Open Thread

Believe it or not, William "$90k in the freezer" Jefferson is leading in Louisiana. Wow. The results are coming in at www.nola.com.

11:11 PM Update: The local ABC channel has called the race for Jefferson. Again, wow. So, I guess we know who is in the running to be the first member indicted in the next Congress. Read the rest of this post...

Rumsfeld returns to the scene of the crime

Or "Why I sent you to your deaths for nothing." From AP.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is in Iraq, a Pentagon spokesman said Saturday.

"He's there to express his appreciation to the troops and to thank both the troops and their families for the sacrifices they are making," said Air Force Lt. Col. Todd Vician, a Defense Department spokesman.

Yes, because nothing says "you're fired" like giving the guy who got us in this mess a victory lap at the taxpayers' expense. Read the rest of this post...

Disney/ABC showing unedited defamatory version of "Path to 9/11" around country

Well, American Airlines, Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton and Sandy Berger take notice. The original, unedited, factually incorrect and defamatory version of the Disney/ABC fictitious account of 9/11 is now touring the country. The nerve of them to use the original unedited version, when the version was edited because it was factually incorrect about what actually happened.

Disney/ABC hired a right-winger to make this movie and they got what they paid for, a right-wing hit job. It's still surprising that Disney and ABC continue to augment their defamation damage the movie did by continuing to broadcast the portions they now know to be incorrect and defamatory. Read the rest of this post...

Rummy now says Bush is wrong, Iraq isn't about Al Qaeda

Okay, here's an interesting quote from Rummy in today's news, via AP:

Outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Friday that the U.S. military is doing everything it can but the war cannot be won only "militarily." He said the power struggle in Iraq is partly about religion, economics and political power, and "not terribly military in its nature."

Excuse me, you left Al Qaeda out of there. The thing George Bush claims is the number one cause of the Iraq war. Read the rest of this post...

The religious right is now suddenly "surprised" that Mitt Romney was pro-gay before he was anti-gay

Tony Perkins should resign as the head of the religious right gay-bashing group Family Research Council. Perkins had been praising Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who is planning on running for president as a conservative family values religious right loving republican. Now Perkins is suddenly "surprised" that Romney has a history, that everyone knew about, of being super duper pro-gay.

This is quite disturbing, said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, who had praised Mr. Romney as a champion of traditional values at the groups conference in late September. This type of information is going to create a lot of problems for Governor Romney. He is going to have a hard time overcoming this.

Perkins either lied to his followers in praising Romney, or he's an idiot. Everyone knew about Romney's pro-gay past. We've written about it repeatedly, just from memory. Except Perkins and the other family values bigots, it seems.

Well, a letter has surfaced from 1994 in which Mr. Romney claims he's even more pro-gay than Ted Kennedy. From the NYT:

The 1994 letter followed a meeting with the Log Cabin Club. Mr. Romney wrote, I am not unaware of my opponents considerable record in the area of civil rights.

For some voters, it might be enough to simply match my opponents record in this area, he said. But I believe we can and must do better. If we are to achieve the goals we share, we must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern. My opponent cannot do this. I can and will.

Mr. Romney, recounting in the letter the promises he made in the meeting with the club, said he had agreed to help sponsor a bill barring discrimination against gay men and lesbians if he was elected to the Senate and to broaden it to include protections for housing and credit.

He said he supported the dont ask, dont tell military policy created by former President Bill Clinton, and described it as the first in a number of steps that will ultimately lead to gays and lesbians being able to serve openly and honestly in our nations military.

The religious right are fools. Romney has been super pro-gay up until two years ago when he decided to woo the religious right in his presidential bid. Any religious right hate group who supported this man either knew Romney was secretly pro-gay, and didn't care, or they failed to do even the basic level of due diligence about Romney's true views. Either way, the religious right hate groups have shown yet again how truly irrelevant, and bankrupt, it has become.

Oh, and before Romney claims he's "evolved" on gay issues, his staff already came out and said that his views on gay issues are the same now as they've always been:

Aides to Mr. Romney, who did not dispute the letters legitimacy, said that the governors opinions on gay issues had not changed.

This almost as fun as Mary Cheney pregnant. Read the rest of this post...

Cell phone privacy bill passes congress!

The bill passed last night at 11pm. Now it's up to dumbo the president to sign it. Senator Schumer's office updates us:

SENATE PASSES Schumer’S PRETEXTING LEGISLATION – CRIMINALIZING Sale Of Cell Phone Call Logs

Identical Version Of Bill Already Passed The House, Schumer’s Legislation Criminalizing Growing Practice That Puts Individual’s Cell Phone Records in the Hands of Criminals Will Now Go To President for His Signature

Today U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer announced the passage of his comprehensive legislation that would criminalize the practice, known as pretexting, of both stealing and selling cell phone, landline and voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) records. The bipartisan Telephone Records and Privacy Protection (TRAPP) Act (S. 2178), introduced by Schumer in January along with Senators Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Bill Nelson (D-FL), was reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously back in March, but the bill was stalled in the Senate until today.

“Stealing someone’s private phone records is a criminal act that can now be prosecuted,” Schumer said. “Phone information and call logs should be protected with the same safeguards as financial data or medical records. With pretexting companies popping-up across the country, law enforcement will get the tools needed to track down these criminals down and put this industry out of business.”

The TRAPP Act will make it a federal offense, punishable as a felony, to obtain customer information from a telephone service provider by false pretenses or access a customer account on the Internet to obtain billing information without authorization. The bill also makes it a crime for phone company employees to sell customer information without proper authorization. The bill applies to cell, landline, and (VOIP) phone records. An identical version of Schumer’s legislation passed the House 409-0.

Now that both houses have passed the legislation it will be sent quickly to the President for his signature without need for a conference committee.

Under Schumer’s bill, it will be a violation of federal law to obtain someone’s phone records by 1. Making false or fraudulent statements or representations to an employee of a telephone service provider; 2. Making such statements to a customer of a telephone service provider; 3. Accessing a customer account on the Internet without the customer’s authorization; 4. Providing false documentation to a telephone service provider knowing that the document is false.

Cell phone call logs are sought out for a variety of reasons. For years phone records gave been used by law enforcement and private detectives, but with the internet, gaining access to that information has gotten much easier. Websites like www.-cellphonerecords.org offer the service online, and with little regulation it is nearly impossible to stop.

Experts say that these records can be made available through three techniques. The first is having someone that works for one of the phone companies who sells the data. Though strict rules inside most of the phone companies make this practice risky, officials say that finding someone with access to the information desired is not that difficult. The second technique is “pretexting” where a data broker or the like pretends to be the owner of the phone. In doing so, they convince the cell phone company’s employees to release the data to them.

Though the problem is all too common, federal law is too narrow to include this type of crime. Pretexting for financial data is illegal, but its does not include phone records.

Read the rest of this post...

GOP special interests to face an awake Congress

What? Handouts to Big Oil will be investigated? Oh the horror. Next thing you know, Congress might even look into accountability issues that have been so long forgotten. Circle the wagons, GOP special interests, because the gravy train won't be what it used to be. Handouts to the wealthiest is so 2006 and accountability is in for 2007. Read the rest of this post...

Saturday Morning Open Thread

Very cold in DC this morning. Let's get it started. Read the rest of this post...

What ever happened to "practice what you preach" with Blair?

While pressing for British values among new immigrants, which is fine enough, Blair pushes the whole thing so far, you have to wonder where his own values are. Telling a lie to take a country into a war is not a (modern) British value and "allegiance to the rule of law" means just that. Blair may be a better speaker than his dear friend in the White House, but he's every bit the liar and hypocrite. Doesn't one have to actually have values if they want to preach values? Read the rest of this post...