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The Wisdom Of Bush 2000-2007 (Unabridged Edition)
Steve
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Saturday Signs
I stood within sight of this store for several minutes today while I waited for Stella. I can assure
you: the store did not take one single step, and it most certainly never left this continent.
Steve
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More Cats Dead From Bad Food
This time it is
dry food,
Prescription Diet m/d Feline Dry Food, manufactured by Hills. There are two new points in this
article: one, this is the only dry food to appear on the list of contaminated foods, and it has been
voluntarily recalled; two, the contaminant is not rat poison after all, but melamine:
The FDA also said it has identified a contaminant found in wheat gluten in the recalled food as
melamine, a chemical used to make plastics.
Melamine? Don't we eat off of plastic dishes made of that stuff? In the past I've accidentally
overheated a melamine dish in a microwave oven; you don't want to think about the chemical fumes it
emitted. How, exactly, does melamine find its way into wheat gluten? I want to know, because we eat
a lot of wheat gluten.
Apart from my love of cats, I am posting this on a political blog for a reason:
The FDA says it never inspected the plant in Emporia, Kan., source of the contaminated food, until
after animals began dying.
They never inspected it? not even when it opened? I don't know the reason... lack of FDA resources,
necessary priority given to manufacturers of human food, whatever... but this seems to me strong
evidence that yet another federal regulatory agency is broken. I wonder how that happened.
Steve
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Close Gitmo
Even Robert Gates
says we should shut it down.
Guantanamo is in every respect a burden on the United States. It is a blot on our record of
administration of justice in the international arena. It is questionably constitutional. And it is
an outrage to anyone who cares about human rights.
There was no good, legitimate reason in the first place to open Guantanamo as a prison outside the
duly constituted military and civilian systems of justice in the U.S. And there is no good reason to
keep Gitmo open. Gates speaks of the "hard core detainees," of whom he says, "I know that there are
some people down there who if we release them have made very clear they will come back and attack this
country." If so, bring them here, bring charges, and present evidence to a court, military or civilian
as is appropriate, of the threats these prisoners have made. Would any court free them? I don't think
so. In the matter of "hard core detainees" as in every other matter, there is no legitimate reason to
continue holding them at Guantanamo.
And it is ever so important that we bring them before a legitimate court, for the sake of who we are.
The rights in the Bill of Rights are said to be held by "persons" or "people," not just "citizens." In
this matter, we may treat prisoners in an American fashion or an un-American fashion: which will it
be?
Steve
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I See Dead People
Well, the people aren't dead, but their public careers are:
Bush just doesn't get it.
Gonzo doesn't either. Gonzo is walking around, even talking, apparently not realizing his role in
history begins almost immediately:
BOSTON — Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, amid a growing clamor for his resignation, acknowledged
Friday confusion about of his role in firing eight U.S. attorneys but said he doesn't "recall being
involved in deliberations" over which prosecutors were to be ousted.
"I believe in truth and accountability and every step that I've taken is consistent with that
principle," Gonzales said when asked why he is not heeding calls to resign. "I am fighting for the
truth as well."
Gonzales said he had his former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, coordinated performance evaluations for
the 93 U.S. attorneys "to see where changes might be appropriate."
"I signed off on the recommendations and signed off on the implementation plan, and that's the extent
of my involvement," he told reporters after a holding a round-table discussion in the U.S. attorney's
office here with state and federal law enforcement officials about a Justice Department initiative to
thwart online predators.
...
Not quite. Gonzo signed off on the recommendations, signed off on the implementation plan... and then
lied like crazy about having done so.
I don't know the measure of the desperation that has led Bush to continue to express confidence in
perhaps the only AG in history who has a shot at the title "worse than Ashcroft." But unless someone
in the GOP manages to get it through Bush's thick skull just how much damage he is doing by keeping on
public officials who are already known to have lied to Congress and the American people, we may see
even the bitter-enders among Bush supporters looking for the life rafts.
If I have to play the morbid game of political career deathwatch, I'll place my bets on our seeing
Gonzales "resign" next Friday... only because it's too late today.
Steve
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Three From The Muck
TPM
and
TPMMuckraker
offer several items of interest on the US Attorney business and the presidential race:
If you have the stomach for it, there's also a video of talking heads discussing a poll about Bill
Clinton and his possible rehabilitation. (Sorry; I refuse to link to that.) It's lots of laughs for
conservative pundits, but somehow they never get around to discussing Newt Gingrich's peccadilloes,
and whether he has reformed himself. Here's a clue for the on-air babblers: Newt Gingrich is running
for president. Bill Clinton is not. The Clenis™ can be brought up anytime, but it can't fill
your base desires forever.
Steve
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Friday Mutual Bath Blogging
When these two are friendly, there's nothing they won't do for each other.
Steve
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Voter Fraud Fraud
Sic. Sick, actually.
Brennan Center for Justice (NYU)
executive director Michael Waldman and attorney Justin Levitt have emphatically reminded us in a
Washington Post article
of what most honest people already knew: the concept of widespread individual voter fraud is itself
a fraud. Before presenting the basic evidence of absence of evidence (thanks, Rummy; we can laugh
at you now) for widespread fraud, Waldman and Levitt offer this assertion:
Firing a prosecutor for failing to find wide voter fraud is like firing a park ranger for failing to
find Sasquatch.
(That's not quite as funny when you consider the changes made by Bush administration political
appointees to the conclusions of government-sponsored scientific research. Next week's Fox News
headline: "Sasquatch Attempts to Vote in Alaska!!!")
Waldman and Levitt discuss evidence that all the various voter ID laws such as proof-of-citizenship
requirements are sufficiently financially burdensome on lower-income citizens to prevent their voting
at all. After all, that is the point, right? Probable Democratic votes must be squelched at all costs.
But if true voter fraud were to be committed, where would it come from?
Congress should use this controversy as an opportunity to address true issues of voter protection.
Experts have concluded that the most significant threat of fraud comes from electronic voting systems,
now used by 80 percent of voters. Legislation introduced by Reps. Rush D. Holt (D-N.J.) and Thomas
M. Davis III (R-Va.) would require a voter-verified record along with random audits to double-check
against tampering. It would also bar wireless components from machines that could allow a hacker using
a PDA to stage an attack. Lawmakers should also immediately stop pushing ID measures that would turn
away legitimate voters.
(Emphasis mine.)
Remind me... which party's supporters own all of the electronic voting system companies? and to which
party do they make substantial contributions?
Steve
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More On NYPD In 2004
If you haven't already read my
earlier post
on the subject, please read it, so I won't have to repeat myself.
Whatever you may think of TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat... formerly Armando on Kos... please read his
post
on the subject of NYPD's spying on protesters at the 2004 GOP convention, and, according to Big Tent
Democrat, Bloomberg's involvement in that spying. While you're there, read the first comment, by one
conchita,
who discusses the matter from the perspective of a NYC resident near the area most dramatically
impacted by police behavior during the convention:
...
i live on 30th street a block away from madison square garden. during the convention my block and the
surrounding neighborhood became a police state. i couldn't even walk my dog down some blocks. i was
told to move on and physically shoved because i stood for too long in front of the korean market at
29th and 8th one evening. the people and the businesses in the neighborhood were completely
disrepected. in a nutshell we were occupied. you couldn't enter my block without showing an id to
prove you lived there.
...
the nypd hasn't stopped since. it has become routine to see 20 police cars careening down a busy
avenue with sirens blasting - and not just squad cars, but suvs,etc., all purchased around the time of
the convention. the nypd is out of control.
...
...
I, for one, could not live like that. I'd move. For the record: Houston hosted the GOP convention in
1992. As unpleasant as I found the whole business, I remember nothing at all like this happening. In
this case, it is NYC we're talking about, and people there are often stronger than I could ever be in
the face of indignities I'd never put up with.
But they shouldn't have to put up with this. Some things are outside the pale in America. This is such
a thing. If any or all of this is true, there must be an investigation, and if appropriate, there must
be charges, and consequences. An American's right to question the validity, veracity and goodwill of
the current government in charge is time-honored, and must never be infringed. This is not, or at
least should not be, a partisan issue; the venerable Theodore Roosevelt had
something to say about it:
To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the
president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the
American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more
important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.
Whether or not T. Roosevelt really believed that... one wonders... I believe that. My thanks to all
the New Yorkers who challenged this crap in 2004, and who apparently put up with the consequences to
this day.
Steve
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Bill Moyers Inspires Us Again
Need I say more? In a speech titled
A Time For Anger, A Call To Action,
delivered last week at Occidental College in Los Angeles, Moyers does what he does best... inspires us
to pursue right action through whatever religious or philosophical tradition suits us. He points to a
half dozen times in history at which deeply, essentially people-driven movements have deflected
America from its headlong rush toward submission to wealthy, powerful, antidemocratic forces. He
reminds us that we live in another such perilous time... and that we can do what needs to be done. As
Moyers emphasizes, repeating three times with different emphasis,
The only answer to organized money
is organized people.
Word. Speaking of "word," actually, Moyers spends much of his speech discussing his own response,
couched in his own Christian tradition, encouraging people of faith... their own faith, not
necessarily his... to pursue that organization as a matter of right action. I have a few problems
with the term "faith": often as not, it means "belief in the absence of evidence," and my position on
that is not far different from that of Bertrand Russell in
Why I Am Not a Christian.
But I do not think Moyers uses the term only in that way, and if he is willing to accommodate a usage
of "faith" that means "an abiding sense in the core of one's being that even truly horrible wrongs
can be righted," I'll go along with him on that choice of word.
As you may have noticed, I am not posting as often these days. There are many reasons for that, not
least among them my ongoing feelings of physical exhaustion, as if after a long, hard run. We have
all engaged in a hell of a run over the past six or seven years, and I am unsurprised at the toll it
has taken on my sense of physical wellbeing. The emotional reaction I experience in response to this
exhaustion... I'm sure many of you have felt the same... is, "It's too much. I can't do this alone."
Moyers reminds me... reminds us... so what? You don't have to. There are many of us who share
essential values, many of us who think that it does make a difference whether the people of America
and the world are absorbed into the belly of the great, impersonal, imperial beast, or are given the
opportunity to live as free women and men, free not only of totalitarian government but of the onus
of grinding poverty and persistent, deliberately or uncaringly imposed inequality of opportunity, free
of the inevitable human consequences of environmental depredations committed in the interest of
short-term wealth, and most especially, free of that greatest weapon that can be wielded against us, as
FDR noted: fear itself.
"Fear not." "No fear." "Fear is the mind-killer." Express it however you wish... then live it. We have
a world to save.
Steve
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Game On
Via FDL...
the Senate is on board
with an Iraq timetable. WaPo:
The Senate today narrowly endorsed a Democratic-led effort to set a timetable for the withdrawal of
U.S. forces from Iraq a year from now, voting down a Republican amendment that would have stripped the
provision from a $122 emergency spending bill.
Senators voted 50 to 48 to reject the amendment, which was introduced by Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.),
the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
...
Democrats (and a few GOPers) to Bush: VETO THIS!
Steve
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In Your Face
(H/T The Countess,
who found it at
Boing Boing.
I believe you can now get a T-shirt or a sticker, though I doubt I'll do that.)
Steve
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Did Justice Tamper In Phone-Jamming Case?
Via
Huffington Post,
from
NPR,
we learn that the Justice Department may have interfered in the New Hampshire phone-jamming case,
and Democrats want Congress to investigate. Follow the NPR link and listen to the segment by Peter
Overby for background on the case and details of the allegations that Justice slow-walked some charges
until after the 2004 elections. It certainly appears as if eight fired US Attorneys are by no means
the full extent of Justice's involvement in partisan politics.
(Minor change made after initial posting, to clarify a point.)
Steve
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I Want To Be A Part Of It - UPDATED
... New York, New York:
City Asks Court Not to Unseal Police Spy Files
By JIM DWYER
Published: March 26, 2007
Lawyers for the city, responding to a request to unseal records of police surveillance leading up to
the 2004 Republican convention in New York, say that the documents should remain secret because the
news media will “fixate upon and sensationalize them,” hurting the city’s ability to defend itself in
lawsuits over mass arrests.
In papers filed in federal court last week, the city’s lawyers also say that the documents could be
“misinterpreted” because they were not intended for the public.
“The documents were not written for consumption by the general public,” wrote Peter Farrell, senior
counsel in the city’s Law Department. “The documents contain information filtered and distilled for
analysis by intelligence officers accustomed to reading intelligence information.”
Because the materials have not yet been used to decide or argue any issues in the civil lawsuits, Mr.
Farrell said, “there is no right of public access.”
...
The documents are not used to decide or argue any issues? Really? I'd have thought that, if nothing
else, these documents might address the city's, or at least the NYPD's, intent in possibly illegal
surveillance of groups for which there was no a priori evidence of illegal action. Considering
what was done in the name of New Yorkers, I'd think a lot of them would be singing "I want to be a
part of it." After all, they'll be footing the bill if the city loses those lawsuits.
The Big Apple would be better off revealing its rotten spots right now. The longer they cover this,
the more likely it is that the information will become public anyway, rendering their stonewalling
even more of a liability when the lawsuits start rolling in. Even today's court system will cast an
unfriendly eye on a governmental entity that answers the classic question
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
with a blunt "Nobody... ever!"
At least one group mentioned in the linked article displayed a better sense of humor about being
investigated than I would have:
One group that learned it had been the subject of an intelligence report, Billionaires for Bush,
offered a lighthearted response to the news. The group, a satirical troupe, dresses in tuxedos and
gowns to provide faux endorsements of the administration.
Marco Ceglie, a national co-chairman who performs as Monet Oliver DePlace, said a member of the group
known as Meg A. Buck had issued a statement: “We suspect they were looking for stock tips.”
Monet Oliver DePlace. Right. That's part of the problem. The other part is
Georges-Ruth LesPower.
UPDATE:
It gets worse:
a federal judge rules the documents stay secret; the city accuses the NYCLU of leaking the documents
to the NYT, etc. etc.
Steve
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Web Host Outage
My web host went down sometime this morning (I don't know the exact time) when a routine database
restart failed. Apologies to any of you who came by intending to determine just how long the YDD can
go without posting new material; you were prevented from discovering that I haven't posted anything
new since Saturday. I think everything is working again.
Steve
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Saturday Signs - Late Night Edition
What sort of emergency do you get when you call that number? Fire? flood? attack by unknown alien
forces?
Steve
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It's Enough To Gag You
A recipient of an FBI national security letter
speaks out anonymously
because of the associated gag order. Read the whole thing; it's short, but quite enough to make you
gag.
(H/T War and Piece,
whose essay on the subject is well worth reading.)
Steve
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Big Surprise: Gonzo Lied
AP:
Documents Show Gonzales Approved Firings
Mar 24, 9:43 AM (ET)
By LARA JAKES JORDAN
WASHINGTON (AP) - Last week, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said he was not involved in any
discussions about the impending dismissals of U.S. attorneys.
On Friday night, however, the Justice Department revealed Gonzales' participation in a Nov. 27 meeting
where such plans were discussed.
The firings of eight prosecutors has since led to a political firestorm and calls for his ouster.
At that meeting, the attorney general and at least five top Justice Department officials discussed a
five-step plan for carrying out the firings of the prosecutors, Gonzales' aides said late Friday.
There, Gonzales signed off on the plan, which was drafted by his chief of staff, Kyle Sampson. Sampson
resigned last week.
...
I'm shocked. I never thought that such a partisan hack high-minded public servant would
resort to prevarication to achieve mere political ends. I'm shocked, I tell you. Aren't you?
Steve
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Friday Cheesecake Blogging
Every blog needs to put up a bit of cheesecake from time to time, just to crank up the hit counter a
bit. I can't help it if some of us are so literal-minded that the cheesecake is... well... cheesecake:
Stella defends her cheesecake against imminent capture by Tabitha and Samantha, simultaneously
providing a scene of cat-on-human that FORMER Sen. Ricky Santorum could appreciate.
Steve
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Selected Links To Recent Posts
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Astonishing Even For 'Them'
Steve
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Two Kinds Of Bad News - UPDATED
Steve
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Why Was David Iglesias Fired?
Steve
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John Backus 1924-2007
Steve
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Brief Involuntary Blog Break
Steve
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True Believers
Steve
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When Irish Signs Are Tiling
Steve
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Did Sen. Clinton Lie?
Steve
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Friday Chat Blogging
Steve
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Revels In The Cheerful Spring
Steve
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Hillary Clinton: Stay In Iraq
Steve
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Bonin On Campaign Reform And Blogs
Steve
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Gonzo Is Dismayed?
Steve
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Red-Handed: White House Did It - UPDATED
Steve
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New Victory In War On Poor
Steve
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Whose Subpoena's Longer?
Steve
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Microsoft Malware
Steve
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Saturday Signs
Steve
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Friday Crowded Cat Blogging - UPDATED
Steve
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Tenth Anniversary
Steve
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Four Out Of Five
Steve
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Anniversary Trip
Steve
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Cheney's Blood Clot
Steve
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Trial-Size Snack
Steve
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Potty-Mouthed Incivility
Steve
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Saturday Signs
Steve
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Muck, Rakes, And Fired Prosecutors
Steve
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Against Bipartisanship
Steve
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Break-In Breakdown
Steve
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Friday Mat Blogging
Steve
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Our Great Adventure Wednesday
Steve
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Better the occasional faults of a government that lives
in a spirit of charity than the constant omissions of a
government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
- FDR
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- Paul Wellstone
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