This is snort-out-loud laughable.

Sen. Sam Brownback is hopping mad that the Chinese government is requiring all international hotels in China to install internet monitoring software prior to the Olympics. Apparently, a few of the hotel chains have made a fuss.

Listen, it’™s not like the Chinese government (unlike the American government) hasn’™t been right up front about controlling use of the internet / world wide web within the borders of their country. In fact, back in 2005, China forced Yahoo! to give up email records on dissidents, and Google was forced to redesign their search engine software to make it easier for the Chinese government to spy and conduct oversight:

‘¦However, some [U.S.] lawmakers at the hearing thought this argument dubious at best. Choices to operate in China have also led to Yahoo’™s cooperation with Chinese authorities to arrest a dissident and Google’™ redesign of its search engine to reflect Chinese censorship.

‘œU.S. technology companies today are engaged in a sickening cooperation decapitating the movements of Chinese dissidents,’ human rights subcommittee chair Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said at the hearing. Smith will soon introduce the Global Online Freedom Act of 2006 that aims to ‘œprotect United States businesses from coercion to participate in repression by authoritarian foreign governments.’ ‘¦

So, Sam Brownback is now carrying the anti-spy water for the hotel chains operating in China. As I said at the outset of this post, that’™s quite laughable, coming from one of the strongest proponents of FISA, warrentless wiretapping, and internet surveillance. Glenn Greenwald has the details, but this stands out:

‘œThese hotels are justifiably outraged by this order, which puts them in the awkward position of having to craft pop-up messages explaining to their customers that their Web history, communications, searches and key strokes are being spied on by the Chinese government,’ Brownback said at a news conference’¦

At least you get a pop-up message in China. In the U.S., DHS just pops up at your door.

As a true, progressive Democrat, this is incredibly hard for me to write.

Since the start of the presidential election season, I’ve been quite clear that Barack Obama was not my first – or even second – choice as the presidential nominee for the Democratic Party. But I’ve been consistent in saying that I’d support the eventual nominee, whoever he or she might be.

That all changed today. Actually, I’ve become more and more uncomfortable with the now-presumptive nominee since the time that the primary season officially ended. Barack Obama has been tacking toward the center since the time that Hillary Clinton quit her challenge in the race. From Iraq, to the abortion issue, to the Telecom Immunity Act of 2008, I’ve watched closely as Obama has tried to grab some middle ground, and attempt to diffuse future criticism of him by the GOP as being “soft on terrorists” and not a heartland values type of guy.

Earlier today, ASZ’s good friend Brendan commented on a prior post that as an Obama supporter, he’s experiencing extreme “buyers regret”. I can understand that feeling on the part of many starry eyed Obama supporters who felt that he was (in essence) the second coming of John F. Kennedy.

Let me pose a hypothetical: would John F. Kennedy have voted for the FISA bill today had it come up during his time as Senator? … (more…)

Does this look familiar?

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation…

(more…)

This one is self explanatory. It is a habeas corpus hearing for a man held at Gitmo. Here’s the report of the New York Times:

In the first case to review the government’s secret evidence for holding a detainee at Guant–namo Bay, Cuba, a federal appeals court found that accusations against a Muslim from western China held for more than six years were based on bare and unverifiable claims. The unclassified parts of the decision were released on Monday.

In the first case to review the government’s secret evidence for holding a detainee at Guant–namo Bay, Cuba, a federal appeals court found that accusations against a Muslim from western China held for more than six years were based on bare and unverifiable claims. The unclassified parts of the decision were released on Monday.

I’m not sure I can match that snark by the judges involved, appointed by Bush, Clinton and Reagan. I’ll let their opinion stand.

I am quite floored by this. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi demanded that the Justice Department (gasp!) enforce the law:

Today, Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent the following letter to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, informing him of the referral letter sent to U.S. Attorney of the District of Columbia Jeffrey Taylor on contempt citations of former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten. Taylor is required by law to bring the matter before a grand jury. However, Mukasey has indicated that the Justice Department intends to prevent Taylor from complying with the law’¦

In essence, Miers and Bolten refused to comply with congressional subpoenas to appear.

Let me ask a stupid question. Supposing that I was subpoenaed to appear in a local or county court for either a criminal or civil matter, however minor. And, let’™s suppose that I refused to appear. What would happen?

A local magistrate could (and would) issue a bench warrant for my arrest. My name would be entered into a police database such that if I were driving down the road, with a bench warrant on my head, if I were driving a car registered in my name an pulled over by the local Hooterville constabulary, I’™d be cuffed and taken to the local lockup until I made an appearance before the judge.

So how is it that miscreants from the Bush administration can ignore legally issued congressional subpoenas, be cited for contempt of congress, yet still walk the streets with apparent immunity from prosecution (or arrest or detention) by the U.S. Justice Department?

Isn’™t that kind of making a mockery of the law for the rest of us? I’™m just saying’¦

Yesterday, the Senate voted overwhelmingly against cloture of the pending FISA bill, which as written, provides total immunity for telecoms in the U.S. against possible lawsuits for illegally assisting and enabling the Bush administration in conducting warrantless domestic wiretapping. Even Snarlin’™ Arlen Specter broke ranks with his fellow Republicans and voted to kill cloture. Glenn Greenwald has a great summation and updates from his live blogging of the various votes that were held regarding FISA.

FISA expires this coming Friday. That means that the Bush administration has three days left to exert pressure on the GOP minority to get something passed – and George Bush has vowed to veto any bill that comes to him as an ‘œextension’ of the current law, or one that excludes telecom immunity. As things stand now, the Dems in the Senate have held together, perhaps at Sen. Chris Dodd’™s request, but more likely because they’™ve been hearing from their constituents.

This afternoon, the House passed a 15 day extension of the current FISA, and the extension has been sent to the Senate. Will it pass? If I was in possession of a magic 8-ball, I’™d probably get the response, ‘œAll Signs Point to Yes’. And then the question becomes, will the Senate forward the extension to Bush, one he’™s vowed to veto?

I’™m not sure what the game is that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have been playing with FISA. Prior to the Christmas recess, they shelved the bill (after a threatened Dodd filibuster, and in the face of a lot of backlash from progressives). They knew they were just delaying the inevitable showdown, and we’™re pretty much there at this moment. Passions are running hot on both sides of the issue.

As I’™ve written before, once given, any immunity offered to telecoms is binding, whether or not FISA is ever revoked by a future congress and president. So, the upcoming vote, whenever it happens, is a showdown of sorts.

If you’™ve never contacted your congressional representative before, now would be a good time to do so. The Senate and House switchboards need to be swamped with calls from angry constituents. Bush and Cheney know full well that, eventually, the scope of their domestic warrantless wiretapping is going to become public. They’™ve vowed to protect their business partners in the illegality, and the Democratic Party-controlled congress needs to be just as resolute that when the day of reckoning comes, the force of law is behind the prosecution and/or civil liability of any enablers of the current administration’™s spying activities.

Make the call.

After a long absence I feel compelled to post today after coming across an amazing post on a site I’d never been to before. Please read the whole things as it offers much wonderful food for thought. Here’s a taste:

I once had a Professor of Polish culture who was a key figure in the Polish resistance in WWII. He was captured and was dying of starvation in a prison camp at war’s end, a skeleton, ill, terrorized, barely alive. The American government brought him to the USA where he had important things to do concerning New Europe. He was put up in a hotel in New York. It was ironic, he told me, that only six weeks later, he was complaining to the laundry about how they did his shirts.

It’s bizarre, he would have said, that we spend most of our lives in search of the pleasure of comfort and ease, convinced that happiness lies there. The truth is, comfort saps your real strength. Ease is treacherous and steals your ingenuity. The devilish pair robs your intuition and dulls your vision. I have in mind also metaphysical comfort and ease, not only natural human desires for creature comforts which in practice, as we all know, are never enough.

Yesterday, I read a post on Think Progress that really pissed me off. The comments really got me riled as they showed such ignorance, and lack of caring for veterans of the Iraqi occupation with traumatic brain injuries, which it’s now estimated is a full 20% of them, a staggering statistic. The big joke was the term “mild traumatic brain injury.” As in haha it’s an oxymoron, how can it be mild and traumatic? As someone who has struggled daily with this condition for nine years, I just want to say it’s no joke.

Last night, seeing as it was meta weekend at ASZ, I was ready to list all the ways my functioning has changed and how the world has wronged me, but after reading “The Twin Evils of Comfort and Despair” my tune is changing a little. I know I am very lucky to have almost hit 40 when the life changing event of my brain injury occurred, but at the same time, it also propelled me into a whole new reality I was totally unprepared for, leading to isolation and depths of despair I had never known before. (Not that I was ever from the happy school, but this was a whole new level.)

The election of GW Bush the following year, the disintegration of our economy along with the our constitution, and the rise of fascism, American-style, have contributed heavily to my despair over the past several years. I tried to make my home in a couple other countries, but couldn’t find anything that quite worked. I have lived in alternating terror (for my own security) and exhilaration over the thought of economic collapse in the good ol’ USA because I see it as the only way out of the debt-ridden consumer culture that is quietly destroying the hearts and souls of individuals, and sucking them from the earth as a whole. I fantasize about revolution, wondering if it could bring true purpose back into my life.

And I consider this:

Psychologists instruct us that there are only four things that people really need for their happiness: a feeling of security, a feeling of belongingness to a group, a feeling that people have affection for them, and the respect and esteem of others. That’s it. Basic needs are quite simple.

I once was highly organized and able to successfully manage people in a high stress, creative environment. When I lost many of the innate abilities I depended on my entire life, I felt for a long time that I lost the things mentioned above, even the ability to feel those things. I have found the search for meaning in my life since then to be a grueling, totally unwanted struggle most of the time, and have spent an awful lot of time bemoaning my fate, all the while knowing that I still have it so much better than most people in this world. Still, we tend to focus on what we do not have. Perhaps it is just human nature, but it seems to me sometimes that we have built an entire society as a testament to that. What a waste.

Today I find hope in these words:

The much-pursued pair of comfort and ease removes and alienates us even more from reality. Comfort and ease is a golden cage. Retreat into the beguiling cocoon of comfort and ease erases the possibility of communication with the rest of mankind. It is a rejection of the reality of the world and man’s place in it.

A rejection of comfort and ease as a life goal is to choose truth over lie. It is to choose the way of extremism, of opposition to the lie. There are periods when truth exists more easily. There are other periods, mendacious and ugly periods, when truth rings seditious, subversive, revolutionary, when it however shines in its extremism.

In my mind, comfort and ease as a goal reflect anti-reality, anti-man, anti-life. For to live life, you have to accept and live with reality–in the desperation and despair it provokes. You have to learn to live without illusions. That is unpleasant at first. Uncomfortable. Uneasy. But, we can learn.

What? WHAT??

The families of the four killed contractors filed suit against the company in January 2005, saying that Blackwater’™s cost-cutting measures led to the deaths. That lawsuit is still pending as a federal judge tries to determine whether it should be heard in arbitration or in open court.

Blackwater has argued in court that it is immune to such a lawsuit because the company operates as an extension of the military and cannot be responsible for deaths in a war zone.

Yep. The neocons have set up their own private army, answerable to no one but government contract officials, apparently.

I wonder what the General Petraeus has to say about Blackwater’™s assertion?

Nope, that’™s nowhere in the constitution whatsoever. And the fact that T-Shirt slogans are not protected is not a sign that our forefathers were devil worshippers. There’™s no reason, as Les says, to play the ‘œpoor persecuted Christian card.’

In this case, we’™re talking about a school dress code. Everyone is to wear khakis and a polo shirt with no insignia on the polo shirt. Sounds fair to me. But the mother of Tracy Prochnow is complaining because of Tracy’™s fourth violation of the dress code. And, yes, she is playing the poor persecuted Christian card. Here’™s the story:

The mother of a student who was suspended for violating her school system’™s dress code says the rules unfairly target religion, WRTV in Indianapolis reported.

Tracy Prochnow said Highland High School in Indiana suspended her daughter, Brittany Brown, on Monday because the junior wore a Christian-themed T-shirt.

Monday was the fourth time Brittany violated the code, which the city’™s school board implemented this year and requires students to wear khakis and polo shirts.

Prochnow said the school may be violating her daughter’™s rights, and she has asked the school board to change the code.

‘œI don’™t believe it matters what she’™s wearing ‘” whether it be a T-shirt and jeans or polo and khakis ‘” as to what she’™s going to learn,’ Prochnow told WRTV.

The front of Brittany’™s T-shirt features a cross and the words ‘œThis Shirt Is Illegal In 51 Countries.’ The back quotes the Bible’™s Romans 1:16: ‘œI am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God ‘¦ the salvation of everyone who believes.’

‘œThe school is basically saying I can’™t wear a shirt that talks about Jesus or Christ or God or any religious type of T-shirt because we have to wear a polo,’ Brittany said.

The school’™s principal, Mark Finger, said the dress code doesn’™t target religious beliefs.

‘œThe policy states there are to be no logos or slogans on a shirt,’ Finger said.

OK, I’™m going to the really obvious here, that Mrs. Prochnow is just plain stupid. The school policy does not, in fact, focus on religion at all. What it is likely intended to do is make sure clothing is not a distraction at school. No, Mrs. Prochnow, there is no right in our society for your daughter to wear slogans on her T-Shirts, whether the slogan is about religion or whether the slogan is about how stupid her own mother is.

As Misty points out, Mrs. Prochnow and her daughter knew what the dress code was and Mrs. Prochnow allowed her daughter to violate that code four different times. I gotta wonder whether she is a fit mother.

(Want some fun? Go check out the comments underneath this news story. The Christians supporting Mrs. Prochnow and her delinquent daughter are hilarious!)

There have been enough scary stories about George W. Bush to fill a book. Every day, it’™s clearer that the Commander Guy is a few battalions shy of a surge. Then, I read something like this, ponder that Bush has another 18 months in office, and I cringe:

Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated ‘œI am the president!’ He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of ‘œour country’™s destiny.’

Turn on your inner brain YouTube for a moment, and cue the imaginary video of The Decider stomping around the Oval Office in the midst of a messianic hizzy fit, while a group of associates gasp in shock and awe. Or better yet, in the Presidential Bedroom, wearing a Napoleon hat, boxer shorts, and black socks as Laura lays in bed reading a book, looking disapprovingly over the rim of her reading glasses: ‘œTime for nappies, George’¦’

Columnist Georgie Anne Geyer doesn’™t disclose who spilled the beans on Bush’™s tirade, but a pundit like Geyer doesn’™t write words like that without good sourcing. So, you can believe that the scene actually happened pretty much as described. It just jibes with prior accounts of Bush tantrums.

The guy has gone Queeg on us. He has a wide array of nuclear buttons at his disposal. Couple this with the alzheimer’™s patients in the regime who have a bad case of CRS (can’™t remember shit) under oath, and suddenly the tin foil prognostications regarding National Security Presidential Directive 51 look a little less Reynolds Wrap-ish.