SCOTUS Update

I just got off the phone with somebody in the public info office - the message on the main number listed on the website says to call 202-579-3000 and ask them to page a representative.  The lady was nice enough, but she said they have no intention of issuing a statement on Thomas's problems, and that there's no press availability scheduled either; and that if I want to ask questions, I have to call during business hours and ask for a regular PIO (Public Information Officer).

I have no idea what kind of protocol might be in place for this.  I do think it would be cool in the extreme if huge numbers of regular US citizens started making personal calls to SCOTUS to ask them to explain themselves to us.

SCOTUS

Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas have both been implicated in some "minor" scandals the last few years.  Now we may have a major problem because ol' Clarence did quite a bit more than drop by a little get-together with the Koch Brothers in California.  ("a quick drop-by" is how the SCOTUS spokesmodel put it when asked by Common Cause).

Read it and weep.

Herald-Gazette (Knox County, ME)

Here's the full text of an article that seems to have mysteriously disappeared from NewsVine: (I got to it thru Google's cache archive - yay Google!)

What more does the Justice Department need to launch an investigation into the possible conflict of interests surrounding Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas and their votes in the Citizens United case?

Maybe they need to hear from you.

We've asked Attorney General Eric Holder to meet with us to discuss all that's been uncovered in recent weeks, but we haven't gotten an answer yet.

Please call Holder's office today at (202) 514-2001 and ask that he meet with Common Cause! Click here after you've made the call.

We are simply asking for a brief meeting to discuss whether Justices Scalia and Thomas should have recused themselves from ruling on the Citizens Unitedcase, which opened the floodgates to corporate spending on election campaigns when it was decided in January 2010.

We already know that:

• Both justices attended secretive political strategy sessions sponsored by Koch Industries, a major beneficiary of the Citizens United ruling. Koch is a multi-billion dollar conglomerate that has invested millions of dollars in political campaigns and causes.

• Justice Thomas failed to disclose more than $600,000 of his wife Virginia's income from the Heritage Foundation (he has recently amended his filings to reflect this income), or any of her unknown salary from Liberty Central, a political action group that was actively involved in the 2010 midterms.

• Justice Scalia recently met behind closed doors with the head of the House Tea Party Caucus, and Virginia Thomas is now promoting herself as an "ambassador to the Tea Party movement."

All these facts create a troubling appearance of bias. Attorney General Holder, as the head of the Justice Department, has a duty to review these issues and to make a decision regarding the launch of an investigation.

And we want a chance to lay out our case to him. Please call the Attorney General's office today at (202) 514-2001 and ask that he meet with Common Cause. 

Then, click here after you've made the call.

 (the link goes to Common Cause)

Curveball Lied

It's not exactly news, but at least somebody is trying to dig out some of the truth for us.  Unfortunately, it didn't matter to enough of us then, and it prob'ly won't matter much now either.

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, has told the Guardian that he fabricated tales of mobile bioweapons trucks and clandestine factories in an attempt to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime, from which he had fled in 1995.

My biggest fear right now is that we're allowing the system to lose its capacity for self-correction.  There are glimmers and flickers once in a while - Dick Cheney got heckled with shouts of "war criminal" at his speech to a CPAC session, and there's the tiny fraction of Tea Partiers who actually aren't stupid bigoted assholes - but for the most part, the big power players know they can pull some pretty horrendous shit and still count on getting cover.  The Hard-Right Radicals in particular know that DumFux News will polish their turds no matter what.  So once in a while we get a public hanging (Mark Foley, Chris Lee, William Jefferson, et al), and that helps us believe the lie that the Koch Bros and Wall Street - The American Aristocracy - aren't really running the joint and that we don't have any thing to say about it at all.

And Jesus wept.

Hoping For Egypt

The final outcome (if there is such a thing) in Egypt is something we won't know for a while, but here's a thought: Egyptians booted out a quasi-dictator with 18 days of protests that were mostly pretty relaxed and groovey.  There was no armed resistance; no guerilla tactics; no bombings; no terrorism - just growing numbers of everyday people gathering in different places to tell their government they weren't going to get pushed around any more.  The only real violence came when somebody (probably on Mubarak's side, if not at Mubarak's behest) decided to start a fight in the hopes of scoring some propaganda points.  People got hurt, and some hundreds killed, but it didn't work.  The people were unarmed; they defended themselves just enough to keep the crowd together, but they didn't counterattack and so far, I haven't heard anything about retaliation.  And most importantly, the military leadership was smart enough to know they couldn't win anything by ordering Egyptians to shoot Egyptians.

Here's my main take-away:  The notion that an armed citizenry is what ensures freedom is proven again to be a lie.

Stupid Arguments

I don't know how to tell you how dumb it is to be arguing about Obama's "faith".  Here's the main reason:
US Constitution, article VI, 3rd paragraph:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.


So we have the Constitution telling us that according to the law, it can't be an issue, but that just leads us to the real stupidity of Obama defenders who feel the need to dispute the assertion.  The really stupid part is that by arguing the point of Obama's religion, you legitimize the assertion itself.  You're saying first that it was OK for some short-necked bigot to a raise the question of Obama's faith, and then by refuting his Muslim-ness, you're tacitly agreeing that it would be a problem if he actually is a Muslim.


Here's a thought:  How 'bout we just keep all that religion shit to ourselves for a change?

A Trend?

Check this out at Daily Beast.

There are a lot of program directors whose radio ‘spider-sense’ is tingling,” says Randall Bloomquist, a long-time radio executive and president of Talk Frontier Media. “They're thinking ‘this conservative thing is kind of running its course. We're saying the same things from morning 'til night and yes, we've got a very loyal core audience—but if we ever want to grow, if we want to expand, we've got to be doing more than 18 hours a day of ‘Obama is a socialist.’”

This could be pretty interesting.  Though I think if their ratings continue to drop, they'll just get even more rabid.  When the marketing dweebs are consulted, they're likely to tell these guys to stick with the formula.  Radical Clown Radio doesn't differ much from the GOP.  In fact, the business of wingnut radio and politics are practically the same thing.  So when you start to lose market share, the instinctive reaction is to "rediscover your core competency" and concentrate on solidifying your base.  This is all well and good, but eventually, you have to widen things out a bit.  Unfortunately, the effect is usually the opposite - you can easily end up narrowing your appeal to the point where your market niche is no longer a real factor.

Anyway, we've been alarmed at the growing bombast from guys like Beck and Limbaugh, thinking it means they're getting more powerful (or feeling more powerful).  But it could easily mean just the opposite.

More Bio Mimicry

One of the problems we continue to have is that we've allowed some not very honest people to convince us that there's friction between our economic interests and our need for a clean and healthy environment to live in.

We end up talking past each other. Here's a guy who can talk about "saving the environment" by linking the need to take good care of the biosphere directly to huge business opportunities.

Bio Mimicry And Closed-Loop Sustainability

This kinda shit just amazes me.

Hoping (update)

A few days late, but it's still a good thing.

Hoping (update)

Mubarak has resigned, but he hasn't split the country.  No idea what that means, but I'm thinking he's not quite done yet.  Governments and financial houses are busily freezing his assets, so that should make it harder for him to fuck with things, at least 'til they get all that sorted out.  So anybody who tries to tell me it's all gonna be swell needs to get called a moron.

The Press Poodles are still gushing about Freedom Fever while DumFux News is flacking the threat of The Muslim Brotherhood.  Meanwhile, nobody (either in The Kennel or at Fox) has said thing one about any efforts by anybody's diplomatic services - zero, zip, zilch.  The only thing I've heard so far is the standard meme about how Obama got caught flat-footed.  Are you fucking kidding?  Am I really supposed to believe we've spent something like 1/3 of a TRILLION dollars on intel and counter-intel, and anti-terrorism shit - aimed specifically at the middle east and that we got nothing out of it!?!  We didn't see any of this as any kind of possibility at all!?!

Anyway, for now it's all a big smiley-face celebration - I'm bettin' a lot of happy protesters  are gettin' laid tonite - and tomorrow or Sunday we might start to see if we get any clues as to how the Egyptian military intends to spend its political capital.  This ain't anywhere near over.  The really dangerous part starts soon.