No change in White House secrecy

Oh for crying out loud. Did somebody let Bush and Cheney back into the White House without telling me? In response to a CREW request for visitor logs detailing health care industry meetings at the White House:

The Secret Service sent a reply stating that documents revealing the frequency of such visits were considered presidential records exempt from public disclosure laws. The agency also said it was advised by the Justice Department that the Secret Service was within its rights to withhold the information because of the "presidential communications privilege."

The White House says "it's reviewing its policies." Not good enough President Obama. Your campaign promise to televise the meetings in the interests of transparency is on record. The least you can do is release the logs without a court order.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

No more secret holds

There's been some amount of discussion around the blogs lately about how the confirmation process for presidential nominess is hopelessly awkward and in need of some kind of reform. I agree, so I certainly hope this really happens.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is warning his colleagues that he will shine a light on any of them who try to hold up a nominee of President Barack Obama.

Leahy is saying he won't allow any more secret holds to be used to block votes on the nominees. Of course, I recall when Bush was in office, he burned us before with tough rhetoric and then caved when it came to voting, so I'm not holding my breath. On the other hand I can't think of a more opportune time for him to start walking his talk. Here's hoping he means it. [via buzzflash]

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Hand me the tinfoil, honey...

GOP IT "guru" Mike Connell, has been killed in a plane crash in Ohio. He wasn't just any guru, he was deeply connected to every GOP related scandal from the stealing of the vote in Ohio, to the "lost emails" related to the Attorney Purge, to the fraudulent prosecution of Don Siegelman. In fact he had just been deposed in the Ohio vote fraud case and was ready to testify despite having been threatened by Karl Rove, if he "didn't take the fall."

It's also useful to remember that the court just ordered the White House to take steps to retrieve the "lost emails" that covered the period of Katrina, the attorney purge and the outing of Valerie Plame. Connell is said to have hosted some of the accounts on servers in Chattanoga, TN through another of his related companies Coptix. Which leads me to recall that odd alleged April Fool's joke that had the distinct feel of a distraction tactic at the time.

My co-blogger at Newshoggers, Ken Anderson collects the relevant links to the backstory and the analogy to Forrest Gump is apt. Connell was literally present at the scene of every Bush family related crime for at least a decade. Details of the crash are sketchy but Connell is reported to have been alone in the plane and an experienced pilot. That reminds me of the death of Paul Wellstone who died in a similarly odd crash just as he was winning a race against Norm Coleman.

Add to that the other mysterious plane crash deaths listed at the last link and excuse me while I put on my tinfoil suit. I don't think just a hat is enough for this one. Further, considering that Al Franken is now winning the recount against the same Norm Coleman, let me give Al a bit of unsolicited advice. Stay the hell out of small aircraft.

[More posts daily at The Newshoggers and The Detroit News.]

EPA evades disclosure of documents

By Libby

I have so had it with this administration. Everything is a bloody secret. Now the EPA is citing executive privilege and refusing to provide documentation on why they struck down California's emission laws.

The EPA informed Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., that many of the documents she had requested contained internal deliberations or attorney-client communications that would not be shared now with Congress.

"EPA is concerned about the chilling effect that would occur if agency employees believed their frank and honest opinions and analysis expressed as part of assessing California's waiver request were to be disclosed in a broad setting," EPA's associate administrator Christopher P. Bliley wrote.

Screw the chilling effect. This is a taxpayer funded agency, allegedly working to protect the environment on behalf of the American people. They work for us. We have right to know why they decided no state should be allowed to do better than the federal minimum standard. Furthermore, it's pretty clear that this boils down to a Bush appointed hack doing a end run around the rule of law.

"The documents are going to show the decision remained the responsibility of the administrator," Shradar said. "He stands by his decision." [...]

"Further disclosure of this type of confidential information could jeopardize the agency's ability to effectively litigate claims related to California's waiver request," the EPA's Bliley wrote.

Sixteen states got tired of waiting for this administration to take climate disruption seriously and took matters into their own hands. They shouldn't have to sue to do so. This is the kind of "big government" interference I wish the "small government" types would pay attention to. They're always obsessing about entitlement programs, which should be a function of the feds. We need minimum standards on a national level. But they won't say a word against this kind of inappropriate federal overreach, because it's good for business.

Unfortunately, it's bad for America and it drives me crazy that they can't see the difference.

Burning down the House

By Libby

As my friend Jules Siegel dryly notes, "When shredders can't keep up,turn to fire.

The blaze appeared to be located in Vice President Dick Cheney's suite of ceremonial offices on the second floor of the building. Cheney and President Bush were across the street in the West Wing of the White House when the blaze broke out. It appeared to be under control within an hour.

Thankfully no one was hurt but what do you want to bet that this is one day that Dick left the door to his 'ceremonial' vault of secret documents, open?

Update: The latest report confirms the fire was in Cheney's 'ceremonial' office.

Breaking news on FISA fight

By Libby

The bill is on the floor being debated. You can watch it live on CSPAN.

Meanwhile, Glenn Greenwald rounds up more of the holds that Harry Reid has honored and continues to honor, many of which come from Republicans. What kind of "leader" cuts the throat of his one of his most distinguished and long serving fellow Democrats?

One thing is very clear. Reid has got to go. I'm thinking the Senate should stage an internal coup and unseat him from his leadership position. Clearly he forgot which side he's supposed to be fighting for.

Don't let Dodd stand alone

By Libby

Thanks at least partly to the blogburst of indignation, Reid's rollout of the FISA 'fix' has been delayed until Monday. Jeralyn runs down Reid's lame excuses for virtually guaranteeing telecom immunity via procedural hanky panky. All his fine talk about respect for tradition would go down a lot easier, if he wasn't so selective about when he decides to follow it. If he truly honored it, he would respect Dodd's hold, just as he's allowed Republican Tom Coburn to kill legislation addressing unsolved murders of the civil rights era with his hold which he's been 'honoring' since last summer.

I'm going to be out most of the day doing family stuff so I'm going to send you to Digby for the talking points. Read the whole post, but here's the money graf.

Senators Clinton, Biden and Obama said they would support a filibuster. Edwards said he supported one too. If they would agree to come back to the Senate and help Dodd talk all night, it would bring much need attention to the issue and show the Democratic base that these candidates value them. Imagine if they all (including Edwards) agreed to suspend their campaigns and come back to Washington to stand with Dodd. It would be electrifying --- and it would show the country that the Democrats are prepared to fight. (It would also give them a bunch of free TV time.)

Will any of them (all of them?) do the right thing or will they blow it off?

Go to Dodd's site for a list of the committee members that can help. Click on the action button on the sidebar. But even more importantly we need to press the candidates to show some leadership on this. Contact Clinton, Obama, Biden and John Edwards and ask them if they are going to keep their word to fight for this by also suspending their campaigns and standing with Dodd in the chambers to protect our rights instead of allowing the administration and the telecoms to get away with breaking the law.

Or in the alternate, you can contact Harry Reid and tell him to just call the whole thing off until after the Christmas break. There's no reason to rush this thing through right now. The current 'fix' doesn't expire until February.

[Begging the indulgence of my partners, cross-posted from Newshoggers]

Nothing to hide?

By Libby

The new online database that tracks government spending, usaspending.gov, is already yielding interesting results. Radar pulls up some telling expenditures along with a handy chart.

Federal spending on paper shredding has increased more than 600 percent since George W. Bush took office. ... In 2000, the feds spent $452,807 to make unpleasant truths go away; by 2006, the "Cheney Effect" had bumped that number up to $2.9 million. And by halfway through 2007, the feds almost matched that number, with $2.7 million and counting.

I wonder if the White House gave Fawn Hall her old job back when they recycled the rest of the old Iran-Contra thugs?

Reid about to ream us on FISA

By Libby

Links to the longer explanations are at my Newshoggers post, but this is mission critical folks so I'm just going to quote my capsule version here.

Bottom line. Reid is about to try to pull a fast one. Not only is he failing to honor Dodd's hold, he's setting up the vote on three competing bills to virtually assure that telecom immunity will be passed and he is planning to hide behind the usual mealymouthed excuse of the damned 60 vote threshold. Don't let him get away with it.

Better to call, but if you can't do that, please use his web form and let him know you won't be fooled again. I just sent a polite but blistering email myself, in addition to calling.

Time is of the essence. Tell him if he won't honor Dodd's hold, you want him to bring forward the SJC version of the bill, not the SIC one.

I had a dream

By Libby

No really. I had the most bizarre dream last night. I dreamt that Karl Rove and I were lovers. Otherwise, I've been on this secrecy kick today, which I expanded upon further while pondering the rewriting of history and how disrespectful I find the scheduling of Petreaus's "report" for 9/11. It's so crass and then Bush still has the hubris to accuse the Democrats of politicizing the surge? It's disgusting.

As is the administration's record on transparency. Coincidentally I ran across this item at Forbes.com today.

WASHINGTON - Government secrecy by almost any measure is expanding and little is being done to stop it, according to a coalition of 67 organizations favoring greater openness.

There's a whole laundry list at the link but these were two of my favorites.
In 2000, 45 percent of contract dollars were awarded under full and open competition; by 2006, only 34 percent followed such procedures, said the report. Since 2000, over 25 percent of federal contracts were awarded without competition, a total of $559.9 billion.

In the intelligence realm, classified "black" acquisition programs about which nothing is revealed in the budget account for 18 percent of Pentagon contracting or $31.5 billion, more than double the level from 12 years ago, the group said.

Black acquisition could pretty well describe the current Pentagon PR blitz, which I expound upon to the delight of at least three people in Detroit with The surge has failed - don't be fooled again edition, even if these fools say they saw the headlights of success in the rocket's red flares.

Connecting the dots

By Libby

In a way, the daily outrages of the Bush administration form a giant connect-the-dots picture but without the numbers, so you have to find the big picture for yourself. However you draw the lines though, the picture that always emerges is of a many tentacled beast that is devouring everything this country ever stood for and excreting an ugly foundation of criminality that will not be easily expunged.

Today, Kevin Hayden draws his line from the same place I did but in a different direction. I traced the latest White House stonewalling to an end point of codifying criminiality in the US. Kevin follows his through, in a brilliant post that should be read in full, to the seemingly certain, impending strike on Iran.

A couple of quotes to get you started:

There’s no secret bathroom code that US citizens share when they hear something tapping at their conscience. Secrecy has always been the greatest threat to our democracy. Throughout our history, when extraordinary attempts have been made to conceal, attempts that violate the law, there’s never been one time when it turned out for the good. Criminal coverups by political leaders have always covered up more crimes.

So it doesn’t matter what facts the IAEA reports. It doesn’t matter what Iran’s government does to comply with international concerns and deadlines. Bush will get his new war while Harry Reid plays footsies with Senate Republicans - eagerly seeking to get fucked - and Waxman’s investigations get drowned out by all the noise.

Different trajectories but in the end, Kevin and I come to the same conclusion.

The Netroots will sternly waggle its finger at complicit Dems while fundraising for their slumber parties. Americans will be rewarded with $5 per gallon gasoline while Bush fills their tanks with high octane fear.

By the time the Ides of March roll around, it’ll be too late when we discover what Bush has been hiding. It’s a dagger, and it’ll be plunged through the heart of our democracy.

I'm going to hang on to my optimism and continue to hope Americans will wake up in time but I have to admit, some days I have my doubts.

Needle in the haystack surveillance invites trouble

By Libby

More disturbing news today on how wide net surveillance fails to catch any big fish.

The government's terrorist screening database flagged Americans and foreigners as suspected terrorists almost 20,000 times last year. But only a small fraction of those questioned were arrested or denied entry into the United States, raising concerns among critics about privacy and the list's effectiveness.

A range of state, local and federal agencies as well as U.S. embassies overseas rely on the database to pinpoint terrorism suspects, who can be identified at borders or even during routine traffic stops. The database consolidates a dozen government watch lists, as well as a growing amount of information from various sources, including airline passenger data. The government said it was planning to expand the data-sharing to private-sector groups with a "substantial bearing on homeland security," though officials would not be more specific.

Why do I think that means Blackwater?

The government hacks justify the approach by pointing out that they stop a lot of people but don't arrest them. That's a defense of the program? Either they're stopping a lot of innocent people unnecessarily -- which they do, a fact that's well documented -- or they are alerting real terrorists that they're under suspicion but aren't guilty enough to be arrested yet. Do you think that's going to scare them away, or make them more careful?

And people call me paranoid when I say this administration is practically begging for a new 9/11?

Fearful Dems play politics of cowardice

By Libby
Updated below

I haven't been able to find the words today to express my disappointment and disgust with the Democrat's cave-in to Bush's bullyism. I'm speaking of course of the House's meekly following in the Senate's footsteps and legalizing the illegal White House domestic surveillance program.

Balkinization put it well.

The passage of the new FISA bill by the Senate and now the House demonstrates that the Democrats stand neither for defending civil liberties nor for checking executive power.

They stand for nothing at all.

So did the Xsociate.

The only thing worse than a Congress that rubberstamps because of loyalty to party is one that rubberstamps out of fear.

And fear what is what this was about. Pure political cowardice on the parts of the Dems in the face of the relentless hubris of the president. Oh, they tried to put a pretty face on it.

The Senate bill was needed, aides said, because of restrictions recently imposed by the FISA court on the ability of spy agencies to intercept communications.

What part of illegal do the Dems not understand? If a court won't write off on these expanded powers, in a secret decision we wouldn't even known about if Boehner hadn't spilled the beans, what makes the Democrats think they should underwrite it?

One Democratic traitor to civil liberties justifies her vote by saying the intelligence community is concerned about increased chatter on terrorist networks.

"I am concerned as well," Feinstein said. "We are living in a period of heightened vulnerability and must give the intelligence community the tools they need."

They've been saying that periodically for five years. This is the same intelligence community that allowed our president to lie to us about WMDs despite their own doubts. So she thinks we can believe them now -- why?

Stupid and gutless. There was no reason to cave in on this except of fear of political risk (and protect their vacation plans). God forbid that this time there really is an attack, they don't want to be blamed by the GOP. Idiots. They're going to be blamed anyway. For everything that went wrong in this adminstration. That's just the GOP's style and they have guilt transference down to an art.

In the end Larisa Alexandrovna best sums up what's so very wrong and in fact dangerous about this spineless passing of a bad bill.

Make NO mistake, we are in serious peril when an Attorney General who has subverted the Constitution per request of his boss, lied, obstructed justice, and defended torture, is now in full authority to declare who is going to be a target of warrant-less surveillance. You may not see this as seriously as I do, but then again, you have not lived under a dictatorship to know the difference. Mostly though, the people who failed most, are the citizens of this country - who should have taken to the streets and shut down all commerce, all traffic, and disengaged from the machine of government. You did not shut it down. You did not even try. You waited as your hopes were put entirely in the hands of cowards.

Anybody who thinks the White House is going to sit by for the next six months and will not abuse this carte blanche to spy on Americans, is not facing reality. As Larissa says, with this we have officially become a police state. Bush doesn't even need the jackboots to enforce his will when he can cow the Congress with an idle threat into giving him everything he wants.

Update: Orin Kerr at Volokh analyzes the decision. Short version: Well yeah, I kind of tepidly support it if they really only use it to target foreign calls and because it's temporary, even though it appears that the authorization lasts a year even though they say it sunsets in six months. Otherwise it's a civil liberties disaster.

What I get out Orin's post is there's a comically weak review system of oversight, that he thinks the court will somehow apply more strictly than the the broad language would indicate. They pretty much have an open season on eavesdropping, which may not survive a Fourth Amendment challenge -- assuming you want to wait four years or so for it to wind its way through the judicial process -- but otherwise there's no real statutory protection of privacy. They don't need a warrant to spy on you.

And the best part is the telcoms'participation is mandatory so they can't be sued for complying but neither can they, as an act of conscience, refuse to comply. That's good news for the big telcos that have already dumped tons of data into the government's lap. For those few companies that answered to a higher ethical and constitutional standard, not so much.

Larissa is still right. We've just turned the corner into the police state. If you can't imagine what Bush and Cheney might do with unfettered power to spy on Americans. Well -- I can, and it's not a comforting thought.

Senate sells out to Bush bluff - slithers off to vacation

By Libby

Well, it's official. Sixty-eight spineless idiots voted to protect their vacation time and traded our civil liberties for a few weeks at the beach. Sixteen of them were Democrats. What a bunch of hosers. I'm so irritated I can hardly blog this.

The Senate bowed to White House pressure last night and passed a Republican plan for overhauling the federal government's terrorist surveillance laws, approving changes that would temporarily give U.S. spy agencies expanded power to eavesdrop on foreign suspects without a court order.

The legislation, which is expected to go before the House today, would expand the government's authority to intercept without a court order the phone calls and e-mails of people in the United States who are communicating with people overseas.

We're told hold to take heart because the provision has a six month sunset. Who do they think they're fooling? This president can do more damage in six days than any human can do in six lifetimes. And why the hell should we believe they won't just reauthorize in six months? Are they all scheduled for spine transplants over the summer?

Meteor Blades has the list of sell-outs that put seashell collecting above our civil rights.

No Republicans voted against the bill. The following Democrats voted for it: Evan Bayh (Indiana); Tom Carper (Delaware); Bob Casey (Pennsylvania); Kent Conrad (North Dakota); Dianne Feinstein (California); Daniel Inouye (Hawai‘i); Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota); Nancy Mary Landrieu (Louisiana); Blanche Lincoln (Arkansas); Claire McCaskill (Missouri); Barbara Mikulski (Maryland); Bill Nelson (Florida); Ben Nelson (Nebraska); Mark Pryor (Arkansas); Ken Salazar (Colorado); Jim Webb (Virginia).

Senators Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Christopher Dodd and Barack Obama all opposed the bill, as did 23 other Democrats and Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont. Joe Lieberman voted ...well, you know how he voted.

Of all of these traitors to the people, Webb is the most disappointing. He has really failed us. He played us like a farookin Strad to get our support, talking so tough about the occupation's failure but when it comes down to the votes, this isn't the first time he's sold us out to the latest addle-pated White House scheme.

Keep the list handy folks so you know who to kick out of office in 08.

The secret life of Cheney

By Libby

The big buzz this morning is about a new four part series on Cheney at the WaPo. Part One is pretty damn breathtaking and leaves you wanting more. Everybody is talking about it and all note, there's so many quotable grafs it's nearly impossible to pick just one. Nonetheless, here's my pick.

Stealth is among Cheney's most effective tools. Man-size Mosler safes, used elsewhere in government for classified secrets, store the workaday business of the office of the vice president. Even talking points for reporters are sometimes stamped "Treated As: Top Secret/SCI." Experts in and out of government said Cheney's office appears to have invented that designation, which alludes to "sensitive compartmented information," the most closely guarded category of government secrets. By adding the words "treated as," they said, Cheney seeks to protect unclassified work as though its disclosure would cause "exceptionally grave damage to national security."

You can see when you read the rest the article that disclosure of his work product would certainly gravely damage Cheney. It reads like a Tom Clancy novel. Espionage, intrigue, back-stabbing and lots of dirty little secrets.

If you weren't afraid of the man before you read this, you will be after you do. And really you must, because this isn't fiction. This is your Vice President, whose main vice appears to be an insatiable appetite for power.

Is Bush nearly off the wagon or already in the gutter?

By Libby

We've been hearing periodic rumors about Bush, an admitted alcoholic, having fallen off the wagon for a couple of years and now The Daily Mail reports that Bush and Blair bonded over a beer at the G-8 conference. Of course, it was near beer and judging from the photo, it appears to be a Buckners, which is indeed sold as non-alcholic beverage.

In my experience, most people think that doesn't really count but the designation non-alcoholic is a misnomer. Most near beers are do in fact contain .05 percent alcohol. For a normal drinker, that percentage won't have an intoxicating effect but for an alcholic, even that tiny amount can trigger the disease. That's not just my opinion, there's a scientific study to prove it.

But I don't need to see the study to know that's true. I've been living with alcoholics all my life. The disease runs in my family, my first husband is an alcoholic and in the three years I was a bartender I've dealt with a lot of drunks. And I can say with absolute certainty that an alcoholic falls off the wagon with the first sip of alcohol. It doesn't matter if he stops at one near-beer or drinks a case of Budweiser, the wagon rolls out of sight as soon as he raises that first glass.

One thing I learned about near-beer when I was bartending is when an alcoholic swears off booze, at first they might drink soda water or juice when they return to the bar to socialize with their friends. Inevitably, when they switch to near beer, "to fit in with the crowd," it almost always indicated that they had started drinking on the sly and chose near beer at the bar in order to preserve the illusion that they were off the sauce. It was only a matter of time before they gave up the act and went back to public drunkeness.

Now, having no direct knowledge, I'm not accusing the president of anything and I doubt if you'll ever see him throwing back shots of tequila at the next state dinner, but I think it's not a good sign when he's willing to be seen in public quaffing an almost real brew. Especially in light of his making such a huge deal about his religious conversion from substance abuse.

It's a warning signal we would do well not to ignore. A drunken Commander Guy can put us into a whole lot more danger than all the terrorists in the world.

Forever President for a forever war?

By Libby

I hate being right about bad stuff. I've been warning for years now that the Bush administration's underlying agenda from the beginning has been to install a totalitarian government, putting themselves in charge forever. The warning signs have been there all along for those willing to see.

Every step this White House has taken has had the express purpose of abolishing due process and undermining the rule of law. The Patriot Act, domestic surveillance, datamining, the power to designate enemy combatants and hold them indefinitely without charge, secret rendition, the normalization of torture, the unitary executive theory, the abuse of signing statements, the "state's secrets" defenses and the loading of entire Justice system from the local courts to SCOTUS with GOP operatives have all taken us baby steps closer to the realization of the neo-con dream of imperial power.

Then they got serious.

In October 2006, Bush signed into law the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007. Quietly slipped into the law at the last minute, at the request of the Bush administration, were sections changing important legal principles, dating back 200 years, which limit the U.S. government's ability to use the military to intervene in domestic affairs. These changes would allow Bush, whenever he thinks it necessary, to institute martial law--under which the military takes direct control over civilian administration.

Now, via Maha, who adds some relevant analysis of the legalese, comes the keystone of their plan. The invaluable White House watcher, Charlie Savage at the Boston Globe reports on the latest sneaky little trick. At the beginning of this month, Bush authorized a new "doomsday plan" to be activated in the event of a national emergency.

The policy broadly defines a "catastrophic emergency" -- the triggering event for the plan -- as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions."

A definition that broad could include an ice cream shortage in Manhattan in August and the policy gives Bush wide discretion to decide if such an event constitutes an emergency.

This sudden shift has raised alarm even with such incurable neo-cons as Chief SwiftBoater Jerome Corsi.

When the president determines a catastrophic emergency has occurred, the president can take over all government functions and direct all private sector activities to ensure we will emerge from the emergency with an "enduring constitutional government."

Translated into layman's terms, when the president determines a national emergency has occurred, the president can declare to the office of the presidency powers usually assumed by dictators to direct any and all government and business activities until the emergency is declared over.

What this policy doesn't include is any reference to "statutes in which Congress has imposed checks and balances on the president's power to impose martial law or other extraordinary measures." In other words it cuts Congress right out of the picture and gives Bush authority not only to decide when and if to declare martial law but also to decide when it should end.

Critics of the plan, whom I would think should include just about everyone except the hard-core dead-enders that still support the Madman at 1600 Penn Ave, ask why the policy was enacted without any public announcement or input.

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said that because of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the American public needs no explanation of such plans.

I've said this many times and I'll say it again. Facism doesn't hit like a sledgehammer. It creeps in like the fog, or in this case under the cover of the fog of the so-called war on terror. That would be the war they tell us will never end.

Think about it and then ask yourself what you would do if Bush suspends elections and refuses to leave office.

Cheney's heart of darkness

By Libby

Speaking of Cheney cover-ups this morning, it appears our vice president doesn't only want to become the most powerful second stringer in government but also the most secretive. From his refusal to disclose the participants in the White House powwows that led to the industry favoring energy bill, to rumored back room manuvering to force Bush into a confrontation with Iran, Cheney's tenure has been little more than one continous black-op against the American people. So little wonder that he issued this order some time ago.

Regarding visitor information, the Secret Service “shall not retain any copy of these documents and information” once the material is given to the office of the vice president, says the September 2006 letter by Shannen Coffin, counsel to the vice president.

That shouldn't even be legal and speaks volumes about Cheney's malevolent intentions. Not to mention that the people who pay his salary -- that would be us -- should be able to keep track of his activities short of proven matters of national security. As the saying goes, if he's got nothing to hide....

In Cheney's case he apparently has nothing he doesn't want to hide.

[thanks to The Moderate Voice for the link]

Closing the door on open government

By Libby

Funny, I could have sworn the Democrats were aware that they were put back into power because the people were fed up with the back room dealing and selling us out to the corporations. Maybe they forgot already. How else to explain this secret free trade deal that I understand was basically written by corporate lobbyists?

This is a deal that Bush wants and corporate interests love. The DLC and the Democratic leadership endorse it but half the Democrats are reported to oppose it. I'd suggest the "leadership" and the rest of the old guard machine politicians heed their warnings. If we wanted more policy making like this, we could have just cloned Dick Cheney.

Mid-sized American manufacturers and labor organizations already oppose the deal based on what little information they've been able to get from the press releases. The details are still a secret. A secret. What possible justification is there for keeping the business of the people, from the people? This is of major import. We want to be in on the whole process. The negotiations on this deal should be conducted openly and with opportunity for public debate.

Any politician that endorses the methodology used to reach this devil's pact on the future of worker's rights should stop shopping around for a buyer for their DC digs. After the next election, they won't need them. You might want to remind them of that and send an easy one step email to your Representative and Senators here at Public Citizen.

[cross-posted to The Reaction]

Sick of secrets

By Libby

Once again, I have zero time today to post until later this evening, but this caught my eye. Who the hell placed a secret hold on a Senate bill requiring campaign finance reports to be filed on-line? Check out the link for the story and the contact info for your representatives.

Let's expose this idiot. There is no legitimate reason for this bill to be held up. It should be heard and passed immediately.

Update: Prarie Weather is betting it's a Republican and has the odds on favorites from the comment sections.