Category: Politics

this was a good post.

I dig midwestern liberal blogs.

The only major telco to not cave to the NSA.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm?csp=34

excerpts (follow the link for the full story)

According to sources familiar with the events, Qwest’s CEO at the time, Joe Nacchio, was deeply troubled by the NSA’s assertion that Qwest didn’t need a court order — or approval under FISA — to proceed. Adding to the tension, Qwest was unclear about who, exactly, would have access to its customers’ information and how that information might be used.

Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest’s lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.

The NSA’s explanation did little to satisfy Qwest’s lawyers. “They told (Qwest) they didn’t want to do that because FISA might not agree with them,” one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest’s suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general’s office. A second person confirmed this version of events.

George Bush doesn’t believe America’s laws apply to him, he has declared himself above the law.

If you didn’t already know this by his illegal spying on American citizens, the Boston Globe has an article on another 749 laws that he doesn’t believe apply to him…

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

I was reading Christopher Hitchens’ excellent essay in the April 2006 Vanity Fair in which he referenced this quote from BF and it made me wonder if this is engraved into any marble in DC anywhere. I’d love to see it engraved on the edifice of whatever building the NSA is in.

jackass

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060316/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_national_security_5

So, GWB comes out and basically says “Iran, Syria, Korea, you’re next.” That is sure gonna make friends for us in the Middle East, moron. Nope, not gonna help terrorist recruiting at all, you projecting America your personal bully squad to make other countries do what you want. Mr. President, you are playing a dangerous game of chicken with the lives of the American people in the balance. I think it is time you get over your tough guy fantasy and try to come up with a better plan that maybe involves less military threats and more international cooperation. Oh wait, thats right, you’ve completely isolated us with your bullying ways. Well done, the next 4 presidents will be left cleaning up your mess and the non-wealthy Americans will see their quality of life stagnate as the damage you’ve done is fixed.

or maybe just the cruelty

So the new nonpartisan CBO budget projections are out, and the long and the short of it is that if GWB’s tax cuts are made permanent, there is no end in sight to the budget deficits. The government won’t be able to take in as much money as it spends for the foreseeable future. This means that paying off the national debt will become a larger and larger part of our lives and our children’s lives. There is a simple and obvious solution to this which is to rescind the tax cuts. We’ve got a war to pay for and cities to rebuild. Now is not the time to ask Americans to contribute less to the cause. Of course, what the Republicans are proposing instead is something much worse. Rather than ask the wealthy to pay more (since the tax cut favored the highest tax brackets the most), they are instead asking the poor to survive on less. In 2004, the budget deficit was 413 BILLION DOLLARS. For last year it is projected to be 318 Billion. In order to “close the gap” the Republican congress and White House are pushing to reduce programs to help the poor and sick by several million dollars and to then call that even. What kind of crack is K street dishing out these days?

I can’t wait for the new “Health Savings Plan” announcement. This is either incredibly stupid or just obviously cruel. A huge percentage of Americans have no health insurance or benefits. This is due to the costs of insurance being so high for those on limited means. The Republicans response is to allow Americans to put aside money tax-free that they can use on health care. So, in effect, this will be another tax cut. I can’t wait for the details because to me this just looks like another way for the richest to skip out on paying their fair share while simultaneously screwing the poor and making corporate America better off for it.

A NASA scientist reveals that the administration is attempting to silence his findings

Dr. James Hansen who is a leading climatologist has announced that the Bush administration is attempting to censor him because he is calling for a reduction in emissions to slow Global Warning. New York Times Article This isn’t the first such accusation, the scientific community has been trying to call public attention to this for years. The Bush administration and industry have been trying to silence critics of their policies while simultaneously raising up poorly researched studies from the low-rate “scientists” and claiming that the scientific community can’t agree.

If the government is in the right, why do they continually try to silence anyone who would question them? Don’t they think we can make up our own minds given the real facts?

Spying on American citizens is now the “Terrorism Prevention Program”

So the Bush administration has been on a barn-storming PR campaign to create credibility for the President’s order to spy on US Citizens without congressional or judicial oversight. We return to 1984-esque arguments and double-speak here. The actions were justified because we are at war. The War On Terror is an unending war against a dispersed enemy. A war that can never be won, and even if it was won, we couldn’t be sure that it was. Using a “War On Terror” for extra-legal actions is basically declaring the presidency above the law for all time and administration knows it. If the president gets away with this, the President can do anything he wants under the guise of “protecting our freedoms.” They already claim that people who disagree with their policies are “giving aid and comfort to our enemies.” The next logical step is to jail dissidents. That is what Big Brother, The Cold-War-era Soviet Union or Saddam Hussein would do. Maybe Bush will declare himself “Leader for Life” because no one else could protect the American People. After polling showed that the American people weren’t so incensed if the spying on Americans was done to find terrorists the spying policy was renamed the “Terrorism Prevention Program” and that talking point was hammered home over and over on TV. The problem is that we already know that the NSA net was cast far wider than the Bush Administration would have us believe. They refuse to give out the details for fear of alerting our enemies to our tactics, but that has become boilerplate for the administration preventing the American people from knowing anything about what is really going on.

If we want to truly show the world the power of democracy and freedom, we should be doing whatever we can to protect the people while making civil liberties and general welfare the highest priorities. The government should be welcoming light being shown into its practices, not obstructing truth everywhere it can. The US looks more like the oppressive regimes of the Middle East these days than the freedom-loving, liberty-preserving beacon of hope that we claim to be.

when even the Catholic Church says so
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002748197_vatican19.html