Has the Bush Administration Overplayed Its Hand With Its New Pro-Iraq War Campaign?

You tell me. Open thread.

Kirk voted to weaken law that helps kids with food allergies

UPDDATE: Here is what the Sierra Club says about National Uniformity for Food Act of 2005 that Mark Kirk voted for and voted to bring to the floor:

H.R. 4167, the so-called “National Uniformity for Food Act of 2005, would undermine public health protection by eliminating state food safety and warning label requirements that are critical to protecting the public from food that can cause illness. Food industry lobbyists are trying to railroad this bill, which would more appropriately be labeled the "State Food Safety Preemption Act," through Congress even though no Congressional committee has held a single hearing to explore its potential impact.

Here is what the consumer group, the Accidental Hedonist said about it:

Here's what's happening: H.R. 4167, the "National Uniformity for Food Act," lowers the bar on food safety by overturning state food safety laws that are not "identical" to federal law. The bill could directly harm consumers by increasing their exposure to food-borne illnesses, undermining the authority of state food safety officers, and overturning state food labeling laws.

Take California, for example. In 1986, California enacted Proposition 65, the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act to protect citizens from chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm, and educate people about their exposures to these toxins. Sounds like a good law, right? H.R. 4167 would overturn this landmark bill! If Congress passes this bill, it could wipe out state regulations across the country, including Washington.

Scroll down on that link and you will see a report on what Dr. Luis Light, formerly of the USDA, had to say about the bill. Here's a preview:

At a time when we know that there are 72 million bouts of illness, 325,000 hospitalizations, and more than 5000 deaths each year as the result of food poisoning, what justification can there be for destroying the minimal food safety protections now in place? As we import more food from third world countries with poor food sanitation, we need more and better regulations, not fewer and weaker ones,” says former USDA insider, Dr. Luise Light, nutritionist and food safety activist, who is calling for a big food brand boycott to drive home the outrage of many consumers and food, health and environmental professionals to the legislation passed in the House on March 8, 2006, without public input.

On that same link, you will also see:

Other groups on record as opposing the bill are: 39 state Attorneys General, the Association of Food and Drug Professionals, the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America, the Organic Consumers Association, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and numerous other consumer and environmental groups all of whom urge the Senate to vote to undo the damage done by the House.

Here is what Ca. Rep. Henry Waxman had to say about it.

Here's TruthInLabeling.org.

The bill was supported by industry groups, but not consumer groups. Go figure.
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When you go to Kirk's campaign stunt tonight wherein he is going to pretend he cares about kids with food allergies to avoid talking about his support for the Iraq War and other pressing national issues, why don't you ask him why he voted to weaken food labeling laws? Ask him why he feels worthy of a campaign stump on this issue when his votes have been against it?

Many states had a pretty good handle on food labeling. However on March 2, 2006, Mark Kirk voted to weaken food labeling laws by taking away the state's power to enact laws that are stricter than the federal law. The bill was H RES 702 (Roll Call #17) VOTE: Passed 216-197 (Kirk – Yes); GOP 216-0; DEM 2-194. 200 state laws could get the axe. At the time, U.S. Rep. Martin Sabo, D-Minn., complained that "There weren't any hearings on this bill, which is a bad way to legislate."

If you are really concerned about food allergies, you'd better know that Mark Kirk has not been your man. Maybe you can convince him otherwise at the meeting and that should be its focus. It will be a tough job, though, because Mark has never broken with his corporate supporters before.

Mark Kirk admits disaster in Afghanistan, won't admit cause is his party's folly in Iraq, Iran

Kirk is finally talking about something other than peanuts and puppies, but got far away from the district to do so. He talked to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about Afghanistan. See the title link. Hmmm. St. Louis... Illinois 10th... Might be time to draw Kirk another map....

Anyway, Kirk is saying that the bumper drug crop in Afghanistan is a "disaster":

This will be an unprecedented crop," he said, calling the anti-narcotics effort "a disaster" whose failure has "dramatically fueled the resurgence of the Taliban."

Well Kirk gets that correct. The Afghan opium crop supplies much of the world's narcotics trade and the money from same goes back to the Taliban. Problem is that Kirk forgets to mention that is was his and his party's great idea to move the fight to Iraq and out of Afghanistan before the job was complete that allowed the bumper opium crop and the "resurgence of the Taliban." Rather than moving our troops out of Iraq and back to Afghanistan where they should have stayed in the first place, Kirk wants to see our troops "stay the course" in Iraq and send what's left of them to Iran.

Next time you see Mark Kirk you might want to ask him this: Where are the troops to fight all his unending and victory-less wars to come from?

I LOVE Keith Olbermann

If you did not see his special comment tonight, you can read it here. You can catch the replay on MSNBC tonight at 11:00 PM. It's well worth the delay of sleep.

Iraq War, Katrina Losses, Deficit, Loss of 4th Amendment Rights...Ain't Peanuts

UPDATE: For those of you who are really concerned about children's food allergies, if you read the original posting, you'll see that I say it is a serious problem. In fact it is so serious that you should consider the truth of the matter which is that Mark Kirk won't help you. You need to consult with medical professionals, school officials and dieticians and the corporations that fail to label food correctly. Sorry, but the rest is just Kirk Suburban Strategy Theater. He won't help you. Ask Autismom. He's done absolutely nothing to help her and won't even respond to her concerns about the causes of autism. Kirk is for the corporations. He never supports any legislation that improves access to health care and is far more likely to vote in favor of federalizing food labeling law, disallowing stricter state laws that foods be clearly labeled. In fact, he already has done that (scroll down). Why don't you ask him about his yea vote on H RES 702 tomorrow?
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Lost American soldiers lost in Iraq = 2638.

Number of Iraqi dead is said to be somewhere between 41041 and 45613 .

$310,806,574,026+++ spent in Iraq.

New Orleans? Take a look here for information of what is gone and yet to come back.

The federal deficit can be found here...

...and the Senate is pushing through the Cheney-Specter Let's Say Spying on Americans is Legal bill.

Them ain't peanuts, huh?

Well, peanuts are exactly what Mark Kirk is worried about this week. He's going to be at Everett Elementary School in Lake Forest at 5:30 pm on August 31, 2006 to discuss childhood food allergies. If he cares so much about kids, why doesn't he ever respond to Autismom? I think it's more likely a happy talk feel good campaign stop on a topic no one can criticize him on.

While peanut and other food allergies among kids can be serious, that is why we have the school nurse, teachers, the school board, and our local health care workers and local officials. Now, maybe if Kirk wanted to discuss improving access to affordable health care, that would be acceptable, but the point is that he doesn't. He wants to smile and nod while parents discuss their kids food allergies. They get to vent their concerns, but get no real help from the congressman anyway.

Our US Congressman should be discussing our pressing national issues like Iraq, Iran, rebuilding an entire region of the US lost over 1 year ago to a storm our response to which proved the inadequacy of our emergency response, the enormous tax burden we will be leaving to our children and the loss of our 230+ year old form of government (that we liked a lot and worked well for us and still does if we'd let it). If he wants to discuss health care, he should discuss improving affordable access and decreasing health care costs.

Are you content with a US Congressman who has time for peanuts, but not our country? If not, you might want to stop by and tell Congressman Mark Kirk that the problems of our country amount to much more than peanuts.

Health Care in the Ownership Society: VEND-O-DIAGNOSE

How crazy we Democrats have been with our insistance on wider access to quality, affordable health care. What nerve we have had! Fortunately for us, our current congressman, Mark Kirk, is thinking. He's always there to make sure our health care is less accessible, more expensive and provides less coverage:

1. In 2003, Kirk voted to exempt health care purchasing associations of small businesses from from state laws designed to protect individuals against illness by requiring that health plans cover specific diseases such as breast cancer, autism, and mental illness. The plan provides financial incentives to small businesses to switch from comprehensive plans to plans with far less coverage.

2. In 2004, Kirk voted for federal preemption of state insurance regulations that require health plans to cover some basic items such as mammograms, contraception, prostate cancer screenings, and many mental health services. See the roll call vote here.

3. Since Kirk never forgets our brave soldiers, in 2005, Kirk he busy making sure that soldiers and veterans had limited access to health care too. He voted against opening the military health plan to reservists and National Guard members. See the roll call vote here. He also voted against providing more funds to veterans health care programs. See the roll call vote here.

4. Kirk also voted to keep the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans rather than fund health care for veterans. See the roll call vote here.

Now, I finally get it and have seen the light. republicans like Kirk really do have a health care plan for us: VEND-O-DIAGNOSE.

With VEND-O-DIAGNOSE, a person does not have to make a silly and unnecessary visit to a doctor or hospital. He only has to find the handiest VEND-O-DIAGNOSE machine preferably in a casino or big box store.

I even have an example of how the new system will work. My dad, a 75 year old veteran of the Korean War, did not have to go to the hospital and see a doctor to tell him that he had no broken bones in his foot or ankle after taking a nasty fall. He merely had to find his local VEND-O-DIAGNOSE machine, slide his credit card into the slot, press the button for VEND-O-DIAGNOSE x-ray, take his own x-ray and read it himself. No need to bother the doctors with a senior and a medicare patient. No need to crowd up the hospital while they found someone who knows how to read an x-ray. With VEND-O-DIAGNOSE, my dad should have known he was supposed to read the x-ray himself. Pish posh if he makes a mistake, not being a doctor and all; he can walk around with 3 broken bones in his foot for 2 weeks... no big deal for a 75 year old man.

VENT-O-DIAGNOSE. It's the future of American medicine.

By the way, in case your are curious, the Democat got better care at the veteranarian.

Are we allowing our racism to push our self destruct button?

Once again the airwaves are filled with images of African-Americans suffering during Katrina. I cannot help but remember the words of Wolf Blitzer "So poor, so black". Everyone was floored that he said that, but now I'm even more floored than no one kept up the dialogue on race and poverty in our country.

For some inexplicable reason, we just don't seem to be able to give up on racism. It is well documented that racism is just another tool of the wealthy and powerful to stay in power by pitting the poor of different races against each other. First, it was the black slaves against the white indentured servants. Then, it was the black slaves against poor free whites, Later, it was poor black workers against poor white workers. Now, it's the poor blacks and latino immigrants against the white working poor. As much as all of this is discussed, it is still so easy for people to gain power and wealth by race baiting. Ronald Reagan brought the new racists to power with his election winning comments about "straping black bucks" and "welfare queens". Turns out Reagan's Chicago welfare queens who collected $150,000 under 80 different names never existed. "Straping black bucks?" What was he doing when he thought of that one? Watching Gone With the Wind?

Now Reagan is gone, but the legacy in the republican party continues. The gop simply cannot extricate itself from the habit of using racism to keep power. This is coming out in several ways from goofy comments from someone who has racism so embedded in his being that he simply cannot see it for what it is to real live issues like racial profiling for use in law enforcement and immigration being debated with racist support for the republican position.

Now, we are apparently letting some of the most viruluent American racists loose in Iraq to fill the dwindling ranks in the military. Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center reported on Ring of Fire this past weekend that the military is turning a blind eye to the recruitment of white supremacists. The story was also reported in the Washington Post. Potok sent a letter to Rumsfeld, but has yet to hear a response. So, we are training and arming militant white supremacists and turning them loose on what is already a diplomatic disaster. Then, maybe even worse, they are going to come home. Potok is careful to point out that he does not believe that there is any conspiracy on the part of the Administration or the Pentagon to arm and train racists. He believes that it comes from the general necessity to find bodies to fight this war long ago rejected by the American pulbic. However, I see it as just one more thing that goes along with a general tolerance for racism in republican party culture. However, Arabic and Farsi speaking gays who could help infiltrate terrorist cells are, of course, kicked out of the military. Another example of our misguided hate actually harming our national security.

It think it is time to send a clear message to the republican party that we do not want to be manipulated by their racism and do not want to harm our country or other countries with mindless policy based on racist nonsense. Because Mark Kirk goes along with the plan admitting that he is fine with racism to push his campaign strategy of fear, we must reject him as our congressman.

Katrina Recovery. Dan's concerned. Mark already showed us his vision for Katrina victims, "get out"

Americans always seem to be interested in anniversaries and the one year anniversary of Katrina is here. Unlike most anniversaries we remember, this one seems a good one to recognize because several Gulf coast cities are still in ruins and the victims are still in need. Few New Orleans victim have returned to New Orleans for good. I saw a newly married Chicago couple originally from New Orleans on the news last night. They visited home, but had no intention of going back because there was nothing left to go home to. They were working and establishing themselves in their new suburban Chicago home, but it was sad.

Dan Seals and I discussed Katrina for a bit yesterday afternoon. One issue that he mentioned concerns him greatly is that of insurance. Seals is concerned that people are not getting the insurance payments they expected and in a timely fashion. The insurance industry is claiming success. III, a non-profit group supported by the property casualty industry claims that "90 percent of homeowners in Louisiana and Mississippi who filed claims after Hurricane Katrina hit are satisfied with their insurers." However, that is up for debate according to an attorney representing thousands of Mississippi claimants. Don Barrett, of Richard Scruggs, told Reuters, "The insurance industry has paid out two to three cents on the dollar. Nobody is satisfied with that." The issue is flood insurance. A federal court recently ruled that the wind and rain damage insurance most folks had does not cover flood damage and that storm-surge damage is flood damage.

Then, there are the surcharges. Policyholders in La are paying 15 percent surcharge on their premium for one year to bail out state-operated Citizens Property Insurance Corp.

Then, there is just the sheer lack of normal everyday services available. "[O]nly 140 of 617 primary-care physicians have returned to practice in New Orleans." There is still wreckage and debris in many places.

Ultimately, there is the human toll. Yes, there was a death toll, but I'm talking about the toll on the survivors:

"People are having problems with depression and anxiety, and a fair number are also having PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder]," added Dr. Richard Weisler, an adjunct professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "The depression and anxiety can be quite profound, so that a lot of people appear to be reaching levels of major depression."

I hear that Dan is visiting Katrina victims in North Chicago today with Senator Durbin. As far as I know, Kirk is still hiding under the bed. He did bring water to Houston, however, where they didn't need it and well, actually a bit late too. I teased Kirk at the time for not knowing where New Orleans was, but now I think I understand why he did that. republicans like Kirk had no vision of Katrina victims returning to their homes. A little water and a good luck wish was all he had for them. As soon as the old owners who cannot afford to return and rebuild (without insurance) get sold out in foreclosures and unpaid taxes, the developers can move in and build the new white republican New Orleans full of casinos, hotels, chain restaurants and high priced condos.

West Deerfield Township Democrats Annual Bar-b-que

Sunday afternoon, the West Deerfield Democrats brough out a crowd to socialize, eat, hear from the candidates, eat, ask questions, eat, have their views heard by the candidates, eat, eat, eat and eat. I ate....a lot.

Mitch Miller (right), chair of WDTO, was a fabulous host. In addition to providing a huge bar-b-que spread and more desserts than I could count, he talked about what he learned this week. To Miller, the world has turned out to be a very different place than when he was a kid. Pluto isn't even and planet and we no longer have checks and balances in our government. Miller believes that government has 5 branches controlled by republicans, the traditional 3, exectutive, legislative and judicial branches, then he adds the military and lobbyists. The crowd added the media, the traditional forth estate. Miller said he still felt the media was not fully controlled by republicans. He read's Ellen's ITCD Blog after all, doesn't he?

One thing that I learned is that Dan Seals is the eminently photographable candidate. His face has so much expression and he has so many expressions. I think that is because he is so passionate about his campaign and our country. He really wants to make it a better place for us and for our children. (The photographs on this post are a combination of mine and ones taken by Bob Rosenbacher.)



Dan talked to a lot of people. He was talking about getting young people involved in politics and taking charge of their futures. He was also talking a lot about the federal deficit and how our lack of a national plan for health care is hurting families, children and businesses. He also talked about the high cost of, well, just about everything, but especially health care and gasoline. Dan's idea for a more intelligent energy policy is to stop subsidizing the oil companies. With record profits, it's time they get pushed out of the nest. They can fly on their own. We need to shift our priorities toward research on alternative fuels which will improve our national security, create jobs and preserve our environment.

Iraq? When you've dug yourself into a deep hole, stop digging. It is unrealistic to think we can establish a democracy in Iraq in a few years and establish it at gunpoint. We cannot impose democracy on Iraq. The best we can probably do now is to stabilize the situation the best we can and get out. Seals is very concerned about the situations that we are neglecting while wrapped up in Iraq. "We are not fighting the war on terrorism." he said. We need to invest more in intelligence. One thing we can learn from the London bombing arrests is that good police work works. We also need to invest in alleviating the underlying causes of terrorism.

Dan was also talking about education from funding pre-K programs to adult education needed to keep our work force competitive. Seals believes the the No child left behind law that Kirk voted for, but failed to fund is a failure. First, because it was not funded; second because it requires teachers to teach for the test and third because it is overly rigid, not taking into account the background and needs of the children. It incentizes mostly around the stick and not the carrot. Seals knows something about education because he taught while he was in Japan. Teachers in the audience brought up the American Federation of Teachers endorsement of Dan. Kirk earned the NEA endorsement, but I learned that was mostly by accident. The balloting process was very confusing and many ballots were not returned. Kirk won by default as the incumbent because not enough ballots were returned.

Also speaking at the event were candidate for Lake County Clerk, Sharon Narrod and Mark Curran candidate for Lake County Sheriff. You don't have to go to Ohio or Florida to find voting irregularities. Narrod talked about voting irregularities right here in Lake County including absentee ballots being disqualified without notifying the voter until after the election is certified, a candidate loosing to a write-in candidate with over 100% of the vote counted and legal candidate signage being removed. Curran talked about ethics. Curran has his own ethics platform and wants to increase professionalism in the office.

I'll have more about the event, Dan Seals, Sharon Narrod and Mark Curran in the upcoming days.

Coming Soon

Next week, I'll post more great Mark Kirk quotes about Iraq as I finally dug out from under a huge mess in my closet his 2003 letter to me.

I'll also have my report from the West Deerfield Township Democrats Bar-b-que featuring Dan Seals (of course we're not barbecuing Dan, but we will be sure to skewer Kirk!)

It'll Be Easier To Take Back Congress or How to Pill a demo-Cat

Gadzooks. Democat has an infection and has to take 10 days of antibiotics. That means I have to pill her twice each day for 10 days.

The instructions.

OK, it looks doable. I'm looking forward to that last instruction: "Congratulate yourself and praise your cat. A treat is also in order, unless it's meal time." Sounds good. I already ate dinner.

The reality:

1. Cut cat's tonails.
2. If you forget step one, have bandaids and hydrogen peroxide ready--for you, not the cat.
3. Discuss need for pill with cat. It couldn't hurt.
4. Wrap cat up in towel burrito style. You will only get away with step 4 once because after 1st pilling, cat will wise up to what towel means. Thereafter, wear old Kerry/Edwards sweatshirt with the long sleeves.
5. Chase cat after it escapes towel.
6. Plead with cat to come out from under bed.
7. Crawl under bed and grab cat like you mean business, go into bathroom and shut door. Turn on water in bathtub so it becomes unattractive as hiding place for cat.
8. Look cat straight in eye and tell it not to mess with you because you have an important political blog to write.
9. Get fancy pilling apparatus provided by vet who had no trouble whatsoever pilling her this morning.
10. Pry open cat's mouth and shove fancy pilling apparatus inside cat's mouth.
11. Hear cat scream. See cat run away realizing that she figured out how to open bathroom door eons ago and go back to steps 6-10.
12. Curse vet who had no trouble whatsoever pilling her this morning.
13. Give up on fancy pilling apparatus and shove pill and most of hand down cat's throat.
14. Hear aaack in the distance and start search of house for pill.
15. Put pill and glass of water on table next to cat and hope for the best.
16. A treat is in order, for you; forget about mealtime; forget about cat. Open bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream client gave you last Christmas. Pour glass...no need for ice.
17. Plan completely pet free future with between 218 and 223 Democratic seats, a majority in the next House.

republicans great new idea on Iraq...all of my congressmen are under the bed

republicans have a great new idea for the Iraq War...the Democrats original idea! Shays is calling for a timetable of withdrawal.

Could be genuine, but more likely they are just trying to coax Mark Kirk out from his hiding place. Some say Kirk is busy at the Pentagon. Democat thinks more likely, Kirk's hiding under his bed because under the bed is where she goes to hide.

Democat is currently hiding under the bed. She just seems to know that she's going to the vet in less than 1/2 hour. A traveling vet wrote a book called All Of My Patients Are Under the Bed. So Democat has an excuse...she's a CAT. What's Mark's excuse?

I think it will take more than Shays proposal to coax Mark out from under the bed. He seems pretty scared of Dan Seals. We'll need to get out the Reeses Pieces.

Bizzaro State Street...Moo

State Street is going to look really strange without both Marshall Field's and Carson's. Carson's is leaving due to "negative sales trends, net operating losses ." Maybe Judy Baar Topinka will win and State Street will be converted into one giant casino. (That seems to be the destiny for all places with poor folks, unemployed folks and working folks.) Then all the homeless folks working the path from State Street to the Metra Station on Canal down Madison Street can spend all their hard earned Streetwise dollars on...well...NOTHING.

Richie can tape the whole thing. Nothing like getting minority folks on city police tape, is there?

They won't be able to blame the cow this time.

Weekend Roundup

What happened this week?

1. Nothing. The world did not come to an end on August 22, or I didn't notice. Email me if it's the latter so I won't have to go to work.

2. We learned that God chooses our rulers from Katherine Harris running for Senator in Florida. My friend Steve from Ohio responded: "Funny that she would use the word rulers...We are not supposed to have "rulers" in this country!!! We fought a war, our Revolutionary War, because we didn't want to be ruled!!!"

3. The Economic Policy Institute is releasing its State of Working in America on Labor Day, but is previewing parts on its website here. You probably don't need the book to guess that wealth inequality is on the rise. "The richest 1% of wealth holders had 125 times the wealth of the typical household in 1962; by 2004 they had 190 times as much or $14.8 million in wealth for the upper 1% compared to just $82,000 for the household in the middle fifth of wealth." Affordable access to healthcare is also more limited as employers are shifting more of the costs onto employees. The employee share of health insurance premiums increased from 14% in 1992 to 22.1% in 2005. The racial income gap is growing once again. The typical African American family lost over $1,000 income in 2004. Then, there's my personal favorite the ration of CEO pay to the minimum wage. Today's average CEO earns more before lunch in one day than the average minimum wage worker earns all year, with a compensation ratio of 821:1. With both GM and Ford suffering from bad management, you can bet they have decided to blame labor with deep cuts in their workforces. My friend Dan reminded me the other day at lunch that back sometime in the 1970s they changed the name of Personnel to Human Resources and that says it all.

4. The mainstream media can avoid discussing a federal court's ruling against Bush's spying on Americans program by creating a virtual travelogue based on the travels of an admitted child predator under arrest for murder. Thailand to LA. LA to Colorado. Driving in Colorado.

5. As our interest in and support for real science declines, some Americans are actually mad about Pluto's reassignment to a dwarf planet, but few are talking about the many marines who have been called back to active duty in Iraq. Fewer are talking about how bad things still are in New Orleans. If Pluto was found unfit for planetary duty for not being the biggest and brightest thing out there, what should be done with a president and a congress that not only got us into Iraq and couldn't get anyone out of Katrina, but now want to get us into Iran? Can we demote our leaders to a dwarf government?

Dear Scared People

Dear Scared People,

I opened a little dark chocolate Dove candy this evening (only 60 calories!) and the inside of the foil wrapper said "Be fearless." I thought of you. You know who you are, the folks who check the terror alert every day, no longer fly, support Kirk because you believe war is the only real support for Israel, and boost Bush's poll numbers every time there is a supposed terror threat. You are the folks who are willing to accept republican (Iraq War Party) plans to deport parents of children who are US citizens and to single out gays for discrimination because it may keep someone you find distastful away from you. You are the folks willing to trade your liberty for a promise of security on a "trust me". I have something to say to you. It's time to buck up and stop it!

It's time to be fearless. Our forefathers expected it of us. It takes courage to be a free people because there is no one to tell us what to do. We can choose our own paths in life and make our own mistakes and our own successes. I have a friend from the former Soviet Union. She was told what university to go to and what career to pursue and when she could travel and where to. Would you want someone choosing that for you or your children?

It is also useless to be scared and give up your liberty for an empty promise of protection. The protectors are more likely to protect you out of everything. That is already happening. We have already been asked to give up our privacy and be monitored in our telephone calls and on the internet. Now some agent at the NSA is going to know all about your that rash you have or your need to borrow money from your parents. They can database it and use it if they ever need something from you or just want to shut you up. If you think that will never happen to you or that it's a small price to pay, think about this. They can also listen in on political opponents and use the information against them. That was Nixon's plan, but it was low-tech back in the '60s and '70s. Imagine Nixon with today's technology. Like a demented kid in a candy store. If you do not think that is serious, think about what governments can do when they are insured victory and are, therefore, completely unaccountable to the people. Example, our rice exports were recently contaminated with genetically engineered rice not approved for human or animal consumption. Japan and the EU have banned the rice. The current story is that this rice may or may not be in the US food chain. We are not in the EU or Japan. Our government is increasingly only accountable to the corporations, so who is protecting us? If you want to be scared, think a little less about remote terrorists and a little more about government and corporations joined at the hip and completely unaccountable to the rest of us.

So you think Bush is protecting you. Do you think that the Iraq war lessened the number of terrorists actively seeking to harm Americans? Nope. There was actually a sharp rise in global terrorism after the invasion of Iraq. See this too. Want to be scared again? The Iraq war has cost us $309,131,050,999+ (it goes up so fast, it's actually hard to type in before it changes). You can imagine what has been taken away from programs that keep our foods and medicines pure, our airlines, railroads and highways safe, educate our children, and so much more.

Do you think Mark Kirk is protecting you? He was willing to pass on faulty intelligence on Iraq back in 2002, 2003 and 2004. In 2005, he was still saying "stay the course" with no explanation why. Now that he is running for re-election, he won't even discuss Iraq. He's not working to get to the truth and explain it to the American people. He is hiding behind water pipes in Waukegan and traffic jams in Vernon Hills to avoid discussing it. Do you want another scare? Kirk is running on the "Suburban Strategy" which is an intentional plan to keep congressional seats for the republican (Iraq War) party by avoiding all discussion of national issues. It fits right in with Bush administration's view of executive power, the unitary and plenary executive theories that take executive oversight power away from Congress. That means that Congress doesn't really do much of anything and the executive branch can do whatever it wants and no one will even be able to investigate or call them on anything. Past congressional investigations uncovered Watergate, Iran-Contra and Joe McCarthy. They also brought us regulation that protected us from media monopolies, price gouging and bad or unsafe products (ok, not any more, but they did in the past). Do you think it's safe to give that away?

Do you think the right wing religious extremist agenda is protecting you? Did you know that anti-gay sentiments in the military are actually decreasing our ability to infiltrate terrorist cells because it has caused them to fire 20 Arabic and six Farsi speakers? Did you know that the British foiled the London airplane bombing plot by having an agent infiltrate a terrorist cell? That is how you fight terrorist plots, not by eavesdropping on political opponents and pacifist Quakers.

Do you think the anti-immigration movement is protecting you? It's not protecting your job. It's not the guys who run across the US/Mexican border who put your job at risk. It's the corporations that invite in foreign workers and outsource American jobs overseas. Mark Kirk suports outsourcing to pander to his corporate supporters that benefit from keeping your job at risk and salary low. Want to be really scared? republican Pat Buchanan wrote a new book that argues we must stop immigration to preserve white control of the country. He went on in the same book to praise white supremacists. If you think that is ok because you are white, think again because that kind of racism never comes to any good for anybody and we are always sorry for it later. Oh, and if you are white, but not Christian, don't think for one minute that Buchanan intends to include you in the ruling race.

If you want to be afraid of something, be afraid of a completely unaccountable government letting loose completely unaccountable corporations on us. Be afraid of racists because they only use the racism they manage to harness in us to divide and conquer. Be afraid of how the Bush administration supported by assistant majority whip Kirk is taking away critical resources and throwing them down the Iraq drain and making the world a much more unstable and hate-filled place.

If you decide to be fearless, you will stop watching the terror level, stop accepting a foreign policy that increases terrorism and leaves us dependent on foreign governments for credit and energy, stop being afraid of people with different color skin, eyes or hair, stop accepting invasions of your private telephone calls and emails and government making decisions about your sex lives, birth control and marriage partners. If you decide to be fearless, you will be in charge of your own life rather than giving it away to a few rich guys in Washington who profit from making your decisions for you.

Dear Scared People, If you are fearless, you will be a lot safer.

Seals discussing the important national issues. Kirk discussing water lines in Waukegan.

As this blog has just passed the milestone of its 25,000th hit, I was thinking about the internet and congressional websites in particular. I took a look at the websites of Dan Seals and Mark Kirk. Can you tell the better or more serious candidate for US Congress by looking at the candidates website?

Before we look at the websites, take a look at the job of a US Congressman. Article I Section 8 of the US Constitution describes the powers of Congress.

Let's look at Dan Seal's website first because he is the challenger. Right on the first page Dan is looking right into your eyes. The pictures change every few minutes, but make sure you catch that first picture. Also right up front is the statement "Democrat for Congress". Dan is not hiding his party affiliation. The site is of course clean and professional, but looks only go so far, so let's look at the contents. The first page contains a statement by Dan titled We Can Do Better describing why Dan is running. He says he's running because he wants to make the country a better place for our children. He wants to restore our possibilities and hope.

Let's take a look at the issues section. The issues that Dan Seals thinks are important enough to go on the site which is the first impression for many voters are:

Education -- Dan wants to invest in education and "get the philosphy right" talking about No Child Left Behind.

Health Care -- Dan believes that health care is a moral issue. 45.8 million uninsured Americans is unacceptable to him.

Iraq -- Dan acknowledges that the war in Iraq was handled badly from the beginning and says: "Our job now is to figure out how best to salvage this horrible situation. As the saying goes, the best thing to do when you've dug yourself into a hole is to stop digging. " He believes we should responsibly withdraw.

The Deficit --Dan talks about how we have ceded our fiscal sovereignty to foreign countries from which we borrow including the national security and economic consequences of that borrowing.

Choice -- It's easy Dan is right up front about being pro-choice adding that abortions should be safe, legal and rare. Making aboritions rare includes supporting both prevention of unwanted pregnancies and adoptions.

Environment -- This section includes Dan's views on preserving our environment and energy policy.

Israel -- Dan describes his support for Israel, his concern about the destabilization of the region, Iran, Iraq, and Palestine.

Rights For Seniors -- This section is about Medicare, Prescription Drugs, Social Security, Retirement Pensions, Long Term Care and Access to Healthcare.

OK, time to look at the candidate website of Mark Kirk (gag reflex in check). OK, his picture is right up front too. He has a huge reference to a quote from the Tribune, but has no link so I assume he doesn't want us to read the entire article. OK. He finally put up a parade picture of his entire group around his banner. Probably because I was wondering in an earlier post why he only had a picture of a few people's backs. No mention of Kirk's party affiliation, but they did just rebrand themselves the Iraq War Party. Maybe he's waiting for the new logo.

Let's go to the issues....uh, wait. Kirk only has a section called "Local Issues". Hmmm, back to the job of a congressman. Constitution talks about the United States, not Kennilworth or North Chicago. Ok, let's move on.

The Local Issues Kirk thinks are important enough to go on his site are:

Veterans Health Care -- I cannot disagree that Veterans Health Care is an important National Issue. However, Mark fails to mention that he has voted against Veterans Health Care on several occasions. He voted against an amendment to National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 that would have expanded access to the military's TRICARE health insurance program to all reservist and National Guard members for a low fee. Then voted against an amendment to the Military Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, 2006 which would have added veterans health care funding for combat-related trauma care to support wounded troops returning to their homes, including medical and prosthetic research. Kirk also voted for a budget that contained cuts in veterans benefits (H. Con. Res. 95)

Economic Development -- That really is a local issue and I'd expect the governor of Illinois and the Mayors and town councils or boards of trustees to be working on that one. Kirk talks about replacing Waukegans water line. I don't remember seeing that in Article I. Maybe the Mayor of Waukegan needs an assistant and Mark can apply for that job.

Education Excellence -- That's a national priority, but Kirk voted for the flawed No Child Left Behind Law and then voted not to fund it. Kirk's recent legislative proposal provides some miniumu relief including more time to meet teacher excellence goals and more flexible assessments, but his proposal provides no additional resources to really help the students. The money is still going to his war in Iraq, so there is no money for the kids, but he doesn't talk about that on his site. On his site, he talks drugs and online predators. Oh yeah, I forgot. To Kirk schools is a warehouse for students and we've done our jobs if we keep the warehouse internet and drug free.

Illegal Drugs -- More drugs. In this section, Mark again talks about helping the Waukegan police and I'm sure they are grateful. That assistantship job for the Mayor of Waukegan is in the bag!

Environmental Protection -- This is a national issue of course and Mark used to have a little short lived history of environmental votes, or did he? Now has a rating of only 39% from the LCV.

Fighting Traffic Gridlock -- Running for Vernon Hills trustee, Mark? It is a bear getting to 294 on Route 60 some days, so if you are committed to this issue maybe you should run for local trustee because I hear there are still a lot of folks mad about the Metra North Central Line schedule and lots of folks from the area served by the North Central Line are still driving to Lake Cook Road. Also, how about looking at gas prices and your party's foreign and energy policy that keeps these prices at top dollar while you are at it?

Solving Problems Quickly -- I'd rather have problems solved in the best way possible. Quickly is how we got into Iraq.

Not mentioned in his issues section:
Iraq
Iran
Israel
Social Security
Medicare
Health Care
Choice
The Deficit

Not mentioned on Mark Kirk's website are the major federal issues important to the citizens of the Illinois Tenth District.

So who's the serious candidate? My vote goes to the candidate who wants to discuss the serious national issues of the day. That candidate is Dan Seals.

Woo Hoo! The big 25,000!

Now I can say 25,000 served.

Thanks to all my terrific readers.

Milestone approaching

1 hit to go to 25,000!

Mark Kirk, Member of The Iraq War Party or Never Mind

On Monday, George W. Bush rebranded the republican party. They used to say they were the mom, country, flag waiving, morally superior, fiscally conservative, apple pie party. They really were the corporate profits party, but that didn't go over too well in focus group testing, so they said they were the mom, country.... apple pie party. Now, they are officially the Iraq War Party. Why do I say that? Because Bush said it in his press conference:

In answer to a question about strategy in Iraq, Bush responded in part:

We're not leaving so long as I'm the president. That would be a huge mistake. It would send an unbelievably, you know, terrible signal to reformers across the region. It would say we've abandoned our desire to change the conditions that create terror. It would give the terrorists a safe haven from which to launch attacks. It would embolden Iran. It would embolden extremists. No, we're not leaving. ...

In answer to the implications being made that Democrats embolden a Qaeda:

And, you know, for those who say that, well, all they're trying to say is we're not patriotic simply don't listen to our words very carefully, do they? What -- what matters is that in this campaign that we clarify the different points of view, and there are a lot of people in the Democrat party who believe that the best of course of action is to leave Iraq before the job is done, period, and they're wrong. And the American people have got to understand the consequence of leaving Iraq before the job is done.

Funny how Bush, in true Rovian fashion, appropriates the receiving end of the "not patriotic" claim.

Anway, if we are not leaving Iraq so long as Bush is president and they are running against Democrats differentiating themselves by saying the Democrats want to leave Iraq and they want to stay in Iraq, they have officially become the Iraq War Party without any stretch of the imagination at all.

Mark Kirk is all quiet on Iraq these days. You cannot find a single mention of it on his house or his campaign website and none of his recent emails and campaign mailings paid for by the taxpayers come close to mentioning it, but let's wax nostalgic for when Kirk wanted to talk about the Iraq War. Back in 2002 and 2003, Kirk couldn't get enough of it. On the floor of Congress in 2002, he was an owl approaching the war "with a steady, firm judgment." He then went on to find that Iraq posed a "clear and present danger" because of its nuclear weapons program quoting Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri who turned out to have made it all up. In his 2002 campaign, Kirk flattened his opponent with the shock-a-roo: "You don't support the war because you don't have the security to know about the photographs of the Weapons of Mass Destruction that I know about." Sure Perrit could not respond to that. How could anyone have responded to that at that time? It was the perfect campaign because the evidence was unobtainable by any opponent and he could say anything he wanted without being refuted.

Then, in response to constituent concerns about our rapid decision to war, Kirk responded in writing. I have two such responses. Here is information from one dated in November 2003. (I'll dig out the other letter soon.) In this November 2003 letter, Kirk starts out by describing how he was in a position to know all about Iraq:

As you may know, I have dealt with the issue of Iraq for a long time as a reserve naval intelligence officer. During Operation Desert Storm, I reviewed raw intelligence data for our aircraft carriers in the Gulf. As a watch officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I participated in a number of crises created by the Iraqi government trying to frustrate the work of the United Nations. I flew over Iraq as an aircrewman, enforcing the United Nations no-Fly Zone that protected five million Kurdish citizens of Northern Iraq. Recently, I served on active duty in the Pentagon as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. With this experience, I developed a detailed knowledge of the intelligence regarding the Hussein government and its attempts to violate the will of the international community as formally expressed in over 15 unanimous UN Security Counsil Resolutions.

He saids he's in a position to know, so who am I to dispute it.

Kirk then continued his reponse by discussing the totalitarian regime built by Saddam Hussein. Kirk somehow forgets to mention that Reagan and Rumsfeld helped Hussein along in that effort. Kirk then tracks a bit of history about the Israeli strike of the reactor and the first Gulf War. He explains away the Niger forgeries as only one piece of intelligence that proved to be wrong and reiterates some information from Colin Powell that makes the formerly credible Secretary of State cringe nowadays. Kirk likens the lack of information on Iraqs nuclear weapons to 1930s Germany (where have we heard that before?) and ends stating that we knew that Hussein had WMD prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom, the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Kirk was a champion of the Iraq War in 2002 and 2003. In 2005, his aid told a group of constituents that tried to meet with him in his DC office (because he wouldn't meet with them at home) that he believed we should "stay the course".

So, with all that "I'm in a position to know." "I have knowledge that Iraq has WMD." "Listen to me." "Trust me." "Stay the course." Why is Kirk distancing himself from the newly branded Iraq War Party? You'd think he'd be the poster child. Either way, I think it's too late for him to say "never mind."

Give me Liberty or Give Me Death by Tartar Control Toothpaste

What do you get if you mix shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste and nail polish remover? That was a question in the mind of one of my relatives as she had to get rid of these items before boarding her plane home last week.

I would guess that the answer is a gloppy, but white and shiny, mess that would take the finish off any bathroom countertop. If you are a chemist, let me know if you think the mixture would explode.

Chief executive of Ryanair, Michael O'Leary, thinks the new airport security rules are "farcical, Keystone Kops-like and completely insane and ineffectual". He added "We are not in danger of dying at the hands of toiletries." Probably a better line than any of the lines in the entire 1 hour 46 minutes of Snakes on a Plane.

The Brits know a lot about terrorism with years of experience with the IRA. They kept their traditional stiff upper lips and continued on with their lives and the IRA figured out they were not going to bring the UK to a standstill and came to the bargaining table once and for all. Americans used to be protective of their freedom, but are now only protective of their hides.

I actually disagree with Mr. O'Leary. I think the new airport security rules are key to saving something. They are saving the fear that the Bush administration needs to preserve through the 2008 presidential election. Without fear we would not be selling our country to the combined forces of corporations and extremist religions. Fear must live, so you'll have to leave your shampoo with a relative, me. Next time, please buy a brand that I like.

The Devil Shoplifted Our Country While We Were Window Shopping for Prada That We Cannot Afford, Mark Crispin Miller Speaks In Highland Park

Friday evening, the Illinois Ballot Integrity Project and the Moraine Township Democrats sponsored a discussion with Mark Crispin Miller author of Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election and Why They'll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them). The discussion centered around the issues of vote suppression and ballot integrity. I could discuss the vote suppression techniques or the data that indicates that votes were flipped from Kerry to Bush, but Miller did not discuss the details and you can read all about it in his book, or in the little reported on GAO report, or in the Conyer's Report on the 2004 vote in Ohio, or in Bobby's Rolling Stone article. All these folks know a lot more about that stuff than do I and I think that Miller's point about our culture and how Bush's communications worked it after 9/11 is much more interesting.

Remember? We were told to go shopping after 9/11 by our President. We shopped and Bush sold us the bill of goods that everything changed after 9/11. The reality was that a change was sought, that change was not to increase our security or eliminate terrorists or terrorism, but to change our form of government. 9/11 was a great opportunity to push an agenda for which no one voted and there were and are still many people willing to tamper with our votes and prevent us from voting to buy us their skewed vision of American based on a revisionist history that the US was created as a Christian theocracy.

How did Miller come to all that from a discussion on voting? Easy. Glencoe native Mark Crispin Miller, now a professor of culture and communications at NYU, is an expert on product placement in Hollywood. He wrote an interesting article about the product placement of terror on 9/11. In that article, Miller described the eery business as usual billboards against the wounded World Trade center September skyline, the brief time of advertising silence after the towers fell, and the transformation of the corporate trendy stylish message that you just have to have our products to live in the NYC Devil Wears Prada world into the disturbingly corporate merged with government message that Al Qaeda, or really anyone who disagrees with Bush because they must then sympathize with Al Qaeda, will prevent you from having everything we plan to sell to you. Al Qaeda and the Democrats will keep you out of Bloomies (ok, Marshall Fields if you live in Chicago) and take away your electronics. In the article, Miller wrote:

The gradual post-war transformation of this country into an outright plutocracy is a development that few have failed to notice, and that has no champions other than the few who benefit directly from it. To sit and watch those high insiders always cash out with impunity is pretty galling to the citizens of a democracy, however much they think they've gotten used to it. And to the national multitude of window-shoppers, whether at the mall or watching their TVs, the full-time advertising is another, complementary provocation. Overseas, "they" hate us, we've been told, because "they" envy us all those delectable commodities that "we" have at our fingertips. That supposition surely tells us less about the foreign reputation of Al Qaeda than it does about ourselves: for it is we who always have our noses pressed against the glass. Even those of us who live in comfort are assured eternally that we have nothing yet, that we are nothing yet, without that next great buy, while our have-nots feed on nothing but those images. Judging from its quick resumption after 9/11, that fantastic pitch, it seems, will never end, no matter how compellingly we are distracted from it.

Bush took our culture of consumerism and focused it on consumption of fear, extremist religion, revenge and our impatience for closure to the events of 9/11. The vote fraud is just one part of the sell as loyal consumers of the Bush message are willing to do anything to perpetuate the business. The press buys into it by reporting any and every little detail that might, but really doesn't, explain election outcomes that are beyond all reason including an upset victory for Norm Coleman in liberal Minnesota (we were all supposed to be offended by the Wellstone memorial--we weren't).

The other part of the sell is the sale of the notion from the world of sports that anyone challenging an unusual outcome is a bad sport. If Michael Jordan actually brought home one of the Bulls championships by taking the arm of the opposing player guarding him in the final seconds of the final game and the referee failed to see it, the other team would have been accused of being full of spoiled sports if they complained. Someone told me today that scenario actually happened. Should that sports code of behavior follow in the governing of our country? Apparently, John Kerry thought so. John Edwards wanted to challenge the 2004 election results, but Kerry was afraid he'd be called a sore loser. Edwards is said to have responded "who cares!?" Kerry cared because, even though he looked me directly in the eye in 2003 and told me he'd make sure all the 2004 votes were counted, he was more concerned for his future popularity on the beltway than for our democracy.

Miller spent a lot of time discussing the sheer denial coming from DC Democrats and much of the Democratic grassroots who fear the same thing Kerry feared or that the issue is counterproductive to their plan for winning in 2006 and 2008. (I'd say Markos from Kos fits into that latter category. When he was in Chicago, he very actively shut down the conversation on vote fraud.) I think part of Miller's interest in Democratic denial of vote fraud might be coming from his own disappointment that his book was not well received in these circles, but his point is nonetheless well taken because we need leaders to take action to ensure us that we can vote and our votes will be counted. The republicans aren't going to do it. They don't have an exit strategy as Miller quipped. If the Democrats won't discuss voting issues, there is really nothing left to discuss. The country is lost.

Miller went on to describe the people who actually do the work that keeps people from the polls and transforms their votes as true believers in an American Christian theocracy willing to do just about anything to de-democratize the US. While we are supposed to be fighting for democracy in Iraq and Lebanon and soon to be Iraq, they are working in overdrive to take it away from us here to establish their particular brand of fundamentalist Christianity and we are letting them do it because our real leaders are afraid of being called spoiled sports. (A strange revisionist history twist to all of this is that the brand of Christianity on which this country is supposed to be based is a fundamentalist one and not say, the Episcopalianism of George Washington and James Madison or Unitarianism of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. They don't want anyone to remember that a Methodist did not turn up as president until Polk and the first Baptist President was Warren G. Harding. Jimmy Carter was the first born again Christian president).

Miller thinks we rely too much on the non-religious corporationists, Cheney and Rumsfeld, to protect us from the theocrats and their vision of our Constitution torn up and used as packing material for the scores of bibles, literally interpreted, they want to spread around. The problem is that the corporationists have no natural constituency and no grassroots, so they need the theocrats to get in and stay in office and won't split from them any time soon. The corporationists provide the money and the theocrats provide the manpower, a symbiotic relationship not soon to end.

So, what can we do? Miller thinks that all electronic voting machines have to be eliminated in favor of the good old paper ballot hand count and does not care if he's called an Luddite because of it. The Voting Rights Act requires that the vote count be observable and it is not so when electronic voting machines are used. He also thinks we should not even have to discuss voting machines made by private companies whose first loyalty is to their shareholders and who boast deep connections to the republican party. Voting should not be privatized. We also have to increase voter turnout. Democracy does not thrive when most never vote.

Miller tells us to expect republicans who lose in 2006 to shout vote fraud. It's the gop strategy for 2006 per a connected gop source. Let's see Mark complain about Willard Helander finally and for the first time when he loses to Seals in November.

I think that ultimately Miller knows it's not really about voting. It's about shopping. Few vote. Everyone shops. Until large numbers of Americans stand up and loudly return the goods sold to us by Bush, the corporations and the theocrats, few will be paying attention, the press will always be able to come up with the little explanations for the odd election results, and the few that are paying attention will continue to argue about whether or not the post-Bush Bush would have won anyway and the next challenger will worry he'll be labeled a spoiled sport if he complains. It will go on and on and the voting will matter less and less and one day everyone will realize the voting doesn't matter and the voting will stop and even those of us who can afford the Prada will be owned by whoever then owns the selection process.

Thanks to Mark Crispin Miller for taking the time to talk to us and congratulations to the Illinois Ballot Integrity Project and the Moraine Township Democrats on the huge turn out and success of this event.

David Gill in Second and Climbing on Progressive Patriots

David Gill is currently in second place in the Russ Feingold Progressive Patriots Fund vote. However, he is continuing to climb in percentage. You can help! Go here and vote for him and tell your friends too!

The vote closes August 23d at midnight. The top candidate gets $5000.

David is running in the IL 15th where there is a lot more ground to cover than here in the relatively compact 10th. He could use the money for gasoline alone!!!

Mark Kirk: "You don't have the security to know about ...the WMD that I know about"

My readers send me the best stuff. From the comments:

i want to share that in 2002 I saw Mark Kirk debate Hank Perrit Jr. live at the Waukegan yacht club and he told Mr. Perrit, "You don't support the war because you don't have the security to know about the photographs of the Weapons of Mass Destruction that I know about." I have written him several times asking him if that was a bold faced lie, or if he was dooped too. I haven't gotten a response, i will keep you guys up to date.

As it turns out, we didn't need the security because we had common sense. I would guess that Mark Kirk was not duped because he probably did not even care whether or not there were WMD in Iraq. It was the company line and he was willing to spread it for the sake of his career.

The questions that I have are, as a veteran and Naval Intelligence Officer, why is he not offended by the cavalier use of faulty intelligence and empty bravado to bring the country to war, and if he was re-elected, how would he work to prevent the same thing from happening all over again. Seems to me he's already proven that he will not work to prevent the same thing from happening all over again because he is working to have the same thing happen all over again because he thinks (Rove tells him so) that it will get him re-elected.

The questions I have for the good people of the Illinois Tenth are: Are you willing to let Iraq happen over and over and over again? Is this protecting you and your family? Is this the best thing for the future of your children? Do you think our 230+ year old form of government should change to accomodate the ideas of the Bush administration?

Everything they do is political, so why do you think they are thinking about your now?

I saw Gonzales on television talking about how the London plane bombing was discovered because of telephone surveillance of the type just proclaimed unconstitutional by the Michigan Federal Court. He's lying.

The case was cracked by human intelligence. Someone infiltrated the terrorist cell, acted like he was joining in and turned them in. Plain and simple old fashioned police work.

The Administration's lying is disturbing, but predictable. What is even more disturbing to me is that the US is discouraging the sort of infiltration work that worked in the UK. They are not actively recruiting experts in the appropriate languages and have actually fired 20 Arabic and six Farsi speakers for being gay.

Nothing that comes out of the Bush Administration has to do with our security. Everything they do is political, so if you are afraid of terrorists and think Gonzales, Bush and Mark Kirk are protecting you, look at the picture above and to the left. Wake up and smell it.

They are protecting themselves.

Federal Court in Detroit rules NSA spying violates Constitution and Statutory Law

This is in the ACLU case against NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY / CENTRAL SECURITY SERVICE; and LIEUTENANT GENERAL KEITH B. ALEXANDER as NSA Director.

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendants, its agents, employees, representatives, and any other persons or entities in active concert or participation with Defendants, are permanently enjoined from directly or indirectly utilizing the Terrorist Surveillance Program (hereinafter “TSP”) in any way, including, but not limited to, conducting warrantless wiretaps of telephone and internet communications, in contravention of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (hereinafter “FISA”) and Title III;

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED AND DECLARED that the TSP violates the Separation of Powers doctrine, the Administrative Procedures Act, the First and Fourth Amendments to the United States Constitution, the FISA and Title III;

IT IS ALSO ORDERED that Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment is GRANTED with respect to Plaintiffs’ data-mining claim and is DENIED regarding Plaintiffs’ remaining claims;

IT IS ALSO ORDERED that Plaintiffs’ Motion for Partial Summary Judgment is GRANTED in its entirety.

Interestingly, from a quick read of the opinion, it was in part the Bush Administration's own bravado that did them in. Asserting their extraconstitutional powers all over the newsmedia destroyed their case for secrecy. (EFF is making the same argument in their AT&T case.) The notion that the Bush Administration can pick and choose intelligence to make a political score by either publicizing it (Plame) or withholding it (anything that would reveal their corruption suddenly became an issue of national security) did not fly with Judge Diggs Taylor.

All the attorneys here at the barn are telling me not to be happy about this as it will be appealed and overturned by the partisan higher courts, but now it becomes more interesting. What will the Appellate or Supreme Court be willing to rule to make this OK? Are they willing to overrule Judge Diggs Taylor and say that the laws coming out of Congress are, if fact, subject to executive approval or supervision? That would be big and bad and the end of our 230+ year old Constitution and way of life. They could avoid that by just saying that the case cannot commence under state secrets, but we all know from John Dean that they really just make that stuff up and have no specific state secrets they are trying to protect.

Here's the quote everyone is quoting:

We must first note that the Office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its powers, by the Constitution. There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all "inherent powers" must derive from that Constitution.

One of my favorite parts of the case is that Clinton v. Jones is cited for the ideas of judicial oversight of the executive and that oversight does not violate separation of powers. A little poetic justice.

As expected the republican response has been to say that the ruling proves that our Constitution and Bill of Rights are a "suicide pact." Roosevelt was right when he said that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Fear can do some horrible things to people and for all their tough talk, the republicans, our congressional leaders and president and many federal judges even though they are not supposed to be partisan, our own tenth district congressman, all seem to want nothing more than for all of us to give up everything we have stood for for 230+ years because we're scared. Big tough United States of America gone in a whimper if we let them do this to us.

Congratulations Judge Diggs Taylor. History will remember you are a true brave hero.

In a hurry to vote? Wow...You can make a meaningful vote now

Vote for David Gill in Russ Feingold's Progressive Patriots campaign. Here's a recent article by Philosophe Forum on his opponent in the IL 15th.

We have to use our heads when they try to use our emotions

republicans have been politically successful because they...well, cheat (more on that later this week), but also because they play on the common emotions of racism and fear, with racism also being a part of fear and sometimes a part of greed which is in there too, but I'll talk about that another time. We've been seeing this range of emotions playing out over the past couple of days in a big way as a childish reaction to their steady dive in their poll numbers despite the carefully scheduled London potential airline bombing arrests.

I would say that the current waive of republican racism started on the day Ronald Reagan kicked off his political career race-baiting in the style of George Wallace (who at least ultimately had the sense to say he was wrong), and stuck when he found traction and support during his 1980 presidential campaign by referring to African American males as "healthy young bucks using food stamps to buy t-bone steaks." Now, his successors in the party are so steeped in racism, they are genuinely dumbfounded when one of their racist comments is even questioned. That was recently demonstrated by Virginia Sen. George Allen who called an opponent's Indian American staffer a "Macaca". He has so much embedded racism in him that he simply had no notion that the comment reflected a problem and his ignorance shows in his embarrasing to watch apologies.

Then, there is the republican radio host Mike Gallagher who called for a Muslim only airport security line. I imagine his support of the Jews only, African American only and Latino only lines will follow. Gallagher supported his opinion by saying that all terrorists are Muslims, but forgot about Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph, both likely listeners of Gallagher or similar. Bush is right in the mix with his "Islamo-facist" remarks not understanding that we all get who exactly is the facist here. Don't forget our current Congressman, Mark Kirk, said that discrimination against young Arab males is OK. Since Kirk believes in destabilize and prevail, I cannot help but wonder why he'd want to let terrorists destabilize our country in that way.

Fear is often played out in bravado and we've been seeing a lot of that since 2001 starting with the infamous "dead or alive" speech about Osama and the "bring it on" comments about Iraq. Thing is, it was all play on emotions talk. We never got Osama dead, alive or on his dialysis machine somewhere in between, and they did bring it on, but we were, and still are apparently, unable to handle it. Now, Bush is calling Iran a "crisis" because he wants us to agree with him as he starts his new war in Iran to make up for the old one in Iraq that went bad on him. We are just supposed to trust him that there really is a crisis like there really were WMD and that he'll do a better job this time.

Our Tenth District friend Ret. Gen. Robert Gard recently warned the President against this display of fear-based bravado by joining in on a letter to the President with 20 other former U.S. generals, diplomats and national security officials. Gard told a Times reporter: "To call the Iranian situation a 'crisis' connotes you have to do something right now, like bomb them."

Someone pointed out to me today that we are always reacting to problems around the world by throwing around our military might, but it works less and less now because the world is not the same place it was in 1941. She said that now we are dealing with movements and "bombs, planes and tanks are not the way to stand up to movements." Emotionally, we like to see the bombs, planes and tanks because they alleviate our fears and make us feel big and tough and therefore, safe, but we really need to be more pragmatic now because our emotions and our military acting out tantrums are counterproductive in the current state of the world.

Part of this is the fault of our leaders who are willing to pander to the basest emotions to get votes, but part of the fault is with us. We have to stop being so emotional and susceptible to emotional rhetoric. We have to use our heads and act pragmatically.

Your government at work or maybe not

The next meeting of the Senate is Sep 5, 2006; the House next meets Sep 6, 2006.

Update on Credit where credit is due for our Congressman, Mark Kirk

A full five days later and I note that no one has come up with a bill called the "Mercury Reduction Act" Kirk claims to have written and introduced other than the 2002 bill called the"Great Lakes Mercury Reduction Act" that I found and noted failed almost immediately with only 2 co-sponsors.

Could Mark Kirk have been playing with bill names and dates and hoping we would not notice on his campaign mailing paid for by the taxpayers?