Painting Obama with Whitewater

I'm on one of those video shoots which means visiting three cities in three days. Lots of standing in lines at airports.

I haven't had much time to write, but plenty of time to read. And much of what I've read is recrimination from Obama supporters railing against Clinton. Some of it I agree with - she's played the fear card (taking the hint from Karl Rove), she's exaggerated her "experience," and she's put her own ambition over the good of getting a Democrat elected to the White House. That being said, she's got every right to run as long as she likes, America is being treated to a real race for the top office, and states not usually involved at this point are central stomping grounds for the campaign.

Still, having suffered through the unproven accusations of the Whitewater scandal, it would be shameful that the Clinton campaign might be behind a whisper campaign to wrongfully link Obama to the problems of Tony Rezko.

Don't fence me in

We give city fathers a bad rap about crummy development deals, so it's only fair to tip the hat when they get something right.

At Monday's Common Council meeting, councilors voted to allow the city to purchase two parcels of land to be preserved as open space.

The character of a town is based on a balance of many elements, and the open space aspect, especially in a town which had dozens of farms fifty years ago, is essential.

I gave you Iraq, extraordinary renditions, domestic spying, recession and now I give you John McCain

John McCain gains two advantages today. One, an extended, angrier Democratic presidential campaign. Two, an endorsement by White House resident, George Bush.

The Protect Telecoms Act

A compromise on the Protect America Act is afoot in the House of Representatives, with evermore examples of flexible spine contortions.

In this version of the expanded FISA bill, Congress will give Bush and his corporate buddies at the telecoms the immunity they desire. But, in a parliamentary move, the bill will be split in two so that so-called "liberal" Democrats will be able to vote against immunity, while voting for the expanded FISA. According to the Washington Post:

This procedural move would allow many Democrats to vote against immunity but still make its approval all but certain, since almost every Republican and some centrist Democrats would vote in favor.

I called my reprentative Rosa Delauro's office yesterday to urge her to vote against the bill. Her staffed claimed not to know where she stands on the issue.

FISA, as it stands, gives the government all the power it needs to spy on terrorists, without having those taps leaking over the entire citizenship. Call your representative and hold them responsible, since they seem incapable of holding the criminal administration and its corporate cronies accountable.

Thanks for the contributions

WWUH held it's annual fundraiser last week, and through the generous support of listeners, we raised more than $72,000 in a single week, with donations still being made at our website.

The support is truly appreciated in this the 40th anniversary year of our little university-based, independently programmed, locally run, non-profit, community-service, community-supported, mostly-volunteer radio station.

It's nice to know that a non-corporate radio station has such a dedicated listenership for the many hours of folk, jazz, alternate rock, classical, ethnic and specialty music shows, and for the great public affairs programming.

Thanks again.

Cave-in mortally wounds Constitution

It appears that the House of Representatives is about to buckle under pressure from the White House and deliver a Protect America Act with some kind of immunity for giant telecom companies which broke the law by spying on American citizens - lots of American citizens - most of who are not connected with terror or terrorism in any way.

Time to make a phone call to your representative.

Don't think about a Muslim

The Hartford Courant engaged in a neat bit of rhetorical trickery in a print editorial this morning titled, What's In a Name.

Intentional, or unintentional, the editorial has the same effect as the words of the people it endeavors to scold.

The editorial condemns the use of Barack Obama's middle name as a way for right-wing and Republican critics to imply that he's a Muslim, and worse still, to imply that there's something wrong with being a Muslim, especially one with the same name as a former Iraqui dictator.

In the print edition, the very editorial which condemns the repeated use of his middle name, prints the middle name boldly in a sub-head, and then repeats it, in the body copy of the editorial in ALL CAPS, twice in the lead to the editorial.

It's like the old party trick where someone says: "Don't think of a hippopotamus." Of course, after that's said, you can think of nothing but a hippo.

What's going on in the Courant's editorial department on the weekend?

UPDATE

To make matters worse, WTIC-AM morning show host Ray Dunaway was talking about the editorial on-air, and complaining, that he didn't understand the big deal being made over the name, because after all it is Barack Obama's real middle name. He also said, "I wouldn't use it," and then proceeded in the course of three minutes, to use the middle name six times.

The American inquisition

When it's convenient to him, as it is in the case of the Protect America Act passed by the Senate, George Bush champions bipartisan bills. When it suits his purpose, he chastises Congress to pass bills that reflect the will of the people.

He has such a bipartisan, will-of-the-people bill on his desk now, which he plans to veto. It prohibits the CIA from conducting the kind of torture forbidden in the Army Field Manual. He will make the United States an official torture state.

How this is possible from a man who declares himself a born-again Christian, an advocate of freedom and liberty, a proselytizer for Democracy?

It is shameful that we have let this man continue to act as our representative to the world. He has made a sham of the Constitution, a mockery of Democracy and has been the leader of our country's moral and ethical decline.

Hello Central, give me everybody

President Bush would like us to believe that al-Qaeda hasn't figured out that our country is doing everything possible to listen to calls its members make. Excuse me, but I'd guess that Season 3 of The Wire is available even to Osama bin Laden.

So, what's to fear if some righteous American citizens want to sue phone companies which have illegally allowed the government to spy on nearly all of us?

Well, it certainly wouldn't give terrorists any more information than they could already guess.

But it would give the American citizens information about just how many of us have come under government surveillance. And that number could be high, as in, all of us.

And what would you call a government that spies on all of its citizens, hides the fact that it does, and then lies about it when they are caught? How's Oceania sound?

Of course, the right-wing radio ranters will chime: "Our way of life is at stake. We need to wiretap. If you're innocent, what do you have to hide"

Remember that, conservatives, when it's Barack Obama who's listening into your midnight chats.

Mukasey - justice, Bush style

Michael Mukasey won't honor house contempt charges against White House aides Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten because ignoring the Congressional subpoenas did not "constitute a crime."

Interesting choice of words, Mr. Mukasey. The Constitution is derived from the word "constitute," as in the basis for all law. And it's the Constitution which the Bush administration has chosen to ignore again and again. And now Mr. Mukasey, you are among those who conspire to keep the President and his minions above the law.

In the kind of circular logic which has become a hallmark of all White House and Justice Department arguments, Mukasey and the Justice Department won't prosecute the contempt charges because Miers and Bolten were acting on advice from...the Justice Department. In other words, if the Justice Department gives advice which is criminal, it can't pursue prosecution against itself.

It goes hand in hand with the kind of logic which says, we can't investigate administration officials who secretly broke the law in the name of the fight against terrorism, because if we did, we'd have to break the secrecy that allowed them to break the law in the first place.

Down the rabbit hole we go.

Of course, if Congress never approved Mukasey, this imbroglio might have been avoided.