Year: 2006

Glenn Greenwald Is Live Blogging Senate Domestic Wiretap Hearing

Jon Ponder

It may sound like hyperbole but to a great degree the future of our democracy hangs on the hearings taking place right now in the United States Senate. The issue at hand is whether President Bush does or does not have absolute power. On its face, this would appear to be a slamdunk but, tragically, it is not.

On C-SPAN “Washington Journal” this morning Glenn Greenwald masterfully took on a rightwing hack Robert Turner over the Bush Administration’s illegal wiretapping of American citizens.

Greenwald is live blogging the hearings on his website.

The session opened with controversy, as Democrats objected to the fact that committee chair Arlen Specter refused to swear in Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. The Democrats want the AG under oath because he apparently lied in sworn testimony he gave to the committee during his confirmation hearings. (See paragraph six in this post.)

Another SOTU Eviction: Florida Man Was Detained Because He Is Brown-Skinned

Jon Ponder

Time Magazine:

T-shirts, it turns out, aren’t the only things that get you in trouble with the Capitol Police at the State of the Union address. Much has already been made of the fact that both anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan and Beverly Young, the wife of Republican Congressman Bill Young, were ejected from the speech for wearing shirts with political messages; in Sheehan’s case, her t-shirt read “2,245 dead. How many more?”, while Young was sporting a sweat shirt with the words, “Support the Troops-Defending Our Freedom.” Both have denounced their treatment-and both have received apologies from the police.

But on the same evening that President Bush was lauding democracy and freedom, there was one other person in attendance whose rights were infringed upon. The man, who did not want his identity revealed after the disturbing incident, was a personal guest of Florida Democrat Alcee Hastings. He is a prominent businessman from Broward County, Florida who works with the Department of Defense-and has a security clearance. After sitting in the gallery for the entire speech, he was surrounded by about ten law enforcement officers as he exited the chamber and whisked away to a room in the Capitol.

For close to an hour the man, who was born in India but is an American citizen, was questioned by the police, who thought he resembled someone on a Secret Service photo watch list, according to Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer. Eventually, the police realized it was a case of mistaken identity and let him go. Gainer has assured Hastings that the Capitol Police, Secret Service and FBI will investigate why the man was detained for so long, and try to “sharpen our procedures.” But the man was “very, very scared” by the incident, says Fred Turner, a spokesperson for Hastings. On Tuesday night, he told the congressman that the experience was “maybe just the price of being brown in America,” Turner says.

Republicans Have a Pre-1776 Mentality

Jon Ponder

And we’re in a post-1776 world: In the Era of Squishy Democrats, especially in the Senate, it is refreshing to read this from Russ Feingold, Democratic senator from Wisconsin. He may be the only senator to say that President Bush and the Republicans are acting as if the Constitution was “rendered quaint” by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001:

Stop the power grab, stop the politics, stop breaking the law. It’s time to stand up — not to cheer, but to fight back.

I’ve seen some strange things in my life, but I cannot describe the feeling I had, sitting on the House floor during Tuesday’s State of the Union speech, listening to the President assert that his executive power is, basically, absolute, and watching several members of Congress stand up and cheer him on. It was surreal and disrespectful to our system of government and to the oath that as elected officials we have all sworn to uphold. Cheering? Clapping? Applause? All for violating the law?

The President and his administration continue their spin and media blitz in attempts to defend the fact that they broke, and continue to break, the law. Their weak and shifting justifications for doing so continue. The latest from the President seems to be that basically the FISA law, passed in 1978, is out of date. His decision that he can apparently disregard “old law” fits the pattern with the President and his administration. He’s decided to disregard a statute (FISA) and the Constitution (the 4th Amendment) by continuing to wiretap Americans’ phone calls and emails without the required warrant, while at the same time claiming powers of the presidency that do not exist. (Perhaps he feels the Constitution is too “old,” as well.) This administration reacts to any questions about spying on American citizens by saying that those of us who stand up for our rights and freedoms are somehow living in a “pre-September 11th, 2001 world.”

In fact, the President is living in a pre-1776 world.

[…]

John Edwards: Americans Need Hope and Inspiration

Trish

Say what you will, but I think John Edwards has it right.

America needs leaders who understand that the country needs to be inspired again, former Sen. John Edwards said Friday.

Edwards gets that Americans like you and me are…better than snarky rich idiots who act like assholes because they know deep down inside no amount of money or external success makes up for the fact they are small, nasty people

Edwards said that after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, Americans reached out to volunteer and take families into their homes.

“It says something about the heart and character of our country,” said Edwards, a Democrat. “What we need is we need leaders who tap into that.”

Ain’t it the truth? Full disclosure: I voted for Edwards in the Florida primary in 2004, even though the press and my party had already given the state to Kerry. I see something in him that I saw in Carter and in Clinton, and it’s not just the Southern thing, although “not for nothin’,” as we say down here.

Edwards now heads the Center for Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina law school and has previously said he has not decided whether he will run for president in 2008…

“The people I’ve met, they violate every stereotype that exists about people who are struggling,” Edwards said.

He said the great moral issue in the country today is that 37 million people live in poverty.

“They have never had a champion,” Edwards said. “They can’t even imagine someone actually being willing to speak up for them.”

Contrast Edwards’ remarks with those of former First Lady Barbara Bush, who in the wake of the most devastating natural disaster of our times looked on her idea of the bright side for the evacuees:

And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them. They are faring far better than before Katrina.

Edwards gets that Americans like you and me are better than that, better than snarky rich idiots who act like assholes because they know deep down inside no amount of money or external success makes up for the fact they are small, nasty people.

During his travels, Edwards said he has learned that there is a hunger in the United States for something big and important that people can be involved in and inspired by…

“We need hope,” Edwards said. “We need the belief inside us that we are good, strong, honorable people and we can do great things together.”

Somebody say “Amen!”

Wrong Again, O’Reilly — ‘Brokeback’ Plays ‘Well, and Widely’ in Montana

Jon Ponder

“They’re not going to go see the gay cowboys in Montana. I’m sorry. They’re not going to do it.”

— Bill O’Reilly, Dec. 20, 2005

Au contraire, Monsieur Loofah: “Brokeback Mountain” is doing a brisk business in Montana, according to columnist Joe Nickell in the Helena Independent Record:

O’Reilly believes that Joe Sixpack’s heterosexuality — like his own — is so tenuous and fragile that it might be destroyed by exposure to guy on guy action — even the 30 seconds of it in “Brokeback Mountain.”

Here in Missoula, the film has been a smash hit since it opened at the 1,100-seat Wilma Theatre on Jan. 6. “It’s been super every night since we started showing it,” said Bill Emerson, who manages the 85-year-old theater.

Data collected by Focus Features, which produced the film, show that “Brokeback” grossed more than $33,000 at the Wilma during its first four weekends alone.

And…

“Brokeback” isn’t just doing well in this, traditionally the most liberal part of the state… It was the No. 1 draw during opening weekends in Helena and Whitefish…

And guess where the film enjoyed its best opening weekend in Montana? Hint: It wasn’t liberal Missoula.

Try Billings.

In its opening three-day weekend, “Brokeback Mountain” grossed … 15 percent better than the film did during its opening weekend at the Wilma…

So…

“O’Reilly apparently forgot that stereotypes and off-the-cuff prognostications, no matter how confidently voiced, have an uncanny way of falling apart under the cold light of reality.”

Last month, O’Reilly also admitted to Matt Lauer that he was scared to see the film, which has been nominated for eight Academy Awards:

“I’m afraid of cowboys. I’m from Long Island. I’m afraid of all cowboys. And gay cowboys? I mean, I don’t — I don’t get the whole shepherd-cowboy-pup tent connection. I’m not getting all of that stuff.”

Sadly, O’Reilly probably really believes that he understands the psyche of the average guy “out there” in the Red states, and that like him, Joe Sixpack’s heterosexuality is so tenuous and fragile that it might be destroyed by exposure to guy on guy action — even the 30 seconds of it in “Brokeback Mountain.”

That is scary. In my 50 years I’ve seen hundreds of hours of guy-on-gal tussling in Hollywood movies and it hasn’t moved me even a quarter notch off my perfect Kinsey 6.

The point is, O’Reilly’s “man of the people” persona is a hollow shell. He is as pampered and pompadoured as any TV star — and just as clueless about the real world in his first-class bubble as the average Republican senator or presidential advisor.

How Much Do They Hate Us? Pretty Damn Much

Trish

For all the people who asked how we would like to be on the receiving end of an objectionable Hollywood-esque portrayal, we have an answer: Not so much.

CNN reports on a film that opened today in Turkey starring Gary Busey and Billy Zane as a couple of people we would just as soon not share a nationality with.

In the movie, American troops kill dozens of innocent people with random machine-gun fire, shoot the groom in the head, and drag those left alive to Abu Ghraib prison — where a Jewish doctor cuts out their organs, which he sells to rich people in New York, London and Tel Aviv

In the most expensive Turkish movie ever made, American soldiers in Iraq crash a wedding and pump a little boy full of lead in front of his mother.

They kill dozens of innocent people with random machine-gun fire, shoot the groom in the head, and drag those left alive to Abu Ghraib prison — where a Jewish doctor cuts out their organs, which he sells to rich people in New York, London and Tel Aviv.

Whoa. Why would they make a movie like that?

One recent opinion poll revealed the depth of the hostility in Turkey toward Americans: 53 percent of Turks who responded to the 2005 Pew Global Attitudes survey associated Americans with the word “rude”; 70 percent with “violent”; 68 percent with “greedy”; and 57 percent with “immoral.”

I won’t bother saying we brought part of this on ourselves. O.K., I just did.

“Valley of the Wolves Iraq” opens with a true story: On July 4, 2003, in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, troops from the U.S. Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade raided and ransacked a Turkish special forces office, threw hoods over the heads of 11 Turkish special forces officers and held them in custody for more than two days…the incident damaged Turkish-U.S. relations and hurt Turkish national pride. Turks traditionally idolize their soldiers; many enthusiastically send their sons off for mandatory military service.

In the movie, one of the Turkish special forces officers commits suicide to save his honor.

I’m already feeling sick. No popcorn, thanks.

Looking on the bright side, it’s just a movie, right?

“There isn’t going to be a war over this,” said Nefise Karatay, a Turkish model lounging on a sofa after the premiere. “Everyone knows that Americans have a good side. That’s not what this is about.”

So what is it about? And I wonder how they would have portrayed us if they didn’t know about our “good side.”

SecureUS PAC — Dems Getting Smart and Tough

Buck Banks

Training to win: Yesterday I was on the phone with Bob Graham and Gary Hart — no, really, I was. It was a teleconference in which Pensito Review was invited to participate along with a bunch of other on-line entities. The call was set up by Congresswoman Jane Harman of California, who currently serves as ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and as a member of the House Homeland Security Committee.

The purpose of the call was to alert the on-line community to the launch of a new political action committee whose purpose is to help Democrats win in the mid-terms and hopefully get one back in the White House in ’08. It’s SecureUS PAC, and it appears on the surface at least to be a good idea that potentially could make a big difference.

SecureUS provides a mechanism to train Democratic candidates and encumbents to be experts in the areas of national security and intelligence. Karl Rove thought he carved out that territory for the Repugs in the 2006 elections last week, but the folks at SecureUS figure it’s time for the Democrats to get “smart and tough” on national security policy.

National security policy is and will be the central issue of 2006. — Bob Graham

The organization has contacted more than 50 candidates and has asked them to complete questionnaires to evaluate their suitability for the SecureUS program.

Harman listed the issues the Democrtatic Party “needs to own”:

  • An exit strategy for Iraq that promotes true power sharing
  • Nuclear proliferation
  • Accurate, actionable and timely intelligence
  • A strategy for homeland security
  • An energy independence strategy

Ex-senator, ex-governor and former presidential candidate Bob Graham and ex-senator and former presidential candidate Gary Hart are board members and will help train candidates beginning April 3 in Washington. The other board members include:

  • Graham Allison — Founding dean of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. For three decades he has been a leading analyst of U.S. national security and defense policy with a special interest in terrorism. He served as special advisor to the Secretary of Defense under Ronald Reagan and as Assistant Secretary of Defense in Bill Clinton’s first administration.
  • Richard Holbrooke — Member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Citizens Committee for New York City and the Economic Club of New York. He is a board member of American International Group and the National Endowment for Democracy and is chairman of International Rescue Committee and Refugees International.
  • Claudia Kennedy — Retired lieutenant general in the U.S. Army and the first woman to hold a three-star rank in the army. She has served in the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command. at the Directorate of Training in Washington, D.C.; as Director of Intelligence, G2, Forces Command, Fort McPherson, Ga.; as Deputy Commander and Assistant Commandant at U.S. Army Intelligence School at Fort Huachuca, Ariz.; and Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence at Army Headquarters in Washington.
  • William Perry — Senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and professor at Stanford University in the School of Engineering and the Institute for International Studies, where he is co-director of the Preventive Defense Project, a research collaboration of Stanford and Harvard universities. He was a professor at Stanford from 1988 to 1993, when he was the co-director of the Center for International Security and Arms Control. He served as U.S. Secretary of Defense under Bill Clinton 1994 to 1997, and Deputy Secretary of Defense from 1993 to 1994.

Graham and Hart gave some insight into the kind of critical thinking they plan to impart to their trainees: “We are going to teach the thought processes that lead to good judgment,” said Graham.
[…]

Who’s Burning Churches?

Trish

The fires at six churches in Alabama last night are pretty intriguing. Racism is not a factor in the suspected arsons, since the churches are organized by people of different races. CNN:

Is there really a war on Christianity? Have Satanist teens taken over Alabama?

The five Bibb County churches are “lined up very near U.S. 82 near Centreville,” about 45 miles southwest of Birmingham, said Ingram. Ashby Baptist Church, Pleasant Sabine Church and Rehobeth Baptist Church were destroyed, and Old Union Baptist Church and Antioch Baptist were damaged, he said.

Pleasant Sabine Church has a predominantly black congregation, and the other five are predominantly white, officials said.

The sixth “church” was actually a construction site in the next county, and the fire started in a storage building that held old clothes and other donated items. Investigators don’t think this fire is related to the others.

So who’s doing this? Who’s the target? Is there really a war on Christianity? Have Satanist teens taken over Alabama? I’ll be very curious to see who gets arrested for this, although three of the church fires in 1995 — the last time there was an epidemic of burnings — were never solved.

Lack of Support Not Stopping Florida’s Anti-Gay Marriage Proposal

Trish

Supporters are claiming that a constitutional amendment to bar gay marriage in Florida — which is already banned by state law — is yet another victim of last year’s hurricanes. The amendment fell 155,000 signatures shy of the 611,000 needed to get on the ballot in 2006, despite a last-minute mobilization that included aircraft and a fleet of vehicles delivering petitions to the state capital.

The real purpose of the initiative was to turn out mouth-breathing voters of the type depicted in that scene from Young Frankenstein

Two other amendments were apparently unaffected by the storms, and will be up for a vote in the fall. One, opposed by Gov. Jeb Bush and Republican lawmakers, would create an independent panel to draw legislative districts. The other would ensure that money awarded to the state in lawsuits against cigarette makers is used to fund anti-smoking campaigns. Florida Times-Union:

“It just didn’t have the kind of financial support that these other ones do,” Bush said. “I think if it was on the ballot, it would pass by two- or three-to-one.”

The Republican Party of Florida put up $150,000 of the $193,000 raised for the anti-gay marriage ban, claiming it was needed to protect against those activist judges we hear so much about, who might take it upon themselves to overturn the law Florida already has. The real purpose of the initiative was to turn out mouth-breathing voters of the type depicted in that scene from Young Frankenstein, when the mob lofts torches and goes after the monster. Jeb is correct that they would likely vote “Hell Yes” in droves.

But lack of popular support isn’t stopping the Florida Catholic Conference, Florida Baptist Convention, and Florida4Marriage.Org, headed by a wingnut personal injury lawyer named John Stemberger in Orlando, from forging ahead. The signatures stay on file for four years, and Stemberger wants to use them to qualify for the 2008 election. He also wants to waste the state Supreme Court’s time reviewing an amendment that won’t even be on the ballot this year. Tallahassee Democrat

…the group still wants the Florida Supreme Court to hold the oral arguments, scheduled for Wednesday, on the language of the proposed amendment…But the court isn’t required to review them until the year they would actually appear on the ballot.

”We’re hopeful they’re going to hear the case and not cancel the hearing,” Stemberger said Thursday. ”If we’re going to get an adverse hearing, we’d rather get that sooner than later.”

Well I guess you would, John, since if they find problems with this idiotic, pandering, hateful enterprise you’ll have to start all over. And there are one or two problems with it.

The ACLU of Florida, along with other gay- and lesbian-rights groups, plan to argue that the Florida Marriage Protection Amendment is deceptive because it could also deny same-sex partners other domestic benefits.