Tuesday, February 21, 2006

NSA's spying is illegal

Notice the salient sequence of historic events here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitutional_Convention

The Philadelphia Convention (also known as the Constitutional Convention or the Federal Convention) took place from May 25 to September 17, 1787

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution

The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America. It was completed on September 17, 1787, with its adoption by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia,

The U.S. Constitution was completed and adopted on September 17, 1787.

And then the Bill Of Rights was proposed, passed and approved by December of 1791.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution#Amendments

The amendments were proposed by Congress as part of a block of twelve in September 1789. By December 1791 a sufficient number of states had ratified ten of the twelve proposals, and the Bill of Rights became part of the Constitution.

http://www.archives.gov/global-pages/larger-image.html?i=/historical-docs/doc-content/images/bill-of-rights-l.jpg&c=/historical-docs/doc-content/images/bill-of-rights.caption.html

Bill of Rights

Amendment IV

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.

The sequence:

First, the Constitution;

Second, the Bill of Rights.

So that the Bill of Rights amends the Constitution.

That is, everything that is in the Constitution to the contrary is superseded by the Bill of Rights.

And because the Constitution, as amended, is the Supreme law of the Land,

violating the Fourth Amendment is/has been/remains Illegal

UNTIL

or UNLESS

the Fourth Amendment is repealed or restricted by the passage and approval of such subsequent constitutional amendments.

How else would the Originalists look at this issue?

How are they and their conservative siblings not screaming for impeachment?

The data mining of the telcoms' telephony/data switches by the NSA amounts to a massive serial violation of the very idea of the Right to Privacy. The feds have cast the widest imaginable net over every byte of information and then mine it for whatever they want. "Mine" in this case means putting to work the not trivial capabilities of the NSA supercomputers to filter out whatever information of whatever interest. This is a totally indiscriminate intrusion of everybody's right to privacy. And getting a warrant from a judge with the demand for probable cause is impossible. Because there is no probable cause. Because this is a pure fishing expedition. You have to identify your suspects to have probable cause that they'd do something to justify a warrant. And these data-mining expeditions are massive non-specific illegal violations of the Fourth Amendment.

But our BushCo. regime says they are only looking for the bad guys and because they have "unitary executive authority" they are absolved of any illegalities.

How do we know they are looking only for bad guys?

They say, "Trust us."

"Trust us."

We are to trust them because they are looking for terrorists.

I have an acquaintance I see from time to time who I can tell is very politically conservative.

Well, I can tell she is a Bush supporter.

A while back she offered this analysis of the support for her "president".

"Well, you know, it's just like everybody always says,

When people get scared, what do they do?
Run hide behind a Bush!"

She was completely nonplussed when I pointed out to her that it is only in the world of cartoon animation that they hide behind a bush And even then it always proves comically ineffective.

"Surely, you don't intend the Bush supporters to appear as fools, do you?"

"Well, that's what they say and Bush's support proves it."

It does explain a lot.

Even if she doesn't seem to understand the consequences.

I would not expect her to follow the details about the Constitution I present here.

She votes.

The inescapable problem (especially for the originalists) is that the BushCo. regime's illegal wire tapping has been in clear and undeniable violation of the intention of the Founding Fathers in the Fourth Amendment.

When they say, "Trust us", we have to find out why they do not trust the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court? And if they say they can not comply (as they have), then we must doubt their wisdom because any evidence gained through illegal surveillance can not to be used in prosecution of suspects and hence undermines our government's case against these suspected terrorists.

A separate yet underlying question is whether these terrorists pose a sufficient threat to justify abolishing the Right to Privacy, as BushCo. has already done. When I was younger it was the communists who were the bogey man. Now it is the terrorists. I'm supposed to be too afraid to still want a Right to Privacy.

Oh, whenever you see this term "unitary executive authority", it is just a substitute for "monarchy".

Friday, February 17, 2006

Terrorists, WMDs, and whatever happened to those anthrax guys?

Defining attribute of terrorism:
"according to the United States Department of Defense, terrorism is:

"the calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological."

... ... aka the essence of BushWad foreign policy

In terms of promulgating fear and terror the Bush regime are the World Champions. They have been the self-gratifying, pernicious purveyors of bin Laden hysteria.

The history of BushCo. policy and politicizing has been one of constant assault on the public with fear:

Fear of more attacks like September 11, 2001;

Fear of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, in order to stampede the American public (and U.S. Congress) into an illegal war of aggression, which is defined as a war crime.

What did bin Laden ever have? Maybe 10,000 guys?

What was Saddam Hussein? Maybe a tenth rate military midget?

Oh yeah, he was supposed to have those scary weapons, those massively destructive ones.

So scary that we didn't seem to mind invading his country.

So scary that we had to invade his country? (?)

And we were afraid he would hit the United States with a nuclear weapon?

Even if he could get some yellow cake and even if he could turn it into a weapon and even if he could design, build and execute an effective delivery system, what do we think he was going to do with it?

What is Israel, chopped liver?

So Saddam was going to nuke us (Or, for that matter, Israel), right?

We still have ICBMs?

And he doesn't know this?

Fuck, give him a fucking nuke and dare him to use it! What the hell!

Should he have used a nuclear device against any civilian U.S. territory, the international community would have stepped aside and quietly clapped as we vaporized Baghdad.

And we all know the consequences would have been the same if he nuked Tel Aviv.

Good or bad; Fair or Just; For better or worse: I'm not saying ...

But that's the reality that being a Super Power brings. Even to a crackpot, tin-horn bully like Saddam Hussein. Even for him, the very idea was a non-issue, it is so obviously, transparently counter cost-effective; so completely against his own self interests.

Separate and apart from the fact that Osama and Saddam were enemies. Well, now maybe not so much, thank you, Mister Bush.

We used to walk softly and carry a big stick.

America used to be brave enough, strong enough and tough enough to let the enemy take their first shot.

Nowadays, Shrub, Condi, Cheney, Rumsfeld whine about "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" and holler "shock and awe" at the top of their lungs while they fritter away our military capabilities across the planet in some neo-con misguided apocalyptic delusions.

These guys tromp as loudly as possible while whittling our military superiority into toothpicks they then scatter everywhere.

And we are supposed to be afraid of bin Laden's gang and, heaven forbid, what if they got any weapons of mass destruction?

Ever notice that they have to be a zillionth rated military power? (And why aren't we handling these murderers with a lot more James Bond and a lot less G.I. Joe? Are we trying to make them feel important?)

Guess what, we have terrorists and they have weapons of mass destruction and they are in the United States.

Ever heard of Tyler, Texas? Or Noonday? Noonday, Texas? The one in Smith county; Hundred some miles from Dallas. It's just outside of Tyler. Maybe 600 folks or so.

http://www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1562621

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0911FD3E580C708DDDAB0994DB404482

http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=2004_3733385

http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=nd04reynolds

http://www.rickross.com/reference/supremacists/supremacists126.html

http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2003-12-19/pols_naked6.html

http://www.alternet.org/rights/17514/

http://www.altmuslim.com/perm.php?id=1151_0_26_0_C32

http://www.offthekuff.com/mt/archives/003410.html

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2004_05_02_dneiwert_archive.html#108372108971437668

and

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5350.htm

One Mr. William J. Krar had more Weapons of Mass Destruction than Saddam Hussein had.

Well, at a minimum, Krar had more chemical weapons than Saddam had in all of Iraq.

He had them less than three hundred miles from our house in Austin.

Austin, Texas? The only liberal enclave on the blood red state of Texas.

Where would a liberal hater like Krar want to use a sodium cyanide bomb?

Why would Mr. Krar seem a greater danger than Saddam Hussein or bin Laden?

Is it just me?

And when is this Krar guy getting out?

How many more Krars are out there?

Of course it was those PATRIOT act empowered super surveillance systems of the Homeland Security Department that saved the day and caught Mr. Krar, right? All that high-dollar, high-octane whiz-bang security safety stuff pays off! Way to g... ... ...

Wha? No big press conference announcement of the capture of these armed and dangerous terrorists (and their weapons) inside the United States?

What? ... ... It didn't happen that way? They didn't catch him?

Krar mailed incriminating stuff to the wrong address?

With a note inside? That said, "We would hate to have this fall into the wrong hands."

Hmmm ...

Also, please note the casual (next to nil) coverage the otherwise hysterical media has given/gave to significantly graver and more serious threat to American civilian lives.

Krar gets out of prison, hmm, ... he went in in 2004; he got 11 years; he gets out in 2015, at the latest.

Well, who's to say ol' Bill Krar was really such a bad guy anyway? Paul Krugman? Who does Krugman think he is anyway? Well, someone who used to be "Calico Cat" begs to disagree and disparage these insinuations against Citizen Krar.

How many more Krar sympathizer Calico Cats are there out there?

Anthrax, anthrax ... someone was trying to poison prominent liberal icons with anthrax?

Whatever happened to them?

Tuesday, February 7, 2006

Plame Bombshells

i am in an uproar about things that some would call "political".
due to their sensitivities (or aggressive insensitivity?) i post this warning.

if i had a hammer,
i'd hammer in the morning,
i'd hammer in the evening,
all over this Land.
i'd hammer out Danger!
i'd hammer out Warning!

anyway, there's your warning. my thanks to lee hayes and pete seeger.

many are adverse to the inherent drudgery in the consideration of all things "political".
it is easy to understand this sentiment.
we do not feel attracted to considering the machinations of our municipal sanitary sewage treatment systems either.
everybody has some things they find repulsive.
for a great many, our feelings about politics are about the same as our feelings about sewage.
except sewage won't lie to you.

for those kinds of reasons it is not too unreasonable for people to prefer sewage, given the choice.
at least everybody can agree about sewage.

so why do i go there?
well, at the weakest excuse we have: somebody's got to do it.

now about sewage, i trust the experts who are in charge there.
about politics, i fear that we are at too great a risk to trust the people who do go there in general and the people currently in charge are lying dangerous maniacs who do not know their ass from a hole in the ground, pardon my French.
the threat from sewage is real. (thank a plumber today.)
but the threat from politics is much more dangerous.

at the greater excuse(s), i have a thing about our country and democracy.
my feelings for our country and its government don't feel like "politics" to me.
it's just a thing i have to engage because i care about it or i suffer in my spirit.
it's something that i can't help.

too much about me.

anyway, John Dickerson is our current hero of the moment.
Mr. Dickerson has left Time magazine's employment and has offered his insights and reporting at Slate about his experiences as White house correspondent for Time.
http://www.slate.com/id/2135554/

go there a read.
i'll wait quietly till you come back.

you didn't go there.
i was quiet.

okay then go here and read.

no?
oh, let me read it for you! (use a fussy tone because i am old and fussy) :
ReddHedd at firedoglake offers her informed analysis:

Well, well, well...can you say concerted effort to discredit Wilson, planned carefully by folks at the White House, executed with precision planning, and...conspiracy?

did i mention that RH has been a prosecutor? i thought i did.
also from Redd:

First of all, Dickerson is snide. You have to like that in a correspondent, don't you?

and

Second, how can you not love a reporter who gives a hat tip to FDL for reporting on Traitorgate and catching Dickerson's name in the Libby docu-dump in the first place?

it seems like this Mr. Dickerson is a real live genuine journalist. one among an endangered species.

("if i had a bell, i'd ring it in the morning, i'd ring it in the evening, all over this land ... ")

reading his article feels like there is this sizzling, hissing fuse burning on an ever shorter on and ever increasing load of dynamite.

(" ... i'd ring out Danger. I'd ring out 'Warning!' ... ")

which makes me smile.
because, for once, this is all so excellently bad for all the right people.
and it is very well written.

("if i had a song,
i'd sing it in the morning,
i'd sing it in the evening
all over this land ...
...
i'd sing about the
Love Among
My Brothers and My Sister,
All Over This Land!")


~ Many Happy Kabooms!


Friday, February 3, 2006

about kate o'beirne's anti-women ca ca

i have amused myself lightly and i wish to share:

today i was over at the World O' Crap.

they mentioned Molly Stark's review "Men, Women and the Lie that is the Feminist Movement" wherein Ms Stark reviews Ms Kate O'Beirne's book "Women Who Make the World Worse: and How Their Radical Feminist Assault Is Ruining Our Schools, Families, Military, and Sports". (Nice title.)

WO'C quoted this passage:

It all started with the torpedoing of O’Beirne’s customer review section on Amazon.com not too long ago. Nothing like a few cunning and creative tags such as “bird-cage-liner”, “neo-con swill”, and—for our Russian readers— “ca ca” (polite translation: crap), to scare away the buyers, right? Ambush the book, and maybe no one will read it. And the diseased and dying feminist ideology limps on for another day or two.

and here is my longer yellowdog jim take on Ms Stark's comments:

It all started with the torpedoing of O’Beirne’s customer review section on Amazon.com not too long ago.

"Oh, I was there for that!"

Nothing like a few cunning and creative tags such as “bird-cage-liner”, “neo-con swill”, and—for our Russian readers— “ca ca” (polite translation: crap), to scare away the buyers, right?

"HELL-LOoo! ... Did she just mention "ca ca"? ... ... ACKK!!

nice: i had my first experience of the ripples coming back from reflections across the blogocean:

good: I wrote "ca ca".

better: Ms Stark is wrong.

i do not know anything about this russian claim; ca ca is texmex to me for feces.

could be russian too for all i know.

i know that that tag is not (yet) on the tag section of kato burn's book.

look for yourself:

Women Who Make the World Worse's tags

note that in the C's we have only:


complete crap... (4)
crackpot (1)
Crap (2)
crap (5)
craptacular... (1)

now that's

4 (four) "complete crap"s;

1 "crackpot";

2 (two) "Crap"s with the upper case "C";

5 (five!) "crap"s with a lower case "c";

and the my favorite,

"craptacular".

period.

no "ca ca".

better still: i know exactly how ms Stark made this error.

see, while i was reviewing and tagging kato's book (for which i used dreck, trash, swill, vituperation, nauseating, wretched), i reviewed and tagged another book at amazon: Mr. Fred Barnes' Rebel-in-Chief: How George W. Bush Is Redefining the Conservative Movement and Transforming America.

aaaaaand should we happen to go to Rebel-in-Chief's Amazon tags we will see, taa daa:

First tag: ca ca (yellowdog jim "yellowdog jim" on Jan 21, 2006)
Last tag: Mark R Moore

propaganda (2), lies (2), liberator (1), badforamerica (1), dailykosmoonbatreadersarescum (1), propoganda (1), foolhardy (1), puppet (1), presidential analysis (1), Mark R Moore (1), Right Wing Rant (1), privilege (1), nonsense (1), leader (1), adoration (1)

yup, that's me alright, yellowdog jim, at your service with the "ca ca"!

so, Ms Stark wasn't completely wrong.

Just a little mixed up about which tome of fascist tripe got what tag.

She is much more misguided about feminism.

AND we have the proof that she doesn't know ca ca about women's rights.

What Kung Fu Monkey Says

seems this Jason Apuzzo speaks with this ham-fisted, feverishly anti-Democratic voice about film and entertainment and is a somebody in this conservative liberty film festival deal.

who knew?

so, especially for my entertainment-oriented PFS, we have a confluence of political stuff and entertainment industry commentary.

in walks our Kung Fu Monkey.
got to love the snark.
what the hell Big Momma's House 2 opening at $28 million dollars 'means'?


i am aimimg for the comedy angle here.
like amusement while,
we are shooting down this heavier-handed politicizing of film crit with snark bombs.
i hope.

anyway Ku Fu Monkey made me laugh.
Just. Stay. Down.


well, i think it's funny.
maybe PFS will think it is too.