Nothing To See Here, Move Along

(Editorial cartoon by Joel Pett / Lexington Herald-Leader (September 17, 2012) and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge and then get back here.)

This cartoon sure has come in handy and is really appropriate for my thinking today.  Clearly Joel Pett is a genius. His cartoon captures a huge amount of what is so horribly wrong with the US these days.

The Uncle Sam figure is the relevant one this time around.  The subject is security, Homeland Security to be precise.  If ever an cabinet-level department was given an appropriate name, this one is it.  Conceived in the midst of the panic after 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security was designed to strip US citizens of even the most basic of rights under the guise of security for the Fatherland.

One program getting attention right now involves data clearinghouses situated throughout the country to sift through and pass along information regarding potential threats.  A Senate subcommittee decided to take a look at the program and its effectiveness. Its conclusion is devastating.

A federal domestic security effort to help state and local law enforcement catch terrorists by setting up more than 70 information-sharing centers around the country has threatened civil liberties while doing little to combat terrorism, a two-year examination by a Senate subcommittee found.

The so-called fusion centers were created in 2003 after the Sept. 11 commission concluded that federal, state and local law enforcement agencies needed to collaborate more in counter-terrorism efforts.

Funded by federal grants, the fusion centers were intended to share national intelligence with state and local law enforcement and to analyze potential terrorist activity detected by police. Homeland Security Department officials have credited the centers for helping uncover terrorist plans, including a 2009 plot to bomb the New York subway.

But the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, in a 146-page report released Tuesday that reviewed intelligence reports from fusion centers between April 1, 2009, and April 30, 2010, "could identify nothing that uncovered a terrorist threat, nor could it identify a contribution any fusion center made to disrupt an active terrorist plot."

Senate investigators concluded that Homeland Security liaisons to the centers "forwarded 'intelligence' of uneven quality — oftentimes shoddy, rarely timely, sometimes endangering citizens' civil liberties and Privacy Act protections, occasionally taken from already-published public sources, and more often than not unrelated to terrorism."

The investigators also found that some local analysts had written inappropriate and potentially illegal reports about constitutionally protected activities of American citizens. Homeland Security officials prevented most from being disseminated. ...

The Senate report rebuts statements by Homeland Security officials that the centers helped uncover terrorist plots, including a 2010 attempt to blow up a sport utility vehicle in Times Square, saying that the same work would have been done through previously existing channels.   [Emphasis added]

The agency's huffy response?

In preparing the report, the committee reviewed intelligence that had been edited to protect classified information. Homeland Security officials said that these redactions limited the investigators' ability to assess the usefulness of intelligence generated by local analysts.

I guess we'll just have to trust them, eh?

But wait, there's more!  This project has a cost in taxpayer funds.  We just can't know exactly how much.

The Homeland Security Department could not say for sure how much federal money had been spent on the centers, the subcommittee found, providing a range of $289 million to $1.4 billion.

That's quite a spread, isn't it?  I guess the real figure is protected classified information as well.  If they told us they'd have to kill us.  But, hey!  At least the fatherland is secure.  Right?

WTF?

I've been hit with some kind of fell winter bug. My head hurts, my chest hurts, I have a dry cough so my ribs hurt, plus I'm running a low grade fever. I am, therefore, justifiably cranky, which makes it a bad time for me to read a Los Angeles Times editorial. I am now absolutely enraged, not by the editorial stance (the center-left editorial board got it so right than I am staggered and would be pleased with them if I felt better), but by the information contained in that editorial.

When Congress enacted the Prison Rape Elimination Act, it did so in the hope of curbing sexual assaults in facilities across the country. But today, with new rules to protect prisoners being finalized, the Department of Homeland Security is demanding that immigrants held in detention centers be exempted. ...

...the Department of Homeland Security is now squabbling over whether it or the Department of Justice has the authority to write rules that protect immigrants.

Isn't it obvious that protecting detainees is more important than who is the boss of whom? Detained immigrants are just as vulnerable to assault as any other prisoners, yet they're especially reluctant to report it. Unlike criminal defendants, detainees have no right to a court-appointed lawyer; that means they're often left with no advocate they can turn to. They are held in remote facilities, often far from legal clinics and family. And language creates an additional barrier to reporting abuse. [Emphasis added]

Homeland Security and Justice are in a freaking turf war over this issue? And their boss, the President of the United States is letting this happen? Is there no one in charge over there? Are there no adults present at that end of town?

Outfuckingrageous.

Here's the editorial's conclusion:

Rape is a crime. To apply the new regulations to some and not others would create a two-tier system of justice. That's not acceptable. Immigrants who are detained while they fight deportation (and who, by the way, have not generally been charged with, much less convicted of, a crime) deserve the same protections provided to criminals sentenced to maximum-security prisons.

Exactly.

Now, somebody needs to take Janet Napolitano and Eric Holder to the woodshed and read them the editorial, after which they should apply a mackerel to both of their heads and shoulders with great force.

Morons.

Joe's Gig

Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent, got himself a very nice committee chairmanship by promising to caucus with the Democrats in the Senate and to vote with the Democrats on everything but "the war." The fact that Mr. Lieberman has broken that promise over and over again, most recently when he threatened to join the Republicans in filibustering the Senate health care reform bill, doesn't appear to disturb Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Democratic leadership a whit. Lieberman still chairs the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

Now Mr. Lieberman has an issue he can run wild with, and he is doing just that. Tim Rutten, a Los Angeles Times columnist, notes with disgust the senator's unerring instinct for opportunism.

Sen. Joe Lieberman insists on pushing ahead with a Senate inquiry into the mass murder at Ft. Hood, despite White House and Pentagon anxieties that the probe could compromise the prosecution of alleged killer Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.

It's always interesting to see how many friends due process has in times of extreme stress. Given what looks like the security authorities' wretched mishandling of the Hasan case -- the guy appears to have done everything but paste an "Osama bin Laden Rocks" bumper sticker on his car -- there's every reason for the administration and the FBI to want to put off a legislative reckoning for as long as possible. "We want to guarantee everyone a fair trial" is always good cover. But in this case, it has the additional virtue of being true.

For Lieberman's part, the Connecticut independent -- funny how that latter noun seems synonymous with "opportunist" in his case -- has an unerring instinct for plucking the political moment's low-hanging fruit. The chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs told Fox News that he wants to know whether Hasan's signs of "Islamic extremism" were "missed or ignored."

Those of us who have followed this terrible story can answer "yes" -- a conclusion we've reached even without the benefit of subpoena power. But these aren't questions that should be addressed in the politically charged, highly partisan atmosphere of Capitol Hill.

Of course, the concept of a fair trial doesn't matter to Mr. Lieberman. He has already convicted Major Hasan and is ready to construct the gallows. But then, for Joe, it isn't about a fair trial, it's only about Joe: getting Joe face time on the Sunday Morning Talk Shoes, getting Joe's mug plastered all over the front pages of daily newspapers, getting Joe quoted as often as possible. If it messes up a criminal investigation, too bad.

That Joe Lieberman still has a committee chairmanship is a testimonial to the kind of leadership Democrats have in the Senate and what they consider important. And that is both disappointing and scary.

TMI

Most of you immediately recognized the abbreviation for Too Much Information, TMI, so welcome aboard. The episodes of normally functional, if not impressive, public figures putting up incredibly dumb communications on Twitter, Facebook and the like are pretty funny as those publicity users try to adjust to a whole new world.

The communication that made it possible for everyday citizens of Iran to maintain some hold on their government has given us all sorts of possibilities for direct lines among us people. Where media has dominated for much of our lives, at least attempting to portray itself as the real source for knowledge, that imaginary role has failed increasingly as the newspapers sell themselves to the highest bidder.

Suddenly the office seekers are finding out they can't establish a few trusted reporters to deliver their message to, and expect us to suck it in. Now they need to communicate. The results are enchanting. Who would have thunk it was important to him, not what he concluded about the peccadilloes of his party, but what Newt had for dinner. Twittering about hearing voices is a new way to claim sacred communication status among those who are so inclined.

A new standard for chatter is desperately being sought by the 'personalities' who thought they had their images covered. How diverting for staff, to try making a new sort of person up, some one sympathetic to keen observers and casual browsers at the same time. However, the field of online communications has real dangers for security personnel.

For the secret services in England, the communications of its operatives are suddenly making problematic their official security measures. His wife's online persona suddenly is a problem for having a casual social presence with friends that wasn't protected from sharing at large.

Personal details about the life of the next head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, have been removed from social networking site Facebook amid security concerns.

The Mail on Sunday said his wife had put details about their children and the location of their flat on the site.

The details were removed after the paper contacted the Foreign Office.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband denied claims security had been compromised, saying: "You know he wears a Speedo swimsuit. That's not a state secret."
(snip)
Former Prime Minister Sir John Major said the issue had been "overblown".

He said: "I know John Sawers. He's a very able man, he's a very able appointment. It's pretty unfortunate that this has happened, I think that is true.

"But I think when you're faced with leaving Iraq possibly too early, huge problems in Afghanistan, the mess in Pakistan, the depth of the recession, I think this falls a long way below those."

Sir John Sawers is due to replace Sir John Scarlett as head of the overseas Secret Intelligence Service (MI6).

While most of the people I chat with are pretty well known to me, and their secrets are just that, all of us know that trolls like to wriggle in and try to find tidbits to make a hullabaloo about. One likes to accuse members of our circle of being twisted in some way, or having a seamy side that they alone have recognized.

What sort of motivation the nuisances operate from is a sad sidelight to the substantial support most of us find in online communications. What would be the national threat to anyone who carries on normal communications that may reveal security concerns is yet another wrinkle in the possibilities of our chatter. Your swimwear look isn't going to tear down anyone's marriage, most probably, but your address may make you vulnerable.

Online most of us have a rich and satisfactory circle of friends, associates, and like-minded social contacts. It's probably not a possibility for all of us, though, and the public exposure has to be obvious from the start.

In a public position, especially one that deals with security issues, there will have to be limits of exposure. Sadly, it appears that online life will have to stay virtual for anyone in a sensitive position.

In the groupings where I have conversations, we tend to let each other know when one of us is taking chances with some one who's been untrustworthy in the past. All of us have learned to wait and let any new member establish a persona that we recognize for basic consideration and reputable practices. Hopefully, this kind of protective attitude can be adopted by those in the field of security to those it needs to protect.

Constitutions and President(e)s

In the previous maladministration, the constitution was viewed as an annoyance. That made it hard to make a fuss when other presidents in other countries violated their constitutions. In Colombia, President Uribe sought to keep office despite constitutional term limits. While Uribe courted the previous maladministration by participating in its 'drug war', it distinguished itself by building up body count figures to court more U.S. funds by murdering civilians and re-labeling them as the enemy. That was overlooked by the then U.S. maladministration in its big rush to get 'free' market trade going with Colombia despite the atrocities involved.

How embarrassing, now Uribe is visiting the U.S. under Obama while President Zelaya of Honduras is kicked out for seeking to do the same thing Uribe is seeking to do. While we can't officially announce that a coup has happened because then we'd have to cut off all aid to Honduras, our government, along with most of the world, is sternly admonishing the army, Congress, courts and presently installed president of Honduras to take him back.

This would make great comedy material, except that it concerns serious concerns of worldwide emergencies. In June, 2008, riots in Honduras and neighboring countries protested hunger, a problem that is on the increase as the world suffers from the greedy manipulations of deregulated financial industry in the U.S.

Concerned humanitarians of the world still look on the security of a country as the well-being of its people. The Guardian features one expression of those humanitarian aims.

We condemn the military coup and kidnapping of the democratically elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya. On Sunday 28 June, President Manuel Zelaya Rosales was kidnapped, removed from his home by force, rendered incommunicado for several hours and expelled from his country. Soldiers also seized Honduran foreign minister, Patricia Rodas, and the ambassadors of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The military and coup conspirators are trying to suppress popular demonstrations and news by blanket military presence, curfews and intimidation of reporters.

President Zelaya was working to free his country from decades of hunger and poverty. This military coup is an illegal attempt to use armed force to overturn the course of democracy and social progress chosen by the Honduran people at the polls. We urge every government in the world to demand the restoration of the democratically elected president and to pledge not to recognise the illegal government put in power by a military coup.
Colin Burgon MP, Ken Livingstone, Dr Francisco Dominguez Venezuela Solidarity Campaign, Tony Woodley Unite, Gerry Doherty TSSA, Matt Wrack FBU, Brian Caton POA

While the U.S. lost the right to represent itself as an example to follow, in the last maladministration, it has the opportunity now to represent our basic decency and get out of the process of making world affairs purely a business.

The public interest has not lost out to profit motive in much of the world. The U.S. can turn that around now, by cutting out support for tyrants and leaders who violate their constitutions and undercut their people.

The visit of Uribe would make a great opportunity for just that. We overlooked the attempts of Uribe to overthrow the constitution of Colombia, along with his regime's brutality. We have violated our nation's principles in seeking good relations with regimes that violate their own people's rights, and their interests. What a good time to turn that around, by ending our partnership with Uribe and the pretense of a 'war on drugs' that has failed there and throughout the world.

President Obama can depart from the very bad example set by his predecessor by giving our support to people rather than to big business interests. This would be a major advance back into civilization from the atrocities of the previous regime.

Watching Americans

It was another interesting trip to Watching America. President Obama's decisions to not release the torture pictures but to continue the military commission trials got a lot of international coverage. So did the sorry state of the Republican Party in the US. The article that I found most interesting, however, had to do with the Department of Homeland Security.

Written by Matthew Harwood for the Comment Is Free section of the Guardian, the article points to the recent flap over reports prepared by DHS which seemed to be aimed directly at conservative groups, reports that got those groups' knickers in such a twist that DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano immediately withdrew the reports.

The 11-page "Domestic Extremism Lexicon" defines potential domestic terrorism threats facing the United States. Produced by DHS's office of intelligence and analysis, it's purpose was to define key terms and extremist groups. Conservative websites were apoplectic about how "rightwing extremism" was described:

"A movement of rightwing groups or individual who can be broadly divided into those who are primarily hate-oriented, and those who are mainly antigovernment and reject federal authority in favour of state or local authority. This term also may refer to rightwing extremist movements that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration."

Though retracted within hours of its release and recalled from state and local law enforcement partners, the lexicon has nevertheless drawn the ire of rightwing groups, who see it as yet another example of the Obama administration equating anti-immigration and anti-abortion groups with terrorism. ...

It's true that the DHS lexicon does include anti-abortion activists who use violence against abortion doctors and clinics in its list of extremists. But the lexicon also includes typically leftwing movements associated with animal rights, the environment and anarchism, among others. The truth is that both the left and the right have reason to be suspicious of the US government's surveillance programmes. [Emphasis added]

One of the basic truths about government is that once it has assumed powers, it is damned near impossible to wrest those powers back, no matter which party is in control. The Bush administration rolled back all sorts of constitutional guarantees, among them the right to be secure in one's home, and the right to free speech and assembly. Spying on US citizens at home and abroad was expanded. That was the status quo when President Obama entered office, and the fact that the DHS and other government agencies continue those practices, with or without the explicit approval of the White House, is not only shameful, it is profoundly worrisome as Mr. Harwood points out:

DHS has become an albatross of surveillance choking American necks. Internal documents such as the lexicon and the rightwing extremism report, combined with previous examples of DHS helping state fusion centres watch over antiwar protesters under the Bush administration, show that DHS is not only actively undermining American civil liberties but is also politicised by whichever party is running the country. This isn't a left-right issue, it's an American issue. [Emphasis added]

Retracting those reports is not going to solve anything as long as the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice continue their open disregard for the Constitution when it comes to the basic freedoms under which this democracy has operated. It's time to rein in the domestic spying.

Homeland Security

In a wonderful eventuality, Britain has protected itself from hate mongers. This is something I would love to see more of, and this country might consider acting to limit undesirables of this ilk for our enhanced security. Could we start with ex-Darth Cheney, maybe?

Thanks to the Rude Pundit for this post.

In Brief: Michael Savage: New Winner of the Easiest Takedown in History:
Great Britain banned, among others, radio host and walking self-parody Michael Savage from entering the UK because he is someone who is "fostering extremism or hate."

Savage, who just last week said of illegal immigrants from Mexico, "[T]hey are a perfect mule -- perfect mules for bringing this virus into America," and that swine flu was cooked up by Islamic radicals to test the borders, is considering suing the British official who made the announcement. Savage, who once wished AIDS on a caller and says repeatedly that homosexuality is a perversion, is upset because the list of people banned from Britain includes him alongside Fred "God Hates Fags" Phelps and believes he is being defamed.

In an interview, British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith (who was so hot when she was on Charlie's Angels) said, "If people have so clearly overstepped the mark in terms of the way not just that they are talking but the sort of attitudes that they are expressing to the extent that we think that this is likely to cause or have the potential to cause violence or inter-community tension in this country, then actually I think the right thing is not to let them into the country in the first place. Not to open the stable door then try to close it later."

That's something you think that Savage would respect since, on page 122 of his 2004 book The Savage Nation, he spittles: "And I'll tell you something else. 'It's our borders, stupid.' If America is going to survive...we must defend our borders from those who come to exploit our nation or we're cooked. We're finished...In the spirit of nationalism...we must defend our borders against the dregs of society."

Which is just what Britain did, almost like they were advised by Michael Savage.

When we continually discover the bad influence of haters who broadcast their thoughts to weakminded listeners, who are inclined to act against our society, it isn't bad planning to limit that influence. Of course, making a license to broadcast subject to limitations that demand some taste would be a good start.

The purveyors of violence by their language and their injunctions to save our society from other types should not be spreading their evil. We have freedom of speech, but not freedom to do harm. We won't be exiling the hatemongers, but there are potential remedies. If advertisers see them as a boost to earnings, those advertisers should be fined when they influence their sickest listeners to strike out at their victims.

Escalating War

Not Afghanistan, Mexico. Recently President Calderon sent in the army to carry on a fight that has totally gotten beyond the capacity of police to manage. For the first time, a bombing occurred, two blocks from the police station in Mexico City

No group has claimed responsibility for the bombing, which sent shock waves through the heart of the Mexican capital. But officials on the case have said they are investigating whether it could be the work of drug cartels reeling from a crackdown by President Felipe Calderon. Leftist guerrilla groups also have a history of bombing in Mexico, but they have normally hit political or commercial buildings at night without leaving casualties.

If drug gangs are proven to be behind the blast, it would show a worrying escalation in the battle between organized crime and the government. Since Jan. 1, drug cartel gunmen armed with huge arsenals of automatic rifles and grenade launchers have slain more than 30 police, soldiers and judges in ambushes and assassinations. The attacks come as Calderon has made record drug busts, sent 25,000 police and soldiers against the gangs, and extradited alleged kingpins to the United States.

While the Mexican crime families do not have a history of using bombs, explosive devices used to be a favored tactic of their associates in Colombia. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Medellin cartel responded to a government crackdown with bombs on street corners, cars and even one passenger jet, killing hundreds. Colombian gangsters have long been selling cocaine to the Mexican cartels, who smuggle it into the United States. "The cartels could be turning to this Colombian tactic of using terror to pressure the government to back off," said Mexican drug expert Jorge Chabat. "They may be trying to raise the political cost for Calderon of carrying out his campaign."

Police say the man killed in the blast was probably himself carrying the bomb because the device went off about a three feet from the ground, blowing out surrounding car windows but not causing a crater. "The man completely lost his hand. He surely did this when he was handling the explosive device," Mexico City Police Chief Joel Ortega told reporters.

The occupation by army forces has been protested in Ciudad Juarez, Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa by hundreds of people blocking the bridges and stopping traffic. Of course, murders have been constant, gruesome beheadings among them.

The drug wars are supported by the U.S., and recently that war was condemned by a panel formed by Latin American governments alarmed at the violence.

As drug violence spirals out of control in Mexico, a commission led by three former Latin American heads of state blasted the U.S.-led drug war as a failure that is pushing Latin American societies to the breaking point.

"The available evidence indicates that the war on drugs is a failed war," said former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, in a conference call with reporters from Rio de Janeiro. "We have to move from this approach to another one."

The commission, headed by Mr. Cardoso and former presidents Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and César Gaviria of Colombia, says Latin American governments as well as the U.S. must break what they say is a policy "taboo" and re-examine U.S.-inspired antidrugs efforts. The panel recommends that governments consider measures including decriminalizing the use of marijuana.

Such sanity seems far removed from any action that our government took over the previous eight years. With a large community still holding control of seats in Congress who would never let sanity break out, my optimism is somewhat constrained. Yes, that's unusual for me. This is a growing situation on the border of the U.S. that were we not in over our ears in the Middle East, our government might provide some help with. As it is, I think we will give our Latin American neighbors more grounds to despair of us.

For now, I will repeat a friend's advice when I left her home on Padre Island for a trip to the Big Bend area, planning to make a quick trip over into Mexico. Her advice: Go in a rural area, stay away from the big cities, only go by day. I had a lovely visit and went on my way to Alpine, where I was delighted to see the Marfa lights. No hallucinogens involved, just forget you thought that.

Border Fence Sells Faulty Theory

Your homeland security continues to leak from all sorts of holes and now it's about giving big grants to low-crime areas. The counties along the border have some urban areas and some vast empty spaces. Under the policy of the maladministration now kicked out, the government has sent them equal amounts to fight border crime.

If this makes no sense to you, welcome to the club. Increasingly, the occupied White House past shows that 'sense' is not the sort of virtue it can appreciate. Forging on into nonsensical, the main concept behind many of its operations seems to be affronting rationality.

The first batch of the $16.2 million awarded, more than $5 million, was given in 2005 to a loose coalition of sheriffs who split the take evenly, regardless of crime rates. The rest was given out in grants to several counties. And several million dollars more are in the pipeline.

Presidio County, whose sheriff and four deputies cover 3,856 square miles of West Texas and protect about 1,000 people, received $336,875 to fight the one crime, an aggravated assault, that occurred in the county in 2006.

But in the Rio Grande Valley’s urban Hidalgo County, across the river from the sites of several deadly Mexican shootouts, got about the same amount, spread over three years, for its more than 250 deputies to fight 7,160 violent crimes.

"I expressed my displeasure at the time," Sheriff Lupe Trevino said. "But that’s the way it goes. We used the money the best way we could, and you do what you have to."

The Associated Press obtained a county-by-county breakdown of state spending on border crime in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

According to spending records, several departments, including Presidio County, bought night-vision goggles, radar units and radios, along with heavy-duty four-wheel-drive trucks and other off-road vehicles. They put some money in their overtime budgets.

Hudspeth County, with a population of about 3,300 and 41 crimes in 2006, spent $22,300 on a Ford Mustang GT outfitted as a police car.

Misplaced resources?

The sheriffs say they need the money to match the equipment and budgets of larger departments in Texas. The state says that the money will be used to prevent crimes and that even trespassing and vandalism in sleepy counties could be signs of Mexican organized crime seeping across the Rio Grande.

But critics say some of that money was misdirected.

"This shouldn’t be border socialism," said Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense in Washington. "It has to be based on need."

Gotta love Mr. Ellis' definition of socialism. The last I heard, socialism to the wingers was about giving on the basis of need, not of earnings. Sorry, there I go being rational, not the sort of concept that rates with the wingnuts.

Any possible relationship between fighting crime and taxpayer funds has been finally obliterated by this latest fillip. The sheriffs' offices can join Wall Street's CEOs and go to the spa if they don't have those pesky drug wars acting out in their streets.

It's all a mockery to the wingers. They talk the talk about fiscal responsibility, but they can't walk the walk since they appear to have not the slightest idea what it means. A road map might be a good use of the funds, so the DHS could figure out where the border goes through populated areas ... oh, why make sense now? We have a new President, that's going to be his job.

Circular Reasoning Enables Hamas

This morning, the scene is exactly what was inevitable for that occupied White House desperately seeking terrorism. Thousands of civilians are dying from Israel's attacks on the criminally incarcerated population of Gaza. The blame that our cretin in chief assigns is thrown on Hamas.

While no one approves of the constant barrage of Israel by crude rocketry that Hamas has entered into, it is obvious that responding with unbalanced, outlandish, uninhibited attacks on the homegrown insurgency is hardly going to accomplish anything but civilian casualties, outraging the occupied territories. The next seventeen days are full of opportunities for the war criminals to make deeper inroads into what's left of respect for this country by ignoring humane considerations.

In his weekly radio address President George W Bush said Hamas was responsible for the latest violence and rejected any unilateral ceasefire that he said would allow Hamas to continue to fire on Israel.

He added that no peace deal would be acceptable without tougher action to prevent Hamas and other groups from receiving weapons.

"There must be monitoring mechanisms in place to help ensure the smuggling of weapons to terrorist groups in Gaza comes to an end," he said.

"I urge all parties to pressure Hamas to turn away from terror and to support legitimate Palestinian leaders working for peace," Mr Bush added.

Those bombardments of the Gaza populace are just not a good peace move, an aspect of his GWOT that has evaded the worst president ever. As usual, his statements are of a piece with the enlistment efforts of Hamas and other groups that oppose U.S. domination and violence. That does seem to be the aim of all their efforts.

As I observed during my attendance at the Holy Land Foundation trial in federal court in Dallas, our winger Department of Justice equates Israel's fight against Hamas with our own 'homeland security' needs. It is this conviction that an internal struggle in Israel is part of the occupied White House's 'mission' that leads to the outrageous use of injustice, and violence, to promote peace, a practice that is self-evidently contradictory to our real needs.

The willful provocations the executive branch regularly provides have been a huge boost to all our opponents, and are much appreciated by them. The circularity factor, revealing their malice toward all, in turn gives more opportunities for throwing taxpayers' money away in the fight against what they are occasioning. A perfect fit, the purveyors of violence find their purpose in combat against their own effects.

This can only end when rational behavior by functional adults is restored in our country's government.

Mental Incompetence

Watching the spectacle of the worst administration ever in the throes of leaving, I have to agree with the First Lady, and Condi Rice, that we will appreciate the cretin in chief more when he's gone. In fact, that condition cannot begin too soon.

Increasingly, the sheer inability to govern anything becomes horribly evident.

US President George W. Bush's top women advisers -- wife Laura and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- fought back Sunday against critics who say his presidency was one of the worst ever.

"It's ridiculous," Rice told CBS in an interview recorded Monday. "Generations pretty soon are going to start to thank this president for what he's done. This generation will."

Both Rice and Laura Bush assailed the news media, with the top diplomat repeatedly dismissing "today's headlines" as meaningless to the task of governing and the first lady bluntly calling reporters unfair to her husband.

"Do I think the press is fair? No, absolutely not," Laura Bush told Fox News Channel in an interview also taped Monday and broadcast while the president was set to usher in 2009 on his Texas ranch near this tiny town.

Asked about critics who say her husband's presidency was a failure, Laura Bush replied: "Well, I know it's not. And so I don't really feel like I need to respond to people that view it that way.

"And I think history will judge and we'll see later," she said.
(snip)
Rice defended Bush's Middle East policies, notably the talks revived in November 2007 at a conference in Annapolis, Maryland -- negotiations which failed to yield a hoped-for agreement before 2009 and have yet to resolve any of the core issues.

We don't need to wait, we see the greatness already. This is the absolute bottom, and there is no direction to go except up.

There is a real advantage in having seen the occupied White House commit one disaster after another, indeed. We have material enough for several textbooks on the way to destroy a prosperous, well-constructed, solidly performing country. We have the ultimate proof of George Santayana's adage that "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

The price for all these great benefits is one that the country will be paying, and suffering from, for some time to come.

Does anyone else occasionally remember the parents' excuse for avoiding helping their son, in "Rebel Without A Cause"? They often looked at a totally messed up household and trilled "We'll all look back on this in ten years and laugh." That has stayed with me, and the dysfunctional executive branch seems to have adopted it as their creed lately.

The redemption of the constant stumblings has been too hard to face. What we have leaving the highest offices is a whole segment of our government that is in shock, and unable to face the reality of how complete a failure they have brought about. The entire ideology they held to has been irrevocably disproved. That ideology is the one on which they were going to base their foundation, the Freedom Institute, at SMU. How daunting it would be to face that your future plans had been completely shown up as absurd. They are choosing the opposite course, to refuse to accept the obvious.

The constant revisions, the claim that invading Iraq was caused by Clinton's administration, the imitation of a triumph that infuriated an Iraqi news reporter to the point of pitching his shoes at him, the wincing smirk, these are just part of mounting evidence that the departing national catastrophe has lost all hold on reality. This happens in events so stunning that a person can't deal with them. Treatment will be difficult, but I am confident it will be necessary make life bearable around this psychotic cabal.

The treatment that the government will need is real, thorough, revision, especially the rooting out of the remaining ideologists the psychotic administration just past has installed where the nation's business can be damaged. Our actual 'homeland security' depends on eliminating the remnants of the past executive branch that has so eminently served the country only in showing what really, really doesn't work.

Like Diane - and as she was cited by Glenn Greenwald in his treatise on crime and punishment - I look forward to the prosecution of the crimes against the U.S. that have run rampant for eight years now. Without consequences, crime is encouraged and will repeat itself. The leftover criminals in this White House, that President Ford pardoned for crimes under Nixon, are the proof that crime must be punished to be prevented from recurring.

As a nation we need to contemplate the lessons of this severe distress the country suffers from the emotional instability of its leadership. It might be good to establish minimum standards of mental competence for the office of president. If that can be accomplished, we will indeed have a legacy of this White House that is worth having.

Another gem of observation that the departing maladministration has proved is this from Aldous Huxley: At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.

I would guess Huxley underestimated the percentage, perhaps because he lived before the full gamut of what he feared was in office from 2001 to 2009.

Twenty-two more days.

Crimes Have Been Committed

You may feel the beginnings of relief that we are emerging from eight years of disaster in 27 days. The occupied White House is scrambling around trying to save us all retrospectively. Giving interviews has suddenly become the modus vivendi of the most secretive executive branch there has ever been. Inevitably, in order to justify their crimes, the personnel are busily rewriting history.

Today the New York Times editorial writer gagged on the line being fed to the media by the Dark Side itself. Admirably, the editorial writer refused to regurgitate lies.

...it must be exhausting to rewrite history as much as Mr. Cheney has done in a series of exit interviews where he has made those comments. It seems as if everything went just great in the Bush years.

The invasion of Iraq was exactly the right thing to do, not an unnecessary war that required misleading Americans. The postinvasion period was not bungled to the point where Americans got shot up by an insurgency that the Bush team failed to see building.

The horrors at Abu Ghraib were not the result of the Pentagon’s decision to authorize abusive and illegal interrogation techniques, which Mr. Cheney endorsed. And only three men were subjected to waterboarding. (Future truth commissions take note.)

In Mr. Cheney’s reality, the crippling budget deficit was caused mainly by fighting two wars and by essential programs like “enhancing the security of our shipping container business.”

Well, no. The Bush team’s program to scan cargo for nuclear materials at air, land and sea ports has been mired in delays, cost overruns and questions about effectiveness. As for the deficit, the Congressional Budget Office has said the Bush-Cheney tax cuts for the wealthy were the biggest reason that the budget went into the red.

Some of Mr. Cheney’s comments were self-serving spin (as when The Washington Times helpfully prodded him to reveal that even though the world might have seen Mr. Bush as insensitive to the casualties of war, Mr. Cheney himself made a “secret” mission to comfort the families of the dead.)

Mr. Cheney was simply dishonest about Mr. Bush’s decision to authorize spying on Americans’ international calls without a warrant. He claimed the White House kept the Democratic and Republican Congressional leadership fully briefed on the program starting in late 2001. He said he personally ran a meeting at which “they were unanimous, Republican and Democrat alike” that the program was essential and did not require further Congressional involvement.

But in a July 17, 2003, letter to Mr. Cheney, Senator John Rockefeller IV, then vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he wanted to “reiterate” the concerns he expressed in “the meeting today.” He said “the activities we discussed raise profound oversight issues” and created “concern regarding the direction the Administration is moving with regard to security, technology and surveillance.”

The maladministration can't tell the truth now anymore than it could when it needed public support to make an illegal war. The truth doesn't serve its purposes, because it would be an admission of guilt.

The legal liability for its crimes is not going to be avoided by lies. The line that Dana Perino spouted at a White House press secretaries panel last week - that the White House got their attorneys to manufacture an opinion that torture isn't torture so it all just went away - won't wash. We are not fooled. The executive branch has committed real, actionable, crimes. Telling lies now doesn't erase eight years of crimes against the country.

Cheney and his puppets have themselves deluded, but the rest of us aren't buying what they're selling. The eight years just passed were full of criminal malfeasance, and they need to be punished for the immense damage done to this country. Twenty-seven days is all that we have left to suffer, and the war criminals are very afraid.

Reviving Justice

The scandals that are still unwinding at the 'Justice' Department have made quite an impression on those who will be needing to govern the country. At the Holy Land Foundation trial, I have watched in horror as this government was represented by attorneys telling jurors to rely on their memories rather than evidence. The politicization of the department has obviously resulted in a personnel problem.

The incoming administration is wasting no time turning around the ruination that has been inflicted by lawbreakers on our justice system.

Political considerations affected every crevice of the department during the Bush years, from the summer intern hiring program to the dispensing of legal advice about detainee interrogations, according to reports by the inspector general and testimony from bipartisan former DOJ officials at congressional hearings.

Although retired federal judge Michael B. Mukasey, who took charge of the department in the winter, has drawn praise for limiting contacts between White House officials and prosecutors, and for firmly rejecting the role of politics in law enforcement, restoring public confidence in the department's law enforcement actions will be central, lawmakers and former government officials say.
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"The infusion of politics into the Justice Department and an abdication of responsibility by its leaders have dealt a severe blow," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), the panel's ranking Republican, wrote in an opinion piece last month. "Great damage has been done to the credibility and effectiveness of the Justice Department."
(snip)
Another critical, early judgment must be made about how to allocate scarce resources without shortchanging national security. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, more than 7 percent of the department's budget shifted to terrorism, away from drug trafficking, organized crime and white-collar misdeeds, according to an analysis by the Government Accountability Office.

The terrorism trials which have all ended in defeat for the DoJ will soon come to a conclusion in Dallas, with a jury that has received easily the most mind-boggling prosecutorial admonition I have ever seen. Hopefully they are not the halfwits the government addressed itself toward. It would be a very good thing if the administration returns the Department to the work of ending crime instead of witchhunting.

The country will be better served by simple competence in staffing the DoJ. We hope that a fine mind like President Obama's will serve the country well, and give us actual excellence in the positions in which public service is needed once again.

****************************************************************

Another piece of the article raises that spectre of nonpartisan executive decision makingthe right wing is wishing for.

"It would not be beneficial to spend a lot of time calling people up to Congress or in front of grand juries," Litt said. "It would really spend a lot of the bipartisan capital Obama managed to build up."

Obama did not win with bipartisan votes, and should not give over to the wishes of those who fought, very dirty, to keep eight years of disasters going in this country.

I agree with Avedon Carol, what the Republicans believe in is indefensible. It has ruined our justice system, and needs to be stopped right now.

U.S. Terrorism Case: Low Expectations

Yesterday I spent many hours at the closing moments of the Holy Land Foundation trial in Dallas, an exercise in the occupied White House trying to convince twelve jurors from Dallas that Holy Land Foundation was supporting terrorism. specific charges were brought against Mufid Abdulqader, Abdulrahman Odeh and Mohammed El-Mezain. As posted previously, this is part of an ongoing effort by this government to prosecute charities for support of terrorism, and effort which has failed in previous cases filed.

I missed Monday, thankfully, a day in which the prosecution played about 3.5 hours of videotapes of undetermined date showing performances of dances and skits which protest against the Israeli occupation. Prosecutor Jonas made the statement, quoted by the Dallas Morning News report, that Holy Land Foundation was making widows and orphans rather than supporting them.

Throughout the trial, I have seen the prosecution equate terrorism - that America is supposed to fear, and use its resources to combat - with anti-Israel feelings. Defense witnesses have been brought in to elucidate the jury about the Middle East conflict and the prevalence of standard songs, dances and skits in festivals where nationalism is invoked for Palestine.

All of us are learning a great deal about the conditions in Palestine, where three quarters of the population live on less than $2 a day, and unemployment has reached 33%. In 1995 Hamas was designated a terrorist organization, and the Holy Land Foundation asked for guidance on how to support charitable activities in the Middle East without violating U.S. law. HLF made overtures to the Treasury and Department of State, and the Israeli government, to get solid guidelines. They got mixed messages, and little guidance.

We have also learned that in the predominantly Muslim Middle East, zakat committees carry out a lot of the charitable organization, representing the needy and delivering aid. The word zakat refers to one of the five pillars of Islam, and refers to the practice of giving 2.5% annually for the poor, which Muslims regard as basic religious observance.

A crucial contention of our government is that the donations to zakat committees from HLF constitute support of terrorism. The prosecution brought in unidentified Israeli agents, one of them an intelligence specialist "Avi" who insisted that the zakat committees are controlled by Hamas. As the defense pointed out in closing statements, this unknown quantity without credentials insisted that it was common knowledge that Hamas controls the zakat committees, that he was an expert who could "smell" out Hamas. The defense witness, former Consul General in Israel Abington, with documented credentials that include daily briefings from the U.S., dealt with zakat committees constantly during his several tenures representing the U.S. and was given free rein to do so from our government. He had been enjoined from ever dealing with Hamas.

One of the government's witnesses, McBrien, former official in the terrorism department of Treasury, was questioned about what organizations were part of the designated terrorist network, and what information should be relied on by charities to make sure that charitable donations wouldn't be confused with support of terrorism. He assured the jury that the list in existence wasn't to be taken as the only source, that any groups could be included and that the government didn't need to give specific names. Text he quoted from the Treasury Department documents sent to advise HLF that they were liable to charges of supporting terrorism if they supported listed groups with donations. One section, read aloud in court, stated that the listed groups were not the only ones that were involved, and the charity was responsible for terrorism support if they chose other, wrong, groups and the government thought they, too, were improper recipients.

As the defense established in cross-questioning in trial, and reiterated yesterday, the section that McBrien insisted made HLF responsible for its choice of certain zakat committees was inserted after HLF had disbanded, in 2001. The prosecution yesterday in closing, by attorney Jacks, countered that ... the jury should rely on its own memory. Stating that he had heard so many details from the defense that he'd "stopped trying to write it down", Jacks said he didn't believe much of the defense had ever been presented, and "if you don't recall, you're probably right". He continued to insist that just because the designation of Hamas as terrorist hadn't happened until after proven support by HLF, it was like saying that having dealt drugs for years was only illegal after the government declared it illegal.

I'm serious.

Jacks entered a prosecution wrap-up that condemned Hamas for interfering with the Oslo peace accord, and HLF members for expressing what was construed as hatred for the Israeli occupiers. He claimed that freedom of speech did not apply, as their speech showed a state of mind. The U.S., Jacks went on, wants peace in the world and that is our general nature. "Other countries use that to blame the U.S. and say 'that's why we're opposed to you'", said Jacks. I walked out shortly after he claimed that no one was better able to tell the jury about zakat committees than 'Avi' because as an Israeli security agent "that's his job."

The prosecution attorney told the twelve citizens chosen to represent the U.S. in deciding whether Muslim charity constitutes terrorist support, that juries of citizens decide matters like this all the time, and that defense reminders of the seriousness of the matter under consideration should be passed over.

Much of the evidence was gained by FISA wiretapping, which produced over almost ten years of 24 hours a day, mountains of tapes and transcripts. As the defense pointed out yesterday, from all that taxpayer supported effort the government introduced into evidence at trial some few skimpy pages that it insists support its case against those men it has charged with intentionally using the charity as a front to encourage and abet Hamas in terrorism.

It is impossible without making this unmanageable as a post to go into the amount of evidence I sat through, and I have definitely come out of the trial disgusted with the government case. The prosecution made its case to a jury yesterday that I felt had been insulted by them. The simple-minded claim that evidence presented by defense attorneys was just too much to register, that their memories should be relied on instead, reduces a jury to applause generators who vote for the Idol of the moment because they like a presentation best.

The government I saw in action yesterday is a disgrace, and proof positive that the Department of Justice has been badly damaged by the executive branch that has so besmirched this country's good name. If we can't be represented by dignified, intellectually capable, attorneys in a trial concerning terrorist activities, we are horribly betrayed.

*********************************************

Incidentally, the local coverage was this:

Defense attorneys stressed the charity's humanitarian work and lambasted the government's case as prejudiced.

What I heard was really something different, and went into great detail on the ways evidence worked against the government's case.

Return Of The Unitard

As the term of the 43rd President of the United States finally winds down, George W. Bush has managed yet another 'surprise!' for Congress: he's still playing around with his pet goat, the theory of the Unitary President. This time, however, he's gone beyond his favorite tactic, the signing statement. Now, he's taking the position that a bill he signed into law will not be enforced because it is a constitutional infringement on his executive powers. The NY Times has the story (albeit buried, according to the NYT website, on page A16 of the print edition):

The Bush administration has informed Congress that it is bypassing a law intended to forbid political interference with reports to lawmakers by the Department of Homeland Security.

The August 2007 law requires the agency’s chief privacy officer to report each year about Homeland Security activities that affect privacy, and requires that the reports be submitted directly to Congress “without any prior comment or amendment” by superiors at the department or the White House.

But newly disclosed documents show that the Justice Department issued a legal opinion last January questioning the basis for that restriction, and that Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, later advised Congress that the administration would not “apply this provision strictly” because it infringed on the president’s powers. [Emphasis added]

The Chief Privacy Officer (CPO) is supposed to review Homeland Security's policies for spying on Americans to make certain that those policies do not violate privacy rights guaranteed under the Constitution. The CPO is also required to keep track of complaints filed by citizens for privacy violations. Then, he is supposed to report directly to Congress without any interference by any of his "bosses" at DHS and the White House. In other words, this officer is supposed to be beyond politics, much as each executive agency's Inspector General is supposed to be.

Well, the Bush Administration is not having any of this, and summoned a legal opinion from the Department of Justice for cover. [Note: that opinion is published here in pdf format.] DOJ happily complied and gave the White House the opinion it wanted: the law is an intrusion on executive authority.

The NYT article makes it clear that the administration notified some members of Congress of its position on the issue a while back, and nobody that I know of quacked back until the Times discovered the ploy and began asking questions. Sen. Arlen Specter (R. Penn.), happily responded:

Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, called the move “unconstitutional.” He said Mr. Bush should have vetoed the bill if he did not like the provision, and compared the situation to Mr. Bush’s frequent use of signing statements to reserve a right to bypass newly enacted laws.

“This is a dictatorial, after-the-fact pronouncement by him in line with a lot of other cherry-picking he’s done on the signing statements,” Mr. Specter said in a telephone interview. He added, “To put it differently, I don’t like it worth a damn.”

Now, that's the proper response except for the fact that it was delivered by Old Mr. Reliable who can be counted on to complain loudly just before he caves in to whatever the White House wants. I'm sure the fact that in just three months the next president might very well be a Democrat, and therefore not to be trusted with such awesome authority, has also registered with Sen. Specter.

So the dictatorship will continue right up until January 20, 2009, and all the secrets so assiduously hoarded will stay safely away from the light of day.

87 days.

Aw, What A Shame!

Here it is, 9/11, and we still don't have a real fence along the border with Mexico to provide us with security from those pesky brown terrorists, and it's all the Democrats fault. From today's Washington Post:

The Bush administration is unlikely to complete 670 miles of border fence by year-end as required by Congress because of surging construction costs and problems acquiring private land along the border with Mexico, Homeland Security Department officials acknowledged yesterday.

The department had completed 344 miles of fencing as of Aug. 29, about half its goal, congressional investigators reported. It has yet to acquire 320 parcels of land because of delayed court proceedings and disputes with private owners, mostly in Texas, officials said.

Administration officials also contended that they are running out of money. Costs for vehicle barriers have climbed 40 percent since February, to $2.8 million a mile, and 75 percent for pedestrian fencing, to $7.5 million a mile. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials did not provide details but said the $3.5 billion Secure Border Initiative faces a $400 million cost overrun.

Like we didn't see this coming?

But here's the answer to the problems which have emerged from building a 670 mile wall (actually, two walls: one to stop cars, one to stop pedestrians): throw more money into the project's budget. That way we can still have our state-of-the-art barricade replete with "tower-mounted sensors, surveillance equipment and other technology on the border under the department's 'virtual fence' initiative."

And if the 110th Congress refuses? Well, then:

...officials this week sought to put the burden of future delays on the Democratic-led Congress, which they say must approve more money for the project.

Like we didn't see this coming, either.

Maybe somebody should remind the current administration of something Robert Frost learned decades ago: "Something there is that does not love a fence."

Morons.

When Government Works

For the most part, yesterday's 5.4 earthquake here in Southern California provided residents with an inconvenience, not a tragedy. Located in an urban area, the moderate earthquake could have caused substantial damage, but it didn't. We can thank government for that. Here's what the Los Angeles Time pointed out:

As aftershocks continued to reverberate, officials inspected airports, freeways and buildings, and reported little damage from the quake, which occurred at 11:42 a.m. and was the first significant temblor in more than a decade to be centered in an urban area of California. The biggest strains were felt in phone and Internet systems, which buckled due to overwhelming demand in the minutes after the jolt.

The quake struck hardest in an area of San Bernardino County that has seen massive growth in population and housing in the last decade. That meant that the buildings shaken the hardest were mostly built under California's strictest building codes, updated in 1997 in response to the 6.7 Northridge quake of 1994. That kept damage to a minimum. ...

"It's the best possible location," said Lucy Jones, chief scientist for the Multi-Hazards Initiative of the U.S. Geological Survey. "If this had happened in San Bernardino [city], where there are over 200 unreinforced masonry buildings, we would have had a lot of downed buildings."

Jones said big earthquakes often lead to an upgrade in building codes. For instance, she said, unreinforced masonry was outlawed in California in a 1935 code, adopted in the aftermath of the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. The 1997 code, adopted after Northridge, banned brittle steel and mandated that builders use a stronger welding material to join steel parts. [Emphasis added]

Now, when the "big one" hits Southern California (the prediction is one with a magnitude 7.8 occurring along the San Andreas fault), we won't be so lucky, especially with respect to damage. Knowing that, local authorities hold regular emergency drills so that the human devastation can be minimized. One such drill is scheduled for this November and involves a consortium of cities and services.

All of this shows why Grover Norquist was wrong, deadly wrong, with his ideal of shrinking government until it fits in a bathtub and then drowning it. When government does what it is supposed to do, real security for citizens is enhanced.

The Usual Cutthroats

As the Homeland Security Chief tries to throw that ludicrous fence across border segments that aren't owned by friends of the occupied White House, some locals, and even some law enforcement officials, have gained the attention of their representatives. By waiving considerations of environmental and safety measures, Chertoff has evidently scared some of those supposed to enforce the laws.

The Supremes may be required to go on record as to whether they have any intention of retaining that pesky constitution that supposedly is the basis of our system of laws. It would be refreshing, but hardly expected, if the KKKourt does show a reborn respect for the laws it has been so fast reshaping to serve the business community rather than the public.

The U.S. Supreme Court may get a chance to join the fractious debate over building fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border.

A legal challenge by two environmental groups seeking to limit enhanced Department of Homeland Security powers to suspend more than 30 laws to build the fence is gathering support in Congress.

But at least one constitutional expert said that although the legal challenge underscores the broad array of powers Congress has delegated to Homeland Security, "environmentalists face an uphill battle."

"There is a legitimate legal gripe here, in that there are serious questions about how much power Congress can delegate to other branches of government," said Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law authority at George Washington University Law School.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced the waiver of about three dozen environmental laws to expedite construction of the border fence in Texas and Arizona on April 1.

Fourteen House Democrats, including Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and seven other committee chairmen then said they would file friend-of-the-court briefs asking the Supreme Court to take up the lawsuit on whether the department had overstepped constitutional limits.

"This blanket waiver of laws like the Clean Air Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act is a clear and disturbing abuse of the secretary's discretion," said U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce committee. "Congress' efforts to seek justification for this waiver from DHS have been stonewalled, which leads me to believe none exists."

U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Dallas, disagrees, saying continued illegal immigration and violence is a greater "risk to good conservation policies."
(snip)
Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman D-N.M., sent letters asking Mr. Chertoff and Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to justify the waivers.

Environmental concerns may not have the force that has been required to make our existing laws weigh with the KKKourt. The threat of new, more definitive, legislation might be more important. Public outrage would also be a help.

Cuts in the fence have as predicted been a mockery of it. The immigrants who breach it are not going to be stopped by this flimsy barrier.

Guzman, who has worked in the area for nearly a decade, said agents have found holes cut with acetylene torches, hacksaws and even plasma torches — a high-powered tool that uses inert gas or condensed air to quickly cut through steel and other dense metals.

"We see it once or twice a week," Guzman said of the holes along the 1.5-mile stretch of fencing about 80 miles west of El Paso.

The border fence has been a canard from its inception. Using it to overthrow our legal system may not be as easy as Chertoff seems to think.

The Fence

The Department of Homeland Security continues the building of a 600+ mile wall along the US-Mexican border. Although some property owners in Arizona and Texas are fighting the fence cutting across their land, the project continues, even in the face of law suits.

In fact, on Tuesday the DHS head, Michael Chertoff, announced that he was waiving environmental federal and state environmental laws, which apparently he can do so that the fence can be completed by the end of the year, according to an article in yesterday's Los Angeles Times.

In an aggressive move to finish 670 miles of barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border by the end of the year, the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday announced plans to waive federal and state environmental laws.

The two waivers, which were approved by Congress, will allow Homeland Security to slash through a thicket of more than 30 environmental and cultural laws to speed construction. ...

Critics, however, said the waivers were intended to sidestep growing and unexpectedly fierce opposition -- especially in Arizona and in Texas, where concerns have been raised about endangered species and fragile ecosystems along the Rio Grande.

"The Bush administration's latest waiver of environmental and other federal laws threatens the livelihoods and ecology of the entire U.S.-Mexico border region," said Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope. "Secretary Chertoff chose to bypass stakeholders and push through this unpopular project on April Fool's Day. We don't think the destruction of the borderlands region is a laughing matter." ...

Homeland Security has completed about 300 miles of pedestrian and vehicle barriers. An additional 370 miles remain to be built, along with all-weather roads, cameras, lighting and other infrastructure projects. But much of that fencing -- along a 470-mile span stretching from Texas to California -- has been held up by federal, state and local regulations, officials said.

Until Tuesday, the department had given few hints that waivers would be used. Homeland Security had followed the environmental impact statement process, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act. The public was allowed to comment on the draft environmental impact statements and assessments. Some environmental groups said they were awaiting the final reports when Chertoff made the announcement. {Emphasis added}

As nasty as the surprise announcement by Mr. Chertoff was, it didn't push my outrage meter quite as high as the news that he was issuing that waiver with congressional approval. I guess I should have expected it, what with the Republican majority and all.

Wait...

Now I'm really steamed.

Dark Skin Looks Illegal

Happy Kwanzaa. Today, FAIR, a group that promotes expulsion of undocumented workers, will release a report that claims costs of services are underestimated, and benefits are overestimated. Something tells me their 'statistics' will be as accurate as those the tobacco lobbyists in Texas used to fight a recent tax on cigarettes, which have just been refuted by actual returns.

Wonderful world view indeed, that designates late-comers to this country as 'illegals'. I will repeat what I said on Eschaton discussing this issue this morning. We took the land from its native population, without their permission, which makes us all illegals. The border closing on the southern border eliminates new population that is much closer to the native one than the European immigrants are.

And as GWPDA noted, much of the population growth in Arizona is immigrating in from our American northlands, New York and Wisconsin, for instance. The arrivals aren't used to seeing so much brown skin around them, and react with fear.

With this in mind, today's WaPo editorial on Arizona's new anti-immigrant law is jawdropping.

THE NEW ground zero in the debate over illegal immigration is Arizona, where the nation's toughest and potentially most far-reaching crackdown on undocumented workers and their employers is scheduled to take effect Jan. 1. The Arizona law, passed resoundingly by the state legislature after Congress failed to enact immigration reform last summer, penalizes companies that knowingly hire illegal immigrants by suspending their business licenses for up to 10 days; on a second offense, the business license would be revoked -- what Gov. Janet Napolitano (D) has called a corporate "death penalty." Thus the Arizona law may become a test case for how much pain a state is willing to endure, and inflict, in the name of ridding itself of a population that contributes enormously to its economic growth and prosperity.

Illegal immigrants have flocked to Arizona for years to fill jobs that native-born people don't want. While the state's unemployment rate remains low, undocumented employees comprise an estimated 9 to 12 percent of the state's 3 million workers. Companies in agriculture, construction and service industries rely heavily on illegal immigrants, and any successful attempt to drive them out will have economic repercussions that may be severe.

In construction alone, Judith Gans of the University of Arizona has estimated that a 15 percent cut in the state's immigrant workforce would result in direct losses of about 56,000 jobs and some $6.6 billion in economic output. The direct loss to state tax revenue would be approximately $270 million. The study, and others like it, including in Texas, refute the arguments that illegal immigrants are an overall burden on state economies because of the education, health care and other services they require; in fact they contribute heavily to economic growth. [Emphasis added.]

The last statement that 'illegals' contribute to economic growth, is accurate, at least. But that the illegal immigrant community is only taking jobs native born Americans don't want is only partially true. Construction companies that pay less and attract undocumented laborers are putting a very real strain on traditional, high waged, construction companies. Cleaning companies with the same modus operandi have almost completely eliminated traditional, well paid, janitorial staff.

The need to send in officials to raid illegal employees is effort diverted from eliminating abusive employers. A living wage and health care would improve the work environment for all Americans, documented or not. It would also eliminate the need some of our population feels to chuck out people they fear.

Although an attitude toward undocumented Americans that feels they contribute to crime has motivated a lot of the bad feelings toward them, the statistics simply fail to bear out that fear.

Amnesty may be a dirty word to the ignorant, but it would be the wisest solution to our problems with an existing valuable resource.