'Stop The Blame'? First, Stop The Violent Rhetoric

The county chair of the Republican Party in Tucson called upon President Obama to quit blaming Republicans for the shooting:

...

Brian Miller called on Obama to "lead the effort to stop the blame" after the shooting, responsibility for which he says has been unfairly placed on the shoulders of Republicans and the right.

...

OK, Mr. Miller. We'll stop the blame when you manage to put a cork in Sarah's mouth... to stop her undeniably violent rhetoric not only on her web site (crosshair targets on congressional districts? give me a break!) but at political rallies. Oh, and put a stop to incidents like these in a list compiled by Rachel Slajda:

Robert Lowry, a Republican challenger to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schulz (D-FL), stopped by a local Republican event in October. The event was at a gun range, and Lowry shot at a human-shaped target that had Wasserman Schulz's initials written next to it. He later said it was a "mistake." 

 and

Stephen Broden, a Republican challenger to Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), in late October said that violent revolution is "on the table."   

and

Dale Peterson, Republican candidate for agricultural commissioner of Alabama, ran an ad in May which he posed with a rifle and declared, "I'll name names and take no prisoners." He lost the primary.

and

Erstwhile Senate candidate Sharron Angle (R-NV) found herself in June defending comments she had made six months earlier about the Second Amendment.

"People are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying, my goodness, what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you, the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out," she said. 

 and

In March 2009, [Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)] said on a radio show: "I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax, because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us having a revolution every now and then is a good thing. And the people -- we the people -- are going to have to fight back hard if we're not going to lose our country."

and

Another one from 2009: Rep. Gregg Harper (R-MS) told Politico that he hunts Democrats. Asked about the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus, he said, "We hunt liberal, tree-hugging Democrats, although it does seem like a waste of good ammunition." 

and on and on and on; read the linked post.

Ms. Slajda has on her list exactly one Democrat, who fielded a campaign commercial in which the candidate, Joe Manchin of W. Virginia, shoots... not a person... but a climate change bill.

It is hard to argue seriously that the violent rhetoric is the fault of both sides, or that President Obama has the unilateral power to rein in such threats by candidates not of his own party. And so I say it again: Mr. Miller, Mr. Obama owes you nothing until you put a cork in Sarah's mouth... and the mouths of no fewer than a dozen other Republicans and/or Tea Partiers who exploit the actual or imagined political advantage of urging violent action when speaking to a roused rabble. Get your own house in order!

AFTERTHOUGHT: Jane Hamsher has it just right:

When you realize you’re pouring gasoline on an already volatile situation you stop.  They didn’t.  It’s beyond ideology.  It’s stupid and reckless behavior, and there’s no reason to do it when you realize you’re just egging people on who are already stepping over the boundaries into lawlessness.

 Indeed.

Doc Day

Monday was a doctor's appointment day for me, followed by a marathon grocery run. No bad news from the doctor, so I suppose it wasn't a totally wasted day. Forgive me for not piling on by putting up a blog post.

What Does It Mean To Be Liberal?

masaccio of FDL explores the matter, using the work of John Rawls as a starting point. It is masaccio's position that the liberal period of American life is over and done with. I regret that he may be right. The more I read of our nation's founders, indisputably wealthy white men with an ax to grind, the more I see that even the most conservative among them was still considerably more liberal than any member of either major party today.

What do you think? Is liberalism in America a thing of the past?

Tragedy

It is difficult for many of us to write about the assault on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her colleagues at a meet-the-Congress-member event in Arizona. If this is the first you're learning of the tragedy, which Rep. Giffords barely survived and five people did not, the link takes you to a slideshow of the essentials of the event.

First, let me offer my prayers and support to Rep. Giffords herself and to the families of all of those wounded and killed; one of the dead was only nine years old. The senselessness of it all is overwhelming. Any temptation to write about it as if it were primarily a political event is squelched by the sheer horror induced by the event itself: people died; others were critically injured.

So please believe me (if you are capable of it) that I am not indulging in politics when I speak of the events in which Rep. Giffords's opponent in the last election held a "Fire an M-16 with Jesse Kelly" event in his quest to "remove Gabrielle Giffords from office." Nor am I indulging in partisan politics when I point out that Sarah Palin placed a gunsight-style target on Rep. Giffords's district in campaign literature. And I am especially not being political when I point out that the Tea Party leadership is rejecting any notion of backing off of their undeniably violent pre-election rhetoric, claiming a First Amendment right to say any damned thing. I am not being partisan because these are not legitimate political acts in America: I would condemn them if Democrats or any other political groups engaged in them.

Free speech as protected by the First Amendment does not include overt threats of murder. You may not issue credible death threats and then claim First Amendment protection for them... and I state that, even though I am inclined to the broadest reasonable interpretation of the First Amendment. Someone has no First Amendment right to say, in all seriousness, in a public forum, around people inclined to violent action, "so-and-so ought to be killed."

And that is precisely what Jesse Kelly, Sarah Palin and the Tea Party leadership have done. These individuals need to understand that their own freedoms depend on their willingness to restrain overt threats against people who disagree with them. Today provides evidence of one of many reasons why these threats, whether seriously meant or not, cannot be tolerated: there is, often enough, some nut with a gun who will take the threats seriously and attempt to assassinate opponents. The fact that Sarah Palin is too busy killing moose and turkeys to shoot at her political opponents is irrelevant: if she indulges in rhetoric that causes some of her listeners to shoot people, she is, undeniably, to blame, as are Giffords's M-16-wielding political opponent and the Tea Party leadership. This must end... and only they have the ability to put a stop to it right now.

Again, my condolences to those who lost family members in today's massacre.

AFTERTHOUGHT:  The link above is to a slideshow, not a very good summary of events but rather a retrospective of Rep. Giffords's career. The only thing I can suggest to cover all the articles provided by TPM is to go to their home page, or if it's not still 1/9/2011, read this, this, this, this, this, this and this. Please skip President Obama's statement; never has his dependency on the TelePrompTer been more blatantly evident than here.

UPDATE Sunday morning:  while law enforcement officials seek the second suspect, Sarah Palin disclaims all responsibility, saying the markings on her campaign map were not crosshairs like those in a gunsight but "simply cross-hairs like you'd see on maps." Sarah... give. me. a. fucking. BREAK!

Even The GOP Can't Stand Steve King

They detest him so much that they will make someone else the chair of the immigration subcommittee, even though King was in line for it:

The new chair of the House Judiciary Committee has passed over Rep. Steve King (R-IA), the super-conservative hard-line immigration foe, for chairman of the immigration subcommittee. 

King was the ranking member of the subcommittee and was expected to take the chair. But the committee chairman, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chose Rep. Elton Gallegly of California instead.

Gallegly (R) is no liberal on immigration. ...

...

I'll take "no liberal" over "full-blown batshit crazy mean" any day of the week.

GOP: Rules Are Only For Our Opponents, Part 2

Evan McMorris-Santoro of TPM, one more time:

The Republican-controlled House voted this morning to wash away the massive fail caused by Reps. Pete Sessions' (R-TX) and Mike Fitzpatrick's (R-PA) decision to skip Wednesday's swearing-in ceremony in favor of taking the oath to a television set at a Capitol complex event for Fitzpatrick. 

By a vote of 257 to 159, the House voted in a special rule written for Sessions and Fitzpatrick to essentially rewrite Congressional history so the votes they cast as unsworn members-elect Wednesday and Thursday never happened. 

...

What is there to say but "IOKIYAR" ...

AFTERTHOUGHT:  Taking an oath to a television set does seem to me to make a lot of sense for an American. Many of us worship the damned thing.

What A Shock: Democratic Party Membership Down In 2010

Oh, yeah, that's a real surprise. I mean, some of us were kicked simultaneously in the butt and in the teeth and told to STFU; what possible reason could we have for leaving the Party? Ask Jon Walker of FDL:

Number Who Identify as Democrats Down Big in 2010

By: Jon Walker Friday January 7, 2011 6:21 pm

While the Obama administration is thinking about ways to win over independents in anticipation of the 2012 election, they actually should be worried that a large segment of former Democrats are no longer choosing to identify themselves with the party. From Gallup:

In 2010, 31% of Americans identified as Democrats, down five percentage points from just two years ago and tied for the lowest annual average Gallup has measured in the last 22 years. While Democrats still outnumber Republicans by two points, the percentage identifying as independents increased to 38%, on the high end of what Gallup has measured in the last two decades. [...]

While there is usually some year-to-year variation in party identification at the aggregate level, the changes are typically not large. Thus, the five-point drop in Democratic identification over the past two years, from the party’s 22-year high of 36% (tying the 1988 figure) to its 22-year low of 31%, is notable.

Perhaps equally significant is that the percentage of Americans identifying as Republicans has increased only slightly to 29% during this time, and remains on the low end of what Gallup has measured the past two decades.

This would indicate that the success of the GOP in 2010 was not the result of Republicans successfully winning new converts with new ideas, but a direct result of the failure of the Democratic party.

...

No fuckin' kidding? Do tell! Why in the world could that be? Could it be that the Obama administration is built upside-down, with assholes at the top?


AFTERTHOUGHT: I know that party membership is not identical to people who identify with a particular party. But I was both, and now I'm neither. Yes, I do blame Obama and his advisers.

Bill Bates (1/7/1920 - 8/1/1995)

This would have been Dad's 91^st birthday. Last year's in memoriam serves perfectly well, and I haven't the stamina to write another right now. We do, however, have another year's worth of reasons to wish he hadn't passed from our midst quite so long ago; Dad did not suffer fools gladly, and we have plenty of fools to suffer in our day.

Nut-Cases On Parade

Today's episode features Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa). As quoted by TPM's Ryan J. Reilly:

...

During a rant on the floor of the House about health care, King used the word "mendacity" -- meaning untruthfulness -- where he likely meant the opposite.

"As I deliberate and I listen to the gentleman from Tennessee, I have to make the point that when you challenge the mendacity of the leader or another member, there is an opportunity to rise to a point of order, there is an opportunity to make a motion to take the gentleman's words down, however many of the members are off on other endeavors and I would make the point that the leader and the speaker have established their integrity and their mendacity for years in this Congress and I don't believe it can be effectively challenged and those who do so actually cast aspersions on themselves by making wild accusations," King said.

...

Far be it from me to challenge Rep. King's mendacity...

(H/T Fallenmonk.)

Order Matter Word Does

From Carl Pope's Sierra Club blog, on values in Kenya regarding various animals:

To kill a lion that was killing a cow with a spear is a badge of courage and honor.

I sincerely hope I never encounter a cow with a spear, or a spear-wielding lion killing it...

GOP: Rules Are Only For Our Opponents

According to Evan McMorris-Santoro of TPM, two GOP House members were not present for the swearing-in of the 112th Congress as required by the Constitution, and therefore not legally members when they cast all their first-day votes. So where were Reps. Pete Sessions (R-TX) and Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA) when the swearing-in was taking place? They were at a fundraiser for Fitzpatrick which was being held in the Capitol Visitors Center.

Commenter yesiwantfrieswiththat reminds us that "[t]his is a bigger deal than it first appears because House ethics rules forbid fundraising in the Capitol." But hey, why violate only the Constitution when you can also simultaneously break a House ethics rule?

GOP-Led House Amends Constitution

Well, sort of. The 'publicans began their majority status in the House by reading aloud what was billed in advance as the entire Constitution. In reality, this total waste of time omitted passages unpleasant to the sensibilities of 21^st-century Americans, such as the counting of slaves for census purposes as 3/5 of a person. Yes, the parts they omitted have been replaced by amendment over the centuries. But frankly, I think it's dishonest to omit the bad parts.

Thanks in part to the Tea Party, the Constitution has been reified and deified. Indeed, I suspect any of our Founders would be shocked to see the Constitution-worship engaged in by the House today. The Constitution is not a religious text, graven in stone or at least set down in parchment for all time: it is, as our founders realized it must be, a living document, a basic structure for use in governing day-to-day. Living things are of necessity flexible, mobile and changing. Living things are full of ambiguities and internal contradictions. Such is our Constitution; it follows the classic rule: adapt or die.

It is no surprise to me that the 'publicans want to put their stamp on the Constitution as if they somehow owned the thing. But the document begins "We, the people of the United States..." not "We, the radical rightist remnant of the Republican Party of the United States..." and our founders clearly envisioned rough-and-tumble struggles in the governing process, the Constitution serving as a framework for those struggles.

So let us be clear: this reading has more to do with 'publican messaging than with the Constitution's necessarily fluid content. The truly unpleasant people in the House on both sides of the aisle will learn nothing from this reading; they couldn't care less about a "more perfect Union" or the "Blessings of Liberty." The reading is a waste of time and taxpayers' money.

I am reminded of something attributed to the composer Frederic Chopin, a remark on the music of Franz Schubert: "... the sublime is desecrated when followed by the trivial or commonplace." This reading in the House is surely trivial. Is the Constitution sublime? Again, it is not a religious text, not an object of worship, and regarding it as such "desecrates" what was never intended as sacred. I would greatly prefer that the members of the House spend a bit of time reading a good annotated copy of the Constitution, with attention to the interpretations of scholars, justices and legislators over the ages, than engage in something that is nothing more than a partisan publicity stunt.

AFTERTHOUGHT:  Let me be clear about this: I have nothing against publicans, who do a real service to the public; only against 'publicans, who for the most part do a real disservice to us all.

Just How Bad Was 2010's Weather?

Jim DeRosa gives us a transcript from PRI of a segment of Steve Curwood's "Living on Earth" show in which Jeff Young cites interviews with meteorologists (including our own favorite Jeff Masters of Weather Underground) and other experts regarding the climate in 2010. Here's a sample:

...

YOUNG: Jeff Masters has seen some pretty wild weather. As a hurricane hunter in the late '80s, he flew into the teeth of some of the biggest, baddest storms. Then he co-founded the internet forecasting site, Weather Underground. There he keeps track of extreme weather events. And Masters says 2010 is the most extreme yet.

MASTERS: In my 30 plus years of being a meteorologist I can't ever recall a year like this one as far as extreme weather events go, not only for U.S. but the world at large.

YOUNG: Countries covering one fifth of the planet's land saw record high heat. Drought altered the world's food trade. Floodwaters inundated parts of the U.S. and Asia with frequency that defied statistical expectations.

TRENBERTH: Isn't that interesting, we have a one in a thousand year event happening every few years nowadays.

YOUNG That's Kevin Trenberth, a meteorologist who leads the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

TRENBERTH: And so, it's the changes in extremes where we notice the climate change. Droughts and floods and heat waves that are outside the bounds of what we'd normally expect. The global warming component is rearing its head in that way.

...

Read (or listen to) the rest. Unsurprisingly, the news is not good.

Virginia Is For (Kid) Lovers

It's even on their license plates... or was, until the Virginia DMV revoked it, saying it referred to oral sex:

(Blatantly stolen from TPM.)

'Huckleberry Finn' To Be Bowdlerized By Publisher

Michael Whitney of FDL:

I wish this was some kind of a joke. The publishers of the next edition of Mark Twain’s classic Huckleberry Finn plan to replace the “n” word with “slave.”

What is a word worth? According to Publishers Weekly, NewSouth Books’ upcoming edition of Mark Twain’s seminal novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn will remove all instances of the “n” word—I’ll give you a hint, it’s not nonesuch—present in the text and replace it with slave. The new book will also remove usage of the word Injun. The effort is spearheaded by Twain expert Alan Gribben, who says his PC-ified version is not an attempt to neuter the classic but rather to update it. “Race matters in these books,” Gribben told PW. “It’s a matter of how you express that in the 21st century.”

Whitney then quotes Jonathan Turley on instances of such a replacement which simply don't work, e.g., one that results in the oxymoron "free slave."

But that's not the worst of it. Like censors throughout the ages, those who would censor Twain's use of the word "nigger" in Huckleberry Finn are often enough people who have read none of the book... none of it... but they can cite the page numbers on which the word is used. Context? they know and care nothing of context. Why a boy like Huck Finn would use the word? no, they know nothing of that, either. That Huck ultimately befriends and feels protective of Jim, to the point that Huck is willing to suffer the flames of Hell himself in order to protect Jim from recapture? no, no; they neither know that nor care about it.

I have read that Twain always chose exactly the right word and not its second cousin. I believe that is the case here. Huck, a creature of his time and social status, uses the indifferently contemptuous word (remember, it was not a hateful word until the 20^th century) because such a person in that pre-Civil-War period would have used it, and Twain is nothing if not authentic.

Yet there are apparently many parents to whom context and authenticity mean nothing. They cannot even remotely tell you what the novel Huckleberry Finn is about, but they can tell you it contains the 'n'-word. And so the publisher commits an act against which Twain, being dead, cannot defend himself. I cannot begin to tell you all the ways in which they are simply wrong to do this... nor can I convey in my second-cousin words the disservice they do to our children in misrepresenting one of the truly great works of any era about race relations.

American Public: Tax The Rich

So says a 60 Minutes / Vanity Fair poll. From a Reuters article:

Most Americans say tax rich to balance budget: poll

NEW YORK | Mon Jan 3, 2011 11:15am EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Most Americans think the United States should raise taxes for the rich to balance the budget, according to a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll released on Monday.

President Barack Obama last month signed into law a two-year extension of Bush-era tax cuts for millions of Americans, including the wealthiest, in a compromise with Republicans.

Republicans, who this week take control of the House of Representatives, want to extend all Bush-era tax cuts "permanently" for the middle class and wealthier Americans. ...

Sixty-one percent of Americans polled would rather see taxes for the wealthy increased as a first step to tackling the deficit, the poll showed.

...

Hear, hear! Over the past 50 to 75 years, taxes for the wealthiest Americans have gone (if memory serves me right) from about 90 percent in increments down to 30-35 percent today. And that's only in principle: many of the wealthy, and a surprising number of corporations, manage to pay no taxes at all. Tell me again: why is the government short of money?

The next most popular proposed cut? Twenty percent said we should cut "defense" spending. Again, count me in: spending is not for defense if it is used to fund discretionary wars of aggression, and there's hardly any other way to read Iraq and Afghanistan (and probably Pakistan and possibly Iran and... etc.) than as wars of aggression. They don't make us safer, and they cost a lot, both in dollars and in international reputation.

So how many people polled would cut Medicare and Social Security? That would be 4% and 3% respectively. Again, I find myself well into the 96%-97% who think cutting those is a bad idea.

So what do you think the 'publicans in the House will do with these issues in the next Congress? Yeah, that's what I think, too. Let's hope President O has the balls to veto a lot.

AFTERTHOUGHT: the Declaration of Independence says we each have a right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Neither the Declaration nor the Constitution speaks of a right to be wealthy beyond all reasonable need. If you think the Founders had obscene wealth in mind as a right, consider Benjamin Franklin's words: "Private property therefore is a creature of society, and is subject to the calls of that society, whenever its necessities shall require it, even to its last farthing." So be it.

Obama To Cut Social Security? No Evidence Of That, Says Josh Marshall

Read about it on TPM:

Over the last month or so I've been getting emails from readers suggesting that President Obama... will buy into the debt commission's call for cuts to Social Security. ... But so far I'm just not seeing any evidence to suggest this is true. 

... one key issue is that the nation's longterm debt problems -- which are very real -- don't really have much to do with Social Security. Social Security is currently subsidizing the rest of the budget.

...

In any case, I'm not saying it's impossible. I just haven't seen any convincing evidence. ...

I'd like to see concrete evidence, in the form of an unambiguous statement from the president, that he will defend Social Security. I know, I know: he's completely unreliable and his statements don't seem to mean much. But if he doesn't make a statement, that says even more: in that case, you can be relatively certain that he has secret plans to disable the fund into which we have been paying for decades, the fund that is already financially solid for about another 25 years even if no changes are made. That would be baldfaced theft from the elderly... and more proof that Obama is really a Republican.

Retired, 'Un-Tired,' Or Just Plain Tired?

Recently retired syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman, always a favorite of mine, examines the possibilities for senior citizens in America.

Happy New Year

... to everyone who blogs, starting with jams and moving right around the globe and the clock. Surely 2011 will be an improvement!

AFTERTHOUGHT: 1/1/2011 is my tenth (10^th) blogiversary. We bloggers are all fools, but I'm a bigger fool than most of you!

Geloiocracy - Rule By The Ridiculous

The neologism was coined by Paul Krugman in a pair of posts on his blog (H/T Bryan for the link). Indeed. If there's anyone more worthy of ridicule than the banksters and fraudsters of Wall Street, I don't know of them. Read Krugman for details.

Stella Is In The Air On Her Way Home

Don't expect any great amount of blogging from me tonight... tomorrow either, for that matter!

(I hope that is not the plane she's flying in, but the clip art reminded me of an old story that ends with the pilot saying, "I have that Fokker in sight now!")

Tucker Carlson On Michael Vick: Execute Dog Torturers

... but he says nothing about torturers of humans. (Here is an example from 2007 in which he speaks approvingly of torture of humans. Apologies for linking to the transcript on a right-wing site, but that's where Tucker Carlson is disgust discussed.)

What a guy. The whole recent segment is nothing but a typical Fox News vehicle for Obama-bashing, but it seems more than a bit extreme... and hypocritical... for Carlson to advocate execution as punishment for torturing dogs.

Hypocritical? Yes. I mean, c'mon, Tucker... did you eat meat for dinner that night? Where do you think that meat came from; did the meat fairy leave it in your kitchen? You've doubtless seen videos taken in stockyards; do you think the cattle are treated humanely before they are killed? Should you, Tucker, be executed for condoning that treatment so you can have your steak for dinner? Back off a bit, and try applying the same standard to yourself as you apply to Vick. Now how does that feel?

Moonstruck

I've been reading Eugene Cernan's Last Man on the Moon, his biography as an astronaut in the Sixties and Seventies... another $2 bargain on the library's book sale table. As I read about the accomplishments of all these young men (in those days, women were not sought or accepted as astronauts), I vacillate between two thoughts:

• That was an era in which America really accomplished things apart from, or at least in addition to, perpetual warfare;
  
  
• Gawd, what an arrogant, self-preoccupied bunch of bastids those guys were!

Both statements seem to have been true. Take your choice which should be emphasized 40 years later.

AFTERTHOUGHT:  It bothers me greatly that those flyboys truly did not want scientists taken along on missions: in their view, every scientist who flew was a pilot unjustly displaced from the schedule. It seems to me a failure on the part of the pilots to recognize that ultimately, the space program is about science, or it is about nothing. I enjoy a good adventure as much as the next American, but I can't help feeling that if more emphasis had been placed on nonmilitary scientific research, the space program budget might not have been slashed to the point at which a trip to the Moon tomorrow would be simply impossible.

Vick Tory?

Many of you may have followed the career of quarterback Michael Vick, who was sentenced to jail and then probation for running a dog-fighting ring. Subsequently he was reinstated in the NFL, and President Obama just praised the owner of the Philadelphia Eagles for re-hiring Vick, who apparently has played well in the previous season.

For some reason I don't have the usual American male lust for violence that drives men to watch professional football, but I don't in general disapprove of it. Those men expect a certain number of themselves to be severely injured. As far as I'm concerned, it's their business if they want to risk paralysis for a huge sum of money, as long as the law treats them no differently from anyone else.

Animal cruelty... and there's no doubt that dog-fighting is cruelty... is another matter. I have zero tolerance for willful mistreatment of animals. Vick has just announced that he would like to own a dog again after his probation is over. I doubt that's a good idea, considering his history.

Although... it's pretty obvious that today's GOP is for sale, and it's a real dog, even more blatantly than the Democratic Party. Maybe we could sell Vick the Republican Party?

Getting The Wrong Message From The Election

Who's doing that? Obama, of course, says AFP American Edition:

US President Barack Obama is using his Christmas holiday in Hawaii to read up on former president Ronald Reagan, an icon for the resurgent Republicans he will face next year.

The president "is reading a biography right now on Ronald Reagan by Lou Cannon," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs wrote Friday on the micro-blogging website Twitter.

Obama has taken an interest in the former president ahead of his return to a more deeply divided Washington next month, when the Republican opposition will assume control of the House of Representatives.

...

Merry Christmas, America... WASF...

Happy Insert-Your-Solstice-Holiday-Name-Here!

I would simply say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Hanukkah," or even "Happy Festivus," but how can I pass up an opportunity to offend the bejesus out of Bill O'Reilly?

Stella is finally on her way to the airport. The @#$%^ airport shuttle was 45 minutes late picking her up; I do hope she makes her flight. Presuming she does, she's on her way to North Carolina by way of Atlanta, where she hopes she is not snowed in, and hopes also that her bag gets checked through. Still, it's been ages since she visited her kinfolks in their own home, and this was her opportunity. The kitties and I will have to make do without her for about a week.

Damn, it's quiet around here.

Oh, presents? Stella got two things she asked for from me... a gift certificate at an art supply store and a book of haiku. From her I got several books (details later) and one more gift in a rather large box. "Guess what it is," she said. "Do I get to ask questions?" I replied. "Yes, but only the traditional ones," she said. "Is it bigger than a breadbox?" I began. "No," she began rather tentatively...

It was a breadbox... shiny, large and with the roll top that most of them seem to have these days. Someone's sense of humor is a lot like mine...

WTF ??

Thanks to nomolos on a thread at FDL, we have this charming bit from the Guardian:

WTF? OMG, LOL! CIA gives WikiLeaks taskforce naughty name

US spy agency forms taskforce to assess fallout from 250,000 leaked US cables


Adam Gabbatt
# guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 22 December 2010 10.27 GMT


The CIA has launched a taskforce to assess the impact of 250,000 leaked US diplomatic cables. Its name? WikiLeaks Task Force, or WTF for short.

...

"Officially, the panel is called the WikiLeaks Task Force. But at CIA headquarters, it's mainly known by its all-too-apt acronym: WTF," the Washington Post reported.

...

WTF indeed.

Riggsveda

... is blogging again.

How The U.S. Became An Oligarchy

Andy Kroll of TomDispatch provides a satisfactory summary introduction. Frankly, things don't look good for those of us who would prefer another sort of government. It appears the old joke is true: we have the best government money can buy, to a degree never before seen in the history of the world.

Bye Bye, Bill Of Rights: Obama To Issue Executive Order For Indefinite Detention - UPDATED

I guess it's all over but the shouting. TPM:

White House Drafts Executive Order for Indefinite Detention

by Dafna Linzer, ProPublica

The White House is preparing an Executive Order on indefinite detention that will provide periodic reviews of evidence against dozens of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, according to several administration officials.

The draft order, a version of which was first considered nearly 18 months ago, is expected to be signed by President Obama early in the New Year. The order allows for the possibility that detainees from countries like Yemen might be released if circumstances there change.

But the order establishes indefinite detention as a long-term Obama administration policy and makes clear that the White House alone will manage a review process for those it chooses to hold without charge or trial.

...

"[To] hold without charge or trial..." the very words are repugnant to any American who believes our Founders had a different idea. Obama is acting like a king, not a president. Of course some of us will make a fuss, but that's all it will be... and it won't be a fuss by the great majority of Americans.


Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, America. Here's your stinking present.

UPDATE: David Dayen of FDL has a lot to say.

Obama's FCC Prepares To Fuck Net Neutrality

Timothy Karr:

Late Monday, a majority of the FCC's commissioners indicated that they're going to vote with Chairman Julius Genachowski for a toothless Net Neutrality rule.

According to all reports, the rule, which will be voted on during tomorrow's FCC meeting, falls drastically short of earlier pledges by President Obama and the FCC Chairman to protect the free and open Internet. 

The rule is so riddled with loopholes that it's become clear that this FCC chairman crafted it with the sole purpose of winning the endorsement of AT&T and cable lobbyists, and not defending the interests of the tens of millions of Internet users. 

Welcome to AT&T's Internet

For the first time in history of telecommunications law the FCC has given its stamp of approval to online discrimination.

...

Will any vestige of the 'net full of small blogs we all know and love survive? Or will the 'net become like cable TV, served by the big players who can afford the tolls, players who deliver content they think you should have? Stay tuned. If putting up and serving a blog becomes something that requires real money to provide an acceptable bandwidth, I'm outta here.

UPDATE: Craig Aaron's piece is well worth reading.

UPDATE: according to the NYT,  the primary deficiency of the regs to be voted on in about an hour is that it permits wireless carriers to restrict content. If I understand correctly, that means AT&T, Verizon, etc. can sell their own version of the 'net, with no obligation to carry content products that compete with their own. Hey, kids, let's play Monopoly™!

UPDATE:  Now the AP describes the regs in terms exactly opposite to those of SaveTheInternet etc. Either I have misunderstood completely or (as I think more likely) the AP will say anything its corporate masters want it to say. Time will tell.

Another Nut-Case Appointed

Ryan J. Reilly of TPM:

Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) -- the guy who thinks that man can't really destroy the planet because the Bible says only God can -- was passed over for chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in favor of Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI).

But now Upton has named Shimkus to chair the Environment and Economy Subcommittee. That subcommittee has jurisdiction over issues like national energy policy, energy regulation and utilization and the Clean Air Act.

Shimkus, you may recall, questioned whether decrease the use of carbon dioxide was taking away plant food from the atmosphere, declared that cap-and-trade proposals were scarier than terrorism and said global warming was not an issue because God promised Noah he wouldn't destroy the Earth again after the flood.

...

When global climate change wrecks the lives of these nut-cases' children in a few years or a couple of decades, they'll find another explanation... no doubt one conformable to their religious beliefs... for why their god changed his mind and reneged on his promises like a Washington politician. Religious zealotry means never having to say you're sorry wrong.

Senate Repeals DADT, Obama To Sign This Week

The vote in the Senate was 65 to 31... it's distressing that we have so many baldfaced bigots in office, but we take what we can get. Whether you're LGBT or merely a civil liberties and human rights activist, you will have cause to celebrate when the President signs this one. And sign it he will, given what a cautious type he is...

The Partisan Neighborhood Library

I just returned from the McGovern Stella Link branch of Houston Public Library. On my way out, I noticed an entire display rack... perhaps a dozen books... half of which were by or about Republicans. The other half of the books were not about Democrats. Rick Perry, Dick Armey, Sarah Palin, and Bill O'Reilly were solidly represented.  But there was not one single solitary book by a Democrat in the entire display. None.

This is not the first I've encountered such partisan distribution of books at this neighborhood branch. On the end of every regular shelving unit is a display rack for new books or books to which the librarian wishes to draw attention. You'd be astonished... or maybe not... at how many times these featured books contain volumes from LaHaye and Jenkins's "Left Behind" series. This goes quite beyond informing library users that new material is available: at this frequency, there's no other rational explanation except that right-wing books are being promoted.

It's your tax dollars at work, Houstonians. Feel free to confirm for yourself and then file a complaint.

---

AFTERTHOUGHT: Do not mistake this as merely a reflection of the distribution of R's and D's in Houston. While Houston has some Republican strongholds in various places and especially in suburbs, the City itself is majority Democratic, as manifested in just about every presidential and midterm election. Be careful what assumptions you make.

Halliburton Bribes Cheney's Way Out Of Going To Jail In Nigeria

Ironically, Dick Cheney was charged with bribery. So his company paid a $250 million (ahem) "fine" to get him off. And to think this man ran our country for eight years...

'B' Is For 'Bipartisanship'; Also For 'Betrayal'

TPM's Brian Beutler:

On Thursday night, Senate Republicans killed must-pass legislation to fund the government, and forced Democrats to accept GOP spending demands to avert a federal shutdown. ...

After long deliberations with Republican principals Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced on the Senate floor that nine GOP members had reneged on their pledges to vote for the omnibus spending bill, which reflected months of bipartisan negotiations, and included earmarks benefiting both parties. 

That left Reid several votes shy of the 60 he'd need to overcome a filibuster and essentially vaporized a year's worth of work by the Appropriations Committee.

...

(Emphasis mine.)

The congressional Republican caucus has not one shred of honesty in its entire leadership or membership. Some of us have understood this for a long time. What will it take for President Obama to wake up to this simple fact? If you want a Republican to do something, you have to use your raw power to stuff it down his goddamned throat. What part of this does he still not understand?

Krugman Explains Our Unemployment

Paul Krugman, in his usual lucid prose, offers a differentiation of two kinds of unemployment, and tells us which one we have in the US. He takes issue with assertions of structural unemployment, and his conclusion is hardly surprising to those who follow the situation:

...

That is not the case in the United States today. Where’s the evidence of a structural rise in unemployment? There are no large groups of workers with rising wages; there are no large parts of the labor force at full employment, and there are no full-employment states, aside from Nebraska and the Dakotas. And inflation is falling, not rising.

Clearly, in contrast to what you may have heard, the United States is not facing an inflationary obstacle — if you look for evidence, there is none to be found. What the economy needs is more demand; provide that, and you’ll be amazed at how many willing, productive workers there are, currently sitting idle. 

No matter what Mitt Romney says, few people in America remain unemployed by choice or by laziness. But as long as demand is weak, there will be high unemployment, for reasons that hardly require explanation. Therefore government... the last institution with the power to do so... must stimulate demand. So far, it hasn't done nearly enough.

Likely Cure For AIDS Accomplished By German Doctors

In this one instance, it sounds likely. But most people probably would not want to go through what this patient underwent to be cured, given that there are other treatments that effectively stop the progress of the disease:

Doctors in Berlin, working with an American patient with both HIV and leukemia, have declared in a peer-reviewed journal that they believe they have cured both illnesses. It would be the first time an HIV patient has been cured.

...

`` `Cured' is a strong word. But this is very encouraging,'' said Dr. David Scadden, co-director of the Harvard University Stem Cell Institute. ``From all indications, there was no residual virus. It's as good an outcome as one could hope.'' 

...

``I would call this a functional cure,'' said Dr. Margaret Fischl, pioneering AIDS researcher at the University of Miami. ``It's on the level and a very remarkable case. But would we do this with an HIV patient? No.''

The treatment is too radical, its side effects too harsh for general use, Fischl said. Still, it opens up new avenues for researchers to create more practical cures, she said.

...

Read the linked article for more specifics about the patient and the apparent cure. It sounds as if it's on the level, but extremely hard on the patient.

A lot of my friends, especially in the musical community, are or were gay. I say "were" because a few of them died of AIDS. I can never forget... OK, I can never forgive... Ronald Reagan for his refusal even to speak the word, let alone allow government funding of research, for eight years. Given how far behind American researchers were even back then, I am not at all surprised that this first apparently genuine cure was achieved by German doctors.

Truly, in many of the most critical cases, the personal is political. And the political is often enough deplorable.

Some People Never Learn

The 'publicans intend to shut down the feral guvmint again if they don't get what they want, which is... um, it's not clear, as the draft bill already has all the GOP earmarks in it. (What? NO! Surely the GOP didn't ask for earmarks... well, actually, many of them did.)

Can they do it? Probably they can, by filibustering the omnibus spending bill. Is it to their advantage to do it? Heh... has no one ever told them the story of Newt Gingrich in 1994 1996-1998? "Go ahead... make my day."

The New King

In Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's novella The Little Prince, there appears a character, the King, who insists that he can "'control' the stars but only by ordering them to do what they would do anyway." (Quoted passage is from the wiki, not the book.)

When it comes to global climate change, there seem to be quite a few people who have mastered half of the King's notion: they are willing to order the Earth's climate to do what they want, or what is expedient to them in selling, e.g., products that are toxic to Earth's atmosphere. The other half of the notion... that they must order the climate to do only what it would do anyway... seems to be beyond their grasp.

Among these are Fox Noise D.C. Bureau Chief Bill Sammon...

Fox News D.C. Bureau Chief Bill Sammon e-mailed staffers last December to instruct them not to assert that the "planet has warmed (or cooled)" without "IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question."

...

... and activist Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli...

...

Last month, reports The Hook of Charlottesville, the AG requested "a sweeping swath of documents" from the University of Virginia, relating to the climate research work -- funded through state grants -- of Michael Mann. 

Mann worked at the university from 1999 to 2005, and now runs Penn State's Earth System Science Center. If he were found to have manipulated data, Cuccinelli could seek to have the research money -- plus damages -- returned to the state. 

...

There are many legitimate reactions to climate-change deniers... assertions that they are religious extremists or tools of business interests that would be affected by any sensible legislation responding to climate change... but the one thing I perceive in common among all the deniers is that they are almost unbelievably arrogant: they are convinced they can order the climate to do something other than what it would do anyway, for no better reason than that global climate change inconveniences them.

And that is nothing more than foolishness. Their climate will change, no matter how many times they deny it. Unfortunately, it happens to be our climate, too.

God Damn Mitt Romney To The Hell He Proposes For The Poor

In other words, render him indefinitely unemployed... with no benefits he didn't pay for himself. Starve him. Starve his family. And preach to him incessantly about the virtues of work. Put him in a literal living Hell, the very one to which he would consign our poorest citizens.

(If you ever had any notion that Romney was a moderate Republican, well, here's your answer to that. There is no longer such thing as a moderate Republican.)

---

AFTERTHOUGHT:  Just in case you think I am benefiting from the unemployment system as it is currently framed, no, damn it, I am not: contractors cannot collect unemployment benefits. But neither am I poor. I am not losing my home. I am not missing meals. I don't have a family to feed. Romney is a right (right-wing?) bastard for even suggesting that employees should pay their own unemployment insurance in the current economy.

YouTube's New Flag For Videos

TPM:

YouTube has quietly added a new category viewers can use to flag inappropriate videos: "promotes terrorism."

The new category, which went live in early November, is a subcategory of the "Violent or Repulsive Content" category users can choose when they report material on the site. The addition occurred shortly after lawmakers in the U.S. and Britain pressured the site to do something about terror-related content.

...

Good job, Google, defending free speech just like our governments do. [/snark]

Apparently this has to do with their removal of hundreds of videos of American cleric Anwar Awlaki, "connected" to Al Qaeda - Arabian Peninsula, last month. (The word "connected" is not mine. Read the TPM article.) Again, good job of defending free speech, Google. [/snark]

Considering Assange and Awlaki, it seems free speech is more and more frequently the victim of the government's War on Terror (sorry; I won't give up the term).

Sooner or later, every blogger who writes about unpleasant people, defending their constitutional right to free expression, is going to find him- or herself charged with a crime, quite possibly with no due process rights to challenge what could well be indefinite detention. I've already instructed Stella that if I suddenly disappear, she should try to find me somewhere in the federal prison system, charged with thoughtcrime.

We live in a greeeeeaaaat nation!

---

AFTERTHOUGHT: I've posted three videos on YouTube. One is a picture of my hand reflecting rainbows projected by one of those sun-powered rainbow makers. Another is an image of a model unicycle riding a wire, the whole apparatus suspended from the ceiling of an ice cream parlor in a small town in Texas. One more is a flower blowing in a strong wind, with wind chimes sounding in the background. I wonder what the alleged terrorist content of those might be...

Federal Judge: Part Of Health Care Law Unconstitutional - UPDATED 2X

Read about it at TPM. They promise updates as details become available.

---

UPDATE: This is questionable judicial ethics at best. The federal judge in the case, Henry E. Hudson, owns between $15k and $50k in a GOP political consulting firm that worked against health care reform... the very law on which he issued this ruling. What he did may be legal (or not), but it stinks to high heaven, and I suspect it's a hell of a smell. Who appointed Hudson? why, George W. Bush, of course.

I detest the framing of the current health care law. I even deplore the provision Hudson ruled unconstitutional. But Republican presidents, by saturating the judiciary with relentlessly partisan judges and Justices, have performed a wholly unethical act that propagates additional unethical acts ad nauseam. You know if a judge appointed by a Democrat had made an analogous ruling, Fox Noise would be screeching about it 24x7.

---

UPDATE: Apparently Judge Hudson's decision has flaws quite apart from any conflict of interest he may have. Here's Brian Beutler of TPM:

...

"I've had a chance to read Judge Hudson's opinion, and it seems to me it has a fairly obvious and quite significant error," writes Orin Kerr, a professor of law at George Washington University, on the generally conservative law blog The Volokh Conspiracy.

Kerr and others note that Hudson's argument against Congress' power to require people to purchase health insurance rests on a tautology.

The key portion of the ruling reads:

If a person's decision not to purchase health insurance at a particular point in time does not constitute the type of economic activity subject to regulation under the Commerce Clause, then logically an attempt to enforce such provision under the Necessary and Proper Clause is equally offensive to the Constitution.

Kerr notes that this is all wrong. The Necessary and Proper Clause allows Congress to take steps beyond those listed in the Constitution to achieve its Constitutional ends, including the regulation of interstate commerce. Hudson's argument wipes a key part of the Constitution out of existence. Kerr says Hudson "rendered [it] a nullity."

...

And according to other legal scholars, there may be other errors in the ruling. None of this says the law is wholly constitutional, but there is liable to be quite a scramble now to determine its constitutionality one way or the other. SCOTUS, here we come...

Bread... Winner!

I don't mean the head of household... I mean a successful first loaf baked in the "new" oven. Stella and a friend of hers happened to be here as I was finishing it up; both asked for seconds... not out of politeness, because Stella doesn't eat anything out of mere politeness: she liked it and her friend liked it.

The bread was direct from Hollywood... master baker Paul Hollywood of London, who has worked for most of the four-star hotels in that city. Hollywood obviously has a knack for baking, but he also has a knack for teaching, for knowing what to bother saying and what can be omitted or neglected. I tried what appears to be his simplest recipe, a basic whole wheat loaf. It didn't merely work; it wasn't merely functional. It was in texture the lightest whole wheat bread I've ever baked. The sound of the classic "thump" on the bottom was just right; I knew it would be wonderful before I cut into it. And the flavor...

There were two possible improvements. If I hadn't taken Hollywood at his word and added more water (an extra ¼ cup), and if I had used as much yeast as he specified (I've never seen a recipe before that called for a full ounce of yeast), I think it might have been even more wonderful. As it was, the loaf was rather flat and short. But everyone agreed the taste was just right.

The new oven was well-behaved, though Stella swore she smelled gas...

42.9 Million Americans (14 Percent) On Food Stamps

Via peterr at FDL, from the WSJ, according to USDA figures, 42,911,042 Americans... about one in seven... depended on food stamps for survival in September. But in some states (surprisingly, not including Texas, which is close to the median), the situation is much, much worse: e.g., one in five Mississippians and D.C. residents collects food stamps. Remember: this is in the allegedly wealthiest nation on Earth... but approximately one seventh of our people cannot feed themselves on their income.

Yet the WSJ still calls this a "recession and lackluster recovery." When will the major news outlets start calling a depression a depression? Yeah, that's what I think, too... never.

Please help your local food bank if you are able.

Krugman: White House Plan Screws Stimulus Again

The Shrill One says that what Obama and the 'publicans propose won't work to get the economy started. Read FDL's Scarecrow and then Krugman. Just one man's opinion? Well, yes, but I've learned to listen to that one man. It's not that he's never been wrong, but he's been consistently right about this depression. You'd think that would be enough to make the President listen to him, but noooo...

Net Neutrality

One of the best explanations of the issue of net neutrality I've seen is provided by Eric K. Arnold of AlterNet. If you read the blogs regularly, you need to understand net neutrality, which is really all that stands between the blogs and oblivion.

Damn

DADT repeal failed in the Senate. Reid managed to get only 57 votes.

If you had any vestige of a notion that Congress serves the undisputed will of the American people, you can take that notion and about five bucks to Starbucks and buy yourself a venti frappuccino with a lot of flavorings. Or you can leave the notion at home and just hand over the five bucks.

As long as the Senate rules are dysfunctional, we will continue to suffer minority rule. In this case, it results in actual discrimination against LGBT people. What a great nation we have! [/snark]

Higher Taxes For Low-Income Workers? That's Obama's Plan

Chris Adams of McClatchy:

Obama's deal will raise taxes for some low-income workers

WASHINGTON — The tax deal struck this week between the White House and congressional leaders has a little bit for most taxpayers in the country. But some of the nation's poorest workers will actually end up worse off.

...

The break-even point is $20,000 for an individual and $40,000 for a couple. All other things being equal, make less than those figures in a year, and your taxes will go up come Jan. 1, 2011. Make more and they'll go down.

...

There it is, Obama's campaign slogan in action: the oh-dash-it-all of hope.

I don't know yet whether this affects me. But it certainly offends me.

Bread

Actually, bread futures, not in the commodity sense but in the sense Terry Pratchett writes of pork futures... ghosts of loaves of bread yet to come, visible in the mind's eye of my own future.

The old defective stove has been replaced and the new one (well, OK, the new used one) hooked up. At my request, the landlord replaced the old electric range with a gas stove, the stove of my youth (though this one is much younger than I am), the stove I'm told many cooks prefer (and I'm one of them, whether I deserve the title "cook" or not).

Stella was at first terrified. She talked of pilots gone out and gas leaks and kittens leaping into ovens. I tried to reassure her that over 40 of my 62 years were spent living in homes or apartments with gas stoves (and sometimes with kittens), and that it didn't have to be the way she described. This stove has pilots on all burners and one more on the oven. The interface is exactly the same as the electric stove of which Stella was so fond, the one that quit on us. I don't know if she's convinced yet, but perhaps in time she will be.

Meanwhile, I'm thumbing through two of my bread books, looking for relatively simple recipes that don't use a bread machine. There are plenty of such; in fact, one of the reasons I want to bake with a "real" oven is to render myself independent of that little metal box. As wonderful as that box may be, the overwhelming majority of bread recipes are not adapted for it, and I want to try some of those recipes.

And so the ghostly images of loaves of bread yet to come appear before me, drifting futureward like the pork futures in Pratchett's books...

'Sanctimonious' And 'Purist'?

Obama's speech is offensive beyond words... to whom? to his much-maligned, eternally ignored base. To me, for instance.

The man whines about compromise, but what he's doing has nothing to do with compromise: his interaction with the GOP is limited solely to acquiescence, on issue after issue, without even a challenge or debate from Obama. Have the GOPers moved to impeach him yet? No? Gosh, I can't imagine why not. [/snark]

In that case, has his base moved to impeach him yet?

Fuck the man, and I'm not offering to do the job.

Bernie Sanders Raises Hell Against Tax-Cuts-For-Unemployment-Benefits Deal

 

Sierra Club Does The Right Thing

Jane Hamsher:

Sierra Club Will Oppose Obama’s NAFTA-Style Free Trade Agreement

By: Jane Hamsher Monday December 6, 2010 8:45 am

According to an email from Michael Brune, Executive Director of the Sierra Club, the organization will release a statement in the next few hours on Obama’s NAFTA-Style Free Trade Deal:

We’re opposed.

Good for the Sierra Club.

The Sierra Club opposed the deal when it was negotiated by George Bush in 2007:

Like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Dominican Republic-Central America-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR), the investment chapter of this agreement continues to promote off-shoring, and exposes our domestic environmental, zoning, health and other public interest policies to challenge by foreign investors in foreign tribunals. In addition, the procurement rules of this agreement jeopardize our democratically-determined federal and state procurement policies. This means that policies designed to promote clean energy use and reward environmentally-sustainable companies would be vulnerable to challenge in international trade tribunals, even if those policies were developed at the state and local levels.

Those things haven’t changed. But labor secretaries like Hilda Solis have been calling around furiously, trying to get groups to stay quiet and refrain from criticizing the deal — threatening them when necessary, as in the case of the Steelworkers.

It takes guts to get out in front of this when the White House is trying to strong arm people while they take bows with the Chamber of Commerce and Jamie Dimon. High marks for the Sierra Club for showing leadership and being willing to do so.

And so it does.

What's the name of this latest agreement? Let's see... they've used NAFTA. They've used CAFTA. I know... how about KAFKA?

---

(Full disclosure: a few years ago I served in the local leadership of the Houston Sierra Club. I am not unbiased in this matter!)

Beer And Wine Ban In S. Carolina

People I've known in South Carolina don't generally deserve the stereotyping often applied to them that they are too stupid to get up in the morning. But sometimes you wonder...

TPMMuckraker

D'oh! South Carolina Inadvertently Bans Beer And Wine Permits

David Taintor | December 6, 2010, 8:54AM

Oops, looks like it could be a pretty dry month in South Carolina. A new law authored by state Rep. Mike Pitts (R) inadvertently bans businesses and individuals from obtaining temporary beer and wine permits.

...

Need some spare cash for the holidays? yes? Have any scruples against bootlegging? no? Have I got a job for you...

Another Phase Of Our Totalitarian State Begins

This time the victim is freedom of speech on the internet:

AlterNet / By Julianne Escobedo Shepherd

Here Come Homeland Security Internet Police, and They're Already Shutting Down Web Sites They Don't Like

Murky new Internet regulation laws could stomp out freedom of speech...and the Department of Homeland Security has already begun.

December 3, 2010  |  Last week, the Department of Homeland Security seized 82 domain names for allegedly hawking counterfeit goods ranging from knockoff Coach handbags to bootleg DVDs. Enacted under the auspices of its Immigrations and Customs Enforcement arm, the sites were wiped out and replaced with an ominous message from the DHS that laid out the stakes, including the warning, “Intentionally and knowingly trafficking in counterfeit goods is a federal crime that carries penalties for first-time offenders of up to 10 years in federal prison, a $2,000,000 fine, forfeiture and restitution.”

Most of the seized Web sites had names like thelouisvuittonoutlet.com and getdvdset.com, and sold reproductions of designer goods and hard copies of jacked movies. A few sites on the list, though, stuck out: Onsmash.com, rapgodfathers.com and dajaz1.com are popular music blogs that were generally involved in the promotion of artists, rather than outright piracy. Well-known among rap fans for posting the latest videos, singles and remixes (always hosted from third-party download sites), their seizure was shocking, not just to the hip-hop blogosphere, but to music sites everywhere. Their inclusion on a list of sites that profit from manufacturing hard goods seemed arbitrary and ignorant. Furthermore, these sites were directly involved with artists, widely viewed as outlets that could help artists build buzz and promote their upcoming albums.

And in what ICE termed its “Cyber Monday” crackdown, a statement on the official DHS site made it clear that this was only the beginning:

...

The DHS seems to be tiptoeing in the music pool, testing its boundaries and seeing what it can get away with. ICE began seizing domain names mere days after Senator Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, blocked the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), a bill that would effectively allow the government to censor any Web site it sees fit, and one that is widely viewed as an attack on our free speech. ...

...

Please read the rest of the article. Read it in light of my previous post: it is fairly obvious that the changes Johnson describes can take place only under a government in which the notion of free speech is meaningless.

I don't have any action items on this one. I believe we are fucked to the ears, and probably won't outlast my lifetime, let alone yours, as an allegedly free nation. All I can ask you as individuals is this: please don't pirate music, for the sake of the artists (yes, yes, fuck the recording companies, but please keep it legit for the sake of the musicians), and if you feel you must download illegally, don't get caught by the DHS. DHS, chaotically structured agency that it is, could nonetheless end up our nation's equivalent of Hitler's SS.

I sleep better nights because I have a longstanding commitment to not pirating media or software. You will too. Big Brother is truly watching you, Dog damn him.

Chalmers Johnson (1931-2010) - UPDATED

Chalmers Johnson (as quoted by Avedon Carol):

If present trends continue, four sorrows, it seems to me, are certain to be visited on the United States. Their cumulative impact guarantees that the United States will cease to bear any resemblance to the country once outlined in our Constitution. First there will be a state of perpetual war leading to more terrorism against Americans wherever they may be and a growing reliance on weapons of mass destruction as they try to ward off the imperial juggernaut. Second, there will be a loss of democracy and constitutional rights as the presidency fully eclipses Congress and is itself transformed from an 'executive branch' of government into something more like a Pentagonized presidency. Third, an already well-shredded principle of truthfulness will increasingly be replaced by a system of propaganda, disinformation, and glorification of war, power, and the military legions. Lastly, there will be bankruptcy, as we pour our economic resources into ever more grandiose military projects and shortchange the education, health, and safety of our fellow citizens.

It must have been really difficult for this man, not easily pigeonholed and full of such contradictions in life, by the time of his death to be proven right about such important and tragic matters. R.I.P. Chalmers Johnson.

---

UPDATE: the wiki links an excellent assortment of Johnson's recent articles in significant periodicals:

• Republic or Empire: A National Intelligence Estimate on the United States (Harper's)
• Empire v. Democracy: Why Nemesis Is at Our Door(with Tom Englehardt)
  
• Blowback (The Nation)
  
• Cold Warrior in a Strange Land (again with Tom Englehardt) (... part 2)
  
• Can We End the American Empire Before it Ends Us? (alternet)
  
• Three Good Reasons to Liquidate Our Empire (Huffington Post)
  

Three Senators Introduce Bill To Allow Prosecuting Wikileaks After The Fact

TPM from the Wikileaks wire:

Lieberman, Ensign, Brown Intro Legislation To Go After Wikileaks
...
The three senators want to make publishing certain names illegal after the fact so they can prosecute Wikileaks. ...
...

Considering all the unpleasant facts Assange's Wikileaks has exposed, I suppose that's known as an (ahem) "exposed fact-o" law...

Seriously: such a law would be unconstitutional as hell. It violates Art. I Sec. 9: "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." And that is precisely what these three senators are attempting to do: make something a crime after the fact, or perhaps simply declare Assange a criminal. How low we have sunk!

Catfood Left For The Cats To Eat

TPM's Megan Carpentier:

The fiscal commission, which already delayed its vote by two days due to internal conflicts, will fail to get the required 14 votes needed to send its report to Congress.

Former SEIU President Andy Stern is the fifth member of the 18-person panel to announce his opposition to the report, making reaching the required supermajority impossible. Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Paul Ryan (R-WI), Dave Camp (R-MI) and Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) are also opposed.

...

Of all of Obama's ideas, the Catfood Commission has to have been one of the very worst. Just watch: he'll probably take credit for "saving Social Security" now.

A Big Advance For Maxwell Smart

A shoe phone? Old stuff... how about a shoe radar, a device that supplements your GPS to track your location when you're somewhere (e.g., in a shielded building) from which your GPS can't receive a signal?

In other fascinating science news, we have Fallenmonk's post on life, found in a poisonous lake, that uses arsenic instead of phosphorus in its DNA. Now there's something truly different.

Or if you're interested in a longer lifespan, read about some work done at UTHSC-San Antonio on a variety of C. elegans.

(Aside: I still feel like crap. Posting will continue to be intermittent.)