Where Are We Going?

This Independence Day, the right-wing is manipulating public discourse in order to confuse and conflate patriotism with rabid nationalism. This is not a new phenomenon of course. We have seen such careful linguistic choreography before, when past authoritarian ideologues have distorted language in order to stifle individualism and dissenting views.

For a people to be controlled, they must first be robbed of honest discourse and open debate. Distorting language and stripping it of real and honest meaning is the first tool and the best mechanism for transforming a democracy into an authoritarian state.

Patriotism is the word that authoritarians most like to distort. Miriam -Webster defines patriotism as “love for or devotion to one’s country.” Every other dictionary I have consulted provides a similar if not exact definition.

Nationalism is a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups. Are those the kind of ideal set forth in the Declaration of Independence? I remember something about all men being created equal, not just all Americans.

Nowhere does the term or the idea of patriotism in general require one to believe one’s country is “great.” Nowhere does the term or the idea of patriotism in general require a ban on dissenting views, on criticism of one’s government, indeed even of one’s nation.

When someone is critical of their country and especially when their country strays from its course, it does not mean the person is not patriotic. It means that the person loves their country enough to want only the best for it. They want it to be greater than what it already is or they want it to be as great as it once was. But criticism of a country is not akin to being un-patriotic. Only a rabid nationalist would make such an argument.

Our founding fathers did not think that our country and its leaders would be inherently good. Instead they tried to make our government idiot-proof with a system of checks and balances. That system that is now being dismantled by those that favor a strong Executive so that we can be protected from evil.

Nationalists, the rabid right-wing advocates of symbol worship, are entirely what the right-wing authoritarians define as patriots. It may entirely be possible that some of these boot-marching androids are simply ignorant and accept whatever canned-pro-America products they are sold. They are in essence, the perfect vessel for an authoritarian regime. But others, who have spent their lives devoting themselves to the art of conflation, distortion, and revisionism, know exactly what they are doing. They tell us that our government can do no wrong. They tell us that you must never doubt your government or question its ways. So when my America began to openly torture people and publicly denounced the Geneva Conventions as “quaint,” I should have been waving my little Chinese-made American flag while admiring the inherent goodness of my government? At what point does the ugly truth become more important than the pretty lie?

No, that is not the definition of patriotism. That is exactly what Il Duce demanded from his citizens; a total abandonment of self, conscience, and all things individual and human to the mechanism of the state, for the state could do no wrong. That was nationalism used to promote Fascism.

If we truly love our country, we must ask at what point does the ugly truth become more important than the pretty lie? As Americans, we have many things to be proud of. But we must also be honest enough to recognize what must be set right, and committing ourselves to getting it done.

Regards,

Jim

Almost Like Iraq on a Texas Lawn - Last year, a Houston-area man shot and killed two burglars he saw breaking into his neighbor’s house, even after a 911 dispatcher warned him repeatedly against going outside with his shotgun.

Texas had recently passed a law allowing people to use deadly force to protect their own property, as Joe Horn was well aware, but it was unclear at the time whether the law would apply to protecting someone else’s property. However, last Monday, a grand jury cleared Horn of any criminal liability.

MSNBC’s Dan Abrams discussed the case with two Houston defense attorneys, Brian Wice and Nicole De Borde. “Texas law allows you to shoot an intruder in certain circumstances,” Abrams began, “but in the back? While 911’s telling you not to do it?”

De Borde was supportive of Horn, explaining that “in Texas, the law gives you the right to shoot a person, even when they’re fleeing from a property crime, and to kill them. And deadly force was what the grand jury determined in this case was appropriate.”

Is that what Jesus would do? Even if Jesus was in Texas?

Guantánamo Bay Interrogation Techniques Were Coped Directly From the Communist Chinese - The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”

What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.

John Cornyn’s Senior Staffer Posting Comments Under Fake Name On Liberal Blog - A commenter calling himself “Buck Smith” — who claimed on a the Burnt Orange web site’s comments to be a liberal and who was critical of Texas Democrats and their candidates — was in fact none other than David Beckwith, a senior staffer who works for Republican Senator John Cornyn.

Evangelist Tells Senate: My Financial Records Belong to God - Every year America’s best known TV evangelists bring in hundreds of millions of dollars from donors all over the world. But some of the evangelists’ own lifestyles have begun to ring alarm bells and have prompted a Senate investigation into their activities.

Last fall, Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, began probing the finances of six TV evangelists whose lifestyles include mansions, Rolls-Royces, and private jets, all paid for out of church funds.

Rev. Kenneth Copeland, whose congregation recently bought him a $20 million private jet to preach the gospel, is holding out against the inquiry, which he claims is “aimed at publicly questioning the religious beliefs of the targeted churches.”

“It’s not yours, it’s God’s, and you’re not going to get it,” Copeland says of his financial records. He has launched a website to publicize his crusade and has received support from several leading conservatives, including Paul Weyrich and Kenneth Blackwell.

Fox News Looking for Fact Writer - Notice that they are not looking for a fact finder, but a fact-writer. Also notice, spelling, grammar and context are important, and the applicant must be able to write in a concise, conversational and colorful style, but apparently accuracy of the facts is optional.

Fox News Airs Altered Photos of NY Times Reporters to Make Them Look Ugly - On the July 2 edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends, co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade labeled New York Times reporter Jacques Steinberg and editor Steven Reddicliffe “attack dogs,” claiming that Steinberg’s June 28 article on the “ominous trend” in Fox News’ ratings was a “hit piece.” During the segment, however, Fox News featured photos of Steinberg and Reddicliffe that appeared to have been digitally altered — the journalists’ teeth had been yellowed, their facial features exaggerated, and portions of Reddicliffe’s hair moved further back on his head. Fox News gave no indication that the photos had been altered.

After putting up the photos of Steinberg and Reddicliffe, Fox & Friends also featured a photograph of Steinberg’s face superimposed over that of a poodle, while Reddicliffe’s face was superimposed over that of the man holding the poodle’s leash.

McCain Backer’s Firm Funded Terrorist Group In Colombia - The co-host of a recent top-dollar fundraiser for Sen. John McCain oversaw the payment of roughly $1.7 million to a Colombian paramilitary group that is today designated a terrorist organization by the United States.

Carl H. Lindner Jr., the billionaire Cincinnati businessman, was CEO of Chiquita Brands International from 1984 to 2001, and remained on the company’s board of directors until May 2002. Beginning under his tenure, Chiquita executives paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by the Spanish acronym AUC), which is described by George Washington University’s National Security Archive as an “illegal right-wing anti-guerrilla group tied to many of the country’s most notorious civilian massacres.”

Following a Justice Department indictment last year, Chiquita admitted to illegally funding the paramilitaries and agreed to pay a $25 million fine. Chiquita’s payments to the AUC began in 1997 and lasted seven years; roughly half of the funds came after the group was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department in 2001.

According to the Justice Department, the payments “were reviewed and approved by senior executives” of Chiquita, who knew by no later than September 2000 “that the AUC was a violent, paramilitary organization.”

Tom DeLay: Still Crazy After All These Years - Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has resurfaced, appealing for contributions to the Coalition for a Conservative Majority, which lists him as chairman and founder. DeLay suggested that this be enclosed with any contribution: ”I am thrilled to learn that you have gotten back in the fight against the left by forming “the new organization.”

DeLay, who has endorsed John McCain after expressing misgivings, takes positions to the right of the Republican presidential candidate in his fund-raising appeal. DeLay asks: ”Are you concerned by the growing evidence that there are powerful forces inside our government and out who are quietly moving to have America absorbed into a globalist style ‘North American Union’ with Canada and Mexico?”

Bush Hiding Truth: Global Warming Regulations Worth $2 Trillion Benefit - An “intense private battle” has broken out between officials at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Environmental Protection Agency over “the publication of a document that could become the legal roadmap for regulation of greenhouse gas emissions across the U.S. economy.” The White House has been suppressing it since December of last year.

Even after major cuts from the December version, this document makes a mockery of President Bush’s claim in April that applying the Clean Air Act to global warming pollution “would have crippling effects on our entire economy.” In fact, after spending all of 2007 working with the Departments of Transportation and Energy to model the effects of motor vehicle greenhouse gas regulations, the EPA found the exact opposite.

Assuming gas prices in the range of $3.50 per gallon, “the net benefit to society could be in excess of $2 trillion” through 2040. With higher gasoline prices, the benefits of high carbon-dioxide standards would be even greater. The EPA’s findings, completed last year, raise serious questions about whether Bush’s statements to the American public were made in good faith, and why he is now asserting executive privilege to block the Congressional investigation.

FOX News Guest Says Oil And Coal Are Good For The Environment- Global warming skeptic Chris Horner, whose ties to the fossil fuel industry were not disclosed by the “We report. You decide” network, made the laughable claim on last night’s (7/1/08) Hannity & Colmes that using oil and coal is good for the environment because they make us wealthier. As Horner said in his snappy little soundbite, “Wealthier is healthier. Healthier is cleaner.”

Regards,

Jim

McCain Truth Squad Defender Was Swift Boat Vet Member - One of the members of John McCain’s new Truth Squad — which his campaign says was launched to respond to unfair attacks on his record of military service –- was a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and appeared in an attack ad for the group in 2004. The group was created to attack 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry’s military service record.

McCain’s Failed to Pay Taxes on Their Beachfront Condo for Last Four Years - The McCains have failed to pay taxes on their beach-front condo in La Jolla, California, for the last four years and are currently in default. The McCains own at least seven homes through a variety of trusts and corporations controlled by Cindy McCain. The report notes that the McCains paid the bulk of their back taxes a few days ago after inquiries by Newsweek magazine, but they continue to owe additional taxes.

Homophobia Can Have Bad Side Effects - Auto-correct can be a very helpful feature of any word-processing program. But when conservatives use it, they run the risk of embarrassing themselves.

The American Family Association’s OneNewsNow website, for example, takes its AP articles and replaces the word “gay” with the word “homosexual.” I’m not entirely sure why, but it seems to make the AFA happy. The group is, after all, pretty far out there.

The problem, of course, is that “gay” does not always mean what the AFA wants it to mean. It was reported this morning that sprinter Tyson Gay won the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials over the weekend. The AFA ran the story, but only after the auto-correct had “fixed” the article.

That means — you guessed it — the track star was renamed “Tyson Homosexual.” The headline on the piece read, “Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic trials.”

Cronyism in the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives - A former top official in the Faith-Based Office was awarded a lucrative Department of Justice grant, despite the strong objections of several DOJ civil servants. This example of cronyism further demonstrates that this office needs further additional oversight, and has since the start of the Bush administration.

How Republicans perfected a propaganda system that could fool tens of millions of Americans, intimidate Democrats, and transform the vaunted Washington press corps from watchdogs to lapdogs - Democrats’ softness on the Iran-Contra report during Ronald Reagan’s presidency allowed key information to be omitted in order to make the report more bipartisan. The American people thus were spared the chapter’s troubling finding: that the Reagan administration had built a domestic covert propaganda apparatus managed by a CIA propaganda and disinformation specialist working out of the National Security Council. The failure of the Iran-Contra report to fully explain the danger of CIA-style propaganda intruding into the U.S. political process had profound future consequences. It was the beginning of government links to Robert Murdoch (Fox News) and Sun Myung Moon (Washington Times) to promote government propaganda. In the two decades since the Iran-Contra scandal, both Murdoch and Moon have continued to pour billions of dollars into media outlets that have influenced the course of U.S. history, often through the planting of propaganda and disinformation

Here is the actual Iran-Conta report lost chapter

CIA Ignored Iran Facts According to Ex-Agent - A former CIA operative who says he tried to warn the agency about faulty intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs now contends that CIA officials also ignored evidence that Iran had suspended work on a nuclear bomb. The former operative alleged in a 2004 lawsuit that the CIA fired him after he repeatedly clashed with senior managers over his attempts to file reports that challenged the conventional wisdom about weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. “On five occasions he was ordered to either falsify his reporting on WMD in the Near East, or not to file his reports at all,” said the ex-agent’s attorney.

Bush’s Top General Quashed Torture Dissent - The former Air Force general and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers, helped quash dissent from across the U.S. military as the Bush administration first set up a brutal interrogation regime for terrorism suspects, according to newly public documents and testimony from an ongoing Senate probe.

In late 2002, documents show, officials from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps all complained that harsh interrogation tactics under consideration for use at the prison in Guantánamo Bay might be against the law. Those military officials called for further legal scrutiny of the tactics. The chief of the Army’s international law division, for example, said in a memo that some of the tactics, such as stress positions and sensory deprivation, “cross the line of ‘humane treatment’” and “may violate the torture statute.”

Myers, however, agreed to scuttle a plan for further legal review of the tactics, in response to pressure from a top Pentagon attorney helping to set up the interrogation program for then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

US Held Gitmo Detainee On Bare And Unverified Claims - In the first case to review the government’s secret evidence for holding a detainee at Guantanamo 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. With some derision for the Bush administration’s arguments, a three-judge panel said the government contended that its accusations against the detainee should be accepted as true because they had been repeated in at least three secret documents. The court compared that to the absurd declaration of a character in the Lewis Carroll poem “The Hunting of the Snark”: “I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.” “This comes perilously close to suggesting that whatever the government says must be treated as true,” said the panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Waterboarding is a Tragic Waste of Natural Resources - National Water Watch, a Washington-based conservation group, criticized the government’s use of waterboarding Monday, calling the practice of stuffing a cloth into a detainee’s mouth, immobilizing him, and pouring water over his face and body to simulate the sensation of drowning “a tragic waste of resources.” “The idea that the United States could condone the despicable act of squandering several pitchers of water is shameful,” NWW spokesman Gregory Hammil said. “It is amoral, unconscionable, and in direct opposition to all internationally recognized water-saving techniques.” Hammil recommended the government switch to more eco-friendly means of enhanced interrogation, such as waterboarding with a return-hose device in order to reuse old water, or simply beating suspected terrorists to a bloody pulp.

Regards,

Jim

McCain’s New Web Ad Misrepresents Obama’s Positions on Energy - McCain released a Web ad that distorts Obama’s positions on clean-energy innovation and nuclear power. Here is what FactCheck.org says:

The ad portrays Obama as saying “no” to energy “innovation” and to “the electric car.” In fact, Obama proposed a $150 billion program of research into a wide variety of clean-energy technologies last year, long before McCain proposed to award a $300 million prize for developing a commercially viable battery package capable of powering automobiles.

The ad also has Obama saying “no” to “clean, safe nuclear energy.” In fact, Obama has said, “I have not ruled out nuclear… but only [would support it] so far as it is clean and safe.”

Obama’s Ad Inflates His Resume - Obama has released his first post-primary ad. FactCheck doesn’t find this ad egregiously misleading, but says it paints a picture of Obama’s accomplishments that could leave viewers with a misimpression or two. The ad talks about laws that Obama “passed,” but in fact, he sponsored only one of the three bills mentioned and cosponsored another. The third included provisions from some bills he’d sponsored earlier, but his name wasn’t attached to the one that passed. And two of the three laws were accomplishments of the Illinois Legislature, not the U.S. Senate.

Afghanistan: Allied Death Toll Reaches 7-Year High - The number of U.S. and allied troops killed in Afghanistan in June has reached 40 — the highest monthly toll of the seven-year-old war. Taliban militants have increased their attacks this year. The top U.S. commander in southeastern Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, said Tuesday that attacks on his troops were up 40 percent in the first five months of 2008.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, asked about Schloesser’s comments at a Thursday news conference, said one of the reasons for the increase was that more people are “coming across the border from the frontier area [he was referring to Pakistan].”

How John McCain Views How History Will View Things - Here’s what John McCain said about Nixon and Watergate at the time, according to the book entitled Man of the People: The Life of John McCain by Paul Alexander, pp. 81-82:

“I feel that, in the context of history, Watergate will be a very minor item as compared with the other achievements of this Administration.”

Conservative Anti Tax Activist Calls Barack Obama “John Kerry with a Tan” - Grover Norquist, the conservative activist who specializes in promoting an anti-tax agenda, dropped by The Los Angeles Times’ Washington bureau yesterday and, as part of his negative critique of Obama’s liberal stances on economic issues and other matters, he termed the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee “John Kerry with a tan.”

Why McCain Doesn’t Like Black Cats -

• McCain believes it’s bad luck for someone to hand him a salt shaker.
• McCain believes it’s bad luck to throw a hat onto a bed.
• McCain regularly carries 31 cents in lucky change in his pocket.
• McCain carries a lucky feather, a lucky compass, a lucky penny, a lucky nickel, a lucky quarter, and a laminated four-leaf clover.
• McCain believes it’s bad luck to pick up a coin if it isn’t heads up.
• McCain’s been known to have an aide carry his lucky pen at all times.
• And now he’s having the elevator labels changed in his campaign’s building to eliminate the 13th floor.

After FOX News Suggests That The Press Will Not Report North Korea As “A Clear Foreign Policy Victory” For Bush, Their Own Expert Blasts It As Colossal Failure - There was a hilarious disconnect on Hannity & Colmes last night (6/26/08) in a discussion about the latest developments in the nuclear negotiations with North Korea. In his scripted introduction, Sean Hannity called the news “a clear foreign policy victory for the Bush administration.” But, he asked suggestively, “Will the press report it that way?” I don’t know about the other media but FOX News’ own expert, former Bush administration appointee John Bolton, the sole guest, called it a victory for the North Koreans, only. Bolton’s not-so-subtle implication was that we should not make the same mistake of negotiating with Iran. With video.

Regards,

Jim

(Note: Authoritarian is used throughout this blog in the context of a personality type — not in the sense of a figure of authority such as a policeman, boss or Army general.)

Back in 2006, John Dean completed Conservatives Without Conscience and he detailed the transformation of the Republican Party and the affinity of the authoritarian personality for that party. In the preface to his book, Dean quoted Barry Goldwater’s concern about some of these authoritarians and their determination:

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.

Later in Dean’s book, he describes authoritarians this way:

Probably about 20 to 25 percent of the adult American population is so right-wing authoritarian, so scared, so self-righteous, so ill-informed, and so dogmatic that nothing you can say or do will change their minds. They would march America into a dictatorship and probably feel that things had improved as a result. … And they are so submissive to their leaders that they will believe and do virtually anything they are told. They are not going to let up and they are not going away.

Here are some recent examples of what these authoritarians might do and the tools they will use to get their way.

Bill Kristol, the son of Irving Kristol, is a good place to start. Both he and his father are follower’s of Leo Strauss’ neocon philosophies, which includes Noble Lies and preemptive strikes to prevent any imagined holocaust. Bill made the following statement on Fox Noise one Sunday:

But how would that happen? What tactic would the authoritarians use to get the rest of us to follow? Steve Weber wrote in The Sleep of Monsters Produces Reason about the authoritarian’s favorite tool for getting what they want — fear mongering.

… we must nonetheless be aware of the opposing forces who peer jealously across the widening breach, who are becoming even more embittered, even more determined to prevent this movement [away from authoritarians] from succeeding. Starting from its warped, hardened kernel of an ideology, the Bush/Neo-Con jihad on democracy has been nothing less than catastrophic, a global socio/geopolitical plague. And it’s not just the obvious villains we have to be concerned about. There are the appeasers in our midst, the DINO’s who continue to reward Bush’s treachery with unimpeded funding for the disgrace of Iraq and immunity for his flouting of the law. And there is our own knee-jerk cowering in the face of an enemy openly courted, recklessly wielded and described as impregnable by Bush et al.: Fear. Knowing we would forever shudder and weep at the images branded into our brains, Fear is probably the most brutally effective weapon BushCo had — has – in its arsenal and is used with the same alacrity with which Saddam used poison gas on the Kurds.

Adding to that, Robert Creamer wrote about the use of fear mongering by the right in McCain Advisor’s Terrorism Comment Highlights the Right’s Historic Use of Fear: …:

Many in the press and the public have been repulsed by the notion that McCain’s inner circle would even speculate on how they could politically benefit by another 9/11. But we shouldn’t let our revulsion obscure the underlying truth that throughout history the Right has always used fear as its weapon of choice.

Fundamentally, the centuries-long battle between Progressives and the right wing has been a struggle between empowerment and domination.

At its core, right wing ideology has historically functioned to legitimate the domination of the many by the few — whether a king, a chief, an aristocracy, or the wealthy. Its job is to protect the prerogatives and power of the elite: to protect the status quo.

In modern America its role has been to defend those at the top of the socio-economic order. Its job is to convince us that the “survival of the fittest” is the “natural” organizing principle for society, and that those who achieve ascendancy deserve their positions of dominance and power.

The Right has always used fear as a centerpiece in its strategy to assure compliance and domination. Fear is a tool of distraction and social control. At different times, it has used the fear of social chaos, the fear of foreign enemies, or the fear of racial and religious minorities. Historically fear has been an incredibly powerful tool. Fear of minorities was used for decades to divide everyday white people from everyday black people and thereby assure the continued preeminence of an elite.

Of course, fear has always been used to distract everyday people from domestic injustice by creating an overwhelming focus on the “outside enemy.” For decades the Right used fear of the Soviet Union and “global communism.” After the collapse of the Soviet Union it used the fear of crime, the fear of minorities and “War on Drugs.” The 9/11 attacks gave the Right a whole new way to capitalize on fear — the War on Terror and Jihadist Islam.

But most importantly, the emotion of fear immobilizes. Fear does not make men and women rise to challenge. It makes them cower. Fear is the mortal enemy of empowerment, and the Right knows it. That’s why its leaders secretly hope that a new terrorist attack will terrify Americans, and deflate the massive energy for change that has infected the electorate and threatens to sweep the Right from power.

As for secretly hoping for a terrorist attack, we have John McCain’s chief strategist and former lobbyist Charlie Black trying to scare us by saying that another terrorist attack on the United States would greatly improve the odds of Republican victory in November.

Fear mongering and hoping for some terrorist action are then added to by playing the race card. Grover Norquist dropped by the LA Times Washington bureau and referred to Senator Obama as “John Kerry with a tan.” In other words, the senator is not like ‘them’ in two ways. He’s both a Democrat and an African American.

But Norguist’s fatuous comment on Senator Obama’s skin color isn’t as bad as Karl Rove’s comments about the Senator. John Ridley wrote When Rove Calls Obama Arrogant, He Means “Uppity” Karl said this week on Fox News, “I will say yes, I do think Barack Obama is arrogant.” Mr. Ridley described Karl’s comment in this way

Karl Rove says Barack Obama is arrogant.

We’ve heard that; we’ve heard the pejorative “arrogant” before. When I say “we” I mean those of us who are “others” in America; people of color. Minorities. Women. We hear the word all the time from a select section of privileged white guys; the codifying they use when they fear the silver spoons are about to be snatched from their lily palaces: “Those people… How dare they think they can work jobs like ours or live in neighborhoods like ours or send their children to school with ours? Those people are just so damn arrogant.”

Arrogant, of course, is a euphemism. In the monochromatic bunkers from which old-schoolers cling to power the true word they use is “uppity” when hurled at blacks. …

So, what might happen if all this fear mongering, hoping for terrorists to come to their aid and racial labeling fails to work? What else might they try as the election draws near in order to maintain their domination and protect the status quo?

Here’s one very desperate option of last resort.

On June 15, 2008, Steve Rosenbaum, predicted the following option:

McCain won’t be the [Republican] nominee.

By August, they’ll have done something to try and pick away at Obama’s popularity. They’ll emphasize race, or whatever they can to get him to appear less than perfect. Then, they’ll bring out of the woodwork a surprise [Republican] candidate who can shift the story fast. With just two months before the election — the new candidate will have little time to be ‘vetted’ but will be shiny and new, and will get a lot of media attention as Obama’s newness will have become — by then — tarnished or at least no longer the surprise that it has been as he unseated Hillary.

Government Seizing Laptops and Cameras at Airports Without Cause - Returning from a brief vacation to Germany in February, Bill Hogan was selected for additional screening by customs officials at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C. Agents searched Hogan’s luggage and then popped an unexpected question: Was he carrying any digital media cards or drives in his pockets? “Then they told me that they were impounding my laptop,” says Hogan, a freelance investigative reporter whose recent stories have ranged from the origins of the Iraq war to the impact of money in presidential politics.

Shaken by the encounter, Hogan says he left the airport and examined his bags, finding that the agents had also removed and inspected the memory card from his digital camera. “It was fortunate that I didn’t use that machine for work or I would have had to call up all my sources and tell them that the government had just seized their information,” he said. When customs offered to return the machine nearly two weeks later, Hogan told them to ship it to his lawyer.

The extent of the program to confiscate electronics at customs points is unclear. A hearing Wednesday before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on the Constitution hopes to learn more about the extent of the program and safeguards to traveler’s privacy.

Government Grabs Man’s Savings at Airport - Pedro Zapeta was returning home to Guatemala with $59,000 he had saved working illegally as a dishwasher over 11 years. Zapeta had saved the money to build a house for himself and his family in his home village in the Guatemalan mountains. Federal law requires that anyone leaving or entering the country with $10,000 or more must declare it. Because Zapeta had not done so, he was detained, and his money was seized. Zapeta, who does not speak English, was not trying to conceal the money but did not know the law. He had paid taxes on the earnings, and under legal guidelines should be fined at most $5,000 for failing to report that he was traveling with the cash. A court has now corrected the matter.

Justice Department Turned into Goon Squad for the Republican Party According to Constitutional Law Professor - A new Justice Department audit has revealed that under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, highly qualified applicants for jobs or summer internships who had liberal leanings were passed over in favor of conservatives, in violation of the supposedly non-partisan spirit of those programs. For example, in 2006, 82% of summer internship applicants with liberal affiliations were rejected, but only 13% of those with conservative affiliations.

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann invited constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley to discuss these findings, which he described as “the Bush administration’s attempt to make the Justice Department into kind of a goon squad for the Republican Party.”

Turley noted with a smile that “it’s ironic. … The Bush administration has lost so many terrorism cases — maybe this is the reason. You don’t get a very good government when you have political commissars selecting people not because they’ve achieved something, but because they toe a party line.”

Republican State Senator Kim Brimer Bilks Supporters for Personal Gain … Again - Campaign finance records show that Republican State Senator Kim Brimer (SD10 – Fort Worth) has again used campaign contributor funds for personal gain. A complete review of Kim Brimer’s campaign finance forms from 1987 to the present shows that Brimer skimmed at least $37,953 from his campaign account for his personal use. The Lone Star Project discovery of Brimer’s improper, and possibly illegal, repayments resulted from an earlier investigation into the Republican Senator’s improper use of campaign cash to purchase a luxury condominium in Austin.

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Could Permanently Hide Evidence of Impeachable Offenses - The “farce” of a surveillance law deal heralded by House Democratic leaders last week could permanently hide evidence of an “impeachable offense” on the part of President Bush, Sen. Russ Feingold, said Monday. The Senate is expected to approve an administration backed gambit to essentially legalize Bush’s warrantless surveillance program while at the same time letting off the hook phone companies that critics say facilitated the contravention of current law. “I do think this is a total farce with regard to the immunity [for telecommunications companies]. It basically guarantees the immunity,” Feingold said. “It doesn’t simply have the impact of potentially allowing telephone companies to break the law. It may prevent us from ever getting to the core issue … which is the president ran an illegal program that could’ve been an impeachable offense.” Senator Chris Dodd said, “We’re closing the door, never to know why this happened, who ordered it, why did they avoid [the courts], what was behind their thinking. And that is a dangerous step for us.”

Illegal, Barbaric, Who Cares? - John Yoo, a former deputy in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, gives us insight into the administration’s belief that anything the president or his designates do - no matter how illegal, barbaric or un-American - is justifiable in the name of national self-defense.

Cassel: “If the president deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?”
Yoo: “No treaty.”
Cassel: “Also no law by Congress - that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo…”
Yoo: “I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.”

Regards,

Jim

U.S. Government Funding Arabic News Channel That Makes Payments to Bush Administration Officials and Airs Anti-American Viewpoints - Alhurra, the U.S. government-funded Arabic news channel, paid former Bush and Clinton administration officials, lobbyists and high-profile Washington journalists tens of thousands of dollars in U.S. taxpayer money to appear on the network as commentators, according to interviews and a review of company records. Alhurra, a 24-hour satellite station, was founded by the Bush administration four years ago to project a positive image of the United States to Middle East viewers. The network and its sister radio station, Sawa, have aired anti-American and anti-Israeli viewpoints, have showcased pro-Iranian policies and recently gave air time to a militant who called for the death of American soldiers in Iraq.

Justice Department Rejected Liberal-Leaning Job Applicants - Ivy Leaguers and other top law students were rejected for plum Justice Department jobs two years ago because of their liberal leanings or objections to Bush administration politics, a government report concluded Tuesday. Even senior Justice Department officials flinched at what appeared to be hiring decisions based - improperly and illegally - on politics, according to the internal report. “Individuals at the department were rejecting any of our candidates who could be construed as left-wing or who were perceived, based on their appearances and resumes and so forth, as being more liberal,” Kevin Ohlson, deputy director of the department’s executive office of immigration review, complained to Justice investigators.

Those Who Want to Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or Offshore Are Not Telling the Truth - Even in the best case, the price impact of drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would amount to about 1 percent of current market prices. If work started today, production would peak in 2027 — when increased production would have the biggest impact on prices. According to Department of Energy projections, that impact would cut the prices of light sweet crude (in 2006 dollars) by 41 cents per barrel in 2026 for the low estimate, 75 cents per barrel in 2025 for the mean oil resource case, and $1.44 per barrel in 2027 for the high estimate. That would affect the price of gas by pennies, if at all. Offshore is even worse than that.

White House Refused to Open E-Mail on Pollutants From EPA - The White House in December refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency’s conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled, telling agency officials that an e-mail message containing the document would not be opened, senior E.P.A. officials said last week. Remember, if you don’t read a policy paper, it’s just like it never existed!

Regards,

Jim

48 Things That John McCain Is Not Sure About - (Just Tell ‘Em What They Want to Hear, or Maybe … Just Say What the NeoCons Tell You to Say)

* McCain supported the drilling moratorium; now he’s against it.
* McCain strongly opposes a windfall-tax on oil company profits. Three weeks earlier, he was perfectly comfortable with the idea.

* McCain thought Bush’s warrantless-wiretap program circumvented the law; now he believes the opposite.
* McCain defended “privatizing” Social Security. Now he says he’s against privatization (though he actually still supports it.)

* McCain wanted to change the Republican Party platform to protect abortion rights in cases of rape and incest. Now he doesn’t.

* McCain thought the estate tax was perfectly fair. Now he believes the opposite.
* He opposed indefinite detention of terrorist suspects. When the Supreme Court reached the same conclusion, he called it “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”