Switching databases...

Quote of note:

The changes, however, signal that Chairman Dexter Scott King is now firmly in control of the King Center after a power struggle with his older brother. The struggle was over the future of the center, which is one of the city's most visited sites.

"The conflict really was over the sale of the center, and that part has been resolved," said former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, who serves on the King Center board. Young said he favors selling the center because it is "a valuable community asset that needs to be protected and preserved, and the best vehicle for preserving it is the federal government. Coretta understood that one day the center would be turned over to the Park Service."

King Center may be sold to feds
Board of landmark weighs sale to Park Service, signaling shift in power struggle over its future
By MARIA SAPORTA , ERNIE SUGGS
The Atlanta Journal-Co
Published on: 12/23/05

The board of the King Center is exploring the possible sale of the Atlanta civil rights landmark to the National Park Service, the center announced Thursday.

This is surprising. A man who worries about man-on-dog sex obviously doesn't believe in evolution. He shouldn't be holding back for obviously political resons.

Senator to Cut Ties Over Evolution Lawsuit
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 22 (AP) - Senator Rick Santorum said Wednesday that he would withdraw his affiliation with the Thomas More Law Center, which had defended the Dover Area School District's policy mandating the teaching of intelligent design in science classes dealing with evolution.

Mr. Santorum, Republican of Pennsylvania, earlier praised the district for "attempting to teach the controversy of evolution."

I will get to Charles Krauthammer's argument...but first I think it a good idea to get to his bottom line. Like George Will earlier this week be buried it at the bottom of Impeachment Nonsense.

I am skeptical of Gonzales's argument -- it implies an almost limitless expansion of the idea of "use of force"...

Contrary to the administration, I also believe that as a matter of political prudence and comity with Congress, Bush should have tried to get the law changed rather than circumvent it. This was an error of political judgment. But that does not make it a crime. And only the most brazen and reckless partisan could pretend it is anything approaching a high crime and misdemeanor.

I can stop with this, actually. Krauthammer admits Bush "circumvented" the law. His declaration in the next sentence that breaking the law is not a crime when Bush does it is an even more spacious an expansion of Presidential power than Gonzales implies.

But just for the hell of it...

Non-reason reasoning of note:

"The fact is that a six-month extension, in my opinion, would have simply allowed the Senate to duck the issue until the last week in June," said Sensenbrenner, who had largely prevailed in negotiations with the Senate on a new version of the anti-terrorism law, only to see the compromise blocked by a Senate filibuster. "Now they came pretty close to wrecking everybody's Christmas. I didn't want to put the entire Congress in the position of them wrecking everybody's Independence Day."

It's not Independence Day he's worried about; it's Election Day. 

Patriot Act Extension Is Reduced To a Month
House Action Overcomes Senate's Longer Reprieve
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 23, 2005; A01

Then I found out abot Texas' abortion and STD rates.

Air Force Academy Shows Improvement
Rigorous Training Credited for Decrease in Reported Cases of Sexual Misconduct

By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 23, 2005; A02

Cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy reported far fewer incidents of sexual assault, sexual harassment and sexist behavior last year than students at the military and naval academies, reflecting what defense officials say is a rigorous training program aimed at preventing sexual misconduct after serious problems at the Colorado campus.

Jury Rules Wal-Mart Must Pay $172 Million Over Meal Breaks
By LISA ALCALAY KLUG

BERKELEY, Calif., Dec. 22 - A California jury on Thursday ordered Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, to pay $172 million in damages for failing to provide meal breaks to nearly 116,000 hourly workers as required under state law.

The verdict came after a trial that lasted more than three months in a class-action suit filed at Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland.

The suit, filed on behalf of employees of Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores in California, argued that the chain violated state law more than eight million times from Jan. 1, 2001, to May 6, 2005, said the plaintiffs' lawyer, Jessica Grant of the Furth Firm of San Francisco.

Via MetaFilter thru Think Progress

VIDEO: Fox Affiliate Airs Ode to White Supremacist Site

Fox affiliate “FOX Carolina” last month ran a one-sided fluff piece exploring StormFront.org, an online hub for white supremacists.

The Anti-Defamation League describes StormFront as a “veritable supermarket of online hate, stocking its shelves with many forms of anti-Semitism and racism.” Yet not a single critical voice is included in the Fox story — only StormFront members and moderators are included.

ThinkProgress has acquired the video of the segment. (Note: the clip is “annotated” with text commentary by StormFront members.) Watch it:(Quicktime).

to  BlairWatch

who discovered at least one member of the Fox affiliate's news staff joined the Stormfront forum

and Crooks and Liars,

who ventured into the discussion of the fluff piece at Stormfront so you don't have to

which last links to Jesus' General, who exposed the sore to air and light.

This morning I wrote

Your third option is informal Congressional oversight. You could pull a few senior members of Congress into your office and you could say: "Look, given the fast-moving nature of this conflict, there is no way we can codify rules about what is permissible and impermissible. Instead we will create a social contract. I'll trust you by telling you everything we are doing to combat terror. You'll trust me enough to give me the flexibility I need to keep the country safe. If we have disagreements, we will work them out in private."

Translated from SpinSpeak..."Follow the procedures set forth in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act."

I was wrong.

These are the types of posts no one likes to do.  I won't say anything about life, loss or perspective.  There really isn't much to say, but I thought you all should know.

By The Indianapolis Star
The 18-year-old son of Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy died in Florida, authorities said today.
 
His girlfriend found James A. Dungy, 18, dead in a Tampa-area apartment. He was pronounced dead at University Community Hospital, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Department said in a news release.  The first deputy to arrive performed CPR and he was taken to a local hospital, where James Dungy was pronounced dead.  The cause of death remains under investigation and an autopsy is pending by the Hillsborough County Medical Examiners Office.

Quote of note:

This is one of those quips that distill a certain essence of the game. In this era of on-message orthodoxy, the republic has evolved to where the leader of the free world can praise his most visible spokesman for saying nothing.

Unanswer Man
Scott McClellan Is the President's Spokesman, Which Doesn't Leave Him Much to Say
By Mark Leibovich
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 22, 2005; C01

On the Thursday morning after his reelection in November 2004, President Bush bounded unexpectedly into the Roosevelt Room of the White House, where about 15 members of his communications team were celebrating. He just wanted to thank everyone for their hard work on the campaign, he said, before singling someone out.

Quote of note:

The scientists, who work for government agencies in Britain and the United States, made the finding after adding satellite-based measurements of haze to computer models estimating the consequences of industrial emissions of aerosols, or airborne particles.

Pollution May Slow Warming; Cleaner Air May Speed It, Study Says
By BLOOMBERG NEWS

Pollution may be slowing global warming, researchers are reporting today, and a cleaner environment may soon speed it up.

Writing in the journal Nature, an international scientific team provides evidence suggesting that a reduction in haze from human causes may accelerate warming of the earth's atmosphere. The researchers said pollutants had held down the rate of global warming by absorbing and scattering sunlight.

In [TS] Op-Ed Columnist: When Big Brother Is You, Mr. Brooks says a fictional President (as good a description of George W. Bush as I've ever heard) would have three options, which I will translate from SpinSpeak, the native tongue of Punditovia and/or respond to:

First, you can ask Congress to rewrite the FISA law to keep pace with the new technologies. This has some drawbacks. How exactly do you write a law to cope with this fast-changing information war?

With a pen?

Translated from SpinSpeak, he's asking "what procedure capable of giving the intelligence community, military and law enforcement access to needed information while preserving the privacy of law abiding citizens is even possible?" I suggest we allow the intelligence community to begin surveillance as soon as they have probable cause, with a requirement that they present said cause to a review panel within a reasonable period of time...say, oh, three days. If we're actually at war you can give them up to five times longer.

As long as it's an elective course.

Look, you're not going to make Texas sane. They're too far gone. The best you can hope for is that people who escape aren't too damaged to function in the real world.

Texas District Adopts Disputed Text on Bible Study
By BARBARA NOVOVITCH

ODESSA, Tex., Dec. 21 -Trustees of the Ector County Independent School District here decided, 4 to 2, on Tuesday night that high school students would use a course published by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools for studying the Bible in history and literature.

The council is a religious advocacy group in Greensboro, N.C., and has the backing of the Eagle Forum and Focus on the Family, two conservative organizations.

Quote of note:

Activists, however, say that police officers masquerading as protesters and bicycle riders distort their messages and provoke trouble.

True. 

Beyond collecting information, some of the undercover officers or their associates are seen on the tape having influence on events. At a demonstration last year during the Republican National Convention, the sham arrest of a man secretly working with the police led to a bruising confrontation between officers in riot gear and bystanders.

See? What the hell was the justification for a sham arrest? 

Until Sept. 11, the secret monitoring of events where people expressed their opinions was among the most tightly limited of police powers.

And now we see why. Again.

Mr. Browne, the police spokesman, said the department did not increase its surveillance of political groups when the restrictions were eased. The powers obtained after Sept. 11 have been used exclusively "to investigate and thwart terrorists," Mr. Browne said.

Lies. Remember...

At a demonstration last year during the Republican National Convention, the sham arrest of a man secretly working with the police led to a bruising confrontation between officers in riot gear and bystanders.

New York Police Covertly Join In at Protest Rallies
By JIM DWYER

Quote of note:

"We feel no joy in the knowledge that these two men are fired," Bruno said. "By the same token, my client is on record that these two men should have never been permitted to serve as police officers in the first place."

Davis has said he has not had a drink in 25 years. Police did not administer a sobriety test at the scene or at the hospital where Davis was treated for a fractured cheekbone, a broken nose and cuts.

Police officials have suggested that the stress shouldered by many officers after the hurricane might have contributed to the incident. As much as three-quarters of the force was left homeless.

2 New Orleans Police Fired in Beating
One officer is suspended in the French Quarter incident, which involved an unarmed man.
By Scott Gold
Times Staff Writer

December 22, 2005

NEW ORLEANS — The New Orleans Police Department said Wednesday that it had fired two officers involved in the beating of an unarmed man who said he had gone out for cigarettes when he was accosted on Bourbon Street.

Quote of note: 

But the entity he swore to "preserve, protect and defend" isn’t the homeland per se — but the Constitution itself.

Spying, the Constitution — and the ‘I-word’
2006 will offer up Nixon-era nastiness and a chorus of calls to impeach Bush
By Howard Fineman
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 4:01 p.m. ET Dec. 21, 2005

WASHINGTON - In the first weeks and months after 9/11, I am told by a very good source, there was a lot of wishing out loud in the White House Situation Room about expanding the National Security Agency’s ability to instantly monitor phone calls and e-mails between American callers and possible terror suspects abroad. “We talked a lot about how useful that would be,” said this source, who was “in the room” in the critical period after the attacks.

Senate rejects drilling in Alaska wildlife refuge
Republicans fail to garner enough support to avoid threat of filibuster
The Associated Press
Updated: 2:41 p.m. ET Dec. 21, 2005

WASHINGTON - The Senate blocked oil drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge Wednesday, rejecting a must-pass defense spending bill where supporters positioned the quarter-century-old environmental issue to garner broader support.

Drilling backers fell four votes short of getting the required 60 votes to avoid a threatened filibuster of the defense measure over the oil drilling issue. Senate leaders were expected to withdraw the legislation so it could be reworked without the refuge language. The vote was 56-44.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was among those who for procedural reasons cast a “no” vote, so that he could bring the drilling issue up for another vote.

Quote of note:

I have to ask why liquor stores, and not Starbucks, are booming in our neighborhoods. People come to these neighborhoods from miles around certainly not for the lattes. Store owners say they're just serving a demand -- that the real poisoners are drug dealers hanging around these stores just as much as the winos. But the notion of "discount liquor" sounds like drugs at a deal. So maybe the planning department shouldn't be putting so many of these drug dealers all in one place. The department needs, instead, to approve more real grocery stores and other businesses that build the community, not profit from -- and contribute to -- its decline.

Anyi Howell is a reporter for Youth Radio, an award-winning journalism training program in the Bay Area.

Why so many liquor stores?
- Anyi Howell
Wednesday, December 21, 2005

When I was little and my dad drove around with me near our house in West Oakland, he used to point out how many liquor stores and churches were right across the street from each another. Riding with him through a city like Oakland, we could almost make a game of it. But I didn't know if he would find the game funny, so I never brought it up.

I've noticed the same thing in low-income neighborhoods from San Francisco to Seattle to Washington. I asked my uncle how there could be as many liquor stores as churches. He replied, "Because they want us to live life on our knees."

CIA Chief Admits To Torture After Six-Hour Beating, Electrocution

December 21, 2005 | Issue 41•51

LANGLEY, VA—An internal CIA investigation into the possible use of illegal and inhumane interrogation techniques produced a confession from CIA director Porter Goss Monday, with the aid of waterboarding, food and light deprivation, and the application of wire hangers hooked to a car battery to the testicles. "I did it. We did it. We all did it. The president knew. The president did it. Please, God, please stop," said a voice identified as Goss' on recordings produced by CIA auditors.

Conservative Scholars Argue Bush’s Wiretapping Is An Impeachable Offense

Conservative scholars Bruce Fein and Norm Ornstein argued yesterday on The Diane Rehm show that, should Bush remain defiant in defending his constitutionally-abusive wire-tapping of Americans (as he has indicated he will), Congress should consider impeaching him.

QUESTION: Is spying on the American people as impeachable an offense as lying about having sex with an intern?

BRUCE FEIN, constitutional scholar and former deputy attorney general in the Reagan Administration: I think the answer requires at least in part considering what the occupant of the presidency says in the aftermath of wrongdoing or rectification. On its face, if President Bush is totally unapologetic and says I continue to maintain that as a war-time President I can do anything I want – I don’t need to consult any other branches – that is an impeachable offense. It’s more dangerous than Clinton’s lying under oath because it jeopardizes our democratic dispensation and civil liberties for the ages. It would set a precedent that … would lie around like a loaded gun, able to be used indefinitely for any future occupant.

NORM ORNSTEIN, AEI scholar: I think if we’re going to be intellectually honest here, this really is the kind of thing that Alexander Hamilton was referring to when impeachment was discussed.

(Listen to The Diane Rehm show here. The segment above begins at 33:40)

Warrantless Spying Apologetics Continue

Concern over President Bush's warrantless domestic spying program is growing. U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret FISA Court, took the extraordinary step of resigning on Monday "in protest of President Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying program." Associates of Judge Robertson, who was appointed to the court by late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, said he had "privately expressed deep concern that the warrantless surveillance program authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable and may have tainted the FISA court's work." Also yesterday, a bipartisan group of senators, including Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), called "for a joint investigation by the Senate judiciary and intelligence panels into the classified program."

Quote of note:

Russ Knocke, spokesman for Chertoff, said it was "categorically not the case" that Chertoff made those remarks.

What else would he say?

Chertoff: FEMA Changes Could Be Radical
Wednesday December 21, 2005 1:46 AM
By LARRY MARGASAK and LARA JAKES JORDAN
Associated Press Writers

 

WASHINGTON (AP) - Meeting notes, released Tuesday by a union representative for federal emergency workers, stated that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told employees that many changes planned after Hurricane Katrina were for publicity purposes.

Chertoff's spokesman firmly denied he ever made such comments.

Rawls: 'Don't count me out'

Lou Rawls is battling lung and brain cancer, but the You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine singer remains upbeat, reports The Philadelphia Inquirer.

''Don't count me out, brother,'' Rawls said from his room at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. 'There's been many people who have been diagnosed with this kind of thing, and they're still jumpin' and pumpin'.''

The lung cancer was diagnosed a year ago and the brain cancer in May, Rawls' estranged wife, Nina, said during a marriage annulment hearing in Arizona last week.

Rawls, 70, has sold more than 40 million albums and won three Grammys during a career spanning more than four decades.

hoist by one’s own petard
 
(pi-TAHRD) To be caught in one’s own trap: “The swindler cheated himself out of most of his money, and his victims were satisfied to see him hoist by his own petard.” A “petard” was an explosive device used in medieval warfare. To be hoisted, or lifted, by a petard literally means to be blown up.

And let me say as a wordsmith I the title is one of my favorite archaicisms. I would have gladly missed the opportunity to use it, though... 

Quote of note:

But in its way, the rule of law is more fundamental to our national success than democracy or freedom, since without it, neither could exist. You can't have democracy if the president, once elected, can change the rules. You can't have freedom if some people are allowed to break the law while others are not.

It really is that simple. 

Hollow Rhetoric on 'Rule of Law'
By Anne Applebaum
Wednesday, December 21, 2005; A31

Like democracy or freedom, "the rule of law" has become one of those things U.S. diplomats advocate so repetitively you'd think they could do it in their sleep. When the secretary of state speaks to the American Bar Association, she explicitly links "the advance of freedom and the success of democracy" to the rule of law. When a bad legal decision is made in a place such as Kuwait or Kyrgyzstan, the State Department issues a statement that starts: "U.S. Deeply Concerned About Rule of Law in . . ." Indeed, President Bush himself has spoken about how "successful societies protect freedom with the consistent and impartial rule of law."

...and I don't know whether I'll enjoy seeing the politicians go, or their apologists.

Yeah, I do...the apologists will call all the criminals "isolated incidences." 

Lobbyist Is Said to Discuss Plea and Testimony
By ANNE E. KORNBLUT

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 - Jack Abramoff, the Republican lobbyist under criminal investigation, has been discussing with prosecutors a deal that would grant him a reduced sentence in exchange for testimony against former political and business associates, people with detailed knowledge of the case say.

Mr. Abramoff is believed to have extensive knowledge of what prosecutors suspect is a wider pattern of corruption among lawmakers and Congressional staff members. One participant in the case who insisted on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations described him as a "unique resource."

 

'Plame Platoon' is AWOL on new leaks
Highly classified programs have been revealed, which could provide real aid to our enemies. So where's all that outrage now?
Max Boot
December 21, 2005

IT SEEMS like only yesterday that every high-minded politician, pundit and professional activist was in high dudgeon about the threat posed to national security by the revelation that Valerie Plame was a spook. For daring to reveal a CIA operative's name — in wartime, no less! — they wanted someone frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs, preferably headed for the gallows.

Since then there have been some considerably more serious security breaches. Major media organs have broken news about secret prisons run by the CIA, the interrogation techniques employed therein, and the use of "renditions" to capture suspects, right down to the tail numbers of covert CIA aircraft. They have also reported on a secret National Security Agency program to monitor calls and e-mails from people in the U.S. to suspected terrorists abroad, and about the Pentagon's Counterintelligence Field Activity designed to protect military bases worldwide.

Most of these are highly classified programs whose revelation could provide real aid to our enemies — far more aid than revealing the name of a CIA officer who worked more or less openly at Langley, Va. We don't know what damage the latest leaks may have done, but we do know that past leaks about U.S. successes in tracking cellphones led Al Qaeda leaders to shun those devices.

So I eagerly await the righteous indignation from the Plame Platoon about the spilling of secrets in wartime and its impassioned calls for an independent counsel to prosecute the leakers. And wait … And wait …

We do want prosecution in this case, Max.

Google is some sick muhfuggahs.

No wonder Bill O'Reilly is pushing so hard for Christmas.

"There is nothing biblical" in the yuletide celebrations, said Carrasco, 56. "And we only practice what Jesus orders us to practice."

What's worse, he continued, Christmas was ungodly, a time of revelry, including drunkenness and "pleasures of the flesh. They are not celebrating God," he said.

...for all the pleas to "keep Christ in Christmas," Christmas has not always been, well, Christian.

The day that Christians today think of Jesus' birthday was marked in pre-Christian days by midwinter agricultural and solar observances.

Although no one knows when Jesus was born, his birth was celebrated on Dec. 25 in Rome as early as AD 336 as an ascendant Roman Catholic Church preempted the pagan celebrations. Most Eastern Orthodox churches later accepted that date too, although the Armenian church retains Jan. 6.

"It's the way Europe got Christianized. The pope would write letters to the bishops saying let them keep doing what they are doing as long as they change the name," said Stephen Nissenbaum, a professor of history at the University of Massachusetts and author of "The Battle for Christmas," which traces the evolution of the holiday.

Oh, Georgie...

The officials from U.S. intelligence, law enforcement and counter-terrorism agencies said they agreed to discuss the case — and Bush's reference to it — because they did not believe it supported the administration's position that the FISA court should be circumvented in certain high-profile and urgent terrorism cases.

"It's total hubris. It's arrogance by the people doing this," said a second senior U.S. counter-terrorism official. "This is a 24-hour thing, and you can get these kinds of warrants immediately. I think they are just being lazy."

Lazy? You're too kind...

Officials Fault Case Bush Cited
Internal breakdowns, not shortcomings in spy laws, were at play before Sept. 11, they say.
By Josh Meyer
Times Staff Writer
December 21, 2005

Quote of note:

 

The American public is given vague and empty assurances by the President that amount to little more than "trust me."  But, we are a nation of laws and not of men.  Where is the source of that authority he claims?  I defy the Administration to show me where in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or the U.S. Constitution,  they are allowed to steal into the lives of innocent America citizens and spy.

Senator Byrd: No President is Above the Law

Americans have been stunned at the recent news of the abuses of power by an overzealous President.  It has become apparent that this Administration has engaged in a consistent and unrelenting pattern of abuse against our Country's law-abiding citizens, and against our Constitution.

"We find that the secular purposes claimed by the board amount to a pretext for the board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom," he said.

A court in the US has ruled against the teaching of the theory of "intelligent design" alongside Darwinian evolution.

A group of parents in the Pennsylvania town of Dover had taken the school board to court for demanding biology classes not teach evolution as fact.

The authorities wanted to introduce the theory that Earth's life was too complicated to have evolved on its own.

Quote of note:

The implications of the government compiling such vast dossiers on Americans -- with great potential for abuse -- were harrowing. So, again spurred by public uproar, Congress shut it down -- or so we thought.

It was an illusion. The work persists, only now Congress farms it out to various government agencies.

Data-mining schemes
Friday, February 27, 2004 [P6: Note the date!]

WHEN RETIRED Adm. John Poindexter left government service last year, it was widely believed that his misguided scheme to collect private data on U. S. citizens was gone for good, too.

Quote of note:

 "As I reflected on the meeting today, and the future we face, John Poindexter's TIA project sprung to mind, exacerbating my concern regarding the direction the Administration is moving with regard to security, technology, and surveillance," Rockefeller wrote.

Senator Sounded Alarm in '03
Rockefeller Wrote Cheney to Voice Concerns on Spying
By Charles Babington and Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, December 20, 2005; A10

John D. Rockefeller IV, a wealthy man representing a poor state, had been the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee for six months when he sat down to a secret briefing on July 17, 2003. What he heard alarmed him so much that immediately afterward he wrote two identical letters, by hand, expressing his concerns.

He soft-pedals it...buries it all the way at the bottom of the op-ed, but:

On the assumption that Congress or a court would have been cooperative in September 2001, and that the cooperation could have kept necessary actions clearly lawful without conferring any benefit on the nation's enemies, the president's decision to authorize the NSA's surveillance without the complicity of a court or Congress was a mistake.

Vital Presidential Power
By William Kristol and Gary Schmitt
Tuesday, December 20, 2005; A31

A U.S. president has just received word that American counterterrorist operatives have captured a senior al Qaeda operative in Pakistan. Among his possessions are a couple of cell phones -- phones that contain several American phone numbers. In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, what's a president to do?

If the president were taking the advice offered by some politicians and pundits in recent days, he would

...obey the law.

order the attorney general to go to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The attorney general would ask that panel of federal judges for a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to begin eavesdropping on those telephone numbers, to determine whether any individual associated with those numbers was involved in terrorist activities.

Note this is not tagged as Politics.

Editorial: The Fog of False Choices

...Mr. Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales offered a whole bag of logical pretzels yesterday to justify flouting this law. Most bizarre was the assertion that Congress authorized the surveillance of American citizens when it approved the use of "all necessary and appropriate force" by the United States military to punish those responsible for the 9/11 attacks or who aided or harbored the terrorists. This came as a surprise to lawmakers, who thought they were voting for the invasion of Afghanistan and the capture of Osama bin Laden.

This administration has a long record of expanding presidential powers in dangerous ways; the indefinite detention of "unlawful enemy combatants" comes to mind. So assurances that surveillance targets are carefully selected with reasonable cause don't comfort. In a democracy ruled by laws, investigators identify suspects and prosecutors obtain warrants for searches by showing reasonable cause to a judge, who decides if legal tests were met.

Chillingly, this is not the only time we've heard of this administration using terrorism as an excuse to spy on Americans. NBC News recently discovered a Pentagon database of 1,500 "suspicious incidents" that included a Quaker meeting to plan an antiwar rally. And Eric Lichtblau and James Risen write in today's Times that F.B.I. counterterrorism squads have conducted numerous surveillance operations since Sept. 11, 2001, on groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Greenpeace and the Catholic Workers group.

I originally wrote this for Blogcritics: 

It occurs to me that anyone that supports the textualist, originalist or strict construction legal philosophies and supports George Bush's program of illegal domestic spying is a hypocrite.

It would be very interesting to find Supreme Court Justice nominee Samuel Alito's position on all this. Just asking him would be very enlightening... Will he answer? Or will he say the possibility he would have to rule on it compels his silence?

I thought it clear enough, but it was suggested that I expand on it.

You could, for instance, add commentary on why you think supporters of Bush's domestic spying are hypocrites.

That is SO far from the point, I decided expansion was necessary after all.

Rushing to Execute in Texas

The Supreme Court has held that it is unconstitutional to execute the mentally retarded, and Marvin Lee Wilson appears to fall into that category. But Mr. Wilson, who is on Texas' death row, may be executed anyway, because his lawyer missed a deadline, and the federal appeals court that rejected his claim last week is blind to the injustice of what is happening. Mr. Wilson's execution should be blocked. Beyond that, his case should cause Congress to stop its reckless campaign to make it even easier than it is now to carry out executions.

Mr. Wilson, whose I.Q. was measured at 61, appears to meet the legal standard for mental retardation. The Constitution therefore prohibits him from being put to death. But the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit does not seem to care. It ruled last week that because his lawyer filed his legal papers late, he has forfeited his right to object.

Note this is NOT tagged as a post on education.

Made-up shit of note:

Calvary and other religious schools contend that UC is engaging in "viewpoint discrimination."

What is that? And why do I get the feeling I'd get laughed out of court...or fined for contempt of court...if I filed so weak a case based on race discrimination (which we all admit still exists)? 

Rights Clash in Bias Suit Against UC

...At issue is UC's entrance requirement that most students pass a series of approved courses in such areas as English, math and science, in addition to obtaining a certain level of grades in those classes and scores on standardized tests.

For this school year, UC officials said, about 7,000 courses — in core subjects as well as electives — were submitted for approval. Of those, about 35% were turned down, a higher percentage than in years past, partly because of confusion at many high schools over a new UC requirement in the performing and visual arts, said Susan Wilbur, UC admissions director.

...but you can't fool people who care. 

The poor continue to be Katrina's victims

December 20, 2005

I appreciate the Dec. 18 article "Katrina Killed Across Class Lines" for its thoughtful analysis of how Hurricane Katrina did not discriminate in its destruction.

However, the bigger class issues lie in the treatment of the refugees in the aftermath of Katrina and the severely delayed response time of the government in providing relief to the poorer, disadvantaged, taxpaying citizens of this very wealthy country.

SEYI ALABA
Long Beach

Sunday's front-page article failed to convince me that rich and poor were affected equally.

The median income level for the so-called rich was reported to be a nudge above $27,000. While the cost of living is probably less there than here, would anyone seriously consider $27,000 to be rolling in the money?

Those left floundering in the chaotic days and weeks after the hurricane were overwhelmingly poor and people of color — those without the resources to flee before or after the storm. Shame on The Times for trying to soft-pedal the truth about class and racism in this country.

JIM RHYNE
Los Angeles

It's like Brownie runs the NSA.

In briefing reporters Monday, Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales said that President Bush's 2002 order allowed for surveillance in cases in which officials had "a reasonable basis" to conclude that one of the parties to the communication had terrorist links. Those judgments were made not by a court, as the law provides, but by shift supervisors at the National Security Agency.

Legal Test Was Seen as Hurdle to Spying
Some say the court's tougher standard of 'probable cause' led to the surveillance order.
By Richard B. Schmitt and David G. Savage
Times Staff Writers
December 20, 2005

The Truth About Bush's Warrantless Spying

On Saturday, President Bush acknowledged that he had personally authorized a secret warrantless domestic surveillance program more than three dozen times since October 2001. Bush's actions run contrary to the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which forbids "unreasonable searches" and sets out specific requirements for warrants, including "probable cause." They demonstrate a dangerous disregard for the basic liberties that serve as our nation's guiding values. They are also in violation of federal law. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) makes it a crime, punishable by up to five years in prison, to conduct electronic surveillance, except as "authorized by and conducted pursuant to a search warrant or court order." Moreover, since 1978, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2511(2)(f) has directed that Title III and FISA "shall be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance...and the interception of domestic wire and oral communications may be conducted." The President's actions were not necessary; if he had legitimate concerns about FISA, "the appropriate response would have been to go to Congress and expand it, not to blatantly violate the law." Below, we debunk the administration's attempts to justify Bush's actions.

It occurs to me that anyone that supports the textualist, originalist or strict construction legal philosophies AND supports George Bush's program of illegal domestic spying is a hypocrite.

It would be very interesting to find Justice Alito's position on all this. Just asking him wouldbe very enlightening...will he answer? Or will he say the possibility he would have to rule on it compels his silence?

 

Culled from newspaper clippings, government records, historical archives and interviews, some previously unexplored, the report explodes oft-repeated local claims that the insurrection was a frantic response to a corrupt and ineffective post-Reconstruction government.

"The ultimate goal was the resurgence of white rule of the city and state for a handful of men through whatever means necessary," the historian LeRae Umfleet wrote in the report's introduction.

The report concludes that the rioting and coup fully ended black participation in local government until the civil rights era, and was a catalyst for the development of Jim Crow laws in North Carolina.

"Because Wilmington rioters were able to murder blacks in daylight and overthrow Republican government without penalty or federal intervention, everyone in the state, regardless of race, knew that the white supremacy campaign was victorious on all fronts," the report said.

...Federal and state authorities did nothing in response to the racial rioting in Wilmington, and according to the report, the revolt became a model of sorts when violence later erupted in other cities.

A 1906 upheaval in Atlanta, the report said, "suggests that the lack of governmental response to the violence in Wilmington gave Southerners implicit license to suppress the black community under the right circumstances."

North Carolina City Confronts Its Past in Report on White Vigilantes
By JOHN DeSANTIS

WILMINGTON, N.C., Dec. 18 - Beneath canopies of moss-draped oaks, on sleepy streets graced by antebellum mansions, tour guides here spin stories of Cape Fear pirates and Civil War blockade-runners for eager tourists.

Only scant mention is made, however, of the bloody rioting more than a century ago during which black residents were killed and survivors banished by white supremacists, who seized control of the city government in what historians say is the only successful overthrow of a local government in United States history.

But last week, Wilmington revisited that painful history with the release of a draft of a 500-page report ordered by the state legislature that not only tells the story of the Nov. 10, 1898, upheaval, but also presents an analysis of its effects on black families that persist to this day.

Study Shows the Superrich Are Not the Most Generous
By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON

Working-age Americans who make $50,000 to $100,000 a year are two to six times more generous in the share of their investment assets that they give to charity than those Americans who make more than $10 million, a pioneering study of federal tax data shows.

The least generous of all working-age Americans in 2003, the latest year for which Internal Revenue Service data is available, were among the young and prosperous - the 285 taxpayers age 35 and under who made more than $10 million - and the 18,600 taxpayers making $500,000 to $1 million. The top group had on average $101 million of investment assets while the other group had on average $2.4 million of investment assets.

Quote of note:

"It's a recognition by both sides that for precompetitive research, 'It's the science, stupid.' It's not the intellectual property."

Guidelines Set on Software Property Rights
By STEVE LOHR

To remove obstacles to joint research, four leading technology companies and seven American universities have agreed on principles for making software developed in collaborative projects freely available.

The legal wrangling over intellectual property rights in research projects involving universities and companies, specialists say, can take months, sometimes more than a year. This legal maneuvering, they say, is not only slowing the pace of innovation, but is also prompting some companies to seek university research partners in other countries, where negotiations over intellectual property are less time-consuming.

Drug Changes Are Looming, and Providers Seek Answers
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 - Two weeks before the start of the Medicare prescription drug benefit, pharmacists and nursing homes are desperately trying to find out who will pay for the medicines taken by hundreds of thousands of their residents.

The new law relies on private insurers to deliver drug benefits to older Americans. About two-thirds of the 1.5 million residents of nursing homes are participants in both Medicare and Medicaid. The government has randomly assigned them to private drug plans, regardless of their needs.

In many cases, nursing home officials said, they do not know to which plans their patients have been assigned. As a result, they do not know who will pay the bills or what drugs will be covered. Each plan has its own list of approved drugs, known as a formulary.

Rice Defends Domestic Eavesdropping
By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday defended President Bush's decision to secretly authorize the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans without seeking warrants, saying the program was carefully controlled and necessary to close gaps in the nation's counterterrorism efforts.

In Sunday talk show appearances, Ms. Rice said the program was intended to eliminate the "seam" between American intelligence operations overseas and law enforcement agencies at home.

Quote of note:

Women for Aryan Unity is based in the most urban and international of places, Brooklyn, New York. The group itself is a testament to the ironic fact that, despite its disgust for multi-culturalism and diversity, the world of white supremacy is diverse. Racist activism crosses geographic, class and gender lines perhaps now more than ever before.

"The stereotype of racist groups all being like the Klan -- rural and southern -- is not true anymore," said Blee, noting that the largely urban Nazi and skinhead groups are the most active part of the white nationalist movement.

A Whiter Shade of Christmas
By Maria Luisa Tucker, AlterNet
Posted on December 19, 2005

Katrina Killed Across Class Lines
The well-to-do died along with the poor, an analysis of data shows. The findings counter common beliefs that disadvantaged blacks bore the brunt.
By Nicholas Riccardi, Doug Smith and David Zucchino
Times Staff Writers
December 18, 2005

The bodies of New Orleans residents killed by Hurricane Katrina were almost as likely to be recovered from middle-class neighborhoods as from the city's poorer districts, such as the Lower 9th Ward, according to a Times analysis of data released by the state of Louisiana.

You sure that analysis wasn't lifted from the blog network? 

The power that made Rosa Parks
The civil rights leader's act of resistance was not a spur-of-the-moment decision but nurtured in a faith community.
By Diane Winston
Diane Winston is Knight chair in media and religion at USC. She can be reached at [email protected].
December 18, 2005

EARLIER THIS month, every transit bus in New York City displayed this slogan: "It All Started on a Bus." The signs asked riders to leave the seat behind the bus driver vacant, as a tribute to the 50th anniversary of Rosa Parks' refusal to relinquish her seat to a white man in Montgomery, Ala.

The lesson: One woman's courageous act changed the national tide.

Not exactly.

Rosa Parks' decision did help catalyze a revolution in race relations. But hers was not the action of a single individual. Rather, it was the culmination of a long-standing religious commitment nurtured in a community of faith. That commitment, "there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus," inspired Parks and other civil rights pioneers to fight injustice in the same spirit of forgiveness with which Jesus met his fate.

Do you see the problem?

Quote of note:

"It's as if in the U.S., 80 percent of the heads of major corporations or top government officials came from Harvard Law School," said François Dubet, a sociologist at the University of Bordeaux.

"As if"? 

Elite French Schools Block the Poor's Path to Power
By CRAIG S. SMITH

PARIS, Dec. 17 - Even as the fires smoldered in France's working-class suburbs and paramilitary police officers patrolled Paris to guard against attacks by angry minority youths last month, dozens of young men and women dressed in elaborate, old-fashioned parade uniforms marched down the Champs-Élysées to commemorate Armistice Day.

Just switch parties and get it over with. 

Don't Be Fooled by Bush Polls, Democratic Council Warns
By John F. Harris and Chris Cillizza
Sunday, December 18, 2005; A04

Rising public frustration with the Iraq war and low approval ratings for President Bush look to many Democrats like an opportunity for big gains with voters in the 2006 and 2008 elections.

But two of the party's top strategists say this opportunity may be something else: a trap.

Al From, president of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, and pollster Mark Penn wrote a strategy memo to DLC supporters last week warning party leaders not to use Bush's problems as an invitation to call for an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, or generally to steer a more liberal course that could alienate the middle-of-the-road voters the party needs.

The Bush regime's management techniques should be familiar to middle management types. The salesman lands a new account by making promises without checking with the operations staff to see if the mechanisms necessary for delivery are in place. A "procedure" is put into place which reds, "Get this done, get that done, get the other thing done," and day to day you just do what must be done.

It's called "firefighting," where you just leap from disaster to disaster.

This is appealing enough. But it goes against the styles of many managers. Their style is reactivity or as it is more commonly known, firefighting. The idea of firefighting is to let a problem fester until it becomes a crisis, and then swoop in and fix it. Firefighting is popular because it is exciting. Furthermore, it is a win-win situation for the firefighter. If the fix works out, the firefighter is a hero. If it doesn’t, the firefighter can’t be blamed, because the situation was virtually hopeless to begin with. Notice that it is to the firefighter’s advantage to actually let the problem become worse, because then there will be less blame if they fail or more praise if they succeed.

Most of us deplore the firefighting style, yet we tacitly perpetuate it by rewarding firefighters for the miraculous things they do. The methodical work of prevention done by others goes unnoticed. Consequently, the firefighting style can be difficult to eliminate, especially in cultures that thrive on action and excitement. In contrast, in Japan, a crisis is evidence of failure: Japanese culture favors a more proactive approach to problem solving.

Bush was a failed corporate manager. And his war management techniques, being exactly the same, has failed as well.

Pushing the Limits Of Wartime Powers
By Barton Gellman and Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 18, 2005; A01

Yes, they make you feel good. But the fact is, if the wall is built it will have doors in it...not holes, mind you, but doors. And as long as employers don't want to pay Americans a living wage, enough "guest workers"...i.e., just as many as we have now...will be allowed through to fill the gap.

The major change will be folks getting jobs as border guards as well as prison guards. 

Analysts: Crackdown Won't Halt Immigration
House Bill Is Criticized for Not Factoring in the Effect of the U.S. Demand for Labor
By Michael A. Fletcher and Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 18, 2005; A11

Quote of note:

The University of Maryland study received a great deal of attention and should have been a call to action for state leaders, but no solutions have been implemented. The General Assembly, despite conducting hearings on the issue, never passed legislation to deal with the inequalities highlighted in the study.

Gov. Robert Ehrlich, who lifted my moratorium on executions after assuming office despite acknowledging that race "plays a part all the way through the process," named Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele as the new administration's point man on the issue. The lieutenant governor promised to conduct an assessment of our state's death penalty. To date, he has not.

Despite being ignored by the current administration, issues raised by the study remain.

The Value of Black Life in Maryland
By Parris Glendening
Sunday, December 18, 2005; B07

In the eight years I served as governor of Maryland, I found the power to decide which condemned prisoners would live and which would die the most awesome and emotionally grueling of all my duties. I faced this decision four times.

I believed in the death penalty when I became governor and took seriously my constitutional responsibility to uphold Maryland law. I presided over two executions, those of Flint Gregory Hunt and Tyrone Gilliam. Both were black men whose victims were white. I heard from many civil rights leaders who rightly pointed out that this racial combination dominated cases on our state's death row, even though African Americans were and continue to be the victims in nearly 80 percent of homicides.

So in 1999 I commissioned a study of race and death sentencing from the University of Maryland, believing it my responsibility to ensure that justice was truly blind when applying this ultimate punishment.