The 16 Senate and 41 House Dems who voted to take the minimal oversight that existed on this away from the courts and hand it squarely to Alberto "How Can You Tell I'm Lying? Are My Lips Moving?" Gonzales can kiss my ass. At this point we can't keep heaping blame on Bush for continuing to take every treat the Dems eagerly throw him and then demand more like an untrained dog or unruly two-year-old. Your job is to rein this out-of-control bastard in. You have failed.

Breaking News: Senate Dems Give Bush Head, Again

Thank you, Senate Democrats, for reinforcing the worst stereotypes society has to offer. Thanks for demonstrating that "no" really is just a coy "yes." Thanks for being spineless enablers of a hyper-macho bully.

Yesterday the Senate handed Bush expanded warrantless wiretapping powers, knuckling under and pantingly serving up the authority he requested to listen in on telephone calls and read e-mails without a warrant as long as one of the involved parties is reasonably believed to be outside the US. Even if one of the people is a US citizen. Even if the call or e-mail isn't related to terrorism, but simply has unspecified "intelligence" value.

The elections were truly pointless. The Democrats could have had an ironclad veto-proof majority and they would still be cowed by the slightest hint that a Republican would hang the "soft on terror" label on them come the next election cycle. 65% of the public wants us out of Iraq. Close to 80% think W is a failure as a president. What the fuck will it take for the Democrats to develop spines--hell, at this point I'd be happy with some lumbar vertebrae--and take the bastard on? How hard is it to use what should be the most basic weapon in the arsenal of any reasonable population? You know? The truth?

Every time a Republican or Republican apologist columnist utters "Iraq" and "9/11" in the same sentence, a Democratic senator needs to stand up and speak the truth. Yes, the American public can be staggeringly stupid. But this shit can be boiled down into simple language and repeated until it takes root. Cook up a few simple talking points and make some fucking PowerPoint slides. Iraq<>9/11. Next! Cutting VA funding<>Supporting the Troops. Next! Extending tours to 15 months and allowing as little as 3 months' downtime<>Supporting the Troops. Next! Starting to improve the security situation in Anbar is good but<>Guaranteeing a stable Iraqi government. See? It's not fucking rocket science.

But as much as they bluster and rail against the administration, they're terrified that if they don't hand Dear Leader every fucking unconstitutional power he demands, they'll... they'll what? They'll fall down on their sworn duty to the Constitution and the American people? They'll lead America down the road to ruin? No. It's not even remotely that lofty. They're afraid they'll get voted out of office. Even as the vast majority of the voters are already screaming for their heads for being such abject pussies and continuing to give a reviled president more and more power.

Truth, people. Just use the fucking truth.

This, That, the Other

Oh, fantastic.

As he sought to renew the USA Patriot Act two years ago, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured lawmakers that the FBI had not abused its potent new terrorism-fighting powers. "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse," Gonzales told senators on April 27, 2005.

Six days earlier, the FBI sent Gonzales a copy of a report that said its agents had obtained personal information that they were not entitled to have. It was one of at least half a dozen reports of legal or procedural violations that Gonzales received in the three months before he made his statement to the Senate intelligence committee, according to internal FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.

Surely this was an oversight. A slipup. Gonzo wouldn't deliberately lie, would he? Heaven forfend.

Hmmm, then there's this.

White House counsel Fred F. Fielding informed lawmakers in a letter yesterday that Bush was asserting executive privilege for the second time in two weeks regarding requested testimony by former counsel Harriet E. Miers and former political director Sara M. Taylor about the prosecutor firings.

Bush won't let Miers and Taylor testify for real, you know, under oath and on the record. He's happy to make them available for "private interviews," which seems to mean "presenting utter fabrications without penalty. And he's invoking executive privilege because his counsel is part of the executive branch. But his vice president isn't.

It makes perfect sense.

And, in other news--almost too predictably--another family values-trumpeting, traditional marriage-defendin' politician, David Ritter (R-LA) is found to have taken an uncharacteristic walk on the wild side. Oh, but look--he has his very own get out of jail free card, at least where he's hoping the morality police are concerned:

"Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling," Vitter continued.

Evangelism may not mean never having to say you're sorry, but it does seem to mean you can do whatever the hell you want, while working to officially smack down other people for what you define as a sin, just as long as you say the magic "I'm sorry!" words to excuse you from all culpability for whichever of those holy commandments you broke this time, clearing your slate until the next time, and the next. It's the smug arrogance that leads people to wear t-shirts like this one. Few things make me want more to punch people in the face.

It goes without saying that Ritter was a big federal marriage amendment supporter.

"I don't believe there's any issue that's more important than this one," said Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican.

Except maybe deciding to stay away from the hookers between floor debates on the inevitable deletrious effects of Big Sodomy on his own marriage.

Is Someone Gravely Ill? Is It Late at Night? Here Come the Bushies!

Well, at least this time the subject of the middle-of-the-night signature quest wasn't Terri Schiavo. But when John Ashcroft comes off as a paragon of virtue, you know it's bad news anyway.

Back in 2004, then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andy Card paid a late-night visit to AG Ashcroft to try to persuade him to sign off on the warrantless wiretapping program. When he was in a hospital bed. Barely conscious. To his credit, Ashcroft told them to piss off and threatened to resign (as did Deputy AG James Comey, who broke this story to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, his entire staff, and possibly FBI Director Robert Mueller as well) if they managed to ram the program through as it was presented to him.

So we got the current version, and if that one was watered down enough for Ashcroft to approve, I really don't want to know the rack-and thumbscrews details of the original.

Gonzo and Card, pushing a gravely ill man to sign off on the White House's end run around the Constitution and general rule of law, and then pressuring the acting AG to do so against Ashcroft's clearly stated objections.

Later, Card ordered an 11 p.m. meeting at the White House. But Comey said he told Card that he would not go on his own, pulling then-Solicitor General Theodore Olson from a dinner party to serve as witness to anything Card or Gonzales told him. "After the conduct I had just witnessed, I would not meet with him without a witness present," Comey testified. "He replied, 'What conduct? We were just there to wish him well.'"

The next day, as terrorist bombs killed more than 200 commuters on rail lines in Madrid, the White House approved the executive order without any signature from the Justice Department certifying its legality.

This was the administration that went to great pains to assert it was going to restore dignity to the White House. Instead, it has demonstrated utter contempt for any pesky laws standing between it and its empire. It's the fucking X-Files, but the malevolent force being served by government officials is not alien. It's the enormous collective neocon ego.

Smile for the Camera and Kiss Your Girlfriend Goodbye!

A while back I mused that coming out in high school these days must be a heady experience that flings the doors of life's possibilities wide open at a conveniently early age, giving kids a jumpstart on figuring out who they are and how they fit into the world. It was pretty easy for me to focus on the generally more open, accepting atmosphere of now compared to the more closeted era I grew up in, and not think in much detail about the inevitable bad reactions gay kids still face.

Nice myopia, Boltgirl! Welcome to Gig Harbor (Washington) High School!

Restrictions on the use of school security videotape have been tightened after images of two [female] high school students kissing were shown to the parents of one of the girls, officials say.

Keith Nelson, dean of students at Gig Harbor High School, said he saw the [girl]s kissing and holding hands in the school's busy commons, checked a surveillance camera and showed the parents the tape because they had asked him a few weeks earlier to alert them to any conduct by their daughter that was out of the ordinary.

They then transferred their daughter to a school outside the Peninsula School District, which lies northwest of Tacoma.

Unreal. Maybe we should be relieved that they only transferred to a different school instead of packing her off to ex-gay camp or disowning her. Maybe we should be relieved that the principal stepped in belatedly to say that this was a grossly inappropriate use of the school security cameras, and that it wouldn't happen again.

Kissing and other public displays of affection were at the time and remain violations of school rules, but violators will first be given warnings and will be disciplined only for a second offense, Schellenberg said. In addition, school employees are barred from sharing surveillance video in response to an open-ended parental request.

The fact remains that the dean responsible for reporting the same-sex peck in the first place still thinks he did the right thing.

Nelson said he respected the change in policy but added that he believes his first obligation is to parents. "They're paying good money for us to make their kids good citizens," he said. "Whatever that means to the parents, I'll do it."

Nelson said students could not have any expectation of privacy in a crowded place and maintained that he would have taken the same action had the students kissing been a boy and a girl.

Uh-huh. Sure he would have. Certainly there must be a long record of boy-girl kisses captured on video that the dean has been reporting to parents, so that they can relocate their kids to schools far away from their unapproved beaus. Right? And if there isn't any record of the sort, it must be because those hetero Gig Harbor kids don't engage in any public displays of affection while at school, right? Because otherwise Dean Nelson sounds rather like a hypocrite and rather unlike a model "good citizen."

Bil Browning's take is over at Bilerico, where I first read about this.

Well, Who Could Have Foreseen This?

President Bush quietly has claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant.

Another day, another signing statement that brazenly contradicts the law it's appended to. Do I remember correctly that some commentary on last year's warrantless wiretapping brouhaha raised the spectre of government agents combing citizens' private mail? And that those concerns were huffily brushed aside?

Hmm. I am not finding direct links other than my memory, but there's this from my February 7, 2006 post on the NSA hearings:

Perhaps the most troubling spectre to float out of yesterday's hearing was that of other surveillance programs we don't know about yet. The Attorney General framed many of his responses as pertaining only to "the program we are discussing today." The most telling moment came when Kennedy asked directly whether other, more insidious domestic spying programs were either in the works or already operational. Gonzales hesitated, silent, for a good two or three seconds, sighed deeply, and stammered, as if his tongue had suddenly swollen to the size of a canned ham, that he could not answer that question.

The Fourth Amendment is pretty clear on the issue of people being "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures..." In fact, the security of our persons, houses, papers, and effects leads off the first clause of the Fourth Amendment, which apparently was the only relevant segment in the mind of NSA chief (then deputy director) Hayden last January when he tried to explain why warrantless surveillance is legal after all. You remember from your high school civic class, of course, that the second big ol' clause of the amendment states that "no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause..."

QUESTION: Jonathan Landay with Knight Ridder. I'd like to stay on the same issue, and that had to do with the standard by which you use to target your wiretaps. I'm no lawyer, but my understanding is that the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution specifies that you must have probable cause to be able to do a search that does not violate an American's right against unlawful searches and seizures. Do you use --

GEN. HAYDEN: No, actually -- the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure. That's what it says.

QUESTION: But the measure is probable cause, I believe.

GEN. HAYDEN: The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: But does it not say probable --

GEN. HAYDEN: No. The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.. . .

If the operating standard is "reasonable," and the unitary executive gets to decide what "reasonable" means, the Constitution becomes even less than the window dressing it was reduced to last winter. It becomes the thin haze of adhesive left by the masking tape slapped up there when the casing was repainted, waiting to be scraped away with the swipe of a razor blade.

Party down today, Mmes and Mssrs Pelosi, Reid, and Emanuel. Tomorrow is time to get your asses to work.

A Peep of Reason

Finally. The NSA warrantless wiretapping program has been ruled unconstitutional, and the government has been ordered to halt it immediately. Holding for the official WH response...

Anyway, the federal judge's ruling is the peep of reason. In other news, it seems that the immediate threat of the British liquid bomb plot may have been played up just a tad. I won't get into the discussion of whether some exaggerations were made or the schedule pushed up at American insistence to satisfy political ends--no energy for it this morning--but this, on the heels of the revelation that the three guys arrested in Michigan for mass cell-phone purchases (allegedly to blow up the Mackinac Bridge) were not, after all, terrorists, but just three guys looking to run an eBay scam... well, it makes a body weary. Credibility has to be one of the basic tools of the Homeland Security folks; without it they're some amalgamation of the boy who cried wolf and Chicken Little when they should be that industrious ant (it was an ant, right? the one being dissed by the grasshopper or cricket or other random ornithoptera).

Some people will stay ever-vigilant, ready to turn in the neighbors at the slightest whiff of strange activity, but I'm betting the majority of the public is going to become jaded by the constant stream of hysterical terror alerts that increasingly (not "inevitably;" I'm not that cynical yet) are followed by an official Never Mind. If they're not that jaded already.

Those Who Would Give Up Liberty for a Little Security...

The girlfriend tells me I should stop reading the paper, or that, at the very least, my breakfast table letters-to-the-editor-reading privileges might be revoked. Maybe she's tired of me sputtering Cheerios everywhere at the latest in the long parade of mind-boggling letters from the right side of Tucson's citizenry.

Yesterday dawned hopefully, with a separate little section of letters about Qwest's refusal to cooperate in the NSA call data-mining operation. Then I actually started reading the letters and, well, the Cheerio deluge began.

Rick in Tucson writes:

I've written Qwest and demanded that my phone records be immediately turned over to the NSA and have also demanded that Qwest immediately begin assisting the NSA in any way possible.

I thought it was satire. I hoped it was satire. Maybe the hook at the end, the little emoticon wink letting us know it was satire, inadvertently got edited out. But then I moved on to another letter, from James, retired Air Force:

I'm a Qwest customer and am disgusted that my phone provider did not see fit to help our government compile data to ferret out those who would gladly kill us.

And finally, we have this from Rod:

Qwest once again has demonstrated its insensitivity to the communities that it serves by denying the National Security Agency the opportunity to collect data on telephone traffic over its system.

The decision is but another example of Qwest's historic contempt for their customers. This time it is their customers' safety.

Two pro-Qwest letters were interspersed with the above. Somebody demanded that Qwest turn over his phone records to the NSA? Holy Grail, anyone? Spank me first! No, me!!!

The multiple layers of blind trust are impressive, if disturbing. Rick and James and Rod are rock-solid in their conviction that (1) the data-mining system is an efficient means to identify a couple hundred? a thousand? how many? al Qaeda stooges both in the US and foreign countries by combing through billions of calls made; (2) being automatically covered in the net of suspicion by the mere virtue of subscribing to telephone service is a-okay, because (3) the NSA would never (a) make a mistaken connection between an innocent patriotic American and a terrorist cell due to a call for carryout baba ganoush or (b) start transcribing actual conversations rather than simple numbers called or (c) use the calling patterns to investigate activities other than terrorism.

This is the kind of shit we used to revile the Red Menace for, the kind of government-sponsored snooping that prompted so many people to try to climb the Berlin Wall. The general lack of outrage over the NSA program disgusted me enough. The subsequent desire by individuals to actively participate in the same leaves me speechless.

Dig Dig Dig, Dig All Day...

The federal government cut secret (until today) deals with AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth to acquire telephone records. Of every call made within the United States. By anyone.

"It's the largest database ever assembled in the world," said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders, this person added.

The White House, apparently sensing more immediately pending doom than in any previous point in this entire six-month NSA wiretapping story arc, trotted W hisself out to explain exactly what's going on here.

Making a hastily scheduled appearance in the White House, Mr. Bush did not directly address the collection of phone records, except to say that "new claims" had been raised about surveillance. He said all intelligence work was conducted "within the law" and that domestic conversations were not listened to without a court warrant.

"The privacy of all Americans is fiercely protected in all our activities," he said. "Our efforts are focused on Al Qaeda and their known associates."

Okay... compiling a database of all telephone calls made within the borders of the US, by all of the citizens who are of phone-calling age, suggests upwards of 250 million known AQ associates, does it not? And if the government doesn't really suspect all of us MoviePhone dialers of being terrorist collaborators, well, excuse me, but what the fuck? W asserts no data mining will take place. So they're simply collecting the phone records for fun, then, no? Like stamps, or butterflies, or heads on pikes.

The confirmation hearings for the new CIA chief should be very interesting in light of this, especially given the fact--should the nomination not be withdrawn--that Michael Hayden has demonstrated either a fundamental misunderstanding or deliberate misconstruing of exactly what the Fourth Amendment contains.

Food Poisoning Fun!

What's that rosy glow, you ask? A souvenir of a bliss-filled day hiking under the Arizona sun? Perhaps a memoir of an erotic encounter?

No. The rosy glow would be the result of all my facial capillaries having exploded during a six-hour marathon session on the bathroom floor Sunday night, involving every plumbing fixture in said bathroom, to say nothing of every plumbing fixture installed south of said face. Let's just say the passionate relationship with Pei Wei teriyaki chicken is on hold for now.

I tend to fixate on one or two thought trajectories that whirl around violently in my head when I'm in that situation, usually apropos of nothing, and the intensity of the obsession causes almost as much discomfort as the nausea. This particular occasion had me wondering (1) what percentage of the calories consumed at dinner six hours ago have I heaved up, and (2) you know the actress who plays the mom on 7th Heaven? Yeah, what's her name, again?

Had no idea about the calorie thing; with my luck I probably absorbed all the fat and carbs within seconds of eating but hadn't quite gotten around to the protein and vitamins before they vacated the system; and about four hours into it managed to come up with Catherine Hicks.

While I was out, Bush apparently decided it would be a good idea to give the NSA job to a sitting general who's seriously misinformed re: the actual content of the 4th Amendment.

Meanwhile, I'm discovering that granola is not a good breakfast choice for a traumatized stomach.

Rampant Confusion

Perhaps inspired by the rutting pigeons currently puffing and circling to mark the coming of spring, Arlen Specter is doing his own little bit of neck puffery, threatening to cut off funding to W's domestic surveillance program(s) unless he comes clean about the whole deal, at least to Congress.

"Institutionally, the presidency is walking all over Congress at the moment," Specter said. "If we are to maintain our institutional prerogative, that may be the only way we can do it."

Well... yeah, can't argue the doormat point, but why am I remembering Specter leading the way in handing out free passes to the executive branch, personified by Alberto Gonzales, in the Judiciary Committee's wiretap hearings a couple of months ago? Why do I remember Specter throwing his support behind GOP declarations that the best solution to the wiretapping problem was to pass legislation making the president's very illegal activities retroactively legal after all?

Specter announced his intent to turn this pull-the-plug amendment to a spending bill into a full-fledged stand-alone bill, and to hold hearings. A bill and hearings! So there's hope for some stubborn remnant of decency here, right?

Specter made it clear that, for now, the threat was just that."I'm not prepared to call for the withholding of funds," he told reporters later.

Oh. Never mind.

He did say that he hopes to raise public awareness of the issue. If that has always been the case, why didn't he hit Gonzales harder? The obstruction and obfuscation was generated in those hearings was more than ample fodder for a public stink-making.

Meanwhile, the GOP Congress has come up with some great ideas for alleviating the financial crunch skyrocketing gas prices are putting on middle America. Number one, of course, is a $100 rebate check to every taxpayer. Think of it! One hundred dollars. That's between two and three tankfuls for people with average-sized vehicles, and less than a tank for Hummer, Excursion, and Escalade drivers (giggle).

It's the equivalent of tossing a quarter to a pestering 10-year-old at your backroom card game and saying, "Here's two bits, kid, now scram" in your best Jimmy Cagney.

But it's more than a simple palliative slap in the face. Take that hundred and multiply it by 100 million taxpayers, and whaddyaget? 10 billion dollars. Ten billion dollars... of taxpayer money... most of which will be paid right back to the oil companies. Should I point out that with that 10B we could buy other things? Should I be a shit and point out that it would buy us a week and a half in Iraq? Of course, should that provision pass, it would mean that the rest of the spending bill it's attached to passes as well, and what else could be lurking in there? Opening up ANWR to drilling? Unfortunately, yes. And, should it be defeated, how many Republicans are going to scream that the Dems took a Benjamin out of every poor and middle class American's pocket?

Long past time to get the bike dusted off and lubed up. And to rediscover my super-local economies of scale.

Friday Pix

I'm listening to the censure resolution hearings, throwing up a little bit in my mouth every few minutes. Biggest winner so far, according to the Expert Panel of Me, is Bruce Fein (paraphrased): If the president can do anything he wants by invoking Article 2, then he can open our mail tomorrow in violation of the law so long as he says it's for surveillance. He can break and enter into our homes in violation of the law if he says it's for surveillance. There is no possible check on his powers if Article 2 continues to be construed as a free pass to do whatever the fuck he wants. The degree of sycophancy being exhibited (huffily, I may add) by Orrin Hatch and Arlen Specter is just amazing. Hatch sees no evidence whatsoever that W acted outside the law. Well, I guess that settles that. Next.

The kid had his last soccer practice of the season last night, way out in the boonies on the east side, in the shadows of the Catalinas. I understand why people like to live out there; not every square inch of desert has been built up and paved over yet. From there, the mountains aren't just anonymous silhouettes on the horizon. You can see the depth of the foothills and can make out the rock formations and individual saguaros marching up the slope. I walked out into the desert and took some pictures in the waning light.

Coyotes were starting to yip and cottontails were venturing out cautiously. I saw a few thrashers, mockingbirds, and doves, along with a single vermillion flycatcher that wouldn't hold still long enough for a photo, and a western cardinal chirruping from the top of a cactus.

Lots of cholla out here, including teddy bear, buckhorn, and chainfruit. This chainfruit glowed nicely in the backlight from the setting sun.





Even the creosote was lovely.











This is one of the taller saguaros I found, pocked with holes from flickers and woodpeckers. The saguaro grows a protective lining around the internal cavities created by the birds (called a "boot"). Usually not a big deal for the cactus...







...although it was apparently an issue for this particular one. Here's a view through the internal passageways exposed when the outside of the saguaro fell off.

All in all, a lovely way to almost-finish the week.

NSA Hearings Hangover

One of the unfortunate things about living in Tucson is the time difference between here and the East Coast (currently two hours; three hours during daylight savings). That means I only have about half an hour to collect myself here at work before the hearings pick up again. Yes, I can listen and do my work at the same time. Blogging it may be another story, but I digress.

I was struck again yesterday (and again, and again, and again) by the administration's strategy of constant repetition of facts that, while true, are irrelevant to the matter at hand. Q: Mr. Attorney General, did this president authorize the warrantless wiretapping of American citizens? A: During times of war, presidents all the way back to George Washington have authorized warrantless surveillance of foreign spies and enemies. Yes, yes they have. That's not at issue. At issue is the degree to which American citizens have had their privacy illegally invaded. Gonzales and his defense attorneys, er, I mean, some of the Republican senators questioning him repeatedly invoked George Washington's interceptions of British communiques as if that--spying on a foreign enemy in a declared war prior to the existence of the US Constitution--is somehow sufficient precedent for a modern president to wiretap US citizens without a warrant, without probable cause, in apparent clear violation of the Fourth Amendment to the very much existant US Constitution.

Perhaps the most troubling spectre to float out of yesterday's hearing was that of other surveillance programs we don't know about yet. The Attorney General framed many of his responses as pertaining only to "the program we are discussing today." The most telling moment came when Kennedy asked directly whether other, more insidious domestic spying programs were either in the works or already operational. Gonzales hesitated, silent, for a good two or three seconds, sighed deeply, and stammered, as if his tongue had suddenly swollen to the size of a canned ham, that he could not answer that question.

What the hell.

I found this particularly interesting in light of the fact that Specter refused to swear Gonzales in at the beginning o f the proceedings. Was this a faint glimmer of conscience at work, as if Kennedy touched a nerve that, despite being deeply buried, is so hot that Gonzales coldn't help but flinch?

If this is troubling to me, well, it's troubling. I have a lot of baseball caps perched on my bedpost, and not one of them is made of tinfoil. I watched the X-Files religiously, but I'm not big on conspiracies (I was, however, very big on Gillian Anderson--speaking of whom, what the hell happened to her brain that she decided she needed to join the anorexia brigades? Sheesh).

NSA Hearings, Updatable...

Did I say I was too tired to get pissed off this morning? I'm sufficiently coffeed now.

How fascinating that Arlen Specter declined to swear in AG Gonzales. How fascinating that, after Feingold demanded a roll call vote from the committee on putting AG under oath, Specter claimed to have proxy votes from two committee members who weren't present, but refused to show them. I don't think you need to be a certified cynic to wonder what purpose any hearing of this level serves when the testimony is not sworn. Apparently the question of 4th Amendment violations are not if the same pressing importance as, say, the use of steroids by Major League Baseball players. If memory serves, Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco were required to take the oath before testifying.

Hyperbole and deliberate distortions by Gonzales so far (10:23 EST). Updates by the minute, I'm sure, particularly when Feingold and Kennedy speak.

10:32 EST: Gonzales is ducking the issue of retroactive FISA warrants by claiming answering would compromise the classified nature of the details of the program, er, ahem, The Program. A commenter on Glenn Greenwald's blog suggested that each question should end with, "Is this how you would answer if you were UNDER OATH?"

10:36EST: Specter actually calling AG on declining to go to Congress for approval because he knew the approval was not likely to be granted ("not likely to be granted" here meaning "likely to send Congress rolling in laughter before tossing you out on your ass"). AG ducking and weaving like The Champ. Leahy up next.

10:39EST: Leahy not taking any bullshit. AG brow-sweating.

10:44EST: Zoom. Leahy goes for the kill. "Where in the authorization of all necessary force is the warrantless wiretapping of American citizens permitted?" AG: Uh, uh, ah, sir, um... Leahy: "... what you call a cumbersome procedure, but what most people would call a simple procedure, to go get FISA authorization..." Oh, snap. Leahy: "Mr. Attorney General, you're not answering my question." Ba-zing. Bob. Weave. Duck. "Al Qaida!"

10:49EST: Hatch up. Jesus fucking Christ. He's still promoting the facade of this being about "foreign intelligence."

10:57EST: Hatch repeats the falsehood that authorizing the Prez to take all necessary action to "protect us" somehow exempts him from following the law. And he continues Hayden's distortion of the 4th Amendment, emphasizing "reasonable" over "without a warrant." Kennedy up next.

11:06EST: Goddammit. Kennedy pulled a Biden rather than asking any of the simple, pointed questions that could have been asked at this point. All his diatribe did was open the door for AG to reiterate his "we believed The Program was lawful" speech. Fuck-o-matic.

11:14EST: Debra Burlingame, sister of Flight 77 pilot, repeating the Administration line. Appeal to emotion. 'Nuff said.

11:28EST: Biden calls for secret hearings to avoid issues of classified information, says the failure to do so seriously calls into question Congress performing its assigned duties of oversight. "When will we know when this war is over?" AG: when AQ is destroyed and no longer poses a threat to the US. Biden: "In truth, we will not know when we have won... because AQ has morphed into several different organizations.. as long as any of them are there, you will continue to assert that you have this plenary authority." AG: Ah, I'll have to study that.

11:33EST: Apparently one Biden-like performance is required in each hearing, and Kennedy fulfilled that obligation during his ten minutes, freeing Biden himself to ask concise, pointed questions.Can you assure us that no one is being spied on who shouldn't be? AG: I can't give absolute assurance. Biden: Who can? AG: We have safeguards...

11:40EST: Biden: We need assurance that no one is being eavesdropped on unless it's emanating from foreign soil, with that assurance under oath, under penalty of law if they misrepresent themselves to this committee... not that I'm suggesting this attorney general is doing so...

11:50EST: Kyl: Congress has an important oversight role, but other entities have equally important oversight responsibilities--especially the president! Fox, henhouse. Henhouse, fox.

11:57EST: Kohl: Is there anything the president cannot do in a time of war? AG: we think he's acting within an Act of Congress. AG points out Congress many war-related roles, including declaring war, in support of his argument that the wartime president does not operate in a vacuum... ignoring the fact that there has was no Congressional Declaration of War in the first place.

12:10EST: AG: The FISA requirements for getting warrants just take too much time. So the president can ignore them when he feels like not making much of an effort. Given this president's penchant for avoiding work, well, I guess that's that.

And speaking of avoiding work, I gotta get back to it. Oh my head.

The Fourth Amendment Means Whatever the Fuck We Decide It Means!

The deputy director of the NSA held a press conference yesterday defending the administration's domestic wiretapping program. I listened to this on NPR and found myself unable to stop screaming,which was a problem as I was on my way to a followup appointment at a large hospital where screaming people aren't necessarily allowed to walk around unfettered.

Words fail me. Audacity? Arrogance? Blinding imperial hubris? Listening to the man lecture reporters that "if there's any amendment to the Constitution of the United States that employees of the National Security Agency are familiar with it's the Fourth" and then proceed to deliberately misstate and distort that amendment made me physically ill. He stood up there and unabashedly lied.

How is the Constitution safeguarded when the people who are sworn to protect it grab words and phrases out of context, and then use them as justification for ignoring the rest of the document? For ignoring the rest of the very amendment they just quote-mined?

There should be a special place in hell reserved for mainstream media that do not present this for exactly what it is--a bald-faced power grab facilitated by the deliberate distortion of the Constitution (liberal bias, MY BIG FAT ASS). That they know they will, most likely, get away with it is an indictment of the American public's ignorance, apathy, and ovine desire to be "safe," no matter the cost in principle and actual harm.