Enemy of traditional marriage

The state of Texas.

“This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.”

This is the language of an amendment to the Texas Constitution that was adopted in 2005. But don't worry. Apparently it doesn't mean what it says.

“The Texas Constitution and the marriage statute are entirely constitutional.”

Hear that? The Texas Constitution is constitutional. So everyone can relax.

Until they hire some people better versed in the English language, Texas might want to consider a "You Know What Was Meant" amendment, because in their attempt to trample the civil rights of some of their citizens, Texas lawmakers have trampled the civil rights of everyone. In the process, they made it unlawful for anyone to become married or to be recognized as married in the state.

But you know what was meant. So go ahead and ignore this particular provision of the constitution.

Unless you're gay.

Meet the new boss

Same as the old boss.

The Obama administration is “invoking government secrecy in defending the Bush administration’s wiretapping program” against a lawsuit brought by AT&T customers who claim “federal agents illegally intercepted their phone calls and gained access to their records.” Justice Department lawyers yesterday demanded dismissal of a lawsuit brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against Bush officials, arguing that the information constitutes privileged “state secrets.”

Any similarities between the disaster that was the Bush administration and the Obama administration are too many. But after BushCo expanded presidential power by reaching into areas of questionable legality, we didn't just expect the successor to just give up all that additional power, did we? That's something a statesman who cares about the American public and the Constitution would do. It's apparently a little much to expect from a mere politician.

Obama is big on hope, so here's hoping he respects the rule of law and shuts down a program that allows a government to spy on its own citizens.

TSA in Toyland

The newest aid in public obedience training.

No word on when the Gitmo with Real Working Waterboard^® playset will be released. (Warning: The included water contains lead. Do not drink.)

As troubling as this toy is, the comments on Amazon are equally comforting. And hilarious. Go read.

H/T Noz, by way of Susie.

How they voted

on granting retroactive immunity (that is, AFTER they broke the law) to telecom companies that helped the government spy on you illegally. Print this list and take it with you next time you’re going to a voting booth. These chickenshit swine — 188 Republicans (all of them but 11: one, Tim Johnson of Illinois, actually voted against the bill and 10 brave souls abstained) and 105 Democrats — have sold us out by voting that there should be no consequences for companies that aided the federal government in its lawbreaking and trampling of our rights.

This is the kind of shit I expect from Republicans, who make no secret of the fact that they don’t give a fuck about the rule of law, our rights or the Constitution. It’s the 105 Democrats who are disappointing. They were sent there to represent the interests of their constituents, but instead represented their own interests by making sure that the donations will be flowing when it’s time to run for re-election. In the House, that’s every two years, so they are basically in campaign mode all the time. Especially today. They — 105 Democrats and all of the Republicans (save Tim Johnson) — are enemies of our Constitution and should be purged from office as soon as possible.

Contact your senators and let them know what you think of retroactive immunity for lawbreakers.

Telcos’ advocate

George Bush wanted to get out in front of a House vote on an eavesdropping bill that doesn't give his telecommunications executive friends immunity for their lawbreaking.

The bill addresses the fake concern that allowing the lawsuits that have been filed against telcos to proceed would make public classified information that would help terrorists by allowing “phone companies to present their defense behind closed doors in federal court, with the judge given access to confidential government documents about eavesdropping begun after the September 11 attacks.”

But it doesn’t give Bush and his co-conspirators buddies co-conspirators what they want, so Bush decided to (or was told to) malign the bill publicly before it is even voted on. But all he had to offer the gathered press were the same old bullshit talking points. Ho hum.

"This litigation would undermine the private sector's willingness to cooperate with the intelligence community, cooperation that is absolutely essential to protecting our country from harm," Bush said.

Yawn.

"Unfortunately, instead of holding a vote on the good bipartisan bill that passed the United States Senate, they introduced a partisan bill that would undermine America's security," Bush said.

Stretch.

He called the House bill "unwise" and said it could lead to public disclosure of highly classified information that could help terrorists.

Getting sleepy.

Bush said the litigation against the phone companies was "unfair" because they had been assured by the U.S. government that their cooperation was "legal and necessary" to fighting terrorism after the September 11 attacks.

Nodding off.

"Companies that may have helped us save lives should be thanked for their patriotic service, not subjected to billion dollar lawsuits that will make them less willing to help in the future," Bush said.

zzzz...

Siegelman blackout update

Looks like someone isn’t buying the story that an Alabama television station had a 12-minute technical problem while a 13-minute investigate story about the GOP’s railroading the former Democratic governor of Alabama all the way to prison.

A U.S. Federal Communications Commission official is seeking an inquiry into the blacking out of a politically charged segment of the CBS News magazine "60 Minutes" by a local television station in Alabama.

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said he had asked the chairman of the FCC to open an inquiry into the February 24 incident at WHNT, a CBS affiliate in Huntsville, Alabama, in which civil rights footage from the 1960s was blacked out.

"The FCC now needs to find out if something analogous is going on here," Copps said at a luncheon with media watchdog groups. "Was this an attempt to suppress information on the public airwaves, or was it really just a technical problem?"

And what about the odds that the FCC chairman will initiate such an investigation?

Copps is one of two Democratic appointees on the five-member FCC. The chairman of the agency, Kevin Martin, is a Republican.

Martin responded by saying he would look into the matter but has not indicated yet whether he would issue a letter of inquiry to the station, a source close to the commission said.

Martin
So what do we know about FCC Chairman Kevin Martin? According to his online bio, before joining the FCC, Martin was a special assistant to the president for economic policy. A donor to Bush during the 2000 election cycle, he was deputy general counsel for the Bush campaign and served on the Bush-Cheney transition team. He also was a lobbyist for media conglomerates Gannett, Viacom and AH Belo.

Is Martin is just another Republican public servant who has no interest in serving the public? Just another hack crony doing the bidding of the worst administration ever to foul this great country? Sure sounds like it. But let's allow his actions on this matter to answer those questions.

Immunity

Time to contact your representatives and remind them that the reasons we sent them to Washington have nothing to do with enhancing their personal career prospects or fund-raising capability. Because it looks like they may have forgotten.

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee hinted Sunday that a battle over an expired eavesdropping law might be moving toward a conclusion that gave phone companies the retroactive legal protections long sought by President Bush.

The chairman, Representative Silvestre Reyes, Democrat of Texas, said in an interview on CNN that the committee had been talking to the companies “because if we’re going to give them blanket immunity, we want to know and understand what it is we’re giving immunity for.”

Let me shed some light on that for Rep. Reyes: You are considering giving them immunity for helping the Bush administration to illegally and without warrants eavesdrop on our private communications.

Crooks and Liars has more, including these links to an online petition urging the House not to fold like the Senate did, as well as this link to contact information for your representatives.

Remember, they work for you. Tell them what they have to do if they want to continue working for you.

Siegelman blackout

It appears that 60 Minutes' highly anticipated story on the persecution prosecution of Don Siegelman, the former Democratic governor of Alabama, continues to be highly anticipated in many parts of Alabama because local broadcasters there blocked the story, airing nothing but a black screen during the segment.

People from Northern Alabama and Mobile - very southeast - are letting me know that the show was blocked - black screen - during the Siegelman segment of 60 Minutes ONLY.

WHNT, channel 19, the CBS affiliate in Huntsville, claims it was a problem with a receiver. Seems rather convenient that it failed during an story that examined White House ties to the prosecution of a former Democratic governor of a red state, and that the problem was fixed in time for the rest of “60 Minutes” to air, huh? WHNT said it was going to air the segment during the 10 p.m. news broadcast and included a link on its site where people can watch the segment. Fine, but let's not pretend that airing the segment after 10 p.m. on Sunday night and setting up an obstacle like making people go online to the WHNT Web site and find and click through a link means the same number of people will see the segment as would have if the station had simply aired the segment shortly after 7 p.m.

All this certainly lends credence to Karl Rove's off-camera denials made through his attorney in the story, huh?

Another problem with the bad receiver explanation is that CBS says it isn’t true.

The broadcaster is Channel 19 WHNT, which serves Northern Alabama and Southern Tennessee. This station was noteworthy for its hostility to Siegelman and support for his Republican adversary. The station ran a trailer stating “We apologize that you missed the first segment of 60 Minutes tonight featuring ‘The Prosecution of Don Siegelman.’ It was a techincal problem with CBS out of New York.” I contacted CBS News in New York and was told that “there is no delicate way to put this: the WHNT claim is not true. There were no transmission difficulties. The problems were peculiar to Channel 19, which had the signal and had functioning transmitters.” I was told that the decision to blacken screens across Northern Alabama “could only have been an editorial call.” Channel 19 is owned by Oak Hill Capital Partners, who can be contacted through Rhonda Barnat, 212-371-5999 or rb@abmac.com. Oak Hill Partners represents interests of the Bass family, which contribute heavily to the Republican Party.

Lest you think this is an isolated incident, search Google News for mention of the Siegelman story not airing in Alabama during the “60 Minutes” broadcast. No MSM outlets have anything on it. All the hits are blogs. And people wonder why blogs are gaining in popularity and “mainstream” news outlets are losing. It just might have something to do with MSM outlets being beholden to their corporate ownership and other deep pockets.

Fortunately, I am not beholden to the Bass family. Those of you who were held hostage by these fascists can view the segment above. There’s something to be said for independence.

fas·cism (fāsh'ĭz'əm) n. 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.

Just a reminder.

UPDATE: I guess American-style democracy has arrived in Pakistan after all.

Caved

Fucking cowards.

The Senate today -- led by Jay Rockefeller, enabled by Harry Reid, and with the active support of at least 12 (and probably more) Democrats, in conjunction with an as-always lockstep GOP caucus -- will vote to legalize warrantless spying on the telephone calls and emails of Americans, and will also provide full retroactive amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms, thus forever putting an end to any efforts to investigate and obtain a judicial ruling regarding the Bush administration's years-long illegal spying programs aimed at Americans.

[...]

The Dodd/Feingold amendment to remove telecom immunity from the bill just failed by a whopping vote of 31-67 -- 20 votes shy of the 50 needed for a passage.

Click here to see who voted to give the Bush administration and its co-conspirators a Get Out of Jail Free card.

Since not everyone will click through, and because these spineless swine deserve as much light on them as possible, the following Democratic senators violated their oaths to protect and defend the Constitution: Bayh, Inouye, Johnson, Landrieu, McCaskill, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, Stabenow, Feinstein, Kohl, Pryor, Rockefeller, Salazar, Carper, Mikulski, Conrad, Webb, and Lincoln. All of the Republicans -- every single one -- also voted this way, of course.

Interestingly, Sen. Hillary Clinton did not vote. On a matter of such significance, on an issue important to voters, she couldn't be bothered to show what she stands for. And tomorrow she will continue asking Americans to make her the next president of the United States. My question to her: Why should we? When her critics say she is a triangulating careerist interested only in her own professional advancement, this is exactly the kind of thing they're talking about.

Fortunately, the House can reject this travesty of justice. Click here to sign a petition urging House members to reject this disgrace.

Big Brother

Does it measure employees’ physical revulsion to its use?

Microsoft is developing Big Brother-style software capable of remotely monitoring a worker’s productivity, physical wellbeing and competence.

The Times has seen a patent application filed by the company for a computer system that links workers to their computers via wireless sensors that measure their metabolism. The system would allow managers to monitor employees’ performance by measuring their heart rate, body temperature, movement, facial expression and blood pressure. Unions said they fear that employees could be dismissed on the basis of a computer’s assessment of their physiological state.

[...]

Microsoft submitted a patent application in the US for a “unique monitoring system” that could link workers to their computers. Wireless sensors could read “heart rate, galvanic skin response, EMG, brain signals, respiration rate, body temperature, movement facial movements, facial expressions and blood pressure”, the application states.

The system could also “automatically detect frustration or stress in the user” and “offer and provide assistance accordingly”. Physical changes to an employee would be matched to an individual psychological profile based on a worker’s weight, age and health. If the system picked up an increase in heart rate or facial expressions suggestive of stress or frustration, it would tell management that he needed help.

[...]

The US Patent Office confirmed last night that the application was published last month, 18 months after being filed. Patent lawyers said that it could be granted within a year.

And I don’t see any potential for the for-profit healthcare industry in this country to exploit stress, heart rate and blood pressure data on worker bees. Nope, no potential for that information to be misused at all.

Immunity

The FISA bill is on the move in the Senate.

My letter to the Senate Majority Leader.

Senator Reid:

To not hold telecoms accountable for their complicity in the Bush administration's crimes makes a mockery of the rule of law.

After all, those who haven't committed crimes don't seek immunity from prosecution.

Allowing these crimes to go unpunished does not serve the interests of the United States or its people. So why then would you capitulate to a wildly unpopular, lame duck president?

Please reconsider your course of action on this matter and send the message that there are consequences to criminal activity, no matter how deep your pockets.

Thank you.

You can e-mail your thoughts to Reid here. Sen. Chris Dodd has promised a filibuster. Throw him some support here.

Saving privacy

You want to protect your privacy? Simple. Just change the definition of privacy.

As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguards people's private communications and financial information.

So “privacy” no longer means that your most secret, intimate words and actions are unknown to others; it means that your benevolent corporate government overseers will hang on to this information about you for safe keeping and promise that all reasonable efforts will be made to ensure that nobody else can use it against you.

Not a chickenshit

From the Credit Where It’s Due Dept. (in light of my previous post on the subject): Senator Chris Dodd.

Senator Chris Dodd plans to put a hold on the Senate FISA renewal bill because it reportedly grants retroactive immunity to telephone companies for any role they played in the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping program, Election Central has learned.

Dodd will send a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this afternoon informing him of his decision. Dodd also plans to put up a page today at his campaign Web site where opponents of the immunity provision can register their opposition.

That page on Dodd’s site is here. Click through and show your support.