Open thread

I still can't believe Sci-Fi isn't on regular cable in Chicago. Are they mad? Read the rest of this post...

Newsweek: Bush's illegal domestic spying has echoes of "apartheid"

Hey, cool, we're now being compared to one of the most loathed, oppressive, vile governments in the history of mankind. You gotta admit, it takes a real special gift to take us from a shining city on the hill to apartheid in only 5 years.

Tell me again that Osama hasn't already won?

From Newsweek:

For anyone who has lived under an authoritarian regime, phone tapping—or at least the threat of it—is always a given. But U.S. citizens have always been lucky enough to believe themselves protected from such government intrusion. So why have they reacted so insipidly to yet another post-9/11 erosion of U.S. civil liberties?

I'm sure there are many well-meaning Americans who agree with their president's explanation that it's all a necessary evil (and that patriotic citizens will not be spied on unless they dial up Osama bin Laden). But the nasty echoes of apartheid South Africa should at least give them pause.

Then there's this from Desmond Tutu:

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the South African Anglican leader who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his principled fight for justice in his native country. "It's unbelievable," he told me in an interview, "that a country that many of us have looked to as the bastion of true freedom could now have eroded so many of the liberties we believed were upheld almost religiously."

Tutu recalled teaching in Jacksonville, Fla., when Bush won re-election in 2004. "I was shocked," he said, "because I had naively believed all these many years that Americans genuinely believed in freedom of speech. [But I] discovered there that when you made an utterance that was remotely contrary to what the White House was saying, then they attacked you. For a South African the déjà vu was frightening. They behaved exactly the same way that used to happen here—vilifying those who are putting forward a slightly different view." Tutu made these comments to me exactly a year ago next week.

Communist. Read the rest of this post...

Friday Orchid Blogging

Masdevallia Snow Cone

For mere mortals like me, Masdies, as we call them, are impossible to grow. This plant belongs to my friend Kyoko (it's also her photo, I stole it since my laptop is kaput), who doesn't really seem to know very well how to get them to flower again (she bought it in flower), but at least she doesn't kill them like I would. Basically, they like high humdity, around 70%, which is impossible in a home in the north, especially in winter. Also, they don't want to really dry out. But for me, the humidity would be impossible. You can read more about their culture here, and you check our more cools pics of Masdies here.

Enjoy! Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Just finished backing Christmas cookies with the nieces and nephews, it's our Christmas tradition. Wonder if that's enough justification for a search warrant, or lack thereof. You never know, the cookies could be done cooking any moment, and then it would be too late. Read the rest of this post...

Cliff's Corner

NOTE FROM JOHN: Today we begin a segment called "Cliff's Corner." Every Friday, or so, my friend Cliff Schecter will be writing a post containing his unique take on what's transpired over the past week. Cliff can be quite a pistol, and downright in your face (if any of you remember his appearances on DemsTV). So I think it promises to be amusing, or embarrassing, but unlike conservative Christians I won't deny Cliff, though I may distance myself. Enjoy.

The Week That Was 12/23/05

Another week. More preposterousness to report.

This week has been all spying all the time. We found out that President Bush thinks our lives should be an open book (yet, preferably an abbreviated one containing only monosyllabic grunts), so that he and that walking triple bypass of, for and by Halliburton, can snoop into and presumably expose any element of our lives like it's a hooker on a balcony with Dick Morris. (They wouldn't do that, of course, just ask Ms. Plame.)

President Bush, it seems, has been a bad boy, using the National Security Agency in a manner that does not comport with, say, our Constitution, to spy on Americans having phone conversations with suspects abroad. That's the last time I call Roman Polanski.

From where did the President believe he derived such power? From this language: "[Congress grants] all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons [the president] determines planned, authorized, committed or aided" the attacks of Sept. 11, according to Tom Daschle and, well, the actual legislation. So you can see the authorization plain as day in that language... if you are an exceedingly corpulent right-wing talk radio host staring at a pile of crushed hillbilly heroin so high you make Tony Montana jealous.

Our Emperor has been attacked by many prominent conservatives for reading the Divine Right of Kings into our Constitution, with Republicans on the Hill even calling for hearings! They usually don't even think of doing that to one of their own, unless he/she has performed a late-term abortion, while living in San Francisco, while in an interracial relationship with a transvestite who burns the American flag just to light their Cuban cigars. There is even talk of impeachment. But old Charlie Krauthammer won't hear of it, or at least he can't, as he is currently immersed in the pile of rose pedals thrown our way by Iraqis once we liberated them. Better than sex for Charlie.

Speaking of spying -- now make sure to sit down because this is going to be a shock -- The FBI has been secretly looking into those dangers that most imperil us. No, not Ashlee Simpson's singing voice, or Richter-scale-worthy tectonic plate shifts by caused by any movement in Ann Coulter's Adam's apple, but real threats like the Quakers and PETA. Now I know it is annoying to have blood splattered on that new ground-up-rhesus-monkey coat keeping you warm, but getting blown up probably qualifies as a shittier day. So to keep us safe from that danger, we have the Department of Defense spying on law schools that are "objectively" (old Commie term, ask Irving Kristol) pro-gay. Meaning that these universities don't think homosexuals are due a waterboarding any time soon.

So this is what the War on Terror has come to. In Bush's Disneyworld you can, without a warrant, be spied on, plucked off the street, declared an enemy combatant and sent to sunny Syria to meet the locals for a few weeks while shackled to a wall with pins in your finger nails and covered in your own urine. I know, the latter two were Ted Nugent's routine in the 70s, but we don't all want to live like a rock star. And if you don't talk they bring on the heavy guns: They baste you with butter and wall you in the Cask of Amontillado with Jonah Goldberg after he's been denied brunch.

Speaking of war, this week was another bloody one in the War on Christmas. John Gibson was called a liar on television for making up the whole thing, and his head grew to Russertian proportions, and almost popped. Apparently, he threatened the guy who called him a liar over the telephone later. As someone lucky enough to be on air with Mr. Gibson in the past, I can say that this must be false, because all of the times he interrupted me calling me a "left-wing extremist" or "radical" or "Jew who killed Christ and is now trying to execute Christmas," (the last exchange may or may not have happened as I remember it) leads me to believe he could never do such a thing.

But the joke's on him, because on the way back from spray-painting baby Jesus black in every manger display in my neighborhood (that should tick off the folks at Fox TV Carolina) I ran into a fat guy with a beard, and no it was not Brent Bozell. Let's just say I bitch-slapped a few elves and cold-cocked Santa with a rusty wrench. Just because I felt like it. So don't bother staying up on the 25th.

As for Gibson's buddy O'Reilly, he seems to have gone back and forth this week on his Christmas jihad. One moment it's ok to say "happy holidays" the next "secular progressives" are trying to smite Christmas again. It's hard to tie this guy down. In fact, I don't think anybody has done it since Andrea Mackris (ok, I have no actual evidence he used rope, and with the settlement, he'll keep us guessing forever). I guess we'll only find out if we could somehow justify snooping into his personal effects. But how would we justify that? Read the rest of this post...

Chris Matthews chosen "Misinformer of the Year"

More from Media Matters. Read the rest of this post...

But what I want to know is...

...does Markos really look like a frog? :-) Read the rest of this post...

Must have been a hot performance...

The Chicago Tribune reports today:

Gwen Stefani confirmed she is indeed pregnant while performing Wednesday at a concert in Ft. Lauderdale.

Read the rest of this post...

Bush authorized spying on American Muslims, just cuz

And we wonder why "they" hate us. Even we hate "us," at least the dark-skinned among us.

From US News:

In search of a terrorist nuclear bomb, the federal government since 9/11 has run a far-reaching, top secret program to monitor radiation levels at over a hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques, homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other cities, U.S. News has learned. In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the program. Some participants were threatened with loss of their jobs when they questioned the legality of the operation, according to these accounts....

"The targets were almost all U.S. citizens," says the source. "A lot of us thought it was questionable, but people who complained nearly lost their jobs. We were told it was perfectly legal."

Read the rest of this post...

Gonzales just admitted that Americans have the right to challenge the administration's domestic spying in court

I was just remembering this paragraph from yesterday's USA Today story:

The Supreme Court ruled last year that the congressional resolution implicitly authorized the administration to seize and hold a U.S. citizen as an enemy combatant, an action that Gonzales called more intrusive than electronic surveillance. The detention power was upheld in the case of Louisiana-born Yaser Esam Hamdi, who was captured while fighting in Afghanistan.

Now, let me walk you through why Gonzales just proved our case:

1. Gonzales says that the Supreme Court said the congressional resolution going to war in Afghanistan clearly authorized the Bush administration to hold US citizens as enemy combatants.

2. Gonzales' argument is that eavesdropping on an American is MUCH less intrusive than seizing that same person as an enemy combattant, therefore, he argues, the Supreme Court also ruled that the congressional resolution authorized domestic eavesdropping without a warrant.

3. So Gonzales is saying that Supreme Court cases and the congressional resolution apply equally to holding enemy combatants as they do to spying on Americans.

Ok then. But, let's revisit what Gonzales just admitted:

1. The Bush administration is saying that the same Supreme Court cases, and same congressional authorization for war in Afghanistan, cover both nabbing enemy combatant Americans and eavesdropping on Americans inside the US.

2. But those Supreme Court cases found that the congressional authorization for war, while permitting the government to secretly nab American enemy combatants, still includes a requirement that those nabbed citizens be given the right to challenge their nabbed status in court.

3. Thus Gonzales is admitting that those Supreme Court cases, and the congressional authorization, provide American citizens the right to challenge in court the government decision to intrude on their civil liberties.

4. So Gonzales admits that the Bush administration must notify every American spied on so that those Americans can exercise their constitutional right to challenge the administration's domestic eavesdropping in court, and the administration is acting unconstitutionally and in violation of the Supreme Court rulings and congressional authorizations if they do not notify those who were spied on AND permit them to challenge the spying in court.

So, thanks Alberto. If you want to use those Supreme Court cases to hang your hat on, go for it. So where is the list of names and when do you plan to contact the people you spied on? Read the rest of this post...

Massive political unrest breaks out in Iraq

Seems we created a bit too much democracy.

Large demonstrations broke out across the country Friday to denounce parliamentary elections that protesters say were rigged in favor of the main religious Shiite coalition....

Several hundred thousand people demonstrated after noon prayers in southern Baghdad Friday, many carrying banners decrying last week's elections. Many Iraqis outside the religious Shiite coalition allege that the elections were unfair to smaller Sunni Arab and secular Shiite groups.

"We refuse the cheating and forgery in the elections," one banner read.

During Friday prayers at Baghdad's Umm al-Qura mosque, the headquarters of the Association of Muslim Scholars, a major Sunni clerical group, Sheik Mahmoud al-Sumaidaei told followers they were "living a conspiracy built on lies and forgery."

"You have to be ready during these hard times and combat forgeries and lies for the sake of Islam," he said.

Love this quote:

"living a conspiracy built on lies and forgery."

Tell me about it. Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

You know we can talk about anything....or not. Read the rest of this post...

Alito: Roe should be overturned

AP just broke a story that Alito wrote a memo in 1985 stating that Roe v. Wade should be overturned:

Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito wrote in a June 1985 memo that the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion should be overturned.

In a recommendation to the solicitor general on filing a friend-of-court brief, Alito said that the government "should make clear that we disagree with Roe v. Wade and would welcome the opportunity to brief the issue of whether, and if so to what extent, that decision should be overruled."

Let's see how Alito tries to squirm out of this one. He's had an excuse or obfuscation for everything else from his past. And, if he wants Roe to go, he'll take a lot of other privacy rights with him. Read the rest of this post...

Daschle: we DID NOT authorize domestic spying

Daschle wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post today to rebuke Bush and Cheney'c claim of legislative authority:

As Senate majority leader at the time, I helped negotiate that law with the White House counsel's office over two harried days. I can state categorically that the subject of warrantless wiretaps of American citizens never came up. I did not and never would have supported giving authority to the president for such wiretaps. I am also confident that the 98 senators who voted in favor of authorization of force against al Qaeda did not believe that they were also voting for warrantless domestic surveillance.

It's almost unbelievable how the White House just plain lies. And the media laps it up. Remember what Murtha said about the Bush team: Just because they say it, doesn't make it true. Read the rest of this post...

An article on the Democrat's success in Congress...no kidding...

It's like an unexpected holiday gift:

The Republican-controlled Congress is staggering home for the holidays. Democrats, demoralized after last year's election losses, have a spring in their step after outmaneuvering President Bush and GOP congressional leaders in a series of session-ending clashes.

Okay, winning is much, much better than losing. Let's hope the Democrats in Congress take that spring in their step and turn it into legislative majorities in 2006. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

And off to bed. Read the rest of this post...