You Load Sixteen Terabytes And What Do You Get?

Via Bernard, throwing red meat to the conspiracy theorists over at Moon Of Alabama, I found a fairly dense report in Pravda On The Hudson about Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Liberated Tehran) and his latest efforts in the battle to recreate the Ministry of Information Retrieval from Terry Gilliam's Brazil.

From Pravda...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 8 - More than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, a small, highly classified military intelligence unit identified Mohammed Atta and three other future hijackers as likely members of a cell of Al Qaeda operating in the United States, according to a former defense intelligence official and a Republican member of Congress.

In the summer of 2000, the military team, known as Able Danger, prepared a chart that included visa photographs of the four men and recommended to the military's Special Operations Command that the information be shared with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the congressman, Representative Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, and the former intelligence official said Monday.

The recommendation was rejected and the information was not shared, they said, apparently at least in part because Mr. Atta, and the others were in the United States on valid entry visas. Under American law, United States citizens and green-card holders may not be singled out in intelligence-collection operations by the military or intelligence agencies. That protection does not extend to visa holders, but Mr. Weldon and the former intelligence official said it might have reinforced a sense of discomfort common before Sept. 11 about sharing intelligence information with a law enforcement agency.

[...]

Bernard, of course, wants to know what else the SOC and the Pentagon knew before 9/11 and was not shared. He asks a couple other fun questions too, so feel free to click through and play your hand there if you think my take is lame and boring.

On the other hand, I'm quite content to focus on the issue of the Congressman and his tumescent heat for the application of large-scale data-mining to catch terrorists before they commit terrorist acts, as in Minority Report. As Bernard rightly points out, Weldon is pretty clearly a wingnut of the first order, and depending on who you want to believe, he may not even be working for the good guys.

From Laura Rozen, writing in The American Prospect Online:

Moreover, said Murray, Weldon himself violated U.S. government protocol by failing to report his encounters with Mahdavi in France to the U.S. ambassador when asked whether he planned any meetings there while being hosted by the embassy in April 2004. According to Murray, Weldon denied he had planned any meetings -- and then proceeded to meet with both Mahdavi and Ghorbanifar, the subject of the CIA burn notice, at the Sofitel hotel around the corner from the U.S. Embassy.

Yes, that Ghorbanifar. Go ahead and search the Pravda article for any hint of these shenanigans in Weldon's CV, and the best you will find is this:

Mr. Weldon's book prompted one veteran C.I.A. case officer to strongly dispute the reliability of one Iranian source cited in the book, saying the Iranian "was a waste of my time and resources."

The rest of the Pravda article is basically the story of "a former defense intelligence official, [speaking] on the condition of anonymity, saying he did not want to jeopardize political support and the possible financing for future data-mining operations by speaking publicly."

Did you get that? Weldon has long been a huge supporter of these data-mining proposals. The most infamous data-mining plan to receive any serious public attention was the Evil Doktor Poindexter's Total Information Awareness.

So what's going in with this story? Suddenly, for no particular reason, the Congressman is floating information (probably sensitive information, but who really knows) about a data-mining operation called Able Danger managed to finger Mohammed Atta and three other 9/11 operatives in the summer of 2000 as being... well, what did it say? Oh yeah, that's right: it said they were probably an Al Qaeda cell. The article doesn't say how many other people it fingered as "probably an Al Qaeda cell" when they never have, and never will, fly any airplanes into large buildings.

We have some "former defense intelligence official" in the Congressman's bag talking smack about the C.I.A. Gee, who could that be? And why now? Oh come on. Isn't it obvious? The Pentagon never killed Total Information Awareness. Rumsfeld declared openly that he didn't give a damn what the U.S. Senate said about it— he was going to find a way to run a data-mining operation to sift through the private information of U.S. residents (citizens, legal immigrants and visitors alike) and use it to finger terrorists. No doubt, somebody in Weldon's district is sucking down phat stacks of mad black money from the Pentagon to design, engineer, build or operate this data-mining operation, and the Congressman is trying to make sure the money continues to flow.

Welcome to the Ministry of Information Retrieval. I'm afraid the budget is a little short, so you're going to have to share an office for a short time.

Mulitcultural Oppression...mmmmmmm

So I was swimming the education end of the Blog pool, when I linked my way toUkiah's own Coach Browns teacher blog recounting the abuse that was heaped on him during a month long seminar on Multiculturalism to get his CLAD certification. According to him he was abused with ephithets like racist, etc for answering the question regarding multiculturism: . What are the implications for today's immigrants? His answers sufficiently peeved me that I'm going to subject you to a few of them, and my take on them. Such as:

Thoughts about immigrants changed with 9/11. With the southern boarder of the United States so porous, terrorist access to U.S. soil is as simple flyingtoMexico City, driving to the border, and walking across. Fair or not, laws that demand more from immigrants will continue to be passed in the near future as the current influx of immigrants poses a threat to national security. With laws like the Real ID Act (driver's license only to citizens), immigrants will have more difficulty successfully assimilating into society. Other laws in states have also began to press immigrants even further. Arizona, California, and New Mexico have created laws that punish companies that hire illegal immigrants, although Arizona is the only state that is actively enforcing the law.

I have a question. If terrorist access is as simple as flying into Mexico City, then driving to the border and walking across, then why didn't the 9/11 conspirators simply do that? Answer: They could not have functioned without the Visa's and other documentation that comes from legal access. Terror operations as practiced by Al Queda would be operationally difficult, even close to impossible to manage trying to access the United States in that manner. They had to board aircraft, rent cars and apartments, contact other cell members, access money and dozens of other tasks that required some form of entry documentation. The fundamental premise that terrorists are streaming across the border hidden within the hordes of Central American illegal immigrants does not have a stich of proof to back it up. The chance of getting caught is too high, and their ability to operate would be limited. Our current issue at the border is not a national security issue in this sense.

As national and local security become more and more of an issue, racial profiling will become prevalent. In my opinion, it is only logical until the respective communities decide to take it upon themselves to start solving problems. Nationally, the Muslim community (particularly Arab or Persian) has not been as valiant as it needs to be to stop Islamic extremism. The U.S. government responds by taking it upon themselves to racially profile Arab or Persian people. The question is whether the concept of profiling is worth the security it can provide. My answer would be yes. The same goes for local government policies towards gangs. The Latino community has a horrible problem with gangs that has now spread over the border into the United States. In Mexico and Guatemala, these gangs run rampant. In the United States, evidence of gang
activity have multiplied over the last 8 years. Until the Latino community clamps down on the gang activity, local police
departments (and high school administrations) are more adept to profile Latino males that dress or act in a certain fashion. Again the question is asked; is this profiling worth the safety and security of towns or school campuses. Again, my answer is yes. Tom Friedman said it best, "If we lived in a perfect world, profiling wouldn't exist. I can't think of anyone who likes profiling. But if Muslim nations don't start policing themselves, deciding to act against the element that is killing innocent people, then what choice do we have?"

This is really where he gets going. First off, the people attempting to teach this guy multiculturalism should fail him immediately. The Arab/Persian community has not been valiant enough in trying to stop Islamic Extremism? First off, the "Persian Community", which is to say the Iranian Expats here in Los Angeles, are diehard opponents of the current regime in Iran. They have been tireless in their efforts to support regime change. If you were paying closer attention in your seminar, instead of baiting the other particpants, you might have learned that the "Persian Community" is chock full of refugees from the fall of the Shah's regime. They hate the Theocrats with the burning hatred of a thousand suns.

What constitutes sufficient "Valor" on the part of the Arab community, or the Muslim Community in general? The American ones have almost to a man condemned the 9/11 attacks and Usama Bin Laden. What the fsck are they supposed to do that, say, the College Republicans are doing so valiantly? The answer is nothing. And there is a big difference, Coach, between the American Muslim Immigrant Communities and foreign nation states. Ask your multicultural classmates to help you understand the difference. Developing a more effective checkpoint security process at airports is what Friedman was arguing for, not pulling over every Middle Eastern looking driver and slamming him on the hood of their car. By the way, Coach, TSA does profile. It's as pointless as many of their other showboat methods.

And the Latino community is responsble for gangs? What the Fuck? It's your fault Pedro, stop gangbanging...there you go! All Better!

I hate to break the news to Coach Brown from Ukiah, but he knows jackshit about Los Angeles street gangs. The Latino, and African American communities, thanks for asking about them by the way, are victims, not the cause. And bad news asshole, the rampant gangs of Guatamala and Mexico City are American exports. It was Americanized gangbangers who transformed youth gangs in those countries into the American model. Many of them were native born Americans who fled this country for fear of being incarcerated, and started local chapters. And what makes you think that LAPD does not profile? They, and virtually every other law enforcement agency in California, maintains a gang database, chock full of names, pictures and fingerprints. Sounds like profling to me. What people opposed to "profiling" are juiced up about is profiling based on the kind of worthless and simplistic standards that rely soley on skin color or dress. Pulling every "Latino" in Orange County looking for Osama Bin Laden in the trunk would be a full time job, and would target the millions of law abiding citizens who meet your pointless criteria. And it's a waste of time. Profiling is a methodology with a bad history and mixed success record.

I could go on, but you have suffered enough. Suffice to say that Coach Browns abuse at the hands of his classmates is well deserved. Keep up the good work, folks.

Haiku of the Week

Cherry blossoms fall
President on holiday
Cindy Sheehan waits

Racist Scumbag Alert!

This one comes to us from the good offices of Dave Neiwert over at Orcinus.

Apparently, the Minutemen have come to a town near us, and they have brought some of their little bullet-headed friends with them, to wit:



The extra galling thing for me is that this took place in Laguna Beach. I was born in Laguna Beach and I would suspect that not one of these fscking numbnuts can claim that. That's my fscking home!. It may sound odd to say, but I feel a littel violated. I'll let Dave tell the salient part of the story:

Well, I've been saying all along that the Minutemen's core demographic is constituted of right-wing extremists, including many outright racists.

At a recent anti-immigrant rally in Laguna Beach, the connection was made explicit.

The rally was held July 30. It apparently was a follow-up of sorts to a similar rally held in the same locale on July 16, in which a local anti-immigration activist decided to protest a local arts festival's financial support for a day labor center for undocument workers. This rally drew the participation of the Save Our State campaign (an ostensibly mainstream anti-immigration organization) and the Minutemen's Jim Gilchrist. It also drew a contingent of neo-Nazis.

A Live Journal account gives a quick overview of what occurred:

Save Our State and founder of the Minutman project Jim Gilchrist organized the protest at the Day Labor Center to oppose the hiring of day laborers by city residents two weeks after some members of SOS attended an unofficial rally at the Laguna Beach Arts Festival. There they protested the event's contribution through rental space sale to city coffers, which in turn pays out $21,000 to the group that operates the Center. That original anti-immigrant protest organizer, known as OCAngel, has publicly disassociated herself from the Minutman Project/S.O.S. after neo-Nazis stood with S.O.S. members threatened her due to her Jewish background.

... What's going on, of course, is that the Minutemen provide an ideal opportunity for white racists to "mainstream" their agenda, using the relatively benign "average citizens" that Lou Dobbs exclusively observes in their ranks as just so much cover.

These craptacular losers are now stepping into our house. That is really unacceptable.

And now they are officially doing their thing in the Tecate/Campo region. I can hardly wait for Labor Day when me and the gang go camping down there at a local park. If we have to pass through one of their pickets, that's going to be, as Jayne Cobb says, "an interesting day..."

mojo sends

Update 1.0 Apparently this was not a sanctioned "Minuteman" event, although the head Minuteman Jim Gilchrist showed up to the hatefest with some pals. This was sponsored by an even more odious group called Save Our State, which, if memory serves, was one of the prime bits of muscle in the last few Republican voter intimdation campaigns along with Barbara Coe's browshirts. Interetingly though, the rally organizer, OCAngel, has apparently bailed on this group out of terminal embarassment. She apparently didn't realize there would be Nazis at a Nazi rally.

Apparently this needs a title: Fsck Hitch!

Hitch must be drinking the generic grocery scotch for breakfast. His recent Reality Revision really takes the cake for blaming his rhetorical opponents for the failures of his latest smoke buddies...Here is particular paragraph that got up my nose:

The United States is awash in human rights groups, feminist organizations, ecological foundations, and committees for the rights of minorities. How come there is not a huge voluntary effort to help and to publicize the efforts to find the hundreds of thousands of "missing" Iraqis, to support Iraqi women's battle against fundamentalists, to assist in the recuperation of the marsh Arab wetlands, and to underwrite the struggle of the Kurds, the largest stateless people in the Middle East? Is Abu Ghraib really the only subject that interests our humanitarians?Insert quotation here.

Hitch, if you would crawl out of the scotch bottle and actually fire up your remaining brain cells, I think you could come up with a few more plausible explanations than the one you usually pimp. As a full service blog, I am happy to jump start this process for you:

• The Security Situation makes it extremely difficult for NGO's to operate in Iraq. The lack of sufficient military manpower, which if you were a loyal Mojowire listener you would be up to speed on, has made the security environment untenable for any of the groups you cite in your little end of the bar diatribe to contribute very much to Iraq's reconstruction. The insurgents targeted the reconsturction effort for exactly this reason. It would be suicidal for any of these group to attempt to operate in Iraq until you can at least survive the ride from the airport to the Green Zone.
• The Administration initially filled the CPA full of contributors, partisan hacks, and interns from AEI and Heritage, rather than the professionals from State and other agencies that actually had experience in rebuilding nation states. Liberals, Democrats and their hippie NGO allies were largely shut out. It's pretty ballsy, even for you Hitch, to now start yammering about rallying around the Administrations efforts in Iraq when they've gone out of their way to tell them to fuck off.
• The Adminisration doesn't want them there. It is clear to everyone not a drunken NeoCon sycophant that the Administration and their pet CPA Viceroy, Paul Bremer, wanted to turn Iraq into Milton FriedmanLand, devoid of any regulatory or political control of the Iraqi economy. The last thing they wanted was feminists, labor, human rights groups or any other institution that would draw attention to the Gilded Age wonderland they wanted to build in Iraq. The last thing they want now is any of these groups in Iraq eyeballing what is going on and blabbing it to the press corp holed up in Baghdad hotels.

I could go on, Hitch, but I know your probably getting to the bottom of the scotch bottle, and your focus isn't what is used to be. Even in your current state, you can figure out that lack of the prescence of any the tradtional NGO's in Iraq is be design. Call up Uncle Donald or Aunt Condi to confirm it, I'm sure they'll let you in on the joke. You are part of the true believers now, right? They wouldn't blow off your phone calls?

Update: Edited by s9. Added a title and removed trailer.

Site Update

I signed us up with Haloscan for a new commenting account and I enabled trackbacks. In the process, all the old comments in archives are gone. Cope.

Pushing Scooter Out The Airlock

Our respected colleague, Digby, writes about the news (according to Murray Waas) that Scooter Libby and Judy Miller met on July 8, 2003, two days after Joe Wilson published his column, and that the special prosecutor wants to know more about that.

Mr. Waas provides some helpful background information here about the reason Judith Miller went to the cooler.

The new disclosure that Miller and Libby met on July 8, 2003, raises questions regarding claims by President Bush that he and everyone in his administration have done everything possible to assist Fitzgerald's grand-jury probe. Sources close to the investigation, and private attorneys representing clients embroiled in the federal probe, said that Libby's failure to produce a personal waiver may have played a significant role in Miller’s decision not to testify about her conversations with Libby, including the one on July 8, 2003.

Libby signed a more generalized waiver during the early course of the investigation granting journalists the right to testify about their conversations with him if they wished to do so. At least two reporters -- Walter Pincus of The Washington Post and Tim Russert of NBC -- have testified about their conversations with Libby.

But Miller has said she would not consider providing any information to investigators about conversations with Libby or anyone else without a more specific, or personal, waiver. She said she considers general waivers to be inherently coercive. Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, has previously said Miller had not been granted "any kind of a waiver … that she finds persuasive or believes was freely given."

Digby, bless his otherwise liberal heart, seems to miss the point.

This is bullshit. The white house cannot get away with saying they are cooperating with the prosecutor by not talking --- and then not require the staff to fully cooperate with the prosecutor.

[...]

Now that it's been reported that Libby is the source Miller is protecting the media should demand that Libby free their sister from jail.

"Scott, Judy Miller is languishing in a DC jail because the vice president's chief of staff refuses to grant her a specific waiver. The prosecutor has told federal judges that he needs to talk to her. Is this what the president calls cooperating with the investigation?"

There really is no good reason why Libby hasn't provided a specific waiver for Judy if he told Fitzgerald he talked to her.

This doesn't work. The wingnuts will respond with utterly maddening circular logic like this: how can the White House coerce Scooter Libby into providing a personal waiver to Judy Miller that Judy Miller will accept as non-coercive?

This is why it is time to demand that the Vice President push Scooter Libby out the airlock. He must either resign or be fired. His continued employment as staff ubergruppenfuhrer for Vice President Dick "May I call you Dick?" Cheney is the major obstacle preventing him from cooperating with the special prosecutor.

Now, a conspiracy theorist— we never entertain conspiracy theory here at MojoWire— would tell you that the reason Libby wasn't fired two years ago was to keep him from cutting a deal for immunity and spilling everything. I don't buy that for a microsecond. Why, there is no doubt whatsoever that Libby has his job today because he's a devoted believer in the neoconservative cult. That's why it's time to make the White House and, in particular, the Vice President explain why they still have confidence in Scooter Libby after the disclosure that Judy Miller is in jail to protect him.

Update: I see that Dave Johnson at Seeing The Forest has fallen into the same trap as Digby.

The ICEmen Cometh

So in case you missed it last week, because for some strange reason the Department of Homeland Security did not seem especially anxious to make a big media production with balloons and dancing girls out of this particular news release. The department has recently decided that since Al Qaeda and their devil robots and fish ninja are such intractable foes, that instead of attempting to fight harder or smarter against them, they would simply go after easier prey.

Which is where we get this headline, which in the preceding context really speaks for itself: “Homeland Security nets more than 500 gang members.” That’s right, the department tasked with preventing another 9/11 or that horrible mushroom cloud announcing the arrival of Atomic Osama has decided their better energies are spent on rousting El Chuco and Lil’Joker and the rest of the homies sitting out behind the AM/PM sippin’ on 40s after midnight…

Here’s a bit more of the story from the Associated Press Report:

“Federal authorities arrested 582 alleged gang members over a two-week period, officials said Monday, targeting an estimated 80 violent groups they say have spawned street crimes across the country.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff called the gangs "a threat to our homeland security and ... a very urgent law enforcement priority."

Investigators picked up most of the offenders between July 16 and July 28 on immigration violations for being in the United States illegally. Seventy-six face criminal charges, ranging from illegal possession of a firearm to holding fraudulent documents.

"For too long, these gangs have gone unchecked; flouting all laws and demonstrating a blatant disregard for public safety," Chertoff said in announcing the arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. ICE is an arm of the Homeland Security Department. “

Okay, I can hear the reflexively irate Redstaters already: “Holy Cats, Mojo, what could possibly be wrong with getting these violent thugs off the streets. You live in a fairly urban city, are you saying you want gangs to flourish?”

No, what I am saying is that the Department of Homeland Security-Related Kabuki Theater-Like Program Activities has absolutely no interest in solving this problem. For a bit of context, this follows on a conversation that Sean, Strychnine and I have been having for a very long time; this is pre-Mojowire rhetoric.

What is the big problem with gangs? Violence. How are they committing this violence? Guns. So from there, one could easily fire up that old vintage synapse-mobile and make the quick drive down the street to “therefore, the proliferation of small arms in the United States constitutes a threat to the national security.”

Whoa there Mojo, you say, that’s just crazy talk, that’s all liberal code ‘n stuff fer gun control… Well, if you want to look at it like that. Bur remember, your Second Amendment rights were never in danger, Redstate. Ever! This is about abrogation of those hippy afterthoughts in the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments.

You see hippies, it breaks down like this. The Department of Homeland Whatever declares gangs to be a “threat to the national security.” There are several ways they can go about addressing this problem, and tackling the gun angle is only one avenue. Nervous yet Redstate? Good, this is your fault meshbacks!

But there are the Redstaters out there right now saying “that’s all good, as long as they go get the criminals in the cities instead of the my guns, then I’m jest fine…” Remember your Patriot Act, Redstate? If a gun that is in anyway even remotely connected to you gets used in some sort of anti-American Patriot Act related program activity, then you own it, brother.

And two points on this whole heartland rap. One, living in an urban area I can tell you that it is terrifyingly easy to end up in a large police department’s gang database. Hell, just having a certain address on your drivers license in some places gets you flagged. Two, look at some of the places that Chertoff’s Untouchables were hitting with their raids besides LA, New York and Chicago: Birmingham, Ala., Grand Rapids, Mich.; Sioux Falls, S.D.; and North Platte, Neb. You got that? North Fscking Platte, Nebraska. What were they, freekin’ cattle rustlers?! For real Redstate, this is your heartland they are sending the jack booted thugs into.

So far, this operation, dubbed “Community Shield” (you gotta love that) has primarily been done under the auspices of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement guys, or the ICEmen as we like to call them. And while it doesn’t say specifically, when news stories talk about “local partners” of DHS, they are probably referring to the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, local cops deputized to act as DHS thugs and enforcers. They have focused a lot of their attention on foreign nationals in gangs, like 18th Street and MS-13, which have strong ties to Central American gangs.

And this is a problem for us. Because what the Department of Homeland Security is telling us is that if you are a dirt poor Central American or Mexican kid, or even an American-born black or Asian kid who for whatever reason gets in with the wrong crowd and falls into La Vida Loca, then you are not merely a criminal, you are treasonous enemy of the United States and must be dealt with accordingly.

But all you pissed off middle-class white kids, go right ahead and keep shaving your heads, carving swastikas in various body parts, burning crosses and publicly calling for the overthrow of the United States government, that’s all good…

Does anyone else see a problem with this?

And that’s going to be something of the the acid test for you Redstate. The day those crew-cut 6th era Klan-Kids or Fourth Reich Hitler Youth or what-the-hell-ever they are calling themselves now, start to get rounded up, we promise that you are not far behind.

As for the rest of us? This is yet another example of how the Department of Homeland Political Correctness and the Department of Jesus-tice has lied once against concerning the use of the Patriot Act. All of DHS’ power flows from the Patriot Act and its attendant enabling legislation. So instead of keeping us safe from the threat of another terror attack brought about by cranky Islamic extremists or South American Maoists with Che Guevera fetishes or Old European Spider Murphy-style Bader Mienhoff Socialist-Anarchist fashion victims, Chertoff and the Untouchables have decided they would rather engage in domestic police work.

We got a little taste of this last summer when the ICEmen started cruising part of Southern California in vans rounding up “Mexicans” off the streets for simply looking like they needed work and running them through the grill with no due-process. It wasn’t until some brave patriots in Congress like Maxine Waters and Joe Baca went to Chertoff and asked him what in the name of the nine million hells did he think he was doing, did they back off, although with promises that they’d be back for more.

You might recall wireheads, that when this was all spooling up back in the heady days of 2002, we were concerned that creating a new law enforcement agency with virtually no public judicial oversight was not, strictly speaking, the American Way. But, as with the FBI’s political spying scandal (that has yet to be properly reported by the beltway media, we might add), we were initially told not to worry, their powers would only be used to prevent another massive terror attack, that everything was under control, that we were simply being paranoid, and that 9/11 changed everything.

Well, they were certainly right about that last part. because with the convenient excuse of 9/11, we now have a secret police, at once charged with keeping us safe from foreign evil-doers now engaged in one of the nation’s most pressing urban problems, gang violence, which they are not going to treat as a sociological phenomena, we guarantee you. They are going to look at our neighborhoods now as potential battlegrounds in their war on violent terrible extreme terror or whatever the hell it is we’re supposed to call it now.

By estimates given in the Reuters piece on the new operation, there were some 84,000 so-called criminal aliens removed from the United States in 2004, although we are not told anywhere what crimes they were charged with committing. Victor Ceara of DHS testified earlier this year that around 400,000 of these evildoers are still at large in the United States. They could be your neighbors. They could be right next you. Hey, what was that sound? Did you see that?

In may the Congress passed a “gang-busters” bill which essentially made a federal crime out of freedom of association. The bill imposes a minimum sentence ranging from 10 years to life for individuals convicted of gang-related program activities, and expanded the death penalties to gang members as young as 16-and 17-year-olds, trying them as adults.

And for those of you playing along at home, lets review the bidding on what exactly constitutes a gang related crime. For starters, associating with known gang members is a gang-related crime. Next, there is any criminal activity, in which a participant is a gang member or associated with gang members is a gang-related crime. So you can see the bar is set pretty low.

This comes from cities, especially a lot of smaller suburban and semi-rural cities, back in the 1990s trying to pad their Department of Justice grant applications by showing high incidents of gang activity, thereby opening the door to more federal money based on a perceived need, through Bill Clinton’s generally successful COPS program.

And now, using the infrastructure created largely by the Patiot Act and the permissive, “anything goes” atmosphere in federal law enforcement these days, some might think it easy to see why are a tad upset at this latest turn of events. Because, really, who is going to seriously complain that the federal government is cracking down on gangsters? Who would be that stoopid?

But remember, this is from the same group of people who just a few months ago equated environmentalist groups with criminal and terrorist sympathizers and said that the environmental movement “extremists” like Greenpeace were one of the worst threats that this nation faces right now.

So let’s connect all the dots and see what shape emerges. The FBI has been performing a secret spying operation on political dissidents and perceived internal political enemies of the President. The Patriot Act and administrative act empower a national series of “Joint Terrorism Task Forces.” Meanwhile, the hive brain at DHS charged with preventing terrorism come out and say that the biggest domestic terrorist threat are those tree-loving liberal hippies at Earth First and their enablers in Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, a neo-con sycophant of the White House with a thing for Presidential perogative is poised to make the Supreme Court a 6-3 pro-White House majority, while the Department of Homeland Security spools up a massive domestic law enforcement operation aimed at alleged-gang members, looking primarily to arrest, then deport them…

Where does this all go? We’ll just leave you with the words of a senior DHS official from the AP story regarding the department’s next move.

"We're just getting started," said ICE investigations chief Marc Forman

Chicago

Is there something odd happening right now in Chicago?

Strange rumors and odd tales criss-crossing the 'net right now... Don't want to say more, but stay tuned...

mojo sends

The Zombie King Walks Off The Set

Media Matters for America asks, "Is the pressure getting to Novak?"

Looks to me like his supply of fresh brains is starting to tail off now that his friends are afraid to be seen in the same graveyard with him and he has to slum it with the likes of James Carville.

Success!

I have finally managed to get myself banned from posting in the comments at Wizbang!, one of the few right-wing blogs that even allows comments, and one of the fewer still whose editors claim (loudly and vociferously) that they do not ban comments from people simply for posting negative criticism of the editorial content.

What was the stated reason for my banishment? Well, there really wasn't one, but it's not hard to interpret the reason as this: I was "an annoying troll."

So. Having satisfied myself that the pinheads at Wizbang! can't take it as well as they dish it out, I'd like to know if there are any other right-wing bloggers prancing around as if they can resist the urge to police their comments forum and purge the sources of their negative criticism?

I fear I may have developed a taste for this kind of dirty work.

Update The Elder: Paul, one of the editors, has responded to my call for an explanation for why I was banned: "I banned you because you were stupid. Close enough?" I think that amounts to a capitulation, don't you? Let the matter be resolved then: Wifflebang! is run by a clique of mewling pussies who don't have the game to back up their smack, and they should be accorded maximum disrespect. Fscking chickenhawk keyboard commandos and too-precious prancing dandy-boys, all of them. And most of their fawning sycophant regular commenters too. Absolutely positively certain to be the first up against the wall when the counter-revolution comes.

Update The Younger: What's more, I see they have actively deleted some of the other comments I made in later threads before I was banned. In one of the deleted comments, I simply and politely asked what evidence they possessed that showed how Electronic Intifada is not really the pro-Palestinian news and opinion magazine it appears to be, but rather is actually a cut-out for a terrorist organization. (Hey, I'm willing to consider the evidence if they can show it. But they have only a goose-egg, the gits.) Those preening pansies at Whifflebang! really don't seem to like me! I'm crushed. Crushed, I say. Penelope, please bring me my glass of madeira— I fear the strain is making me woozy.

Get thee to Billmon

Look, I won't even pretend that we are as cool as Billmon over at Whiskey Bar. That said, if you want the low down on how the fscking Ohio GOP did it to us... again! then get thee to Billmon and read up.

Here is just a taste of the bile...

That being the case, it's not a big surprise Schmidt did well there, carrying the county with 58% of the two-party vote -- less than what a GOP candidate can usually expect, but enough to give her nearly a 5,000 vote margin in Clermont, and thus the election.

At about 9:00 PM ET last night, however, things didn't look nearly as good for Ms. Schmidt. In fact, her name looked more like Schmud. With 88% of the district's precincts reporting, including more than half of Clermont's, the count was almost evenly split -- with Schmidt holding a lead of less than 900 votes.

At that point, though, the Clermont election bureau experienced a "technical malfunction" with its optical scan readers:

The Board of Elections in Clermont County, east of Cincinnati, says it's optical scanners haven't counted all the ballots yet because it was so hot -- and humid -- Tuesday.

Board member Tim Rudd says the ballots pick up moisture when it gets hot, making it tougher for the optical scan machines to sort and count.

According to some reports I've seen -- but haven't been able to confirm -- at least part of the count in Clermont's final 91 precincts ended up being done by hand.

In any case, when the humidity had cleared, so to speak, Schmidt had picked up another 9,451 votes, compared to just 6,300 or so for Hackett -- an edge which, interestingly enough, almost equaled her winning margin for the district as a whole..

There are some others writing about this today as well... but Billmon, as usual, has about the best take on the whole thing.

Curiouser and Curiouser...

Ohio... forget What's the Matter with Kansas? What in the nine hells is wrong with fscking Ohio!...

Did the GOP just finally run out of enough warm bodies to throw into the mill, or was this OH 2nd race the one no one wanted, and they just tapped this poor schmuck Schmidt who arrived last to the meeting...

To bring everyone completely up to date would be tough for me right now. I would say the best blogging on this is taking place at Atrios' place and Lindsey Beyernstein at Majikthise.

But the upshot is that the GOP has managed to pry yet another pathological liar out from under their rock just long enough to be blasted with the harsh light of truth. But more importantly (and there will be more to this story...) a name keeps coming up in many places associated with Schmidt, Noe and Taft...

That name is Hicks... Brian Hicks, senior partner with public affairs and wingnut politician factory Hicks Parnters, LLC. One of the things they adverstise as a service on their website is direct access to the Bush Administration. They also seem to disproportianately represent a high number of energy and engineering firms in the P.R./governmental affairs work.

I am wondering if this Brian Hicks could be in anyway related to Thomas Hicks, the recently retired principal at Hicks, Tate, Muse & Furst, who is/was also a major energy/capital player and is the guy who sold W the Texas Rangers for a song...

This could really end up getting weirdly byzantine. Really... I mean a reanimated corpse of Constantine or something....

mojo sends

The Eds Demand Blood and Tribute

Another interesting bit in the Washington Post this morning on the Plame Affair (or I guess Nadagate as we are now supposed to be calling it...

And can anyone explain what Nadagate is supposed to refer to...

Anyway... The Post story is essentially this empty bit of daily churn on how Attorney General (then-White Hosue Counsel) Sparky Gonzalez got word of the initial Plame investigation from White House COS Andy Card, but waited a whole 12 hours before he informed the rest of the staff.

There are some speculations as to why he waited, the usual suspects are hollering that it augers for most dread conspiracy, but for me I think this is a nothing story.

And that is very interesting...

You see, this is what I would expect to see from a news room where the editors are actually excited about an ongoing story, and moreover, they are afraid of getting scooped (especically the Post, which is the hometown paper of record for what is arguably one of the largest, most inbred company towns of all time).

This is a signal that an editor, or editors, in response to instructions from their supervisors are being told to get Plame in the paper every day! They don't care how non-story it is, they want their reporters on this digging it out and getting it in print.

Over the next couple of days I am going to watch the Post, Times and few other national papers carefully to see what they are getting in print. It might be that the Mighty Wurlitzer is losing control of the Steno Pool. It is an indication that the national media may really be taking this seriously.

And that's a good thing.

Roberts Outted

Well, you were right S9, The Dread Judge Roberts was certainly outted, all right...

As a member of the freekin' Federalist Society. The Washington Post has a piece on today's front page about it.

I'll give y'all the money shot on it right now, though. Roberts has previously told the Post and others that he has no memory of ever being a member of the Federalist Society. Then the Post goes out and finds the Society's lawyer's directory, which lists him as a member of the Washington, D.C. Steering Committee...

...of which he claims he has no memory...

I have two questions:

One... Why has the Bush Administration submitted yet another pathological liar to the Senate to be confirmed to a position of importance in our government?

Two... I would normally expected something like that to be an unstory, why is the administration and the nominee acting as though Federalist Society membership is something to be hidden?

It's not like it was all that secret...during the Bush v. Gore battle, Roberts membership as a Federalist Society cultist was apparently widely reported in stories on the competing legal teams...

What's up with that?

Roberts Rules

Wow...did I screw up that call or what. Let this be a lesson to you boys and girls. It is only cool to call your shot if you actually then follow up by swatting the ball out of the park on a frozen rope.

Otherwise your just a dork with delusions of grandeur...

Right then...to business...

So who is the Dread Judge Roberts from the DC Wingnut District Court of Appeals and how on earth did we not see this guy coming. Well, he's only been around a little while. Most of his more relevant decisions can be found parsed out in blog-form at Supreme Court Nomination Blog.

But to my mind, you can forget nearly all his history of jurisprudence. There is only three things and three things only you need to know about this fscking wingnut:

One: He was a partner in the law firm that sued Al Franken on the part of The O'Reilly Factor after William got a hard look from Franken and cried like a sissy to Roger Ailes who then filed suit against Franken, which summarily got laughed out of court.

Two: He was a senior member of the legal team in Bush v. Gore, which signaled the official end of the rule of law in America.

Three: He has a weird fetish for "law and order" -- no, not the horrible TV show (although he is probably weird for that as well) but for the kind of law and order that has him pimping strongly for Mandatory Minimums and denying right to counsel and other such opinions as can be found at the aforementioned SCOTUS Nomination blog.

So how typical is this for Maximum Leader to put up a guy with next to no history, who's legal career focuses on pimping criminally stupid conservative causes, making sure W gets his way, regardless of the rule of law and treating the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution like a two-dollar hooker... This is absolutely the guy W wants on the bench in the War on Terror®.

Right, this guy's an evil reptilian from the Sirian League threatening to be the last bit of noise that will crash the waveform of our Constitution. So where does that leave us all now in this?

To me, the saddest part of all of this, including most of the conversations I have been reading at some of my favorite blogs, seem to be focused on entirely on "how do we look good losing" as opposed to "how do we win against bad odds."

If we are to win this thing, it isn't going to be in the well of the Senate. It is going to be in the hinterlands and in the electoral math of some key states with shaky GOP Senators facing reelection next year.

However, I think Lindsey over at Majikthise is absolutely right. This all begins and ends with absolute party discipline. Look we all know what is at stake, this is no time for any of the typical self-involved Democratic temper tantrums to erupt, like they always seem to. Any Dem Senators step out of line, then fsck 'em, they get spaced out the airlock...I am looking at youDiane Feinstein!

And that goes for any slack-jawed moderate Democrats in the House, too...no one so much as opens their pie hole, or gets their grill on the chat shows without being in full-throated support of the game plan, the end!

Harry Reid and Dr. Dean need to get on the same page about this. I know asking Democrats and progressives to get together on something like this is like herding cats, but it's not going to work any other way. Decide if you can do that now, and if not, then fine, go ahead and continue shopping for funeral accessories. I'm sure it will be a lovely wake for the Republic...

But if we decide we can, then the next step is going to start by getting the right pressure in the right places. There must be five or six GOP Senators facing sketchy reelection fights next year. They need to feel the branch creak.

Bush is vulnerable right now, he has no coattails and doesn't really have any leverage in the Senate now, anyway. Don't make this about Bush, make this about the Senators and whomever of their numbers are thinking about 2008.

Next, this guy might not have much of a resume, but what there is needs to be out there, and as far as the "Nuclear Option" goes, then fine, I am all ready to see the well of the Senate get vaporized in a procedural mushroom cloud. Cool, let Bill Frist ride the bomb all the way to ground zero just like Slim Pickens in the end of Dr. Strangelove.

If we fight hard -- and more importantly, fight smart-- we can do this. We can punk this clown and get the machinery moblized for the midterms and get rolling on 2008 all in one shot.

Sorry, this turned a bit more into a rant than I thought it was going to. My bad.

The 2008 race starts right now.

Any takers?

mojo sends

Call from the Poll

Okay, here is Mojo calling his shot...

The nominee for Sandra Day O'Connor's seat on the U.S. Supreme Court will go to J. Harvie Wilkinson.

I come by this divine little soupçon of wisdom by virtue of the fact that George Will penned the op/ed equivalent of a sloppy blow job for Judge Wilkinson in Sunday's Washington Post. I am one of those who believe that Will is part of a quasi-official information organ for the Republican Party's Mighty Wurlitzer and Maximum Leader's communications bullpen in the West Wing.

Basically, a religious textualist and orginalist who was appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1984. He got his start in Republican Party politics by running unsuccessfully for Congress in the late 60s before deciding law school might be an easier path across the Potomac.

One of his more memorable moments on the bench to date has been his authoring the now-somewhat-infamous Hamdi decision for the Fourth Circuit. To review, that's the decision that sought to justify unlimited police powers for Maximum Leader to prosecute the War on Terror® that was swatted out of the park by a 6-3 vote of the Supremes.

Yeah, I'll give you three guesses who the dissenters were...

And yet, he also authored the decision for the Fourth upholding the Clinton policy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" regarding gays in the military.

So the big question becomes, are his conservative credentials strong enough to mollifiy the kool-aid drinking Red-Staters, or is Redneckistan going to be satisified with nothing less than the reanimated corpse of Roy Cohn on the court.

My basic instinct is that Wilkinson is the perfect stealth nominee for the court. He is a little older, he doesn't have a particularly high profile, he is known as being somewhat affable, but his writing and opinions generally fall into the Rehnquist school of conservatist activism from the bench all gussied up in a Victorian-era costume of Originalism and textualism...you know, the whole "Constitution in Exile" thing. But he hasn't done enough to create the kind of heat that will make progressives go nuclear on his nomination.

He is going to be the man, and if it's not for O'Connor's chair, then it is going to be for Rehnquist seat and Scalia or Kennedy will be moved to Chief.

mojo sends

Ladies and Gentleman, Please Welcome....THE SUPREMES!

For everyone who may have doubted the importance of defeating George W. Bush last year, then you now have your answer in the last week with the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and the anticipated retirement announcement of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, which our mojowire editorial ninjas secreted away in the airducts in and around the capitol tell us could come as soon as Monday morning.

In fact, rumor burned through DC on Friday that the President would announce Rehnquist’s decision to partake in renewal at Carousel when he returned from his Euro-love-in in Scotland.

So here we have it, a chance to remake the U.S. Supreme Court and undo 50 years of the fight for equality, justice and a secular Republic. In the immortal words of the great American poet Ice-T – no Sean, not that quote – but these immortal words: “it’s on!”

Forget the war on terror, forget Iraq, forget the economy, forget the environment, forget all of it, this is all there is going to be everywhere from everyone for the next several months. Nearly everyone with any kind of pull or a coalition or a mailing list is even now starting to hustle the money from constituents to fight this royal battle.

I would like to start this discussion by cribbing ruthlessly from those far more learned than I, namely the great Publius at the Legal Fiction blog, who, as usual, has done a masterful job of reviewing the bidding for us, especially in regards to the meta-dispute in all of this regarding the place of politics and rhetorical review in the proceedings.

In particular he points out something that we here at the mojowire here from our legal counsel again and again concerning our various troubles with Article I of the constitution and what the hell ever the word “commerce” means in the first place. And it is simply this: law is politics.

Take it away Pub:

“There is only politics. Law is politics, especially constitutional “law” – which is not “law” at all but a jumbled, incoherent collection of political victories attained by different political coalitions at different points in our history. Because law cannot be separated from politics, and because constitutional “law” is generally the imposition of political preferences on vague indeterminate text, we should abandon the Kabuki dance nomination process and talk more openly about politics.”

Now, even by his own admission this is a bit strong, and yet it makes the point more than adequately. Before when we told you to forget that particular laundry list of items crawling across the bottom of your FoxNews feed, it was by of saying that this decision will have a radical effect on all of those other issues, from the way we legalistically prosecute a war on terror, to an individual’s relationship to the state or the state’s ability to engage in commerce to whether we can really have a state mandated flavor of Christianity.

Moreover, it is said, again by Publius among others, that this is much different from the garden variety statutory divination done by most courts and even the Supremes on occasion, again with the Publius:

“I think that constitutional law falls much, much closer to the “pure politics” end of the spectrum than other types of legal decisions. By “constitutional law,” I mean interpreting and applying (or claiming to) vague indeterminate legal text. This is a wholly different exercise from statutory interpretation – which I think courts do quite well, largely because interpretation relies upon a set of neutral, non-political principles that judges generally agree upon. In other words, statutory interpretation works because – like baseball – judges usually agree on the rules that govern.

In constitutional law, by contrast, the judges are not just arguing about the proper result, but about the very rules that should apply in the first place. And in my opinion, history has shown us that these disputes are essentially political battles…

Being human, judges can and should be expected to act in their own political self-interest. That’s why Judge Taney used his tricksie ouija board to unearth a constitutional provision that said blacks couldn’t be citizens. That’s why Republican-appointed judges in the early 20th century found that the Constitution barred some of those pesky legislatively-enacted labor regulations. That’s why the New Deal Court adopted a jurisprudence that miraculously allowed all of FDR’s legislation to pass.”

So we are with you Publius, this is very much a political campaign about what are essentially political ideals on how we should live and what our government should be like as embodied in the Constitution.

And with yet another in a long line of examples from the “how low are they willing to stoop” file, there are certain members of the Senate like Bill Frist and Mitch McConnell trying to sell us all the idea that a nominees judicial philosophy or their personal political ideologies are irrelevant to the job of being the nation’s final arbiter on judicial philosophy or political ideals.

This is an example of how seriously they are taking it in terms of the political campaign aspect of all of this. That they are even now spinning up the echo chamber with various lies and misdirections, with such whoppers as “there has never been a filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee in history…”

Wrong again Dr. Frist…in fact there has been and it was a Republican Senate minority that did it for the first time during the Johnson Administration when the Chief Justice Earl Warren retired and Johnson named Associate Justice Abe Fortas to the Chief’s chair. And a Republican Senate minority sent him packing with a filibuster and Johnson withdrew the nomination.

Moreover, every right wing Kool-Aid chugging tinfoil hat brigade irregular is now cracking open their check books and sending what’s left of their Social Security checks to a number of different groups like the Family Research Council that are planning on making W’s like miserable if they don’t get their way.

This, again, is the real nuts and bolts politics of this thing at work. A lot of people like Ralph “boxcars” Reed, Pat Robertson, Gary Bauer and his various minions put their personal political lives on the line in getting George Bush elected again last year, even though a lot of evangelicals and their ghoulish doppelgangers out in Redneckistan had their doubts.

And there was only one thing they wanted for their support. They promised that they could deliver the Supreme Court, and if they don’t then their political power with the Red Staters is going rate somewhere down around the “Save the Spotted Owl Society.”

So you had better believe these guys are going to go all out to make sure that they get their guys on the court. At first, we had thought that perhaps the whole right wing nutjobbery resistance to Sparky Gonzales might be nothing more than a put up job designed to make him a little more palatable to the moderates in the Democratic Party.

In some regards it has worked, even if it was just an unintended consequence as we are now starting to believe it is. Especially given that the shortlist for O’Connor’s seat includes such luminaries as Priscilla Queen of the Bench Owenms, and Janice Rogers Brown, or William Pryor, and all with easily a good 20 years in front of them on the bench.

Those devilworshipping nighcrawlers have conservative credentials that would make Pat Buchanan sit down and weep. And there are a host of others, and again, perhaps some of these names are merely being used as stalking horses to make a lot of Democrats think: “well, sure Al Gonzales thinks the U.S. can torture can kill anyone it wants with impugnity in the name of the war on terror, but hell, at least not this freekin’ guy…”

But there is no doubt that the movement conservatives are taking this deadly serious, whether they think they are being played or not by the West Wing (and part of us really hope that is the case). The very survival of the Movement as a real political force in America depends on their being able to deliver the court into their hands for generations to come.

So when Publius, and other noted progressive thinkers want to talk about addressing the Supreme Court nominations as political campaign be assured that it is not crass or disrespectful. It is simply a reflection of the reality that the other team is already doing so, and as with so many other times in the past five years, have a good furlong head start on us…

All You Need To Know About The Movement

Being able to take a somewhat jaundiced view at the action across the pond yesterday, we were provided a glimpse into the very heart (or the dried up and shrivled dog turd that passes for a heart) of the Movement Conservatives and their gleeful pronouncements on why they are shiteing themselves with glee over the British masstrans bombing.

For the likes of Andrew McCarthy over at NRO, it was simply a matter of pointing out that the British are just another subset of the slackjawed, limpwristed, dickless Euro-Pansies who had it coming because they still subscribe to such "quaint" notions like Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions. If only we could just "squeeze information out of the bad people" like they used to do on all those cool old cop shows; send Kojak or Baretta over there, that'd learn 'em.

To reiview, that's the one that says Thou Shalt Not commit unrestricted warfare against civilians just because you think there might have been a terrorist in the woodpile.

But, no, the food-defiling Brits had it comin' donchya see...

And then the echo-chamber really started to kick in as the good people over at FoxNews started in with their whole "Thank God for the terrorists bombs so we could forget all about this hippie G8 nonsense about world cooperation to deal with global warming and the horror of AIDS and poverty in Africa. No, it's all about the terrorism again, thank God!"

Then it was off to the races. Here is my favorite from the Neo-Catholo-Facist Opus Dei wannabees over at Southern Appeal. This was in the comment section from the post regarding the Andrew McCarthy Screed

Feddie - your blog reaches hundreds of people. What I would really like to see is a well articulated post calling all the 18-32 year old single men to get off their couch, put down the remote, and protect THIS HOUSE[emphasis his]

This is the most tremendousest thing I have ever seen. This guy is taking his personal views on the war on terror and international relations from a fscking athletic shoe commercial. You got that?! Dude is using a some Madison Avenue tennis shoe pimping to define his feelings on patriotism.

Horrible.

But at the end of the day, doesn't this tell you everything you ever really needed to know about The Movement and its followers? The whole thing is built on cheap advertising jingles, and market research and is designed with one purpose -- and one purpose only -- in mind, and that is to get a large segment of the population to look in the wrong direction while the "leaders" of the movement rip them off blind, poison their air and water and crap all over the rest of the world in their name and get them to give thanks for it.

That really is modern conservatism in a nutshell...

mojo sends

Feeling the Branch Creak

Some underplayed news on CNN this morning... Newsweek: Rove Spoke to Reporter Before Leak

You will excuse me whilst I giggle with barely controlled glee.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Newsweek magazine is reporting that e-mails between Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper and his editors show that Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser, spoke to Cooper in the days before a CIA operative's identity was revealed in the media, but it wasn't clear what Cooper and Rove discussed.

C'mon, we all know what they were discussing. This could get very messy for the White House, and suddenly Karl the Jackal's little performance from the previous week in front of a group of rabid, redstate, brainstems comes into focus. Karl the Jackal must have known this was coming down, hence the misdirections.

Say the words with me, you know you want too:

Frogmarched, Bitch!

If the special prosecutor is really serious about this, then the next stop for Karl the Jackal might just be standing tall in front of the (federal) man with whatever scumbag hack lawyer the RNC appoints for him.

Hell, between this and Randy "Duke" Cunningham having the FBI search his crib the other day, I haven't had this much to smile about in politics for a few years now.

The Freepers are gripping hard!

Yeah, so it might be a tad unseemly for me to reveling in such tremendous schadenfreude, so I will beg your pardon after the fact. It's just that it has been painful watching these various asshats get over for the past few years. It is also likely they will all walk away from their current travails.

But at just this moment, the fact that at least a few of them might be be publicly forced to contemplate their magnificent bastardness in front of a federal judge and/or grand jury and possibly even have to seriously contemplate what life might be like "on the inside" is helping me to cope with the fact that they have been treating our country, our government and our Constitution like a cheap hotel room during Fleet Week.

Karl the Jackal might end up having to teach an emergency Abstinence-based sex ed class for the Aryan Brothers in cell-block D...sleep tight, princess!

Okay, enough of that... Let's just hope our Justice system is up to the task of following through on the swing, here...