What do I really need to say?

• Tom Delay indicted by Texas grand jury; steps down as House majority leader per rules previously abolished but reinstated to avoid backlash from voters (i.e., not because majority leaders with indictments against them are of questionable morality)
• Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist being investigated by the SEC for possible insider trading; claims the order was made to avoid conflicts on votes related to health care issues; never bothered to dump the stock earlier; in fact, according to Think Progress he promised to recuse himself from such votes and conveniently chose this time to sell the stock completely
• Infighting over how much to spend and how to pay for hurricane relief
• Bush poll numbers at a record low
• Most Americans think the Iraq war wasn’t worth it

It’s not always easy having near-unchecked power.

It’d be funny if it weren’t true:

Early last month, the bureau’s Washington Field Office began recruiting for a new anti-obscenity squad. Attached to the job posting was a July 29 Electronic Communication from FBI headquarters to all 56 field offices, describing the initiative as “one of the top priorities” of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and, by extension, of “the Director.” That would be FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III.

The new squad will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against “manufacturers and purveyors” of pornography — not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults.

Yup, the porn police. But that’s not all. The Agitator found something extremely disturbing:

FBI officials [said] during last month’s meeting that obscenity prosecution would have to be handled by the crimes against children unit. But that unit is already overworked and would have to take agents off cases of child endangerment to work on adult porn cases. Acosta replied that this was Attorney General Gonzales’ mandate.

The original article he links to was found at LawGeek, showing that this was known about since August; The Washington Post and I just caught it late. Now of course everyone’s writing about it, but late recognition is better than no recognition.

It’s beyond despicable. These people who tout free market economies are simultaneously finding weak justifications to stifle segments of it they find personally objectionable. I’ll be among the first to agree with them that porn involving beastiality and defecation is sickening, but how it deserves prosecution the same way dumping toxic waste should be (but often isn’t) prosecuted is beyond me. I’m sure we can all think of regulation that deserves higher priority enforcement. And if you’re looking for something a thousand times more vomit-inducing than urination fetish videos, try the reallocation of resources that fight child porn to fight adult porn.

If civil liberties, a fairly fettered economy (I believe in free market economies that don’t hurt people), and protecting children from sexual predators isn’t enough for ya (aha, the hurting), there’s always the old standby of George W. Bush hypocrisy. The Desert Rat Democrat has a graphically expressive reminder that a porn star attended a recent fund-raising dinner and lots of info on Republicans who have accepted money from porn profiteers. Hammer of Truth shows us just how evil the porn industry is. I’m sure many Katrina victims will object to receiving aid paid for by Girls Gone Wild.

My hope is that agents assigned to this task will conveniently find themselves deluged in their work on other cases. That might not be too hard to pull off:

“I guess this means we’ve won the war on terror,” said one exasperated FBI agent, speaking on the condition of anonymity because poking fun at headquarters is not regarded as career-enhancing. “We must not need any more resources for espionage.”

Among friends and trusted colleagues, an experienced national security analyst said, “it’s a running joke for us.”

A few of the printable samples:

“Things I Don’t Want On My Resume, Volume Four.”

“I already gave at home.”

“Honestly, most of the guys would have to recuse themselves.”

Despite the many calls to action that flood my inbox from Howard Dean and truthout.org, I’m ready to let this war settle. There’s a post at Eschaton about a Washington Post editorial imploring Democrats to confirm John Roberts. On my initial read I considered the argument as idiotic as Atrios does. Then I pulled a John Kerry (it’s OK to make fun of him for “flip-flopping” now that he’s already lost) and had a change of heart.

JOHN G. ROBERTS JR. should be confirmed as chief justice of the United States. He is overwhelmingly well-qualified, possesses an unusually keen legal mind and practices a collegiality of the type an effective chief justice must have. He shows every sign of commitment to restraint and impartiality. Nominees of comparable quality have, after rigorous hearings, been confirmed nearly unanimously. We hope Judge Roberts will similarly be approved by a large bipartisan vote.

…

Judge Roberts represents the best nominee liberals can reasonably expect from a conservative president who promised to appoint judges who shared his philosophy.

…

…[B]road opposition by Democrats to Judge Roberts would send the message that there is no conservative capable of winning their support. While every senator must vote his or her conscience on the nomination, the danger of such a message is considerable. In the short term, Mr. Bush could conclude there is nothing to be gained from considering the concerns of the opposition party in choosing his next nominee. In the longer term, Republicans might feel scant cause to back the next high-quality Democratic nominee, as they largely did with Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

If presidents cannot predictably garner confirmation for nominees with unblemished careers in private practice and government service, they will gravitate instead to nominees of lower quality who might excite their bases. Mr. Bush deserves credit for making a nomination that, on the merits, warrants support from across the political spectrum. Having done their duty by asking Judge Roberts tough questions, Democrats should not respond by withholding that support.

In many ways, I find these to be very valid concerns, especially as I’m a coward who’s always afraid of taking negotiating too far. But that’s not the real reason. I’m hardly afraid of Bush “retaliating” against the Democrats with an ultra-conservative judicial incompetent (it seems he’d be willing to entertain that option regardless). And I certainly don’t think the Democrats “owe” Bush anything given his years of declining to consult with them for any matters of policy and nomination. It’s just that this Roberts fellow seems to be a damn fine lawyer.

Ben reminds us that not only are judges unpredictable, but that the likeliness of cronyism is small when it comes to lifetime appointments. He also tries to remind us that a lot of people probably aren’t (consciously) out to spread some evil agenda. They just believe what they believe. Roberts is obviously a conservative. Bush would be stupider than we make fun of him for if he nominated someone otherwise. But it’s not unreasonable to think that Roberts genuinely believes in the rule of law and while his interpretation of law may be different or stricter or looser than yours or mine, it’s still a well-educated interpretation. Plus, maybe the law (and that includes the Constitution) needs modification. I know, spoken like a true conservative. But sometimes they’re right, in a strange way. Maybe the policitians don’t know what we want and it’s important we let them know.

I’m not in the habit of reading court opinions, but I have encountered a number of “conservative” opinions where I can’t help but say, “Yeah, I can see that” with plenty of conviction (all that legislation that I fully support that’s justified by the interstate commerce clause? I gotta say, it’s very shaky ground). And sometimes, the people you think you’re completely opposed to can surprise you, as Antonin Scalia’s opinion in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld certainly did (he argued, as I would, that suspending habeas corpus was most definitely not mandated by Congress and continued to give examples and reasoning, as I would, explaining that the importance of that writ can’t be underestimated).

It pains me to be agreeing with all these conservative bloggers who are using this editorial to support their cause, but I think this time it finally makes sense.

[edit]

I should note that while I’m willing to let John Roberts slide through, I am in no way suggesting that Democrats (or any Senator) shouldn’t vote “no” if they are truly unsatisfied with the nominee. What I worry about is fighting the nominee simply because he is a Bush nominee. I sense that many of those who oppose him don’t really know much about him (who does?) and are putting up this big fight because other people are telling them to. Don’t waste your time or money, I say. He’s almost assuredly getting confirmed. And filibustering John Roberts will cause more problems than it’ll solve. Making a statement about your legitimate dissatisfaction, however, is always in style.

Philly Beyond Oil

This weekend there is an event in Philadelphia geared towards educating and discussing the realities of Peak Oil, energy depletion, alternative energies, community solutions, and the politics involved. Its open to the public, $20 will get you in for whatever seminars you’d like to attend. If anyone ends up going, email me (dissectional@comcast.net) if you’d like…I will be there and would love to meet up with anyone who’s interested.

PDF file with info on the event

There’s no money to be made in disaster preparedness, no billions generated by the military industrial complex…why should they care?

They’ve been exposed.

Luke posted this comment in response to mine in his article lambasting the President for the inept handling of Katrina. Well, they’ve been exposed all right, but in that commercial interests can be served in non-military areas as well.

It’s funny and amazing (in a terrible way, as always) that the Bush Administration is so transparent about these things lately. It’s as if they’ve fully accepted their bastardliness and have no qualms about being completely out in the open about it. Never mind the constant barrage over Cheney and Halliburton. We’ll not only continue kicking money their way in Iraq, but we’ll enlist their “aid” for Katrina contracts too!

At least the GAO will be conducting some audits of the Katrina contracts. Whether those audits will lead to anything is another matter.

Newsweek’s Evan Thomas tears into President Bush (and local and state government officials) in an article titled How Bush Blew It. Payback for all the crap they got over the Koran-down-the-toilet story? Or legitimate claims of serious ball-dropping and a culture at the White House that encourages Bush’s staff to spin positive lies to him?

It’s a standing joke among the president’s top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? … Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States… The bad news on this early morning, Tuesday, Aug. 30, some 24 hours after Hurricane Katrina had ripped through New Orleans, was that the president would have to cut short his five-week vacation by a couple of days and return to Washington. The president’s chief of staff, Andrew Card; his deputy chief of staff, Joe Hagin; his counselor, Dan Bartlett, and his spokesman, Scott McClellan, held a conference call to discuss the question of the president’s early return and the delicate task of telling him. Hagin, it was decided, as senior aide on the ground, would do the deed.

…

The reality, say several aides who did not wish to be quoted because it might displease the president, did not really sink in until Thursday night. Some White House staffers were watching the evening news and thought the president needed to see the horrific reports coming out of New Orleans. Counselor Bartlett made up a DVD of the newscasts so Bush could see them in their entirety as he flew down to the Gulf Coast the next morning on Air Force One.

…

Bush can be petulant about dissent; he equates disagreement with disloyalty. After five years in office, he is surrounded largely by people who agree with him. Bush can ask tough questions, but it’s mostly a one-way street. Most presidents keep a devil’s advocate around. … When Hurricane Katrina struck, it appears there was no one to tell President Bush the plain truth: that the state and local governments had been overwhelmed, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was not up to the job and that the military, the only institution with the resources to cope, couldn’t act without a declaration from the president overriding all other authority.

…

There are a number of steps Bush could have taken, short of a full-scale federal takeover, like ordering the military to take over the pitiful and (by now) largely broken emergency communications system throughout the region. But the president, who was in San Diego preparing to give a speech the next day on the war in Iraq, went to bed.

…

For most of those first few days, Bush was hearing what a good job the Feds were doing. Bush likes “metrics,” numbers to measure performance, so the bureaucrats gave him reassuring statistics. At a press availability on Wednesday, Bush duly rattled them off: there were 400 trucks transporting 5.4 million meals and 13.4 million liters of water along with 3.4 million pounds of ice. Yet it was obvious to anyone watching TV that New Orleans had turned into a Third World hellhole.

Many of these things would be laughable if they weren’t so sad and dangerous. The President of the United States is less aware of Katrina’s destruction than some schlub watching Fox News Channel (*obligatory vomit*)? His staff has to compile a DVD of mainstream media news to get him caught up, rather than having FEMA officials ready to give status from the ground? There’s fear among his staff of asking him to cut his mega-vacation short so he can prevent people from dying?!

I’ll be the first to say that local and state officials have a lot to answer for, especially the Democratic governor of Louisiana. But after 9/11 there was a concerted effort to make sure the federal government was ready to handle catastrophes like this, so it was clearly the responsibility of the federal government to pick up where state and local agencies couldn’t.

Lies.com posits that Bush’s ego prevents him from keeping too much competence around him. He also makes an apt comparison to Martin Sheen’s President Bartlett, noting the contrast in situational awareness. Many a time have I wished that fictional president was our real one, and now more than ever I find the distinction very clear.

For a good breakdown of what the article covers, check out Julien’s List (the content is actually from AmericaBlog, but I found it at the “educated eclectic” first).

Video of Keith Olbermann’s rant

Not the best video quality, but the words are what is important.

Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said it all, starting his news briefing Saturday afternoon: “Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater…”

Well there’s your problem right there…

Transcript, if you can’t watch the video

From the woman who said on Good Morning America

But why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it’s gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it’s, it’s not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?

comes this latest show of compassion:

Accompanying her husband, former President George H.W.Bush, on a tour of hurricane relief centers in Houston, Barbara Bush said today, referring to the poor who had lost everything back home and evacuated, “This is working very well for them.”

The former First Lady’s remarks were aired this evening on American Public Media’s “Marketplace” program.

She was part of a group in Houston today at the Astrodome that included her husband and former President Bill Clinton, who were chosen by her son, the current president, to head fundraising efforts for the recovery. Sen. Hilary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama were also present.

In a segment at the top of the show on the surge of evacuees to the Texas city, Barbara Bush said: “Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we’re going to move to Houston.”

Then she added: “What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

“And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this–this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.”

I remember admiring this woman when I was a child as I watched her read a book on Sesame Street. She disgusts me now. Perhaps I should know better, but I’m absolutely stunned at how out of touch she is with the common person. I can’t wait to hear her justification for why it’s “scary” that these people want to move to Texas. Maybe Kanye West is on to something.

Reality

The failure of George W. Bush to even slightly resemble a man who can be trusted to write out the alphabet, let alone lead a country, has reached a level that is unthinkable. Our federal government is inept, it is out of touch with its citizens, reality, and quite frankly doesn’t care about either. I have seen the grin on his face one too many times, and I’m now convinced…he just doesn’t care.

It seems that the Bush administration is so used to the images of death that it has created in Iraq that it has gotten New Orleans confused with downtown Baghdad. Not one person in this country should be defending them over this, not ONE, regardless of whatever side of the fence you stand on in regards to the largely meaningless bickering that is everyday politics in America. These people needed our government, and it failed them. Who knows how many lives could have been saved had there been any federal response that gave the faintest impression that they were prepared for such a disaster, or at the very least could come up with SOMETHING once they realized that they weren’t. They failed at their JOB to a miserable degree, and from George Bush on down, we must hold these “people” (I use that term very lightly) responsible for their inability to deal with the chaos in New Orleans.

Impeach Bush.

“Deal with reality, or reality will deal with you.”
-Colin Campbell

“Ten regular…”, I said dryly to the attendant at my local Exxon (still waiting on that Citgo to get built…).

It was Monday, gas was sitting at a cool $2.55 a gallon. Hurricane Katrina had yet to wreak her full havoc upon the Big Easy and surrounding areas. The vastly important oil and natural gas infrastructure in the gulf was still intact, albeit deserted. Unfortunately, all was not right in the world…

“You’d better fill up, buddy, it’ll be $2.75 tomorrow…”, the attendant responded.

A few minutes and $35 later I called up friends and family to let them in on the dirty secret. He wasn’t lying either, by the same time the next day the price was up to $2.75, and apparently that was only the beginning, see below for the same station’s price today…

I’ll use the term lightly, but should we “recover” from this, I hope it serves as an example to anyone who may have misjudged the impact of oil and natural gas shortages on our lives. If anything positive should come out of the situation, perhaps people will open their eyes and realize just how fragile everyday life is, and just how much of an iron grip oil has on us all. America uses around 21 million barrels of oil a day. The effect that the loss of a few million has had on gas price is staggering, and the fact that if current trends continue, we will one day (in the near future) be dealing with a supply shortage that is not the result of a hurricane, but instead the result of wreckless consumption, is a frightening prospect to say the least.

The time is now, people. The time to conserve is now. The time to bring alternative and renewable energy to the forefront of our consciousness is now. The time to turn off the television and trade in the SUV is now. The time to see to it that the comforts hydrocarbon energy has provided for you are able to perpetuate in some form for future generations to enjoy and expand upon is now. The time to stop spending billions of dollars on weapons and war and instead put that money, time, and energy into research and development is now. The time to rise above the petty divisions of partisan politics and all of its meaningless debates and labels and demand that the people who claim to be our leaders do their job is now. They do supposedly answer to us, right? If what we’re taught to believe about freedom and democracy is true then the time that we start using it for things other than fattening our bank accounts and upgrading our home theatre is now.

If gas price drops back down to pre-hurricane levels and another celebrity goes on trial or has a divorce and causes us to forget about what happened, like we do so many other things, there will be other options to consider (for rational, sane people). Things like giving up on a population that refuses to understand itself and learning how to fend for yourself. Things like finding like-minded people to help you prepare for and deal with a post oil crash society. Things like figuring out how to dodge the thought police once martial law is declared. Things like avoiding the millions of dumbfounded dipshits that chose to ignore the problem and watched everything fall apart, despite their prayers.

Consider this at best a picture of what is to come for us if we do not act, and at worst the beginning of the end for life as we know it. Man, I sure hope no gay people got married yesterday.