It's about the law

I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency [the NSA] and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return."

--Senator Frank Church, 1975

What Bush and his supporters don't seem to understand is that the kerfuffle around domestic spying has nothing to do with its effectiveness. There is no doubt that the NSA is highly qualified to data mine phone and internet communications to look for clues, and that by so doing, they may be able to uncover a terrorist plot. The issue is that it is against the laws of the country to do, as they currently stand. The Administration's rebuttal to this argument, which goes something along the lines of, "yeah but we need to do this," doesn't work. What is the difference between the US and a dictatorship? The rule of law applies here, not the rule of men. Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, all seem to have lost sight that if we do not follow the law, and if our government agencies and executors are not held accountable to the law, then we are a lawless nation, no better than a bunch of nomads in the desert. In other words, the terrorists have already started winning.

I also must point out that this whole exercise is drawing crucial attention away from the far more concrete steps that need to be taken to actually protect this country: securing ports, inspecting containers, securing public transit, etc., all things I've mentioned here before. Why is the White House so enamored of spying than actually doing anything resembling concrete action? The flubbed the invasion of Iraq, they failed miserably in post-Katrina recovery efforts, they can't even get the oil flowing in Iraq. They can't protect our cities and their denizens. But they can cut taxes for the rich, cut Medicaid... This is a party that is useless at the art of governing and administering to the needs of their constituents. They are incompetent idealogues, and it is a travesty that only in the last year has the mainstream public begun to catch on that they've been had.

Letter to Senator Cantwell

Dear Senator Cantwell--

I'm writing to thank you for taking a bold stand on the recent passage of the Defense appropriations bill. It highlights how broken our Congressional appropriations process is. Your colleague Adam Smith was on KUOW this morning talking about this process, and how appropriations are approved without anyone knowing what is actually being approved.

I invite you to take this opportunity to further your courageous stand against special interests and federal handouts to large corporations. I'd like to know what steps you are considering such that Congress can reclaim control over the budget from the military, the White House, special interests, and large corporations.

Democrats must send a bold, concise, and coherent message to voters that they are acting to protect them from special interests and federal largesse to large corporations. This means keeping our own house tidy as well. I'm sure there is a lot of incentive on your part to lobby for whatever pork Washington state is getting via military projects going to Boeing. But ultimately, funding for failed projects like Future Combat Systems amount to backdoor welfare -- if we are only able to create jobs via porky military projects, it means we need to fix the real problem -- job creation in a competitive market.

Your work on environmental issues shows that not only do you care about the environment, but that you see the business potential of green energy. It is inevitable that the entire country will need to go green if the human race is to avoid extinction. Therefore, we ought to be at the forefront of all the business to be done providing the country with expertise, manufacturing, technology, etc. Maybe I am just advocating for pork that is more beneficial to tax payers, delivering higher value than something so odious as Future Combat Systems.

I can not resist the temptation to mention that it is shameful that FCS is going to cost taxpayers upwards of $1 trillion dollars, while failing to deliver results. Actually, the Pentagon is happy to admit that FCS is a flop, but it somehow keeps getting more funding. Meanwhile, troops in Iraq are still missing adequate armor, vehicles are getting junked from heavy use, recruitment is down, etc.

Please continue to lead the charge. It is embarrassing and somewhat outrageous that Democrats have not been able to wage an effective attack against the endless litany of egregious Republican behavior, from stealing (Abramoff), lying (WMD), spying, bribing, gerrymandering, etc. Please don't pull a Hillary and shoot for the middle of the road. Please tell it like it is.

Thanks
Steve Shapero

The Joggers Rule, and some positive ideas for progression

First things first, you NEED to get this album now. It's also available on the iTunes Music store as well. It's by the Joggers, I heard them on KEXP. It sounds like members of Q and not U and Rodan decided to get together and make a brilliant album. It has the loose feel and messy sound of the former with just enough of the form and complexity of the latter to keep you hooked. Speaking of hooks, it's got plenty of pop hooks, lurking behind some unexpected corner, keeping me listening. Gotta have hooks.
NYT article of the day: Matt Bai suggest that much as GM's ossification as a 20th century industrial giant mirrors the ossification of the Democratic party. The latter's inability to offer much-needed change to sacred cow programs like social security is in synch with GM's inability to design a car that people want to buy despite the writing on the wall. Both are stuck in the previous century's rigid bueacratic mindset and have not embraced business 2.0 like Wal*Mart has. Like it or hate it, the world has changed. Deal or become irrelevant.
The endless chicanery, lying, and cheating of the Republican party should have the Dems (or please dear God a third party) winning every local election, but I don't think anyone's noticed that the GOP is Business 2.0 and the rest of them aren't. They are results oriented, and responsive to customers. That's why Bill O'Reilly talks about Christmas to show he's Christian, instead of donating all his wealth to the starving children of the world or calling attention to massacres. Thanks to Thomas Friedman for making the point so much more elequently than I have been able to do thus far. While all these assholes are clawing their way to the top of the holier-than-thou heap, they are the least Christian amongst us.
Bob Herbert also outlines a much more polite list of White House sins.

Spying is more fun than working

Summary: Why is the White House so obsessed with spying on Americans, when the real reason the 9/11 attackers succeeded in slipping through our borders were:

1. Poor communication between different government agencies?
2. The administration consistently ignored warnings by top security advisors of the threat Osama posed
3. The administration wanted to go to war in Iraq, part neo-con fantasy and part oil grab.

Spying is the least of our worries. The present illegal and unconstitutional spying game has yet to produce any tangible results. The US has failed to foil any real terrorist attacks, while the administration relentlessly tells bald-faced lies about their efficacy.

"In the war on terror, we cannot afford to be without this law [Patriot Act] for a single moment," Mr. Bush said forcefully. Yet with the current spy imbroglio, the Administration has once again shown its patent disregard for the law in its search to fulfill its paranoid fantasies. Alberto Gonzales, the infamous torture apologist and current attorney General, claims that the spying and prying provisions of the USA Patriot Act include safeguards -- but what good are they if the Administration feels it is their perogative to ignore the legal process -- which is already a rubber stamp secret court that does nothing but provide a paper trail.

In the meantime, what have we done to secure our ports? Secure our public transit systems? Secure freight train lines (like the 2nd Ave. elevated track that routinely transports chemicals less than a mile from the US Capital building), protect us from chemical attacks, provide adequate support for rapid responders (anyone remember the Katrina fiasco)?

Why is it SO important to be able to spy if there is no concrete action taken to protect us from threats? Of course, the biggest step to protect our country would be to sever ties with repressive terrorist regimes like Saudi Arabia, and to dramatically reduce our dependence on foreign oil from unfriendly nations -- whatever we can't get from Canada or Mexico, we should do without.

Says Bush about the illegal domestic spying program: "our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk. Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemies and endangers our country." Right. Because they didn't know we were trying to listen in before.

In the meantime, our borders are run by incompetents. My fiancee was held at the border for 2 hours because they thought she was illegally living in America. She produced her lease, a bank statement with her name on it, her address in Vancouver, her Canadian passport. The border guards called me to confirm that she didn't live with me. In the meantime, these people are totally untrained when it comes to anything important. And they are not provided with effective watch lists -- the single most powerful tool that can prevent terrorists from illegally entering the US. The 9/11 commission has been hammering this point home. But Bush wants to spy rather then implement an effective policy to stop terrorism. Spying is more fun, because you might catch Marion Barry smoking crack again, or crackpot left wingers like me will be easier to harass at the next WTO rally.

To summarize again even more succinctly, our country is being run into the ground by the useless pet projects of elected officials, while the barn doors are wide open.

We are living in an America where there's a debate about torture, we operate secret prisons, we abuse and occasionally murder inmates, we hold people in jail without trial, we murder innocents in our above-board legal system, an administration that is "pro life" unless you're on death row (and who cares if you're guilty or not), we have prisoners who don't know what they are accused of, where rampant corruption means doling out government contracts to friends of Bush while the Republicans gut Medicaid and Medicare, while they strangle those programs they offer a prescription drug benefit plan where the price can't be negotiated. This isn't laissez-faire capitalism, it's donnez-moi.

We are living in a dysfunctional America where the Executive branch is incompetent for the task of governing and where the legislative branch is completely in the thrall of lobbyist handouts, soaking in the fat of junkets and pork. Our democracy is in a state of utter shambles. And we have the CHTUZPAH to try to export democracy. It's pathetic. It's absurd. We are the laughing stock of the world. A bunch of fat, ignorant fools who don't believe in evolution, who shoot first and ask questions last... We are ungovernable --

Despite spending more per capita than any other nation on health care, we have a life expectancy that is shorter than Costa Rica's. Our government is unable to solve any problem except how to cram more pork into the budget for bridges to nowhere and future combat weapons -- when our military, were it the case that there were any more conventional wars to be fought (which there are not) -- can squash any country like a grape.

The administration buries its head whenever it is confronted by truth, they don't believe in evolution, they don't believe in global warming, all they believe in is greed and profit, stealing from tax-payers for their personal enrichment. And yet no one has seriously tried to impeach the biggest crooks ever to sit in the White House. These guys make Nixon seem like Mr. fucking Rogers. We are fucked and I am angry about it.

Christmas Photos are up

IMG_0277.JPG
Originally uploaded by mr hombre.

Go check 'em out. Xmas at the Soho, Vancouver, 2005... featuring the McGill class of '96, still going strong after all these years. How many of us actuall graduated in '96?