Another socialist blog

Last week a subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce approved H.R. 964, the Spy Act. It’s supposedly a law designed to protect you and me from spyware, but it should more really be called the Yes! You Can Spy Act. It legalizes the use of spyware by any company you do business with. Computer makers would be free to load spyware on a machine before delivering it to you. The federal bill would preempt any stronger state laws. And it takes away any private right to sue companies that use spyware against you.

Democrats who try to package themselves as pro-security are going to have a hard time defending a vote for this bill. Spyware opens up your computer—yes, the computer you used to prepare your tax return, the computer you use when you send your credit card information to online merchants—to anyone, without notice, without consent. Republicans, the perennial defenders of states’ rights, are doubly hypocritical, since they take away the right of states to give stronger protection to their citizens.

This is a contemptible giveaway to corporations, entirely at your expense. Embarrass your Representative about it.

Among the excuses for going to war against both Afghanistan and Iraq was the perennial claim that we were bringing them freedom from tyranny. This many years since the wars began, it’s fair to look at the state of freedom there, don’t you think?

In Afghanistan, the parliament brought to power by the U.S. occupation is poised to pass a new law that will censor the press. In the name of “respect for Islamic values,” politicians will be able to silence those who would, among other things, poke fun at them.

Meanwhile, U.S. occupation forces in Iraq are building a wall creating a Sunni ghetto in Baghdad, over the loud objections of the people who we have freed from tyranny other than our own. Typically, U.S. forces began construction under cover of darkness, apparently hoping that a wall twelve feet high and three miles long would not be noticed.

Bill Maher isn’t always right, but when he’s right, he’s really right. In his April 13 show he took to task the anti-intellectualism of the Bush administration in his “New Rules” segment.

Now that liberals have taken back the word, “liberal,” they also have to take back the word, “elite.” By now, you’ve heard the constant right-wing attacks on the “elite” media and the liberal “elite,” who may or may not be part of the Washington “elite,” a subset of the East Coast “elite,” which is overly influenced by the Hollywood “elite.” So, basically, unless you’re a shit-kicker from Kansas, you’re with the terrorists.

You know, if you played a drinking game where you did a shot every time Rush Limbaugh attacked someone for being elite, you’d almost be as wasted as Rush Limbaugh.

I - I don’t get it. In other fields outside of government, “elite” is a good thing, like an “elite” fighting force; Tiger Woods is an “elite” golfer. If I need brain surgery, I’d like an “elite” doctor. But, in politics, “elite” is bad. The “elite” aren’t down to earth and accessible like you and me and President Shit-for-brains. [He said this while sitting across a desk from Scott McClellan.–DD]

Which is fine, except that whenever there’s a Bush Administration scandal, it always traces back to some incompetent political hack appointment, and you think to yourself, where are they getting these screw-ups from? Well, now we know. From Pat Robertson. I’m not kidding.

Take Monica Goodling, who, before she resigned last week, because she’s smack in the middle of the U.S. Attorneys scandal, was the third-ranking official in the Justice Department of the United States. She’s 33 years old. And though she never even worked as a prosecutor, she was tasked with overseeing the job performance of all 93 U.S. Attorneys.

How do you get to the top that fast? Harvard? Princeton? No, Goodling did her undergraduate work at Messiah College. You know, Messiah, home of the Fighting Christ-ies? And then went on to attend Pat Robertson’s law school. Yes, Pat Robertson, the man who said that the presence of gay people at Disney World would cause earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor, has a law school.

And what kid wouldn’t want to attend? It’s three years, and you only have to read one book. U.S. News & World Report, which does the definitive ranking of colleges, lists Regent as a Tier Four school, which is the lowest score it gives. It’s not a hard school to get into. You have to renounce Satan and draw a pirate on a matchbook.

This is for people who couldn’t get into the University of Phoenix.

Now, would you care to guess how many graduates of this televangelist’s diploma mill work in the Bush Administration? 150. And you wonder why things are so messed up. We’re talking about a top Justice Department official who went to a college funded by a TV host. Would you send your daughter to Maury Povich U.? And if you did, would you expect her to get a job at the White House?

In 200 years, we’ve gone from “We, the people,” to “Up With People.” From “the best and the brightest” to “dumb and dumber.” And where better to find people dumb enough to believe in George Bush than Pat Robertson’s law school?

The problem here in America isn’t that the country is being run by “elites.” It’s that it’s being run by a bunch of hayseeds. And, by the way, the lawyer Monica Goodling just hired to keep her ass out of jail, went to a real law school.

It’s now clear that Alberto Gonzales is not just a liar, but a brazen liar who thinks he can protect his job (or at least his future pardon chances) if he sticks to his unbelievable story about the political firings of eight U.S. Attorneys. Let’s run through an incomplete list of the whoppers that Justice Department officials have been telling us.

• Jan. 18, 2007: Gonzales testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee: “I would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney position for political reasons, or if it would in any way jeopardize an ongoing serious investigation.” You could believe that, but you would have to ignore some suspicious facts about these fired U.S. attorneys.
  • David Iglesias of Albuquerque told lawmakers that he “felt leaned on” by Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson, who wanted him to indict Democrats before election day 2006.
  • Carol Lam of San Diego, prosecuted former Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, now in federal prison for accepting bribes. She had a very positive 2005 performance review, calling her “an effective manager and respected leader.” She was also involved in an ongoing serious investigation, continuing the probe of defense contracting that began with Rep. Cunningham.
  • John McKay of Seattle said he stopped a top aide to Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA) from asking him detailed questions about an investigation into the disputed election of Washington state’s Democratic governor, Christine Gregoire, in 2004.

  If you choose to believe Gonzales when he claims the firings weren’t political, you have to wonder about all the other lies told in the cause of convincing us.

• Feb. 6, 2007: Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee: “In every single case where a United States attorney position is vacant, the administration is committed to filling that position with the United States attorney who is confirmed by the Senate.” He repeated that tale today despite an email from Kyle Sampson, his former chief of staff, saying the exact opposite. The email tells how the office intended to use the USA-PATRIOT act to appoint replacements without Senate confirmation. The very existence of that provision in the law is reason to believe the administration wants to dispense with advise and consent by Congress. Probably not what the Senators wanted to hear.
• Feb. 23, 2007: Acting Assistant Attorney General Richard Hertling sends several members of Congress a letter saying, in part, “The [Justice] Department is not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint Mr. Griffin.” On March 28 the Justice Department itself tells Congress that letter is “contradicted by Department documents.” Perhaps those documents include an email from Gonzales’ chief of staff saying they are “still waiting for a green light from the White House” before firing the U.S. attorneys. Of course Rove is involved. And if Rove is involved, of course the operation is political.
• March 13, 2007: Gonzales give the dog-ate-my-homework excuse, insisting that he knew nothing, nnnnothing, about what was going on in the Department of which he is in charge. “I never saw documents. We never had a discussion about where things stood.” When Gonzales attended an hour-long meeting to discuss the matter on November 27, 2006, he perhaps was not paying attention?

Those who call for Gonzales to resign, and they are legion, are missing the point entirely. The fact that the Attorney General is a crook is scandalous, but not as scandalous as the fact that the President has known and tolerated unethical conduct at Justice. And even that is not nearly as scandalous as the likelihood that the President gave the orders. You can take out the Cabinet trash, but the White House will still stink when you’re done. Whoever claims outrage at the conduct of the Attorney General should be calling, not for his resignation, but for the impeachment of the President and Vice President.

So there we were, watching the 2000 Presidential campaign, and over and over we listened to George W. Bush talk about how he was going to bring “honor and dignity” back to the White House. I can’t think of a more significant pack of lies told in my lifetime. And I’m old enough to have heard Richard Nixon say “I am not a crook” on the evening news.

Like Nixon, Bush seems to have surrounded himself with criminals. Now that Louis “Scooter” Libby is a convicted felon, and Rove and Cheney are clearly identified as unindicted co-conspirators, it’s a good time to remember how many conservatives have held up George Bush as not just a moral leader, but a moral example. Indeed.

And what a blessing it is to have a moral leader at the helm as we continue to make war against Afghanistan, the war that Bush says God told him to start. On March 4th an American patrol was attacked near Jalalabad, and reacted by shooting indiscriminately into a crowd of civilians. Twenty civilians not involved in the original attack were killed and thirty more were wounded. Adding insult to injury, American troops threatened reporters covering the story and confiscated film and video of the dead civilians. This is not the way people behave when a moral leader is Commander in Chief. Rather, this is the way people behave when the know they have committed a crime and they are desperate to destroy the evidence. This is not the first atrocity committed by U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Lest you think these were isolated incidents, don’t forget the murder of Nicola Calipari, an Italian, by U.S. solders in Iraq. Journalist Giuliana Sgrena was wounded in the attack, and has been adamant that the soldiers were not acting in self-defense, nor even manning a checkpoint as they have claimed. The Italian government has indicted a U.S. serviceman, Mario Lozano, in the shooting. Italian authorities have complained that the U.S. has refused to cooperate in the investigation and have refused to deliver Lozano to stand trial.

So basically we have a government of people who constantly proclaim the rule of law even as they are breaking the law, constantly tell us they are protecting us from thugs and murderers, while conducting themselves like thugs and murderers. And on the evidence, they are going to get away with it.