The Raven' s Blog, Web Log of Eric Ferguson: First Half of January 2006 Archive

January 13
I received an email that is interesting in light of the Abramoff scandal and the sudden Republican scramble to hide from it. Lisa, who asked that her e-mail be withheld and I've taken the precaution of withholding her last name too, said:

"What I DO know is that it's worthwhile to pester your Republican Congressmen. Mine is the Speaker of the House and I'm on his case every few months. I expect nothing out of it, but I do it anyway. Just this week I felt it worthwhile to congratulate him for giving Abramoff's money to charity (a sentence I threw in to hopefully 'red flag' that e-mail and have his people advance it upwards)--and on the same e-mail I wrote about another issue entirely that I really wanted him to read. Anyway, I like my first impression here and wanted to encourage you, too, to become an irritant to your Republican representatives, if you are not already. I'm afraid most Americans GIVE UP with their Congressmen and don't even communicate with them."

All politicians have some sort of survival instincts, and I predicted that the Republicans' instincts would kick in when their leader was in enough trouble, although the leader I had in mind was the acting president. Can you give yourself a back-handed pat on the back? Anyway, like Lisa, I don't hold back from contacting my elected officials regardless of party because they do respond when the public appears to be strongly one way or the other. You want the politicians you agree with to think they can safely stay on the side of the angels, and the other politicians to at least figure they're bucking popular opinion, which they don't like doing. As evidence, I offer the sudden discovery by House Republicans of the virtue of reform. If they really believed in it, they could have reformed any time before this, but instead they put Tom DeLay in power. Therefore, we may thank their survival instincts for the change of heart, and thank letter writers like Lisa for their instincts kicking in.

What sudden movement to reform? For example, Gil Gutknecht has called for new leadership elections, which might have been nice when DeLay twisted arms to pass that prescription drug bill with the fake cost, or when he got spanked by the ethics committee, or blocked the bills to stop abusive employers in Saipan, or...well, you get the point. I wish Gutknecht had gotten it earlier. Likewise with Mark Kennedy, who proposed former congressmen be forever banned from lobbying. Sounds nice, except Abramoff was never a congressman so that law wouldn't have stopped him. While driving home this evening and listening to some right wing radio, the host announced David Dreier was going to be on later to talk about reform. I missed the interview, but I am glad that at least it's finally on the agenda. They've finally stopped pretending all is well.

So in keeping with Lisa's suggestion, those who made noise made a difference, and we can keep making a difference. Now we have to beat back this spin that both parties are equally at fault, the corruption issue's equivalent of blaming war opponents for the war going poorly. I suppose a 90%-10% split on corruption is both sides, but you'd think Abramoff's status as a Bush Pioneer (he raised at least $100,000 for the Bush campaign) would be a dead giveaway. Apparently, only true if we keep pointing it out.

January 8
Today is the anniversary of The Battle of New Orleans in 1815. The battlefield, which is in Chalmette, was flooded like the rest of the New Orleans metro area. It's restoration shouldn't come before housing of course, but as a War of 1812 reenactor, I hope to one day participate in the reenactment of that battle again. I was there once, in 1988, and had ideas of going this year. I just hope land developers don't try to grab the land to build on.

Some good news and something to remember:

The good news is three of Minnesota's Republican representatives had joined the call to elect a new majority leader. Better late than never, but something I ask all readers to bear in mind is that these guys are the ones who put DeLay in power in the first place. He built a political machine around making Washington lobbyists part of the Republican establishment, and if they didn't like it they were out of business. Instead he turned them in to a cash machine for the party, on top of the the other stuff he pulled like the gerrymandering of Texas. House Republicans were happy to support him or too intimidated to stop him before Abramoff's guilty plea made it look like DeLay is heading to jail. So when they try to distance themselves from him, recall how they put him in power in the first place. If you happen to get to ask a question of a GOP Representative, especially if he's just gone on about how he values ethics or thinks it's time for a change, ask why he backed DeLay in the first place, or why people who put DeLay in power should be trusted to change things.

Last April I had a "blogversation" with a conservative blogger, Dread Pundit Bluto, about Aljazeera. Bluto mentioned Mounzer Sleiman, who appears on Aljazeera, and whom Bluto denounced as a propagandist, as well as making unfavorable remarks about Rushmore University, where Sleiman got his doctorate. Sleiman recently saw the blogversation and wrote a response defending himself and Rushmore. It's too lengthy for a daily post, so I've added it to the blogversation. Click here to go directly to his response.

January 7
This is the fourth amendment to the US Constitution:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

So you see the part where the president, even a legitimate president and not an acting president like what we have now, can suspend thta right during emergencies, wars, or any other circumstances? You don't? That's because it isn't there. Where phrases like "at the pleasure of the president" might be familiar from Indian treaties, they're not found in the Constitution. Even if Congress has passed laws allowing the president to ignore the foutth amendment or anything else in the Constitution, his spying on Americans is illegal. Congress is bound by the Constitution too and can't authorize violations of it.

That simple point makes the arguments that Congress allowed Bush to do what he wants moot, but if they matter to you, you might want to know that the Congressional Research Service issued a report saying Bush's arguments are bollux. Rather than authorizing his activities, Congress intended specifically to stop a president doing what he did. So Bush isn't even finding a loophole, but blatantly breaking the law. Oh, you think it's a one time event? He just did it again. When he signed the new ban on torture, he also issued a signing statement saying he has the right to suspend the ban when he deems necessary for national security. Signing statements are the president's explanation of his understanding of a law when he signs it. In this case, he says the law grants him authority when the whole point of the law was to establish he has no such authority. Make no mistake that torture was already illegal, and this new ban really just reiterates that it's illegal and there no exceptions. None. Yet there goes he-who-should-be-impeached saying the law means what ever he feels like. Bush's whim has become law.

January 3
As much as 11 years in prison, and that's what Abramoff gets after cooperating with prosecutors. That's the best indication of just what they have on him. He's ready to admit giving loads of goodies to big shot Republicans "in exchange for a series of official acts." As someone who has watched in frustration as these corrupt Republicans seem to get away with everything, being detected but until recently avoiding investigation, I can only say yee-hah.

Actually I can say more than that. This shows the importance of getting investigations when corruption is suspected. Getting Abramoff investigated required senators willing to buck their party by investigating their most powerful lobbyist, and be under no illusion that Abramoff isn't merely a way to get to the higher-ups, but he's a big one himself. Unfortunately that's an exception. DeLay was investigated by the county attorney with jurisdiction over the state capital in Austin, TX, and he's limited to violations of Texas law. The investigation of the revelations of Valerie (Plame) Wilson's identity didn't start until several months after the dirty deed, and then only when the CIA demanded it. The House ethics committee still doesn't function, the Senate Intelligence Committee still hasn't investigated how the administration used intelligence, it took a year to get a 911 commission, there has been no investigation by anyone with subpoena power of election fraud that may have kept the acting president in power, nor of the Downing Street memos or 9-21-01 PDB. The investigation of the use of torture seems to have ended with establishing that something happened at Abu Ghraib and looking at pictures not shown to the public, and that's it. Oh yes, not to forget the latest, spying on Americans without warrant or probable cause is a blatant, dare we say impeachable, violation of the 4th amendment. And please note that not only is there not an exception for wartime, but it was written in response to events during wartime, so not only is war not an exception, but is in fact when it was thought likely to be needed.

So that's why Abramoff's guilty plea is heartening. It's a conviction, not an indictment like Tom DeLay, Scooter Libby and David Safavian, and much better than a possible indictment like Karl Rove. This is a conviction of a Bush pioneer who earned the nickname "uberlobbyist" which leads to the heart of the corruption, not an isolated fraud like Duke Cunningham. This guy is connected to DeLay, Ney, and Bush himself. This could be fun.

"You don't care about me."
16 year old Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr, when he realized the Canadian agent he thought had come to take him out of Hell and home to Canada was just another interrogator.

"Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at his pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after having given him so much as you propose."
Abraham Lincoln in 1848, during the Mexican War, expressing why allowing a president sole discretion to decide when to invade another country is dangerous to the liberty of his own country.

"The OPR [the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility]also has been far behind in producing required annual public reports summarizing its activities. Last month, it released its report covering fiscal year 2005. That means many investigations undertaken during the tenure of former Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales remain under wraps."
LA Times reporter Richard B. Schmit, in an article written in July 2008, on how the OPR is hiding the results of investigations --- assuming they actually are investigating.

"Mr. Chairman, I think the number's actually higher than that now. Last time I checked it was 108, and the total number that were declared homicides by the military services, or by the CIA, or others doing investigations, CID, and so forth � was 25, 26, 27."
Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, on the number of detainees killed in Bush's prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan, and locations still secret.

"Democracy works, but sometimes churns slowly. Time is short. The 2008 election is critical for the planet. If Americans turn out to pasture the most brontosaurian congressmen, if Washington adapts to address climate change, our children and grandchildren can still hold great expectations."
James Hansen, on the 20th anniversary of his testimony before Congress where he informed them global warming was now certain, and how little time remains to prevent catastrophes.

"Who will chair the commission investigating the secrets of warrantless spying, years from today? Will it be a young senator in this body today? Will it be someone not yet elected? What will that senator say when he or she comes to our actions, reads in the records how we let outrage after outrage after outrage slide, with nothing more than a promise to stop the next one? I imagine that senator will ask of us, 'Why didn't they do anything? Why didn't they fight back? In June 2008, when no one could doubt anymore what the administration was doing---why did they sit on their hands?'"
Sen. Chris Dodd, in his speech on the Senate floor opposing the FISA bill and retroactive immunity.

"We had the worst natural disaster in the history of this country Katrina, and there wasn't a drop of oil spilled."
Sen. Norm Coleman, proposing more offshore oil drilling. There was actually enough oil spilled to match the Exxon Valdez. Whether Coleman is lying, or ignorantly repeating Republican talking points, is unknown.

"I'll go back to square one on this: We squandered a lot of gifts. Human beings were given a lot of great gifts. We were given the ability to reason, this extra-large brain, walking erect, having binocular vision and the opposable thumb, and all of these things, and we had such promise, but we squandered it on goods and superstition. We gave ourselves over to the high priests and the traders, and they are the ones we allow to control us."
George Carlin, in an interview with Salon, on how he became a disappointed idealist.

"To date, seven long years after we scooped up our first detainees in Afghanistan, not a single one of them has faced evidence, his accusers, or anything remotely resembling a legal court hearing on his guilt or innocence."
Joseph Galloway, military correspondent for McClatchy, on how responsibility for war crimes goes right to the top, despite efforts to confine consequences to the bottom, in light of the recent McClatchy series on detainees.

"As I was leaving the UN food distribution center in Damascus, Layla Atiya, the widow with seven children, touched my arm. 'Can you tell me one thing?,' she pleaded. 'Why did America do this to us? What did we do to America to make her hate us so?'"
Medea Benjamin, cofounder of Code Pink, writing about her visit to Iraqi refugee camps.

"So we're sitting here and, for example, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who said that he wanted to be a martyr on 9/11, make no mistake about it --- he said that he just couldn't get a visa --- launched into a description of what kind of psychotropic drugs he's taking here at the prison camp, or being given here at the prison camp. And the media monitors hit the white noise button. We didn't get to hear what exactly he's being given and we didn't exactly hear his explanation about why he's on medication.

And one of the escorts here explained that this was HIPAA protection, the Health and Information Protection Act on a place where the Bush Administration says the Constitution doesn't apply."
Miami Herald reporter Carol Rosenberg, on the restrictions placed on the press and mistreatment of detainees.

"If the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court was really concerned about fairness, it could have simply asked the Florida Supreme Court to devise a universal standard, appoint a judge to enforce it, and then extend the state's meaningless 'safe harbor' deadline to make it possible to complete the recount. It did not do so because it was not interested in counting the votes. It wanted George W. Bush to win."
Gary Kamiya, Salon writer at large, in a review of the HBO's "Recount", on how the Supreme Court stole the election for Bush.

"Convicting and imprisoning Paul Minor on corruption charges could be a powerful way to curtail contributions to the local Democratic Party."
U.S. House Judiciary Committee report on political prosecutions by the Bush DOJ. Minor was a vital contributor to the Mississippi Democratic Party.

"Where does the madness end? Where do words lose their meaning? Al-Qa'ida is not being defeated. Hizbollah has just won a domestic war in Lebanon, as total as Hamas's war in Gaza. Afghanistan and Iraq and Lebanon and Gaza are hell disasters � I need no apology to quote Churchill's description of 1948 Palestine yet again � and this foolish, stupid, vicious man is lying to the world yet again."
Robert Fisk, columnist and resident of Lebanon, responding to remarks by Bush that show he hasn't the least understanding of the region he's mucking up.

"The short version: Republicans in Congress, McCain included, have slashed the United States budget for wind energy since Carter was president, which is why McCain has to speak at a Danish turbine manufacturer instead of an American one."
Mother Jones reporter/blogger Jonathan Stein, noting that McCain made his climate change speech in a Danish wind turbine factory after repeatedly cutting funding for wind development here.

"We get off on warfare."
Rev. Rod Parsley, McCain's spiritual advisor, who calls for mass murder, in a snippet of a sermon in a video by Mother Jones and Brave New Films. That line of Christian charity comes about 1:25 into the video.

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