Quote of the day: Conservatives, politics, and the personal

(((

(Updated below.)

I've written about this before: Conservatives' sense of empathy is similar to Tip O'Neill's take on politics: It's all local.

Conservatives tend not to have empathy until they’re personally impacted. When Arlen Specter got sick, he became a champion of the National Institute of Health, and when Rob Portman discovered he had a gay son, he suddenly saw the light on gay marriage. If Republicans think the Watch List only inconveniences Muslims from Dearborn, Michigan, they’ll never have any interest in fixing its flaws. But if it impacts one of their assault-rifle loving constituents who can’t figure out how to get taken off this list? That will interest them.

- Booman, in an aside from his discussion of the calculating use of the dreadfully flawed no-fly list as leverage to push congressional Republicans to finally take up basic gun control legislation.

I wish that there were some other way to get this leverage without paying lip-service to the due-process disaster that the no-fly list(s) represented from the earliest post-9/11 days, but I haven't figured out yet what it might be.

On my behalf, though, I didn't stumble onto the problem this week, like a lot of commentators. Here's my take on it from almost ten years ago – although, ironically, it was triggered by concern for the possible fate of a friend as much as by my respect for the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Maybe O'Neill was right.

To Booman's list I would add former Oregon Republican Senator Gordon's Smith's ephemeral epiphany that federal spending on social programs can play a positive role, such as in addressing the problem of youth suicide – an insight that didn't come to him until after his son took his own life, and seemed to depart again shortly thereafter.

I get no pleasure from the thought of the Smith family's terrible loss; I can't even imagine the pain of it. I just find it tiresome when conservatives' appreciation of the idea of a commonwealth, a political community existing for the common good, begins and ends – as it so often does – with the moment when disaster strikes them or their family directly.*

(I'm not aware of any other social program legislation Smith supported during his Senate career, but I'm willing to have my memory jogged. Most of his work is better exemplified by the 30,000 dead Coho salmon left behind in his 2002 re-election bid, and his tireless work for the end of Net Neutrality – a cause near and dear to the hearts of industry groups such as the National Association of Broadcasters, an organization he has been president and CEO of since shortly after he lost re-election in 2008.)

* Updated: And don't even get me started on Nancy Reagan.

"Nothing going on there" and other constitutional fictions

Comes now former United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York (and this week's winner of the p3 "Wait – He's Still Alive?" Award) Rudy Giuliani, displaying his legendary ability to bring his thumb down on the scales in the delicate balance of civil liberties against the never ending battle for law and order:

"There's no minister, there's no rabbi in this city — nor are there some imams — that object to having police officers in their congregation," he argued. "In fact, they want them there, they want them to learn the message. It's enlightening for them." "So if you've got nothing going on there but a beautiful religious service, why in His name would you not want to have police officers there?" he asked.

(h/t to Charlie Pierce)

 There are those – cynical SOBs, the lot of you! – who might suggest that remarks like this are meant to signal Rudy's availability for the Donald Trump Vice Presidential Beauty Pageant and Scholarship Competition, but I say not so! This is simply the sort of thing Rudy ordinarily says into the bathroom mirror as he flosses every morning. Trump's campaign is just a coincidence. Nevertheless, he has returned to that old law and order warhorse: If you've got nothing to hide . . .

Which is another reason this shifty line of argument would be a bad fit for the campaign of the slo-mo exploding citrus, whose list of decredentialed news organizations is beginning to read like a Who's Who of political journalism.

 I defer to the legal expertise of Mr. Spade from San Francisco:

Spade glanced his way, chuckled, and asked Bryan: "Anything I say will be used against me?"

The District Attorney smiled. "That always holds good." He took his glasses off, looked through them, and set them on his nose again. He looked through them at Spade and asked: "Who killed Thursby?"

Spade said: "I don't know."

Bryan rubbed his black eyeglass-ribbon between thumb and fingers and said knowingly: "Perhaps you don't, but you certainly could make an excellent guess."

"Maybe, but I wouldn't."

The District Attorney raised his eyebrows.

"I wouldn't," Spade repeated. He was serene. "My guess might be excellent, or it might be crummy, but Mrs. Spade didn't raise any children dippy enough to make guesses in front of a district attorney, an assistant district attorney, and a stenographer."

"Why shouldn't you, if you've got nothing to conceal?"

"Everybody," Spade responded mildly, "has something to conceal."

"And you have – ?"

"My guesses, for one thing."

Return of the p3 year-end metalist

The p3 metalist is back!

It's a somewhat trickier process than in years past, simply because the internet has been flooded with that scourge of social media content, the listicle – many of them "insane," most of them containing things "you won't believe" (why read it, I wonder?), and not a few of them slathered with adolescent contrarianism (e.g., over at cracked.com right this minute they're touting "5 Reasons Space Travel Is Going To Suck").

The p3 metalist elements – some traditional war horses, some one-of-a-kind – were chosen according to the criterion that each item should be useful, or if not useful then obviously an investment of time and trouble that is, of itself, still worthy of some kind of respect. Similarly, they should be authoritative, not arbitrarily glued together as clickbait by someone too lazy to really get a handle on a topic and write it up in an interesting way. For example, you may not find the first item –

1. Playboy ranks every episode of every Star Trek TV series – original, TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, and the animated series – from worst to best.

– terribly useful, but you have to respect the author's willingness to take on the big tasks, in this case the individual rating of over six hundred episodes. So without further ado:

2. Project Censored's top 25 censored stories of 2014. Project Censored, the little engine that could, got its start 38 years ago down at Sonoma State University.

3. The Oregon Intellectual Freedom Clearinghouse 2014 list of formally challenged books in Oregon libraries. There are eleven items on the list, along with the reason for the challenge and the final disposition of the challenge. And it's always a delight to be reminded that the OIFC is maintained by the state of Oregon.

4. The Onion's AV Club lists the 20 worst films of 2014. A disturbing appearance on the list by Simon Pegg, as well as two (!) appearances each by John Cusack and Liam Neeson. Gentlemen, either listen to your agents or fire them.

5. The Rolling Stone's 40 most groundbreaking albums of all time. This one almost got bumped off the list for describing a Kanye West album as both "auto-tune heavy" and "emotionally naked" in the first entry. One or the other, please. But then it settles in a little more. Music lists tend to be a little like rating MAD Magazine – sometimes it doesn't amount to much more than noting that it was funniest in the days when you were reading it regularly. This one rises above that, I think.

6. Bill Moyers' list of underreported stories from 2014. These were chosen by "editors, journalists and friends of BillMoyers.com," as opposed to the academics – faculty and students – who assembled the Project Censored list, so the differences are interesting. And there are a number of them.

7. Ten classic German expressionist movies now available for free, via openculture.com. Because this is my metalist.

8. ThinkProgress' list of nine "travesties of justice that would be unbelievable if they weren't true." That clickbait title almost caused this item to get tossed off the list, but the content is worth going over, if only to see all of these American horror stories collected in one place.

9. Oregon AG Ellen Rosenblum's list of the 20 worst charities, based on the percentage of donations that go to administrative and fundraising costs, rather than going to the actual cause they claim to support. (Have we mentioned Portland's own Mercy Corps lately?)

10. iMediaEthics' list of the five most controversial cartoons of 2014. Somehow they missed this series of terrible decisions surrounding a piece by the Indy Star's Gary Varvel.

11. And finally, from Slate's Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern comes the 10 worst civil liberties violations of 2014. This was a tough year to be part of the Bill of Rights, unless you were the Second or Tenth Amendment, in which case you probably thought it was a pretty nice ride. But if you had anything to do with not establishing state religion, preventing unreasonable search and seizure, or guaranteeing due process, or contained the phrase "cruel and unusual," then not so much.

Happy birthday to the Bill of Rights

Two hundred twenty-three years after it was ratified, the Second and Tenth Amendments are all the rage. But the First Amendment has been twisted largely beyond recognition by the Roberts Court. A constitutional law professor took time out from campaigning for president in 2008 to hand an anvil to the Fourth Amendment. And the Eighth Amendment was publicly disgraced last week.

Still, it was a good idea. And in fairness, no one has tried to quarter troops in my house as far as I can remember.

Happy birthday to what's left of the Bill of Rights.

Saturday morning tunes: When will we ever learn?

On this date in 1950, at the height of the Red Scare, several musicians saw their careers ended or derailed after they were claimed to be suspected communist sympathizers.

But Hollywood actors, directors and screenwriters were not the only victims of the Cold War anti-Communist purges in the entertainment industry. Prominent figures in the music industry were also targeted, including Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Lena Horne, Pete Seeger and Artie Shaw, all of whom were named publicly as suspected Communist sympathizers on this day in 1950, in the infamous publication Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television. [...]

The evidence of Communist leanings offered in Red Channels included Lena Horne’s appearance on the letterhead of a South African famine relief program, Aaron Copland’s appearance on a panel at a 1949 Scientific and Cultural Conference for World Peace and Leonard Bernstein’s affiliation with the Committee to Re-Elect Benjamin J. Davis, a black, socialist New York City councilman.

In the end, Red Channels caused some of those named to be blacklisted—Pete Seeger, most famously—to fight publicly to prove their "loyalty" to the United States and still others to repudiate their political pasts and provide the HUAC [House Unamerican Activities Committee] with names of other suspected prominent leftists.

If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here. 

A little reminder of what the national security state, with the help of right-wing media, is capable of.

And, by the way, Pete Seeger turned 94 last month, still performs, and hasn't signed any corporate sponsorship or endorsement deals, nor has he joined the board of directors of any multinational corporations.

And he never named names.

Sunday morning toons: p3 proudly presents The NRA Fourteen!

May the First Amendment always win out over the Second.

Last week I passed along the news that over a third of the people in the Journalist category on the NRA's enemies list were political cartoonists. I didn't have the complete list then, but thanks to Josh Cavna at Comic Riffs I do now:

The NRA Fourteen:

Steve Benson, Tony Auth, Jim Borgman, Stuart Carlson, Mike Lane, Mike Luckovich, Jimmy Margulies, Jim Morin, Mike Peters, Kevin Siers, Ed Stein, Tom Toles, Garry Trudeau, and Don Wright.

And as Association of American Editorial Cartoonists president Matt Wuerker points out:

When Nixon drew up his ‘enemies’ list,’ it included just one cartoonist: Paul Conrad from the Los Angeles Times. I was lucky enough to know Conrad and I remember that he was far prouder of making Nixon's list than his three Pulitzer Prizes.

From one to fourteen in a generation. You could see this as evidence that the whole thing's turning into a free-for-all, or as proof that political cartoonists are even more a force to be reckoned with than they were a generation ago. I go with the latter.

p3's tribute to Paul Conrad is here, by the way. Also, I'm proud to note that p3 has featured all of the artists on the NRA's enemies list in the Sunday toon review except Jim Borgman, who took an early-retirement buyout while the Sunday toon review feature was still in the larval stage.

Also, hey NRA -- no women on your oddly-dated list of enemy cartoonists? What's that about? Figure they all carry cute little pearl-handled revolvers in their purses and think the NRA is just dreamy? Think again, boys.


Oh yes, and the President gave his fifth State of the Union address, which it took about five Republicans to rebut; the Pope gave his two weeks' notice, which may give him time to get the hell out of the Vatican before the second Prada shoe drops; and the meteors and shooting stars around the globe in the last couple of days probably have nothing to do with 2012 DA14 asteroid passing near Earth; and one of the three or four craziest people on the planet who isn't currently representing an Old Confederacy state in the US Congress was testing nuclear weapons this week; and it's official -- without the Fourth and Fifth Amendments we're down to eight in the Bill of Rights.

And oh, how we love Senator Elizabeth Warren.


Today's toons were selected by the same humorless people who complied the NRA's enemies list -- except that we got ones they didn't like, or didn't get, or both -- from the week's pages at GoComics, McClatchyDC.com, Slate, Time, About.com, Daryl Cagle, and other fine sources.

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, Jack Ohman, JIm Morin, Nick Anderson, Adam Zyglis, Lisa Benson, Pat Bagley, R. J. Matson, Joe Heller, John Darkow, Mike Wuerker, Jen Sorenson, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Best of Show: John Cole.

p3 Certificate of Harmonic Toon Convergence: Joel Pett and Kevin Siers.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium: Adam Zyglis.

p3 World Toon Review: Cam Cardow (Canada).


Ann Telnaes scrapes off the scum.


Mark Fiore watches as Obama unleash his inner Richard Nixon.


Taiwan's Next Media Animation brings you the newest Burger King Challenge. Twenty-five years ago, it was “Where's the beef?” In 2012, it's What's the beef?


Tom Tomorrow celebrates the end of the Fifth Amendment, brought to you by the same man who finalized the end of the Fourth Amendment. Quite a resume-builder.


Keith Knight reflects on what's really worth beong afraid of.


Tom the Dancing Bug presents the (no-doubt relieving) News of the World.


Red Meat's Ted Johnson and Nick get nostalgic.


Who's the most remarkable extra-special kind of fellow?  All of the Popeye theatrical cartoons from Fleischer Studios were called one-reelers (about 7 minutes long) except for three: Popeye Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves, Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp (both of which borrowed from 1001 Arabian Nights), and Popeye the Sailor Meets Sinbad the Sailor. Two-reelers all, and in Technicolor. The latter was directed by Dave Fleisher in 1936, with voice work by Jack Mercer, Mae Questel, and Gus Wickie, and music and lyrics by Sammy Timberg, Sammy Lerner, and Bob Rothberg, plus animation by Willard Bowsky, George Germanetti, Edward Nolan, Lillian Friedman, and the magnificently-named Orestes Calpini. Many of the scenes used modeled sets to create 3-D effects. Popeye meets Sinbad was nominated for a short-subject Oscar, but lost to Disney's forgettable Silly Symphony: The Country Cousin. .

If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here. 

The p3 Big Oregon Toon Block:

Matt Bors points out one way to reduce the size of government: Let the Exsecutive branch take over the juicier parts of the Judiciary and the Legislative. Seriously -- what could wrong?

Jesse Springer wishes happy skating to Governor Kitzhaber on the PERS reform he needs to make his budget plans work:

Test your toon-captioning skills at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.)

Remember the good old days, when only mobsters, tobacco company executives, and Reagan administration officials did this?

As opposed to people responsible for our food supply?

I have to say, though: The Fifth Amendment is still a good one. One of the best.

Officials of the peanut company blamed for a deadly salmonella outbreak refused to testify Wednesday at a House committee hearing, citing their rights to avoid possible self-incrimination.

Their move came as Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry A. Waxman , D‑Calif., disclosed e‑mails showing the company was notified in the fall by a private lab that its products tested positive for the pathogen.

Waxman disclosed the e-mails at a hearing convened by his panel’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee to question Stewart Parnell, president of the Peanut Corp. of America, plant manager Sammy Lightsey and federal officials about the failure to protect the food supply.

On the advice of counsel, however, both Peanut Corp. officials invoked their Fifth Amendment rights.

Happy birthday to the Bill of Rights

The first ten amendments to the US Constitution became the law of the land on December 15th, 1791, when ratification by the Virginia legislature meant approval by the states had cleared the three-quarters constitutional requirement.

And they remained the law of the land right up to the point that the Bush/Cheney administration, aided and abetted by a supine Democratic congressional minority and a sycophantic national press, decided they were incompatible with their theory of executive power.

Those ten amendments (there were two more that weren't approved) were introduced to Congress by James Madison as a check on the limits of federal power. They guaranteed freedom of speech and of the press, the right to due process, and . . .

What the hell--there's only ten (at least on paper there are still ten); let's just list them. For fun, see how many you can name before reading down.

Not counting the Preamble, they are:

First Amendment – Establishment Clause, Free Exercise Clause; freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly; right to petition

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Second Amendment – Right to keep and bear arms.

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Third Amendment – Protection from quartering of troops.

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Fourth Amendment – Protection from unreasonable search and seizure.

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.

Fifth Amendment – due process, double jeopardy, self-incrimination, eminent domain.

No person shall be held to answer for any capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Sixth Amendment – Trial by jury and rights of the accused; Confrontation Clause, speedy trial, public trial, right to counsel

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.

Seventh Amendment – Civil trial by jury.

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Eighth Amendment – Prohibition of excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishment.

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Ninth Amendment – Protection of rights not specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Tenth Amendment – Powers of states and people.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Good stuff, isn't it? "Shall make no law;" "shall not be violated;" "shall not be infringed;" "shall enjoy the right." That was back in the day when the writers of laws knew how to put some Old Testament oomph into their bills. (Too bad about that grammatical mare's nest in #2, but what are you gonna do?)

The thing about Bills of Rights, and the reason that even enlightened administrations find them occasionally irksome (and unenlightened ones find them an affront to their ambitions, to be gotten around by whatever means), is that at the end of the day the possession--to say nothing of the exercise--of our basic rights by some is often just a damned nuisance to others. And sometimes, however much they cherish their own rights, those others might welcome the removal of a nuisance (or protection from a boogeyman) even more.

Here's a case in point. (There are others.)

In 35 days we get to find out if a former constitutional law professor can be as safely be trusted with our rights as a couple of clown college alumni.

Fixing the Constitution: Obama will only go as far left as the left pushes him

Late last week, Digby had a good post on a topic everyone's hot on right now: How far to the left or the right will Obama govern?

The answer, which I consider especially smart even by Digby standards, since I've been saying much the same thing since last spring: Obama will govern just as far to the left as he's pushed into doing by the left itself, and probably not much farther.

In the current political world, I believe that Obama and the Democrats need a strong left wing that is out there agitating in order that we can continue to build popular support and also give them a political excuse to do things that the political establishment finds too liberal. Being cheerleaders all the time, however enjoyable that is, is not going to help them. Leaving them out there with no left wing cripples them.

One of the problems for Democrats has been that there has not been an effective progressive voice pushing the edge of the envelope. Therefore, when they inevitably "go to the middle" as politicians often feel they must do, the middle become further and further right. It is my belief that one of the roles of the progressive movement is to keep pulling the politicians back to the left, which often means that we are not being publicly "supportive," in order that we really do end up in the middle instead of farther to the right than the country actually is. […]

So, everyone needs to relax a little bit about the blogosphere criticizing Obama and the Democrats. We are necessary. If all Obama has is the Villagers and the right defining what change means, then those are the parameters within which he will have to operate. He needs us to "make him do it."

I'm sorry if that's a buzzkill, but things move fast in politics and there's no time to waste. The mandate is being defined as we speak. We can't just sit back and bask in our glory while the villagers are busily narrowing Obama's options.

Don't get me wrong; he's not off to a bad start, at least as far as his talking game goes:

Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse White House policies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts working with the transition team.

That's all good. And he'll also need to hit the ground running on beginning to reverse the economic damage that the Bush administration has inflicted on the nation.

But there's something missing here. Conspicuous by its absence, one could say.

Here's a hint:



We're not America again until our basic Constitutional liberties and the rule of law--over which Bush and Cheney have run roughshod--are restored.

The ACLU has a good starting point, in its agenda for Obama's first day, first 100 days, and first year in office.

Day 1:
1. Stop torture and abuse.
2. Close Guantánamo, and restore the rule of law for detainees
3. End and prohibit the practice of extraordinary rendition.

Those are pretty hard to argue with. Obama's starting to make the right rumblings about closing Guantánamo, but the legal and constitutional pig's breakfast that the Bush administration has made of the Gitmo prisoners' status is not going to make it go as easily as it sounds. There will be plenty of temptation, and plenty of encouragement from tough-on-terrorism wannabes, to drag his feet on this one once the ugly complications become apparent. We can't let him do it. Shut Gitmo down.

First 100 Days:

1. End warrantless spying on US citizens.
2. Rein in ever-expanding and error-ridden watch lists.
3. Rescind the "Ashcroft Doctrine" undermining the Freedom of Information Ac.
4. End government monitoring of political activists.
5. Order the DOJ to resume civil rights enforcement by the Civil Rights Division.
6. Suspend the Real ID Act pending congressional review.
7. Rescind the abortion gag rule on foreign aid.
8. Ban all workplace discrimination against sexual minorities by the federal government and its contractors.
9. Implement a moratorium on the death penalty until the issue of racial disparities has been addressed.
10. End the practice of government-sponsored religious discrimination known as the "faith-based initiatives."

Of these, I'd move #7 up to Day One. The Reagan/Bush era restrictions were rescinded by Clinton on his first day in office. Bush 43 reinstated them again on his first day in office. Obama needs to show he's serious. Day One.

The list of constitutional protections to establish or restore for Obama's first year in office is a long one--too long to include here, so check it out at the ACLU's site. Many of the ACLU's Year One recommendations address the growing encroachment of government and corporate databases--some illegal, some error-ridden, some involving constitutional issues that no one's paying attention to--on our privacy.

Some of these are things Obama can do with the stroke of a pen on an executive order. Many will take the cooperation of Congress, so it can be an early chance for Democratic congressional leadership to take their newly-increased majorities out for a test-drive and see what they can do.

It's great that we've elected Obama. Now we have to make him do what needs to be done, and for that he has to have us in his grillwork. Obama was not elected by the center, and certainly not by the right. We need to make sure, in the famous phrase of Molly Ivins, that he knows he has to dance with them what brung him.


(Image via Mike Luckovich.)

"You know, democracies accept certain risks that tyrannies do not."

A lot of civil libertarians did not expect this fortunate break this morning:

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.

The justices handed the Bush administration its third setback at the high court since 2004 over its treatment of prisoners who are being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The vote was 5-4, with the court's liberal justices in the majority.

The dissenting justices were Scalia, Roberts, Alito, and--presumably--Thomas although, since Scalia was drinking a glass of water while the minority opinion was being read, Thomas remained silent. Noting the razor-thin 5-4 vote, John Aravosis comments:

If John McCain becomes president, the court will shift to the right and this will be another decision, like Roe v. Wade, that will be overturned.

Technically, that's probably not true about Roe (the anti-choice justices know they don't have to run the risk of backlash that overturning it would create; all they have to do is keep it technically legal while incrementally making it less and less available in practice to everyone--at least, everyone except the daughters of John McCain and George Bush.) But it's dead-on regarding habeas corpus. If elected, McCain would use the first vacancy on the court to secure that fifth vote to dispense with due process and habeas corpus in the name of fighting terrorism.

It's a sign of how empty many of our handy political distinctions have become when four Supreme Court Justices who would happily throw out a 700-year-old legal principle upon which most of our liberties as Americans are based can be described as "conservative."

It's sign of how little these people believe in the strength of our form of government, even as they call themselves patriots, that they don't believe it can be preserved without altering or eliminating its most fundamental values--or that we should even try.

(Title quote from constitutional scholar Bruce Fein.)

That sound you hear is the last tiny shred of Colin Powell's dignity and reputation evaporating

Among the many things that Colin Powell must surely regret--and what a long and star-studded list that must be--right at the top has be the day he ever became connected with the Bush family.

In the mid-1990s he was respected on all sides, considered wise, moderate, and statesmanlike. When Powell announced his decision not to run for President in 1996 (like Eisenhower, the mainly non-political Powell had been courted by both Republicans and Democrats), it was a landmark moment.

This week he finished the trip from hero to late-night punch line to national disgrace, thanks to the leaked accounts showing that Powell was one of the Principals Committee, along with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Tenet, and Ashcroft, who, in meetings beginning in 2002, carefully worked out the system under which torture would thereafter be carried out by the United States of America. Never questioning if it would be or should be carried out, note well--simply working out the procedural minutiae necessary for it to achieve maximum effect.

Will Bunch writes:

Well, I can't wait for Powell's next Barbara Walters appearance so he tell us how he pleaded with Cheney and the others not to do this, either. Give me a break. Anyone who sat in those meetings and didn't stop America on the path to torture is just as guilty as those who proposed it in the first place. And that includes not only Powell but former attorney general John Ashcroft, whose reported quote that "History will not judge this kindly" will be in your grandchild's textbook.

First medicinal wine from a teaspoon, then beer from a bottle, eh, General?

When the Center for Public Integrity undertook the unenviable task of tallying the number of false public statements ("lies," in the vernacular) made by the seven top members of the Bush Administration in the run-up to the Iraq invasion in 2003, Colin Powell --t hat delicate flower with his quivering, hair-like ethical sensibilities, who considered his knowingly dishonest February 2003 presentation to the UN to be, in hindsight, a "blot," who insisted that carrying out policies he later claimed not to believe in at the time somehow made him principled -- that Colin Powell racked up 244 documentably false public statements about Iraq. That achievement placed him second only to Bush himself, with 252.

There's a reason the East Germans needed a name for it--but why do we?

Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter. Knock back a couple of shots of schnapps, say it in a whisper while hiding in a room with the blinds drawn, and you can hear its English cognates: unofficial, working with.

It amazes me--saddens me, alarms me--to realize how many people think that "America" refers only to the real estate with that name on it on the maps. The idea that the word refers to a set of political and moral standards that once defined us and made us the envy--rather than the terror--of the rest of the world has apparently eluded them.

The most obvious example I could point to--at least this week--would be our government's now-open embrace of torture as tool in foreign relations. (It makes me almost sentimental for a couple of weeks ago, when they still at least felt the need to deny it publicly.)

But there's another case all too much in point.

With the end of the German Democratic Republic (aka East Germany) in 1990, taking with it the Stasi secret police and its burgeoning network of private informers (the Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter), you'd expect to read passages like this only in the history books:

FBI Director Robert Mueller addressed an InfraGard convention on August 9, 2005. At that time, the group had less than half as many members as it does today. "To date, there are more than 11,000 members of InfraGard," he said. "From our perspective that amounts to 11,000 contacts . . . and 11,000 partners in our mission to protect America." He added a little later, "Those of you in the private sector are the first line of defense."

He urged InfraGard members to contact the FBI if they "note suspicious activity or an unusual event." And he said they could sic the FBI on "disgruntled employees who will use knowledge gained on the job against their employers." [...]

InfraGard is not readily accessible to the general public. Its communications with the FBI and Homeland Security are beyond the reach of the Freedom of Information Act under the "trade secrets" exemption, its website says. [...]

Schneck is proud of the relationships the InfraGard Members Alliance has built with the FBI. "If you had to call 1-800-FBI, you probably wouldn't bother," she says. "But if you knew Joe from a local meeting you had with him over a donut, you might call them. Either to give or to get. We want everyone to have a little black book."

This black book may come in handy in times of an emergency. "On the back of each membership card," Schneck says, "we have all the numbers you'd need: for Homeland Security, for the FBI, for the cyber center. And by calling up as an InfraGard member, you will be listened to." She also says that members would have an easier time obtaining a "special telecommunications card that will enable your call to go through when others will not." [...]

This business owner says he attended a small InfraGard meeting where agents of the FBI and Homeland Security discussed in astonishing detail what InfraGard members may be called upon to do.

"The meeting started off innocuously enough, with the speakers talking about corporate espionage," he says. "From there, it just progressed. All of a sudden we were knee deep in what was expected of us when martial law is declared. We were expected to share all our resources, but in return we'd be given specific benefits." These included, he says, the ability to travel in restricted areas and to get people out. But that's not all.

"Then they said when -- not if -- martial law is declared, it was our responsibility to protect our portion of the infrastructure, and if we had to use deadly force to protect it, we couldn't be prosecuted," he says. […]

Curt Haugen is CEO of S'Curo Group, a company that does "strategic planning, business continuity planning and disaster recovery, physical and IT security, policy development, internal control, personnel selection, and travel safety," according to its website. Haugen tells me he is a former FBI agent and that he has been an InfraGard member for many years. He is a huge booster. "It's the only true organization where there is the public-private partnership," he says. "It's all who knows who. You know a face, you trust a face. That's what makes it work."

He says InfraGard "absolutely" does emergency preparedness exercises. When I ask about discussions the FBI and Homeland Security have had with InfraGard members about their use of lethal force, he says: "That much I cannot comment on. But as a private citizen, you have the right to use force if you feel threatened."

"We were assured that if we were forced to kill someone to protect our infrastructure, there would be no repercussions," the whistleblower says.

Read the whole thing, if you can stomach it. "It's all who knows who," indeed.

If a presidential candidate promised to shut this unholy alliance down by 12:15pm Eastern time, January 20, 2009, I'd vote for them no matter how many other planks in their platform I disagreed with. But none of them will, and the sad truth is this: Once something like this gets started, it's much harder to kill it than simply to (deliberately or inadvertently) drive it a little farther underground.

Recall the formation (animated by much the same "let's pitch in" spirit) that created the current abortive "don't fly" list used by Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration, imagine that multiplied a thousand-fold to include anyone who someone else thinks is a workplace "troublemaker," and now imagine the harm to innocent individuals--including the near impossibility of getting a name off that list once it's been wrongly put there.

(Hat tip to Digby. Image sources: Stasi emblem and Stasi archives.)

Golden anniversary for a prickly civil libertarian

The Village Voice celebrates 50 years of Nat Hentoff, the living reminder that "free speech" and "prickliness" go hand in hand a lot more than those on the left sometimes like to think. (Those on the right have no trouble believing it.)

There are pages and pages of excerpts, running from Lenny Bruce, Ralph Ginzberg, and Jack Paar to Lyndon Johnson, Bucky Fuller and I.F. Stone, to Coleman Hawkins, Al Pacino, and Charlton Heston.

This was from Hentoff two weeks to the day after the World Trade Towers fell:

After the most savage random attack in history on the people of this city, can the guarantees of the Bill of Rights prevail—freedom of speech and press that even includes advocacy of violence; the protection of each of us against government violations of our privacy, including our right of association with those under suspicion by the authorities; and most basic of all, our right to due process? No arrests without probable cause; no indefinite interrogations behind closed doors, without a lawyer, in the name of "national security." . . . Will America never be the same after September 11? I would phrase the question differently. Will America again be so captured by fear as to cast a net of suspicion over growing numbers of its own citizens?

Last Tuesday, a friend, an inveterate civil libertarian, called me as broken bodies were still being placed on stretchers.

"This is going to cause a surge by government—local, state, and federal—to shred the Bill of Rights," he said. "And it will be cheered by an enthusiastic, indignant public."

If he's right, and American history would indicate he is, the relatively few uncompromising civil libertarians among us will again be regarded with contempt and continuous suspicion by both the authorities and the populace.

Taking the Fifth--it's the new black

Via TPM Muckraker comes this news:

Karl Rove’s former secretary, Susan Ralston, will plead the Fifth if she is forced to testify about White House dealings with Jack Abramoff, according to a memo released by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform today.

Ralston gave a voluntary deposition to the committee on May 10, where she said if subpoenaed, she would invoke her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.

Which puts Ralston in the same fashion league with Monica Goodling over at the Department of Justice, who got her own immunity deal last month.

Gotta wonder just how big a powder keg these people are sitting on.

Meanwhile, here's looking forward to the day when "the new black" becomes "the new orange" (jumpsuit).