Politics: Your Happy News For Teh Day

Kit Bond — Barely 70 and already looking like a corpse


Boom! Boom! Boom!

Another one bites the dust!

Yeah, it should make you happy. If it don't, there's something wrong witchu.

Missouri Senator Kit Bond announced yesterday that he's not planning to run for reelection. He was singing quite the different tune last year, so his rage of Hunchmen (and Hunchwomen, thanks Frank Zappa!) have been caught sorta kinda flatfooted by the whole thing.

Bond spokeswoman Shana Marchio said she had been "preparing for him to run. We were going full-throttle."

Bwahahahahahaha!

Why, you might ask, am I waxing so lively at this news? Because it would appear that as each day dawns we are moving closer to the goal of a filibuster-proof Senate so that our President, Barack Obama, can implement the goals that will save our jobs, our lives, our homes, and our dignity both at home and abroad:

Bond's decision will force the GOP to launch an expensive and competitive campaign next year to hold onto the Missouri Senate seat, as well as the seat in Florida being vacated by Republican Mel Martinez, who is retiring. Senate Democrats, who need 60 votes to stop Republican filibusters, hold 58 seats and could have 59 if Minnesota upholds Al Franken's recount victory.

And nothing delights me more than knowing that the sleazeball Norm Coleman will soon be gone, the sleazeball Mel Martinez (who passed around the Terri Schiavo memo in Congress) is retiring, and now Senator Kit Bond, the man responsible for passing the Defense Authorization Act which basically killed Posse Comitatus dead, is about to be Gone, Baby, Gone.

How can y'all not erupt in whoops of joy and spontaneous knicker-showing can-can dances on the streets, dayum!

From ICHC, your Premium source of LOLcattery

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Politics: FISA Roll Call

Blogger jazzfan76, over at DailyKos, has posted a list of the people who voted to give the telcos immunity for their illegal act of spying on you.

Just in case you want to contact the miserable sons of bitches and give them an earful.

Although it would probably be more useful to be able to contact their constituents.

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Politics: Your Constitutional Rights

Raw Story tells us today that companies like Taco Bell and Mall-Wart hired a private security firm of ex-Secret Service officers to spy on American citizens throughout the 1990s and the year 2000. Among other things, these people were responsible for stealing documents and collecting phone records of members of environmental organizations, in which they also tried to plant undercover agents. Say what?

James Ridgeway, a reporter for Mother Jones, reveals the contractor (Beckett Brown International) collected confidential internal records -- donor lists, financial statements -- even Social Security numbers, for public relations outfits and "corporations involved in environmental controversies."

The company's client list includes:

• the Carlyle Group, the controversial DC-based investment company;
  
• the National Rifle Association;
  
• Gallo wine company
  
• Pirelli.
  
• Halliburton
  
• Monsanto

Among their victims:

• Greenpeace;
  
• the National Environmental Trust;
  
• the Center for Food Safety;
  
• Environmental Media Services;
  
• the Environmental Working Group;
  
• the U.S. Public Interest Research Group
  
• Center for Health, Environment and Justice, an organization run by Lois Gibbs, famous for exposing the toxic dangers of New York's Love Canal.

What was Taco Hell worried about? That people were going to protest their use of genetically-engineered corn not approved for human consumption.

Taco Bell is owned by Kraft. You might want to let their corporate marketing schlubs know how you feel about their fucking with your food and your heads. The only contact information we can find is:

If you have any questions concerning Investor Relations, you may call and leave a message at 1-847-646-5494 or send us an e-mail.
You may also write to us at:

Investor Relations
Kraft Foods Inc.
Three Lakes Drive,
Northfield, IL 60093

Note that Taco Bell are the same assholes who fought workers for three years before finally agreeing to pay an extra penny for each pound of tomatoes it buys from farm workers. So, was Beckett Brown giving Taco Bell free service? Because, yaknow, they coulda just paid the farmworkers that lousy extra penny by not spending the money on spying on people who might not want bioengineered corn not rated safe for human consumption in their food! Buncha fucknuts.

A pertinent excerpt from the article:

"As for BBI's principals," Ridgeway writes, "they are still operating. Tim Ward now runs a security firm called Chesapeake Strategies, which bills itself as 'a multinational security and investigative firm comprised of professionals with extensive security experience.' Jay Bly works there. Its website boasts that it maintains affiliated offices in Paris, Beijng, Tokyo, Qatar, and Kuwait and that 'many team members continue to hold Secret and Top Secret government security clearances.'

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Constitution: NSA Craps On It

Looks like every organization in every arm of this current Misadministration takes its cue from Chimpy McDunce. If he's going to wipe his butt on the Constitution, they feel obliged to rush to do the same, in an attempt, we suppose, to prove their bona fides.

Today, for example, Raw Story tells us that the NSA is "quietly" expanding their surveillance of U.S. citizens.

"According to current and former intelligence officials, the spy agency now monitors huge volumes of records of domestic emails and Internet searches as well as bank transfers, credit-card transactions, travel and telephone records,"

states an article by Siobhan Gorman in the Wall Street Journal. Note: You need to register to read the article.

The article goes on to say:

"The NSA receives this so-called 'transactional' data from other agencies or private companies, and its sophisticated software programs analyze the various transactions for suspicious patterns. Then they spit out leads to be explored by counterterrorism programs across the U.S. government, such as the NSA's own Terrorist Surveillance Program, formed to intercept phone calls and emails between the U.S. and overseas without a judge's approval when a link to al Qaeda is suspected."

Note: Our emphasis, Ed. Since no one is monitoring the NSA's scrutiny of your information, we have no idea how they determine that a "link to al Qaeda" should be "suspected." Is it like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? If your roommate in college had a penpal who married a cousin of a German of Turkish origin whose grandfather came from the same village as a woman who is married to a man whose cousin-in-law is a member, are you automatically a suspect?

Bearing in mind that the U.S. Government currently has imprisoned some one per cent of its own citizens, and the privatization of prisons has proceeded apace, making the imprisoning of people a lucrative industry, do you really trust that your government is able and willing to search for terrorists without infringing on your Constitutional rights? After all, they're scrutinizing every damn thing you do, including your credit card transactions.

Is there anyone so virtuous among us that they can cast the first stone at transgressors and offenders and say to the spies, examine everything I've ever done, you won't find a trace of something even slightly illegal? And even if you are, you paragon of virtue, do you want your government going through all your private stuff? Your health records? Your email to you girlfriend or mistress? Your private slutty chats with guyfriends or girlfriends about the hot sex you had with that borderline perv you once knew? Are you sure that among the people you dated, or your friends or colleagues or neighbours there is absolutely no one who might have a criminal record? Whose conversations with you could be misconstrued?

"The NSA's enterprise involves a cluster of powerful intelligence-gathering programs, all of which sparked civil-liberties complaints when they came to light," she continues. "They include a Federal Bureau of Investigation program to track telecommunications data once known as Carnivore, now called the Digital Collection System, and a U.S. arrangement with the world's main international banking clearinghouse to track money movements."

[...]

If a person suspected of terrorist connections is believed to be in a U.S. city -- for instance, Detroit, a community with a high concentration of Muslim Americans -- the government's spy systems may be directed to collect and analyze all electronic communications into and out of the city.

[...]

Two current officials also said the NSA's current combination of programs now largely mirrors the former TIA project. But the NSA offers less privacy protection. TIA developers researched ways to limit the use of the system for broad searches of individuals' data, such as requiring intelligence officers to get leads from other sources first. The NSA effort lacks those controls, as well as controls that it developed in the 1990s for an earlier data-sweeping attempt.

[...]

NSA gets access to the flow of data from telecommunications switches through the FBI, according to current and former officials. It also has a partnership with FBI's Digital Collection system, providing access to Internet providers and other companies. The existence of a shadow hub to copy information about AT&T Corp. telecommunications in San Francisco is alleged in a lawsuit against AT&T filed by the civil-liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation, based on documents provided by a former AT&T official. In that lawsuit, a former technology adviser to the Federal Communications Commission says in a sworn declaration that there could be 15 to 20 such operations around the country.

The budget for the NSA's data-sifting effort is classified, but one official estimated it surpasses $1 billion. The FBI is requesting to nearly double the budget for the Digital Collection System in 2009, compared with last year, requesting $42 million. "Not only do demands for information continue to increase, but also the requirement to facilitate information sharing does," says a budget justification document, noting an "expansion of electronic surveillance activity in frequency, sophistication, and linguistic needs."

So we're paying over one billion dollars to scrutinize every Web site visit, telephone conversation, and email of Americans within the United States, and the FBI wants that budget doubled.

Wouldn't it be cheaper and more effective &mdash and less intrusive &mdash to monitor email, conversations, and Web sites to and from countries with known terrorist presences? And leave internal monitoring to that supervised by courts tasked with protecting the civil liberties of Americans? And we're not referring to the FISA courts, which have rubberstamped every request by the government for permission to spy on anybody. We're referring to some real goddamned respect for the Constitution.

Either it is our founding document and we obey it faithfully, or it's just a "goddamned piece of paper," per Chimpy McDunce, and we throw it away and start all over again. Which will it be, peoples?

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Politics: If It's Legal, They Don't Need Immunity

Image from DailyKos

Chimpy McTardibus, L33b3r Ov T3H |=R33 WUR7d, assures the American People today that the telcos' spying on the American People was legal:

[...] Bush said. "What we asked them to do was legal, and now they're getting sued for billions of dollars."

Telephone and Internet providers like AT&T, Verizon and SBC are facing about 40 lawsuits from customers who say their privacy was violated as part of Bush's "Terrorist Surveillance Program" he says began after 9/11. Only if they are found to have violated privacy laws would these companies face the "billions of dollars" in penalties Bush warned against.

Well, if it's legal, they have nothing to worry about, Mr. Bush. So sign the existing FISA law.

No retroactive immunity for telcos! They have way more money than John and Jane Q. Public, and can well afford a day in court. Besides, they'll win anyway. Because spying on every man, woman, and child in America is LEGAL, dammit, legal, legal, legal.

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B.A.D. Featured Bloggers

Update: Well, poo. We wuz wrong about DiFi. It looks as if she voted against the telco immunity. Sorry about that, folks. Leapin' Stupids Disease appears to be out of remission. Apologies, Senator Feinstein. We still disagree with you more than half the time on your votes, but we were wrong on this one. We'll take our medicine like a cat: snarling, hissing, running away, and hiding (oh, wotthehell, Archy, a few scratchings for good measure).

Over at his Soapbox, Ted sounds as if he's set to become an adoptive parent to a high-needs child. Congrats, Ted.

Casa de Los Gatos believes in adoption, as opposed to reproduction. With 6.x BILLION FUCKING PEOPLE (and we do mean fucking people, or we wouldn't be up to 6.x billion) on the planet, there is absolutely no need for more "mini-me's," y'awl. Whatever your particular genetic signature, chances are it's already out there in teh pool. In fact, the gene pool could stand a hearty dose of chlorine.

Adopting children, on the other hand &mdash that's a mitzvah. Those tykes &mdash especially the high-needs kids &mdash they could use your help. Consider the life of a child in the foster-care system, which is where unwanted children go in the U.S. of A, and you will agree that abortion ought to be a sacrament. No one should have the right to throw another sentient creature away, like these children are thrown away. Abandoned, unwanted, bullied, beaten, they are ground through the system and on their 18th birthday, kicked out with little more than the clothes on their backs. And then it's life on the streets, drugs, prostitution, petty crime, and back into the system, except this time it's the jail and prison end. Anybody who sincerely believes this is better than a quick suction job is deluded or insane or both, and desperately in need of a retroactive abortion themselves.

Ted, you're a mensch. I hope things work out with the kid, and for you overall.

Over in Wyandotte, Michigan (eww, cold!), a group of very courageous people are meeting weekly to protest the disgusting war of occupation in Iraq. They blog about it at Wyan.blog, which Casa de Los Gatos discovered thanks to the efforts of Lizzy, who lives with 922 cats (and kittens!). You can see them standing out there all bundled up against the cold, bravely holding their signs every week. Kudos, Wyans. We wish we could be there with you in the flesh, but our flesh is, regrettably, falling off our damaged bones these days. We're with you in spirit, though.

We have not blogged the Senate's criminal position on the telco immunity aspect of the FISA bill because we knew everyone else would do it and do it better and require fewer psychoactive meds. And sure enough, Batocchio over at Vagabond Scholar puts the boot in nicely and tells us what to do next.

Is Dianne Feinscum your Senator? Find out who's running against her, throw your support to the candidate most likely to beat her overprivileged ass to pulp, and flood her office daily with calls, faxes, email, letters, and postcards. Casa de Los Gatos should not need to warn you to maintain a civil and respectful tone regardless of your current state of mind, whether utter hopelessness or despair.

Here's the list of Democratic Senatescum who voted to give the telcos retroactive immunity, thereby insulating them forever from the consequences of breaking the law and crapping all over the Constitution:

• Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)
• Evan Bayh (D-IA)
• Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
• Tim Johnson (D-SD)
• Herb Kohl (D-WI)
• Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
• Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Mark Pryor (D-AR)
• Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
• Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
• Ken Salazar (D-CO)
• Tom Carper (D-DE)
• Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)
• Jim Webb (D-VA)
• Ben Nelson (D-NE)
• Bill Nelson (D-FL)
• Kent Conrad (D-ND)
• Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)

You can safely assume that the majority of Rethuglican Senatescum voted to grant immunity.

A significant number of those on the preceding list are "Blue Dog" Democrats, that is to say, scumsucking pigs willing to give their constituents and principle the rigid digit if they think they'll get a little lobbyist money out of it. But La Casa de Los Gatos once had great respect for Claire McCaskill and Jim Webb, and thought Barbara Mikulski was on the side of the people. Folks, please write to your legiscum - our democracy only works if we all participate, whether by writing letters or making phone calls or visiting these people and talking to them. Please make an effort, do your part, get them to hear that two out of every three people in this country do not want retroactive immunity for the telcos.

This has been your daily roundup of B.A.D. bloggers. Casa de Los Gatos thanks you for your attention.

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Politics: Martial Law

When, not if, says the FBI, martial law is imposed, businesses have the right to use deadly force to protect their portion of the infrastructure.

Waitaminnit, dudes. Are those portions not built with wealth created by the labour of the people? On whom is this deadly force to be used? American citizens, who created this infrastructure? Because you don't use private businesses &mdash possibly with the sole exception of Blackwater and such mercenaries, whose sole business is peddling private armed might &mdash to conduct a deadly-force response to well-armed terrorists. For that, you need the military and the police.

It sounds like the FBI wants businesses to either hire mercenaries or arm their workers to use deadly force against unarmed citizens. Can this be?

Rothschild's report details InfraGard, a program set up between the FBI and a number of businesses engaged in maintaining elements of "critical national infrastructure," such as agriculture, banking and finance, the chemical industry, defense, energy, food, information and telecommunications, law enforcement, public health, and transportation. The program's 23,000-plus members provide information to the FBI and in turn receive privileged information from the FBI on threats to infrastructure.

Raw Story has the details. The FBI denies it. However, thanks to Nixon and the lying scum who have succeeded him in the halls of power, plausible deniability has gone the way of the dinosaur.

What the hail is going on here? Is the FBI admitting that the military is broken and the police are not up to the task of guarding our infrastructure against terrorists? Or is it empowering corporations to kill and maim citizens with impunity? Does that, to quote George W. Bush, "goddamned piece of paper," the Constitution, carry any weight with anyone anymore?

Mind you, just yesterday the InnerTubes were ringing with talk about how the FBI is planning to create, at our expense, a billion-dollar biometrics database that will hold information about each and every one of us, down to the whiskers on our collective chinny-chin-chin, the schmucks.

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Politics: Your Tax Dollars At Work

Do you suffer from chronically low blood pressure? Feel dizzy when you stand up or get out of bed too quickly?

Now, there's a cure that doesn't require trips to the (unaffordable) doctor, expensive (unaffordable) medication, or even a (unaffordable) health care plan! Yes, even as the economy, national and personal, swirls around the toilet bowl of the Bush years, you can safely raise your blood pressure while planning &mdash and possibly even ensuring &mdash that tropical vacation you've always longed for! A paradise of fully taxpayer-funded health care and regular meals with plenty of privacy awaits you at Guantanamo Bay!

What, you ask, does this selling of snake oil on our part entail? Simple. Your taxpayer dollars are making it possible for the spy agencies of America to spend lots and lots of time on &mdash MySpace, YouTube, and the blogosphere.
Nice job, huh? Spend the whole day surfing the net, get health care, benes, a pension &mdash all at the expense of the very same people you're (probably) spying on. Let's face it, al Qaeda or some other loony terrorists might smuggle an occasional video clip on to YouTube, or put up a blog or set up a MySpace page, but quite honestly? We think they're way too busy schlepping explosives about, drawing up plans for the next site or person to bomb, putting their recruits through their paces, et cetera ad infinitum ad nauseam.

Mind you, the spy agencies are the same schmucks who want to set up a vast biometrics database that will cost $1 billion in taxpayer dollars (which if each of us got some of that sweet cash, we could afford, oh, maybe a half-caf decaf soy latte)?

"Bigger. Faster. Better. That's the bottom line," said Thomas E. Bush III, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division, which operates the database from its headquarters in the Appalachian foothills.

We just hope this putz is not in any way related to the vast horde of other bushes who have been stealing the American public blind lo these forty years or so.

In the world's first large-scale, scientific study on how well face recognition works in a crowd, the German government this year found that the technology, while promising, was not yet effective enough to allow its use by police. The study was conducted from October 2006 through January at a train station in Mainz, Germany, which draws 23,000 passengers daily. The study found that the technology was able to match travelers' faces against a database of volunteers more than 60 percent of the time during the day, when the lighting was best. But the rate fell to 10 to 20 percent at night.

Nice to know, eh?

Mind you, these are the same dumb schmucks whose failure to cooperate with each other jeopardizes the very taxpayer whose pockets they're vacuuming.

Finally, here's a look at the FBI's IT system. It is to larf.

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Politics: FISA and You

Do you ever wonder if the telcos handed your phone records and other information to which they might have had access, to the spy agencies? Sure, you do. You and most other Americans probably have a low-level stress alert set on FISA, because we know damned well those bastards have been spying on all of us since March of 2001. For the date- or history-impaired, that would be six months before the incidents of 11th September.

The FISA votes have been wending their constipated way through the Legislature for years now. A little movement here, a little squeeze there, while we all sit and fume and wonder what the fuckers are up to now.

AP tells us that the Chimperor is determined that telcos will have immunity for their illegal acts in aiding spying on American citizens. One way he's doing this is to order his rage of hunchmen (yes, Frank Zappa coined that phrase) to do everything they can to delay the so-called "stimulus" package in return for FISA concessions. This will make it look as though the Democrats in the Legislature are failing to give money to the suffering masses.

First off, the chutzpah of this boondoggle just fucking blows our socks off here at La Casa de Los Gatos. Even the gatos' tiny white socks have been blasted to various corners of the universe by this unholy level of total fucking cheek.

What they're trying to do, the Republican legislators and the Chimpidiots, is ensure that you can never find out whether you were spied on. No, really. If these telco pigs get their proposed "immunity," you can't force them to disclose whether they handed your records to anybody. They're immune from prosecution.

This also means you can't find out whether any other shenanigans were going on - you know, like, did the Misadministration funnel millions in taxpayer money to the telcos specifically for acts that violate the FISA laws or the constitution? Did they encourage violation of the constitution by, say, tapping the phones of attorneys talking to clients (that is ANY attorney talking to ANY client, like, oh, your divorce lawyer, or your spouse's patent lawyer; your bankruptcy lawyer - lots of potential for ugly right here).

Did they hand over for future use to intelligence agencies damaging information gleaned from illegal surveillance - like, were you, an elected official, bopping your boyfriend on the taxpayers' time? Or were you, a person with hopes of running for office someday, exchanging incriminating communications with your homo-, bi-, or generally queer-sexual partner or fling? Or a Young Republican engaging in sexual shenanigans of which your church, family, community, and state would thoroughly disapprove?


If Darth and Idiot Boy get telco immunity, you're screwed - we're all screwed. We won't be able to find out what they've got on us, when they started collecting it, what laws they violated - we probably won't even be able to get them to stop, or to turn over the information (not that that would do much good. That which has been seen cannot be unseen).

Already, our slimy AG, Michael Mucousy, has sent a letter to Harry Reid warning of the proposed veto.

In ten days' time the current FISA law will expire. Thus, the Republicans and the Misadministration are going all-out to ensure that the version that passes will protect their good buddies at the telcos, and, incidentally, screw the people. We're only good for paying taxes and working and spending to keep the economy going so these crooks and liars can spend our money making themselves and their friends rich.

If not for Senator Chris Dodd, we'd already be screwed.

So hie thee over to McJoan's excellent post on who you need to call and what you need to tell them. Because if you don't pressure your whiny sad-assed legislators to protect you, you better start purchasing lube by the gallon.

Oh, you might want to send these to your legislator. They've long since proved they haven't got any.

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World: Slipping Into The Fascist State

Image from ToddAlbert.com

Unlike parodist Jonah Goldberg, we do not throw the term "fascism" around lightly. Like the estimable Dorothy Parker, we would like to throw it aside with great force. Preferably into the rubbish pile of history.

Our dictionary defines fascism as:

NOUN: 1. often Fascism a. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism. b. A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government. 2. Oppressive, dictatorial control.

Over in the U.K., Scotland Yard is, presumably at the bequest of the authorities, engaged in electronic eavesdropping of a Labour Party MP whose sole claim to their attentions appears to be a boyhood friendship with an imprisoned constituent who is

accused of running a US-registered website in the late 90's that raised funds for the Taliban and for Chechen militants. He is being held by British authorities pending deportation, although there are no charges against him in that country.

The MP in question, Sadiq Khan, is an activist lawyer who had brought a series of controversial malpractice cases against London police. Khan has campaigned actively against the extradition.

We posit that the actions taken against Khan constitute suppression through terror and censorship, given that the bugging apparently

... violates a long-standing official policy against eavesdropping on members of Parliament.

If there are no charges in the U.S. against the imprisoned constituent Babar Ahmed, why is the British government attempting to deport him? Where are they deporting him? To the U.S.? Have they tried him in a court of law? Of what crimes has he been found guilty?

These questions trouble us. If we are not a nation of laws, if we do not respect our own laws, then what are we?

The movement from democracy and a rule of law to fascism, dictatorship, and a rule of men is a slow slide, not a rapid change. Germans would have risen as one against Hitler if he had immediately proposed a move from a nation grounded in law to a fascist dictatorship. The Munich Beer-Hall Putsch proved that, despite a disillusioned and beaten populace, mass confusion, poverty, and the bleak aftermath of defeat in war, people would not willingly renounce their civil liberties and accept an outright dictator. It took nearly a decade of lies, manoeuvering, chicanery, and an election before the fascistic Nazis could come to power.

We have lived through eight years of rule by an individual with all the mental wherewithal of a shrub. The UK has had his lapdog equivalent in Tony Blair. If we are to halt the slide towards fascism, we - all of us - must speak up and act as best we can.

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Politics: Sibel Edmonds

A.Q. Khan, renegade Pakistani nuclear scientist considered a hero in Pakistan

Seen anything about Sibel Edmonds' testimony in the paper lately? I recall reading something about a week ago, but it's been pushed off the front page by the much more thrilling business of an intoxicated Britney Spears losing her mind or her kids or her underwear.

The Times of London has an interesting article today on Edmonds' testimony. Sibels worked for the FBI as a Turkish language translator, and, as part of her job, listened in to hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office. An excerpt from her testimony as described in the article states, in part:

... foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.

Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan.

The name of the official – who has held a series of top government posts – is known to The Sunday Times. He strongly denies the claims.

However, Edmonds said: “He was aiding foreign operatives against US interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives.”

If true, this is simply scandalous. Pakistan is known to be a hub of nuclear weapons information. Its top nuclear scientist, A.Q. Khan, has been proved to have sold nuclear weapons technology to Libya, Iran, and North Korea. Although he is supposedly under house arrest, no attempt has been made by Pakistani authorities to punish the man.

Despite the expenditure of billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers, American officials have never been permitted to question Dr. Khan. They are not even permitted to ask him questions directly. All questions must be submitted to the Pakistani intelligence authorities, the notorious ISI. The ISI presumably submits the written questions to Dr. Khan and delivers his replies to the U.S. intelligence officials.

Seems like a poor return on our investment. How do we even know that Dr. Khan is responsible for the answers?

Edmonds told the Times that Turki officials acted as a conduit for ISI to deflect suspicion from the Pakistanis.

Intercepted communications showed Ahmad (General Mahmoud Ahmad, then the ISI chief) and his colleagues stationed in Washington were in constant contact with attachés in the Turkish embassy.

Intelligence analysts say that members of the ISI were close to Al-Qaeda before and after 9/11. Indeed, Ahmad was accused of sanctioning a $100,000 wire payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately before the attacks.

The results of the espionage were almost certainly passed to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist.

Khan was close to Ahmad and the ISI. While running Pakistan’s nuclear programme, he became a millionaire by selling atomic secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea. He also used a network of companies in America and Britain to obtain components for a nuclear programme.

Edmonds also informed the Times that one of her fellow translators at the FBI was the daughter of a Pakistani embassy official who worked for Ahmad. The translator was given top secret clearance despite protests from FBI investigators.

Feel safer now, America? While Bush's boys in Afghanistan and Iraq were rounding up innocent civilians and incarcerating them for years in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, where they were tortured, his people in the State department were employing ISI moles at the behest of their Pakistani bribers. State was smuggling known terrorists out of the country as a favour to the Pakistani government, lest they "spill the beans."

While we were using napalm and white phosphorus against civilians in Fallujah, the real terrorists were eating our lunch right here at home. Jeezus, this is repulsive.

Is there a single reason left to keep impeachment of Dick and boy george "off the table"?

Nancy? Harry? Are you slimy gutless worms out there?

Go read the whole article for yourself. Try not to vomit.

All this time, we've been chasing illusory monsters in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Meanwhile, a total of $10 billion dollars of taxpayer money has been paid to the Pakistani government, which is sending money to terrorists and permitting Saudi Arabia to run madrassahs in Pakistan that espouse an anti-U.S. position. What are we doing to combat this? We're giving $22 million to - get this - Pervez Musharraf to "promote democracy."

Pervez Musharraf. A military man who led a coup against the civilian government and refuses to resign either his military or his civilian position. Who routinely jails opponents and suppresses dissent by the simple expedient of having dissenters killed. Who is undoubtedly largely responsible for the murder of Benazir Bhutto and several hundred of her followers.

We wonder what the size of his Swiss bank account is.

Meanwhile Preznitwit Stupie McMidas has announced plans to involve the U.S. military in the border areas of Pakistan. To which the Pakistani army and foreign ministry have replied unequivocally that Stupie and his minions are decidedly unwelcome in Pakistan. And it cost us only $10 billion to buy that endearing response. For $10 billion, we deserve better, George. How about a rebuilt bridge in Minnesota, or a repaired levee in Truckee, or a lawsuit against your brother's flawed pumps in New Orleans, for which the beleaguered city is still paying? How about fixing one single fucking thing at home?

And Hillary Clinton, who ought to know better, rushed in to stick her foot in her mouth with some yammer about a joint U.S.-UK team to oversee the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. The Pakistani military spokesman put paid to that idea in no uncertain terms:

"We do not require anybody's assistance. We are fully capable of doing it on our own," said [Major General Waheed Arshad].

Good work, Hill.

In essence, Pakistan is a failing, if not failed, state. If we had paid attention to the true perpetrators of the incidents of September 11th, we would not be in this position now. But no. We had to elect the biggest idiot on the planet, a fool who will go down in history as a total failure in foreign policy.

He really does have the reverse Midas touch, doesn't he? Everything he touches turns to shit.

Stumble It!

2008 Elections: Dodd For President!

By gum, he did it. And all of you who called your Senators helped.

Chris Dodd has succeeded in denying retroactive immunity to the telecoms companies.

YAY!!!!

Senator Dodd, you are my hero. A million thanks.

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Politics: Who Will Stand With Chris Dodd Against Cloture on FISA?

Image from Raw Story

Looks like the Republicans all want to give the telecoms companies retroactive immunity so they can keep spying on the American people and whine, "But the NSA told me to! I was only following orders!" - also known as the Nuremberg Defense - when they finally get busted for their misdeeds.

As for the Democrats, none of the top tier is bothering to get involved in this issue. Is this what we want from our next president? More illegal surveillance of Americans? The utter destruction of the Fourth Amendment's guarantee of

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

Looks like Chris Dodd is the only presidential candidate to speak out against retroactive immunity. The only one who cares about the constitution.

Senator Clinton, where are you? Senator Obama? Senator Biden, goddammit?

In all fairness, John Edwards and Romney, Giuliani, and Huckabee can't be there to filibuster this worthless piece of dreck bill.

But why isn't Senator McCain, self-proclaimed Defender of the Constitution, doing anything about this?

Watertiger has the list of politicians with the guts to stand with Chris Dodd against this despicable attempt to circumvent the law. To the endless shame of the Republican Party, they're all Democrats.

We'd spit on the gutless worms who won't stand with Chris Dodd on this, but it would be a waste of spit. Right now, Chris Dodd is looking more presidential than the lot of the rest. If your Senator isn't on the list, call their office now, dammit, and demand that they vote NO on cloture of the FISA bill.

And, to elevate your naturally low blood pressure, this exciting tidbit:

Dodd, a dark-horse candidate for the Democratic presidential nod, tried to put a "hold" on any FISA update with telecom immunity, but that request apparently has been ignored by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).

Thanks a lot, Harry Reid, you miserable traitor. You had no problem honoring the Tom Coburn (Repulsive-OK?) hold on the Emmett Till bill which passed overwhelmingly in the House, did you? But that was a civil rights bill, designed to benefit victims of injustice. Whereas this is a bill designed to benefit big corporations that have repeatedly broken the law, using the Nuremberg Defense, and want to get off scot-free. You pathetic schmuck.

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Politics: Anyone Surprised?

Graphic from EFF

From Raw Story comes a report via an AT&T whistleblower that Shrubya the Lesser and his horde of mindless myrmidons were planning to eavesdrop electronically on yer grandmother and all her friends two weeks after taking office. Nearly a year before "9/11 changed everything."

Yes? Am I hearing howls of surprise? Outrage? Anybody home out there?

Wake up, sheeple. Whoever wins Iowa, Republican and Democrat, better make sure they're not going to wiretap you. Terrorists, my ass. They just want a peek in your underwear drawer.

Sheebus MacIntyre's Ghost. They're utterly shameless about flouting the law, aren't they?

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Are you discontent with the U.S. government? Don't have a fire in yr home ...

Dear Friend of TPC,

You heard right. Keith Olbermann reported the story last night and Raw Story has a blog about it. Here's an excerpt:

It was revealed last week that firefighters are being trained to not only keep an eye out for illegal materials in the course of their duties, but even to report back any expression of discontent with the government.

A year ago, Homeland Security gave security clearances to nine New York City fire chiefs and began sharing intelligence with them. Even before that, fire department personnel were being taught "to identify material or behavior that may indicate terrorist activities" and were also "told to be alert for a person who is hostile, uncooperative or expressing hate or discontent with the United States."

Unlike law enforcement officials, firemen can go onto private property without a warrant, not only while fighting fires but also for inspections.

Olbermann reported that if it's successful in NYCity, they will expand it to other major metropolitan areas -- UNLESS WE STOP THEM!

If you go to the Raw Story blog, you can watch the interview Olbermann had with a former FBI agent about this issue. This guy now works with the ACLU.

Stumble It!