Oh, The Things They Did

So let's take a quick break from calling Obama Hitler to have a look at his predecessor. Anything new coming out?

Doop-de-do... hey, look, turns out they hired mercenaries to carry out extra-judicial assassinations!

The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials.

Executives from Blackwater, which has generated controversy because of its aggressive tactics in Iraq, helped the spy agency with planning, training and surveillance. The C.I.A. spent several million dollars on the program, which did not successfully capture or kill any terrorist suspects.

The fact that the C.I.A. used an outside company for the program was a major reason that Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A.’s director, became alarmed and called an emergency meeting in June to tell Congress that the agency had withheld details of the program for seven years, the officials said.

It's the perfect Bush-era blend of privatization and murder.

Also, I think we know how Blackwater mercenaries react in situations where they are given guns and a measure of freedom - that would be Nissour Square. I guess we should be happy the "Blackwater in Your Corner" campaign only reached the formative stages.

So, anything else? Hmm... here's confirmation from Tom Ridge of something we knew all along!

Among the headlines promoted by publisher Thomas Dunne Books: Ridge was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings; was “blindsided” by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him; found his urgings to block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency blamed for the Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored; and was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush’s re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over.

Obviously, this is Ridge's book, and he gets to set the history. But I don't think you could escape the sneaking suspicion that, every even-numbered year in the age of Bush, suddenly we were told about "chatter" from terrorists and definitive plans and the raising of the alert level. I used to call it the Federal Even-yeared Anti-Terror Response, or FEAR, Unit.

Can Ridge apologize now for saying in 2004 "We don't do politics at the Department of Homeland Security"?

My, what a trip down memory lane this morning...

...Marc Ambinder calls pattern recognition "gut hatred of Bush", admits his skepticism about politicized terror alerts was wrong, but at least he wasn't a hippie about it. This guy should be fired for admitting that.

But he's a card-carrying Villager, so he'll be promoted.

...Wow.

Osama bin Laden had released a videotape with one more ominous sounding but unspecific threat against the United States. Neither Mr. Ridge nor any of the department’s security experts thought the message warranted any change in the nation’s alert status.

“…at this point there was nothing to indicate a specific threat and no reason to cause undue public alarm,” he writes.

But that view met resistance in a tense conference call with members of the intelligence community and several other Cabinet officers including Attorney General John Ashcroft and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

“A vigorous, some might say dramatic, discussion ensured. Ashcroft strongly urged an increase in the threat level and was supported by Rumsfeld.”

Noting the correlation found between increases in the threat level and the president’s approval rating, Mr. Ridge writes, “I wondered, ‘Is this about security or politics?’”

No wonder Ridge didn't run for Senate.

Conservatives Vs. Liberals, Lesson MCMXXXVII

The last Administration actually instituted a program asking people to call in tips on their neighbors or anyone who looked suspicious to them. After bipartisan outcry the program was supposedly canceled, and yet trained terrorism liaison officers culled from the law enforcement and elsewhere continued to look for "suspicious activity," secret surveillance programs continued to data mine the private communications of Americans, etc.

This Administration responds to deliberate misinformation passed out about health care reform by asking their supporters to flag them for them, essentially crowdsourcing the lies. This becomes twisted by the right as an effort to spy on neighbors and friends and "turn in" opponents of health care reform, to the extent that Sen. John Cornyn calls it a "data collection program." And predictably, the White House shut it down.

So one President actually rampantly spies on the entire population of America for eight years, the other asks for tips on misinformation, and not only are they described as the same thing, but conservatives are actually successful at shutting down what they find abhorrent, while this President joined Congressional efforts to legalize the abuses of the surveillance state from the last regime.

And we're surprised, in this environment, that it's difficult to pass health care reform?

Cave-Ins Upon Cave-Ins

I'm fairly livid at my party right now. First we had the President withholding the release of prisoner abuse photos. Then the Department of Homeland Security responded to conservative whiners and pulled the report on right-wing extremism, which I'm sure will be a great comfort to everyone during the next Ruby Ridge or Pittsburgh cop shooter. And then...

A bill by Senate Democrats would fund the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but it would block the transfer of any of the detainees to the United States.

The move is aimed at sidestepping a political minefield that President Obama has confronted in his promise to close the military prison during his first year in office. Lawmakers of both parties have bristled at the notion of bringing Guantanamo terrorism suspects to detention facilities in the United States [...]

The administration has yet to produce a plan for dealing with the approximately 240 Guantanamo detainees, but Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has said that between 50 and 100 would end up in U.S. facilities.

The $96.7-billion measure headed for a House vote today contains no funds to transfer the Guantanamo detainees, though the Pentagon retains the ability to seek informal approval to move funds from other accounts.

So they appropriate money to close Gitmo, but not transfer the prisoners. That floating island of plastic must be looking pretty good right about now.

I think the main reason here is that the White House has not presented a formal plan for transfer. But we all know what this looks like - Democrats caved to the patently ridiculous charge that dangerous terrorists will be let loose in America to shop at Wal-Mart and play in your corporate softball game, instead of leaving the prisoners among the nice tropical breezes of Guantanamo. I thought the era of paying attention to ridiculous wingnut hissy fits had ended, but clearly not in Washington. They're still acting like the good neutered puppies Grover Norquist always wanted them to be.

If You've Done Nothing Wrong, You Have Nothing To Worry About

Last week, the Department of Homeland Security released a report on right-wing extremism, being fueled by the recession and the disturbing increase in activity from white supremacy groups after the election of the nation's first black President. Basically, fear and economic uncertainty breed a certain strain of anger that could morph into violence. And in particular, the targets here are anti-government hate groups, who may recruit and radicalize American citizens, including veterans.

Of course, this has set off conservative media, who claim that the President is directly targeting conservatives with this report. Never mind that the report initiated with the Bush Administration, and was a companion to a similar report on left-wing groups potentially using cyber-attacks (Here's a separate report referring to left-wing groups back in 2001). Somehow conservative media groups take a look at murderous extremists like Timothy McVeigh and see themselves. Here's Dave Neiwert, an authority on the subject:

Because, you know, the report -- which in fact is perfectly accurate in every jot and tittle -- couldn't be more clear. It carefully delineates that the subject of its report is "rightwing extremists," "domestic rightwing terrorist and extremist groups," "terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks," "white supremacists," and similar very real threats described in similar language.

Nothing about conservatives. The word never appears in the report.

Because, you know, we always thought there was a difference between right-wing extremists and mainstream conservatives too. My new book, The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right, does explain that the distance between them has in fact shrunk considerably, thanks to the help of people like Malkin [...] The report itself, in fact, is all about accurately identifying very real looming threats. And, while it's obvious Malkin hasn't been paying attention, there in fact is considerable data coming over the transom to indicate that there's a real problem looming with the far right.

Don't forget: Before he'd even been sworn into office, we had skinheads [photo above] being arrested for plotting Obama's assassination.

Those who are slightly smarter than to describe themselves in the same breath as neo-Nazis are trying to shift the issue and claim that the report attacks veterans. Some good examples of this whining are Joe Scarborough, who said the Obama Administration is "more focused on targeting veterans than on protecting our border," and Newt Gingrich, who claimed that the White House "used terrorism to describe worrying about Americans but the word has been banned for describing foreigners." To their credit, some conservatives have maintained their sanity in discussing a report targeting violent extremist groups with a stated goal and long history of committing acts of terrorism.

Now, I think there is a potential danger of government over-reaching in the name of national security when it comes to monitoring citizen groups. I've ALWAYS thought so. That's why the utter hypocrisy coming from the right on this issue is too insane to ignore.

The political faction screeching about the dangers of the DHS is the same one that spent the last eight years vastly expanding the domestic Surveillance State and federal police powers in every area. DHS -- and the still-creepy phrase "homeland security" -- became George Bush's calling card. The Republicans won the 2002 election by demonizing those who opposed its creation. All of the enabling legislation underlying this Surveillance State -- from the Patriot Act to the Military Commissions Act, from the various FISA "reforms" to massive increases in domestic "counter-Terrorism" programs -- are the spawns of the very right-wing movement that today is petrified that this is all being directed at them.

When you cheer on a Surveillance State, you have no grounds to complain when it turns its eyes on you. If you create a massive and wildly empowered domestic surveillance apparatus, it's going to monitor and investigate domestic political activity. That's its nature [...]

I was in Minneapolis and St. Paul during the 2008 GOP Convention and witnessed first-hand massive federal police raids and "preventive" arrests of peaceful, law-abiding protesters and even the violent arrests of journalists, and I don't recall any complaints from Jonah Goldberg or Michelle Malkin. I don't recall Glenn Reynolds or Mark Steyn complaining that the FBI, for virtually the entire Bush administration, was systematically abusing its new National Security Letters authorities under the Patriot Act to collect extremely invasive information, in secret, about Americans who had done nothing wrong. Russ Feingold's efforts to place limits and abuse-preventing safeguards on these Patriot Act powers in 2006 attracted a grand total of 10 votes in the Senate -- none Republican.

Indeed, thanks to the very people who are today petulantly complaining about politically-motivated federal police actions (now that they imagine it's directed at them rather than at people they dislike), the Federal Government today has the power to eavesdrop on telephone calls and read the emails of American citizens without warrants; monitor bank records without court approval; obtain all sorts of invasive personal records, medical and financial, without Subpoenas; and obtain and store a whole host of other personal information about American citizens who have not been accused, let alone convicted, of having done anything wrong.

It was obvious that the same cheerleaders for excessive government surveillance, warrantless wiretapping, and police-state crackdowns would turn on a dime the moment that the federal apparatus transferred to Democrats. And it was obvious they would not fall back on their previous justifications - "If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about," - once their party lost power. So they really have no right to complain at all. If they had any intellectual honesty at all, maybe they'd work with civil liberties groups to dismantle the national security state and put an end to the threat of concentrated power in the hands of the few. But they won't, because they're perpetual victims and rage addicts who just want to feel oppressed by their enemies.

Ending Worksite Raids

Immigration is one issue we haven't heard much about in the Obama Administration, for various reasons. But advocates have not stopped their push to take the undocumented out of the shadows and provide them a path to citizenship. The President has said little publicly on the issue since Inauguration Day, though he promised the Congressional Hispanic Caucus a statement of support in the spring. However, today's Washington Post reports on a policy shift toward punishing the businesses who hire the undocumented rather than the individual workers themselves.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has delayed a series of proposed immigration raids and other enforcement actions at U.S. workplaces in recent weeks, asking agents in her department to apply more scrutiny to the selection and investigation of targets as well as the timing of raids, federal officials said.

A senior department official said the delays signal a pending change in whom agents at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement choose to prosecute -- increasing the focus on businesses and executives instead of ordinary workers.

"ICE is now scrutinizing these cases more thoroughly to ensure that [targets] are being taken down when they should be taken down, and that the employer is being targeted and the surveillance and the investigation is being done how it should be done," said the official, discussing Napolitano's views about sensitive law enforcement matters on the condition of anonymity.

"There will be a change in policy, but in the interim, you've got to scrutinize the cases coming up," the senior DHS official said, noting Napolitano's expectations as a former federal prosecutor and state attorney general.

Worksite raids, particularly as they were used in the Bush Administration, were unnecessarily harsh, separated families and in some cases violated due process and other civil liberties. The employers are just as responsible for breaking the law, yet during the Bush years they were almost never charged. This shift in operations at DHS and ICE not only makes sense on a moral and ethical level, but is likely to be more successful in deterring companies from hiring and exploiting undocumented labor.

I know immigration isn't a front-burner issue right now, but there are better priorities than the government operating like commandos and taking workers away from their families, and the only way to truly solve the problem is through comprehensive reform.

Our Racial Problem

I know that Barack Obama's election ended all racial strife in America, but somebody forgot to tell the TSA.

Officials ordered nine Muslim passengers, including three young children, off an AirTran flight headed to Orlando from Reagan National Airport yesterday afternoon after two other passengers overheard what they thought was a suspicious remark.

Members of the party, all but one of them U.S.-born citizens who were headed to a religious retreat in Florida, were subsequently cleared for travel by FBI agents who characterized the incident as a misunderstanding, an airport official said. But the passengers said AirTran refused to rebook them, and they had to pay for seats on another carrier secured with help from the FBI.

Kashif Irfan, one of the removed passengers, said the incident began about 1 p.m. after his brother, Atif, and his brother's wife wondered aloud about the safest place to sit on an airplane.

"My brother and his wife were discussing some aspect of airport security," Irfan said. "The only thing my brother said was, 'Wow, the jets are right next to my window.' I think they were remarking about safety."

Serves them right, making small talk to one another on a plane. While being dark-skinned and Muslim-looking at that!

The TSA and AirTran ended up taking everyone off the plane and re-screening them and their luggage, before allowing them to take off - only without that trouble-making family. According to TSA, this is an example of the system working.

Ellen Howe, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration, said the pilot acted appropriately.

"For us, it just highlights that security is everybody's responsibility," Howe said. "Someone heard something that was inappropriate, and then the airline decided to act on it. We certainly support [the pilot's] call to do that."

In a society suffused with the "TIPS" program and Total Information Awareness and calls to "watch what you say" and to be on the lookout for suspicious activity, this is what we get. Those cultural signifiers are not easily washed away, the urge to be "alert" and "ready" and "aware" and "on watch". And ultimately, there are very strict, not-even-subliminal definitions on who we have to watch and who we don't have to watch. And ethnicity is the dividing line.

George Bush may be leaving office, but the culture of paranoia he helped to usher in most certainly has not. And deputizing Americans to be part of a 300-million-strong network of spies has impacts on public policy, too. After all, how far is it to leap from eavesdropping on conversations at the mall to eavesdropping on phone calls? As long as you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about, from a civil liberties standpoint.

One of the biggest changes a President Obama can make, if he cares too, is in the national mood, to reject this presumption of guilt, this culture of fear, this demonization of the other, this automatic transfer of second-class citizenship. There's no kind of profiling that is more justifiable than any other. It's all part of a creeping assault on our collective civil liberties and it has to stop.

Cabinet Report

I should just do a daily roundup of this or something. So Penny Pritzker is likely to be the Secretary of Commerce. Her experience appears to be that 1) she's rich and 2) she's Barack Obama's friend. Well, OK. Doesn't much thrill me.

However, Janet Napolitano at Homeland Security is an excellent choice. We lose a governorship (the next in line in Arizona is a Republican), and the popular Napolitano would be a great candidate against John McCain in the 2010 Senate race. But her talent is too much to pass up. I think having someone with experience as a border governor is going to be a big lift to our border security efforts, which will be more humane. Her background in consumer protection issues as state attorney general might mean that we'll actually test the food and drink and toys coming into the country - after all, that's "homeland security" too, isn't it? I hate the term "homeland security," actually, but clearly protecting the ports and chemical plants and nuclear power plants and all sorts of elements that the Bush Administration left unprotected would be a good start.

OK, there's today's cabinet report...

UPDATE: Looks like Pritzker's turned it down, owing to business dealings that would make her less confirmable.

The Keep Us Safe Society

It's worth mentioning that this locked-down surveillance state in the Twin Cities is a function of basing the last couple of Presidential elections on which candidate can keep the American people safe. By focusing on that to the abstraction of all else, we start to value security over liberty, and we stop questioning the encroachment of those liberties. This is really unacceptable:

The only interesting events going on here are the raids of local hippies by an aggressive and corrupt county sheriff, and I'll be heading to the formal protest in a few minutes. What's dispiriting is just how complicit people are in this security state; outside the Democratic rapid response center, I spoke to a (probably liberal) woman who expressed comfort at all the security in that it will help prevent bombs from the anarchists.

This is the essence of 'security theater', intended to intimidate rather than protect. I took pictures of the riot police, and I have to say I was scared in doing so because there was literally no one around, two squads of riot police, and brick buildings on one side and barbed wire fences on the other.

This isn't a Republican problem, by the way. The Fleet Center in Boston in 2004 was just as bad, and there's ridiculous amounts of security theater all over the country, supplemented by higher security budgets since 9/11 and a blanket acceptance of our loss of freedoms by citizens and elites. Go to Capitol Hill or the White House and you'll see what I mean, though the conventions are far worse.

And it's even worse - rubber bullets are being fired at protesters, tear gas, water cannons and pepper spray is being used. It goes without saying that there's no opportunity for this to shock anyone's conscience because it simply isn't being played on TV. But even if it was, I'm not so sure that there would be a majority opposed to the actions. The fetish of "being kept safe" - the idea that abusing your fellow man is OK in the name of security, even without evidence that there's a security threat and when the goal is not security but intimidation - has really lowered our threshold of intolerance toward this.

LOCKED DOWN

So I attempted to get into the "soft perimeter" area to see Digby's panel, and at first I got through, then I tried to go into the wrong building and I had the wrong credential, so I left, and when I tried to return they had restricted the area I originally accessed.

This place is locked down. The security is "the worst I've ever seen it," according to a couple people I've talked to who have attended many conventions. You can feel the presence.

It's borderline creepy.

Jane Harman's H.R. "1984"

I have to admit that I was initially a smidge skeptical about the progressive outcry over Jane Harman's bill, the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act" which passed the House by a 404-6 count back in October. While I believe staunchly in the protection of civil liberties, I guess I took "homegrown terrorism" to mean groups like right-wing militia, terror groups who bomb abortion clinics, purveyors of racist hate speech, and the like. As David Neiwert said, it appeared to be an attempt to make counter-terrorism more comprehensive and complete. But when you look under the hood, there's a great deal to be scared about with this bill.

One of the findings of the bill is that, “the Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.”

And the remedy to that is... closing off the Internet? Reading everyone's blog posts for "extremist" rhetoric?

The bill calls for heightened scrutiny of people who believe, or might come to believe, in a violent ideology. (ACLU policy counsel Mike) German wants the government to focus on people who are actually committing crimes, rather than those who are merely entertaining violent ideas, something perfectly legal.

Harman’s bill would convene a 10-member national commission to study “violent radicalization” (defined as “the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change”) and “homegrown terrorism” (defined as “the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States […] to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives”).

Now I'm getting nervous.

It's clear that any organization studying "violent radicalization" could head down some blind alleys pretty quickly. The FBI's domestic terrorism unit cites as among its greatest threats to the homeland... the Earth Liberation Front, the group that blows up Hummers. Animal rights groups also frequently show up on these domestic terror lists. And this national commission that would be created would be insular and potentially susceptible to politicization.

“The bill replicates what already exists without peer review and safeguards,” says Chip Berlet, a senior policy analyst for Political Research Associates, an independent non-profit research organization that studies political violence, authoritarianism, and homegrown terrorism [...]

The broad wording of the bill leaves open many questions. If homegrown terrorism is defined to include “intimidation” of the United States government or any segment of its population—could the Commission or the Center of Excellence task itself with investigating groups advocating boycotts, general strikes, or other forms of non-violent “intimidation”?

“While we wholeheartedly support efforts to curtail terrorism, primarily coming from white supremacists, we would also like to see legislation that more vigorously defends civil rights,” says Devin Burghart, an expert on domestic terrorism at the Center for New Communities, a national civil and human rights organization based in Chicago.

My friend Marcy Winograd, who challenged Rep. Harman to a primary in 2006, is alarmed about this bill and thinks it needs to be blocked in the Senate.

Senator Boxer, one of our more courageous lawmakers, needs to put a hold on this bill before we see a return of the McCarthy hearings, with committees interrogating conscientious Americans who have spoken out against the war and globalization. This legislation ostensibly targets those who promote violence and extremist ideology, but if that were really the case the lawmakers supporting this legislation would be impeaching and indicting Bush and Cheney for war crimes.

During my congressional challenge, Boxer campaigned for Harman so I can only assume, since their political views often differ, that she felt a personal loyalty to the former ranking minority leader on the House Intelligence Committee. Now, however, it is time for Boxer to set aside personal loyalties and consider one's allegiance to the future of our democracy. Harman's bill, though seemingly benign, would actually give the green light to multiple simultaneous cross-country hearings aimed at intimidating those who question the government. Even if the bill were benignly conceived, its effect will be to silence debate and foster a climate of suspicion.

I think that's slightly extreme, but it certainly COULD go that way, and the value of yet another "blue ribbon panel" is certainly outweighed by the potential loss of civil liberties and monitoring of groups who are Constitutionally engaging in their right to dissent. So if you are concerned about this legislation, you ought to call Senator Boxer and urge a hold on it. The bill number in the Senate is S.B. 1959.

George Bush: Proudly Enforcing the Laws After 6 1/2 Years

Suddenly the President's a workplace enforcer.

The administration unveiled a series of tough border control and employer enforcement measures designed to make up for security provisions that failed when Congress rejected a broad rewrite of the nation’s immigration laws in June.

The package revealed Friday has 26 elements, and the administration announcement said they "represent steps the Administration can take within the boundaries of existing law to secure our borders more effectively, improve interior and worksite enforcement, streamline existing guest worker programs, improve the current immigration system, and help new immigrants assimilate into American culture.

The border enforcement stuff is nothing new, and will simply increase the number of tourists overstaying visas. But the workplace enforcement rules, most of them already on the books, represent a new focus:

Employers will face tough new scrutiny and requirements. “There are now 29 categories of documents that employers must accept to establish identity and work eligibility among their workers,” the summary says. “The Department of Homeland Security will reduce that number and weed out the most insecure.”

“The Department of Homeland Security will raise the civil fines imposed on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants by approximately 25 percent,” the summary continues. “The administration will continue its aggressive expansion of criminal investigations against employers who knowingly hire large numbers of illegal aliens.”

You could have done so much of this without changing any of these laws. What Steve Soto said.

It’s a valid question why after seven years the Bush Administration is just now:

1. Forcing employers to fire employees who use false Social Security numbers;

2. Fully implementing a 1996 law on an exit-control system;

3. Forcing employers to comply with a 1986 law requiring eligibility verification from job applicants;

4. Stepping up the arrest and deportation of illegal immigrant street gang members;

5. Using federal agents across the country to hunt down “alien fugitives;”

6. Expanding its training of local law enforcement on immigration laws.

Why do I get the feeling that this tough talk will not be backed up with action?

A Mad Final Dash

It's been like cutting ice, but on a couple fronts, the Democratic Congress has finally broken through the Republican roadblock on a couple major issues, and I hope they can now break the media filter and explain this to the American people.

The bill incorporating most of the 9/11 Commission recommendations have been sent to the President with veto-proof majorities. The bill includes some border security measures to get Republican votes, meaning that this will be the end of illegal immigration!... or at least the continuation of immigrants overstaying tourist visas, which is how most of them arrive in this country anyway.

This bill actually fulfills a Kerry campaign promise, mandating screening of all cargo at the ports, which the White House is of course resisting, because they're not interested in passing security. But they got Congress to remove language allowing TSA personnel to collectively bargain, so I guess they figured they screwed the working man enough to allow them to sign it. And overall, the bill does represent progress.

Also, the House passed a raft of bills aimed at helping veterans returning from Iraq. The Senate passed a veterans health care bill last week, so this may see passage. Of course, many of the recommendations of the Dole-Shalala Commission need to be implemented by the executive branch, meaning that they won't.

There should be some other initiatives passed this week before the August recess (the Iraqi Parliament is just practicing American-style democracy!), so we'll see how it shakes out.

The Sausage Factory

There seems to be a lot of legislation being spitballed in Congress right now, let's do a rundown:

• The House voted to ban all permanent bases in Iraq. There's enough funding, of course, to already build these installations, but it's somewhat significant to the next Administration coming in that the House is on record for this, and that talk of Iraq being the new Korea is being fully rejected. Hopefully the Senate will join them.

• After a farm bill that retained multibillion dollar subsidies to farmers, but lowered the ceiling for payment eligibility and also tried to tighten offshore tax haven loopholes, suddenly faces a veto threat from the President and Republicans who don't want anything bad to happen to those persecuted rich people.

Democrats said the tax proposal would merely close a loophole that the Bush administration itself has decried in the past. "Who is surprised that the administration takes the side of CEOs who hold beachside board meetings at the expense of programs to feed the least fortunate here at home?" asked Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.), a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee [...]

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has defended the legislation as an important step toward reform. In addition to paying for traditional farm programs, the bill would provide billions of dollars over the next decade for conservation, biofuel research and nutrition programs such as food stamps. There is new money for organic farmers, rural development and fruit-and-vegetable snacks for schoolchildren.

The farm bill is one of those pieces of Congressional sausage that doesn't get a lot of attention, but really sets the priorities for who we are as a society. The Republicans have set theirs, certainly. But this is always a compromise bill where the interests of farm-state lawmakers are foregrounded and a lot of pork is maintained. Democrats probably did the best they could do on this one, and still Republicans can't allow rich people to have to pay their taxes.

• After the report from a Presidential panel on veteran's care, reforms to the system are being recommended. Maybe we won't see the kind of shocking situation that leads Iraq veterans to sue the VA. What's so depressing is that this plan is cheap:

The commission said fully carrying out its recommendations would cost $500 million a year for the time being, and $1 billion annually years from now as the current crop of fresh veterans and active military members ages and new personnel is in place.

Many of the recommendations of the commission were included in a bill that passed the Senate yesterday.

• Looks like the homeland security bill is finally moving forward.

House and Senate negotiators reached accord yesterday on legislation to implement most of the recommendations of the bipartisan commission that studied the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The deal could be enacted as early as this week. Agreement on a package of lobbying and ethics rules changes should be done by early next week. And congressional leaders hope to pass a significant expansion of the 10-year-old program to provide health insurance for children of the working poor.

They're finally starting to break the deadlocks on some of this stuff, as Republicans may have understood that low disapproval ratings for Congress means EVERY incumbent is threatened, not just Democrats. And with far more Republicans up in the Senate, I'm sure they are getting nervous. And the Democrats are starting to put moderates in a vice in a smart way. To wit:

But against such philosophical stands, there is a stark political problem: How many Republicans are really going to oppose legislation expanding insurance coverage for children, tightening ethics rules and bolstering homeland security?

"They've had a pretty strong quarter," said Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.), who praised the insurance bill as "creative" and suggested the homeland security bill would pass overwhelmingly. "The first quarter was not so good, and that's why they're not looking so good in the polls, but this quarter is looking very good for them. They can send their members home crowing about their accomplishments, and they've done it in a bipartisan way, which is exactly what they promised to do," LaHood said.

I don't know if people are paying enough attention; really only Iraq matters in the big picture. But Democrats are starting to expose the obstructionists and break through the media filter.

The Reformation of Al Qaeda

While Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is just an old group experimenting with a new brand, the actual Al Qaeda seems to be resurgent.

A new threat assessment from U.S. counterterrorism analysts says that al-Qaida has used its safe haven along the Afghan-Pakistan border to restore its operating capabilities to a level unseen since the months before Sept. 11, 2001.

A counterterrorism official familiar with a five-page summary of the document _ titled "Al-Qaida better positioned to strike the West" _ called it a stark appraisal. The analysis will be part of a broader meeting at the White House on Thursday about an upcoming National Intelligence Estimate [...]

The findings suggests that the network that launched the most devastating terror attack on U.S. soil has been able to regroup despite nearly six years of bombings, war and other tactics aimed at dismantling it.

At his news conference Thursday, President Bush acknowledged the report's existence and al-Qaida's continuing threat to the United States. He said, however, that the report refers only to al-Qaida's strength in 2001, not prior to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The group was at its strongest throughout most of that year, with well-established training camps in Afghanistan, recruitment networks and command structures.

This all seems to be coinciding with Pakistan's peace treaty with the Taliban, giving them safe passage in the mountains on the border with Afghanistan, which we ENCOURAGED. Now there's no functional difference between Al Qaeda of 2001, with its safe harbor within Afghanistan, and Al Qaeda of 2007, with its safe harbor at the border. Heck, we even stopped a planned attack against Al Qaeda chiefs in 2005 because it would have upset Pakistan and put Musharraf at risk. So by making a distinction between terrorists and the countries who harbor them, not the opposite as was claimed after September 11, we've actually created the same conditions for allowing Al Qaeda to flourish, actually more so, because were in the midst of an occupation in a big chunk of the Muslim world, and most Muslims, including the Iraqis, want us out.

So Bush and "Gut Feeling" Chertoff may want to deny this, but Al Qaeda is just as strong, and the counterterrorism options they've taken since 9/11 have proved a failure, the pivoting to Iraq just being the most egregious. And while 160,000 troops and billions of dollars are sent over there, at home our security is perilous:

Undercover Congressional investigators set up a bogus company and obtained a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March that would have allowed them to buy the radioactive materials needed for a so-called dirty bomb.

The investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, demonstrated once again that the security measures put in place since the 2001 terrorist attacks to prevent radioactive materials from getting into the wrong hands are insufficient, according to a G.A.O. report, which is scheduled to be released at a Senate hearing Thursday.

Because this government would rather contract out governmental functions and make them unaccountable. This is all a function of the conservative worldview of "government is the problem" and should therefore not be funded. That this extends to homeland security should be shocking.

I don't know if we're going to be attacked again, but I do understand that the level of chatter is eerily similar to the summer of 2001. And I do know that, if there is another attack, and the National Guard troops and equipment needed to cope with it are in Iraq, and if Osama bin Laden is responsible after he was cornered almost 6 years ago and shouldn't be alive today, that the person to blame for such an attack being successful lives in the White House.

FEAR Unit - Feeling Its Way Into Action

Michael Chertoff's got a feeling:

Fearing complacency among the American people over possible terror threats, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in Chicago Tuesday that the nation faces a heightened chance of an attack this summer.

"I believe we are entering a period this summer of increased risk," Chertoff told the Chicago Tribune's editorial board in an unusually blunt and frank assessment of America's terror threat level.

"Summertime seems to be appealing to them," he said of al-Qaeda. "We do worry that they are rebuilding their activities."

Still, Chertoff said there are not enough indications of an imminent plot to raise the current threat levels nationwide. And he indicated that his remarks were based on "a gut feeling" formed by past seasonal patterns of terrorist attacks, recent al-Qaeda statements, and intelligence he did not disclose.

Apparently the Department of Homeland Security runs on mood rings. Feelings are how they operate, and gut feelings are how they're going to save us all.

If you want to see these feelings in poll form, the number is 29% and it's next to President Bush.

The Hilarious Escapades of Michael Kamburowksi

The Chron gives a follow-up to last week's hilarious story that the California Republican Party has been hiring non-citizens to staff their top jobs, even as they decry the menace of immigration. In fact, it turns out that one of their hires may not even be in the country legally.

Michael Kamburowski, the Australian immigrant hired as a top official in the California Republican Party, was ordered deported in 2001, jailed three years later for visa violations -- and has filed a $5 million wrongful arrest lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, according to U.S. District Court documents.

Kamburowski was named in March to be the chief operating officer of the California GOP. He is responsible for the state party's multimillion-dollar budget and oversees campaign funds and financing for the nation's largest state GOP organization.

This is hypocrisy on steroids. You have a party that never misses an opportunity to rail against illegal immigration, hiring an illegal immigrant, essentially, as their COO. Kamburowski says he's a legal resident now, and that he's suing DHS for unlawfully jailing him and attempting to deport him.

But the funniest part is, for a lot of this time, Kamburowski was selling real estate in the Dominican Republic:

But Kamburowski's former boss in the Dominican Republic resort town of Punta Cana -- where Kamburowski worked until February -- expressed astonishment that the Australian was hired for such an important financial job in a major political party.

"I wouldn't give him my company to run, I can tell you that,'' said Rico Pester, the owner of Re/Max Island Realty in the fashionable Caribbean beach region.

Pester said Kamburowski arrived in Punta Cana in the summer of 2006 and "was so successful that he couldn't sell anything the whole time he was here -- and we provided him with clients. He didn't rent anything and he didn't sell anything. ... I have no idea what he was doing.''

Then, in February, Kamburowski "ran away without mentioning anything to us,'' he said.

"I couldn't understand how somebody like him could become a (Republican Party) COO,'' Pester said in a telephone interview.

Look, if you're bad at selling prime vacation property in the D.R., maybe you'd be good at selling a brand as damaged as the Republican Party in California!

Of course, someone like Kamburowski doesn't have to worry about money. He's a classic wingnut welfare recipient who cut his teeth with a Grover Norquist-affiliated group. He overstayed his visa after coming to this country, did the game of marrying an American woman to get a green card, then divorced her but remained in the country. The INS tried to deport him but Kamburowski claimed he never got their messages because he moved to DC. There's more in the article.

This is someone who's seemingly never had to answer for any of his actions, and somehow keeps falling upward. What a perfect symbol for the state GOP.

Chutzpah

There was no way that Republicans would simply accept their defeat in the 2006 elections and be put out to pasture. We all knew that they were BETTER from the attack dog position that they were ever at governing. They thrive on being the persecuted minority; it's hard-wired into their worldview. And since they hate government, attacking those in power is a natural fit.

Still, I'm not sure any of us expected them to have the chutzpah* - there's really no other word for it - to attack the Democrats for the very sins they displayed throughout 12 years of rule in the Congress. Yet we should have. Because these are some of the most shameless people who've ever walked the Earth, and what's more they saw a winning formula in 2006, and they co-opted it. Plus, they rely on a low-information electorate who won't pay attention to the total hypocrisy coming out of their mouths when they blather and bluster.

This actually started very early in the Congressional session, when the GOP started whining about being locked out of the legislative process and the Rules Committee. But it's really reached a state of perfection in the past couple weeks. Once they saw Democratic weakness on Iraq they struck - and in the most logically challenged ways possible.

First they assailed the Democrats for - get this - earmarks.

Reps. John Boehner (R-OH), Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Jerry Lewis (R-CA) all actively participated in the extraordinarily irresponsible explosion of congressional earmarking that began shortly after the Republicans gained control of the Congress in 1995 and lasted until the voters tossed them out this past November. But according to their political rule book, making a huge mess doesn’t mean you can’t complain about how someone else is cleaning it up.

In an effort to sidestep those political mine fields they have instead decided that voters are dumb enough to forget who gave us “The Bridge to Nowhere,” who increased earmarking in the Labor, Health and Human Service Education bill from zero to more than a billion dollars a year, who tripled the number of earmarks in the defense bill, and who is currently the target of criminal investigations because of allegations that their earmarking practices were not only wasteful but also corrupt. Why, they ask, should anyone doubt their commitment to reform?

So indignant are they at the slow pace in reforming the abusive conduct they developed into an art form that they are now attempting to stop the movement of all appropriation bills and as a result funding for myriad critical federal programs.

And guess what, this actually worked, as the Democrats agreed to allow members to question individual earmarks dropped into bills in conference reports, and allow for what Roy Blunt - Roy frickin' Blunt! - called "the same rules of transparency passed by Republicans last Congress." That's right, Roy Blunt is taking the moral high ground on corruption. This guy.

Rep. Roy Blunt and the man he wants to succeed as House majority leader, Tom DeLay, shared similar connections to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and to corporate lobbyists.

Blunt, R-Mo., wrote at least three letters helpful to Abramoff clients while collecting money from them. He swapped donations between his and DeLay's political groups, ultimately enriching the Missouri political campaign of his son Matt.

And Blunt's wife and another son, Andrew, lobby for many of the same companies that donate to the lawmaker's political efforts.

The President is getting into this act as well, adamantly huffing that he'll contain runaway spending. The guy that's presided over the largest increase in government since LBJ.

President Bush warned Congress on Saturday that he will use his veto power to stop runaway government spending.

"The American people do not want to return to the days of tax-and-spend policies," Bush said in his radio address.

The House passed a $37 billion budget for the Homeland Security Department on Friday, but Republicans rallied enough votes to uphold a promised veto from Bush.

The measure — one of several annual spending bills that Congress began to consider this week — exceeds Bush's request for the department by $2.1 billion.

Democrats on Friday defended the extra money in the homeland security bill, noting it contains money to hire 3,000 additional border agents, improve explosive detection at airports and provides money to double the amount of cargo screened on passenger aircraft.

Nowhere in the article does it mention the bloated defense budget or the massive increase in spending under Bush and the Republican rubber-stamp Congress. The he said-she said media is just engaging in stenography, and the American people have to figure out on their own how audacious it is for these serial spenders who've been fattening the pockets of contributors for the past 12 years could suddenly be interested in fiscal restraint.

The GOP is even using the phrase do-nothing Congress, when in fact, they've obstructed this Congress from doing the people's business, and they did next to nothing beyond profit taking for the last 12 years.

Republicans also are tweaking Democrats on other fronts, such as stalled efforts to upgrade health care and reduce the cost of college and energy. (which THEY stalled! -ed.)

They are even adopting the same line Democrats once used against them, calling this "a do-nothing Congress."

"If Democrats fail to reverse course, the dynamics in the 2008 elections may shift significantly, allowing Republicans to run as the party of change ... only two years after Democrats successfully campaigned on that same theme," Senate Republican leaders told their ranks in a letter last week.

There's a certain pathology at work here, for Republicans to try and shed everything they've embodied for the past decade and to turn it around on the opposition. But it's devastatingly effective politically.

Just as it was before last year's elections, polls show most Americans believe the United States is headed in the wrong direction.

"The primary reason is war," said James Thurber of American University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies.

But there are other reasons. "People have problems in their lives and they don't see the White House or Congress dealing with it," Thurber said.

A Quinnipiac University poll this month found Congress with an approval rating of just 23 percent. "People voted for change. But they don't think they got it," said Peter Brown, an assistant director of the poll.

A Gallup poll last month put Congress's approval rating at 29 percent. The number had fallen to 21 percent last December, just weeks before Republicans yielded control.

We have an instant-grafitication, short-term memorty culture, combined with a very slow ship of state. That means that the calls for change are almost continuous from one election to the next, and either side can simply borrow the other's clothing and use the same messages to their benefit. The Republicans are very, very good at this. We see it in the Iraq debate. The same people that used any scrap of evidence to claim that the surge was working a couple months ago are now saying that the surge hasn't even started yet and we need to give it more time. You simply cannot expect internal logic from these people. They are absolutely shameless, and it helps them immensely in the political arena, where the media has no use for the past either, and sees politics as professional wrestling, where a sense of shame is not a favorable attribute, but a relentless forward-moving attack is.

This is not only worrisome for the next election cycle, but far into the future, as Republicans clearly will keep using these kinds of logical leaps and get away with them, burying the past and attacking with a straight face. Indeed, those honest conservatives breaking with the President ARE setting up the Democrats for the future.

I think that when the "honest conservatives" reject Bush they're just setting up their assault on the Democratic president they expect to see elected next year. Their way of digging themselves out from under the Bush disaster (and obscuring their own massive role in that disaster) will be to swear that "Never again can an American President be allowed that kind of free hand!" This will justify their fighting the new Democratic President tooth and nail for every inch of ground.

For example, Bush's politicization of the career staff in Justice and elsewhere was a very bad thing, no? And certainly this kind of thing has to stop, no? So we will forbid the new Democratic President to interfere with career personnel, with the result that all of the political hacks Bush put in civil service positions will be untouchable. (When that happens, can we expect the media to understand what's going on? No, of course not. Can we expect the Democrats to understand? Not really, but this is one area where I'd trust Rahm Emmanuel. Send a hack to catch a hack.)

Digby expanded on this, and made the absolutely true point that Republicans have no problem co-opting any message and using it to their advantage, whether it's "stolen elections" (through voter fraud) or "culture of corruption" (the current earmark debate) or whatever.

The question is, how do you deal with it, because the Democrats almost invite this attack by going ballistic and trying to explain precisely how Republicans are being hypocritical here.

One way to deal with this infuriating, sophomoric (yet highly effective) political style is to simply ignore them, as we do trolls, who operate on the same principle. Instead of David Obey coming to the floor of the Senate with steam coming out of his ears, explaining that the Democrats are trying to clean up the carnage left behind by 12 years of Republican rule while John Boehner smugly buffs his fingernails and chants "earmarks, earmarks, earmarks" Obey should just refuse to acknowledge Boehner's ridiculous accusations and move forward with his own argument.

It's very unsatisfying, because you want more than anything to scream in frustration that these hypocritical asses have the unmitigated gall to accuse the Dems of exactly what they've been doing for 12 years! But it's what they want and the Dems shouldn't give it to them.

I think mockery is really the best way. The Republicans look ridiculous making these attacks - but only to those who pay enough attention to know the hypocrisy. To the low-information voter, it simply doesn't come across that way. Unless you present it as a given in the context of a joke. People soak in through osmosis what they are expected to know. It's exactly how Republicans operate.

Picture a video of a Republican standing on the House floor. He's going on and on with a long speech about how the Democrats should be ashamed of themselves for selling out to the lingerie industry. The whole time he's wearing a teddy and being outfitted with garters and boustiers and the like. You can see where this is going. It's hard to explain hypocrisy but easy to visualize it, and the public will very easily pick up on the message. Another example was my idea to literally debate a Republican Memory Loss Act calling for federal funding to help Republicans like Scooter Libby and Alberto Gonzales get their memories back.

In the meantime, it's something that these high-paid consultants might want to consider. When the Republicans are this full of chutzpah, you have to throw a little chutzpah right back at them. And understand that when they are whining, that means you're winning.

* - For the Yiddish-ly challenged, chutzpah simply means audacity, denoting behavior that is so fantastically dastardly that it's almost breathtaking to watch someone do it. It was also a book by Alan Dershoqitz I read back when Dershowitz wasn't calling for torture warrants.

Edwards On The Offense

I guess the consensus is that John Edwards didn't have a very good debate in New Hampshire, because he was the attack dog and he "didn't look Presidential." I don't agree. I think that conclusion has been drawn because he dared to utter the great unmentionable, something not even Dennis Kucinich feels comfortable enough to say.

Ed Kilgore remarks "Edwards' efforts to separate himself from Clinton and Obama by deriding the 'war on terror' (accurate as it is with respect to the terminology involved) is politically perilous, to say the least." This is actually what I think is the most significant aspect of Edwards' decision to take this bit of sloganeering on.

He had the balls to say what everyone knows is true (but only parenthetically) and is too afraid to say and ... he wasn't struck down by lightning [...] For years and years this kind of dogma has built-up among Bush administration critics that None May Say The Obvious about the "war on terror" lest they face dire, dire political consequences, but a party that doesn't have sufficient confidence in its national security chops to offer a really banal criticism of the Bush administration is bound to end up projecting that insecurity to voters in a way that's much more damaging than taking a 48 hour hit as the White House borrows the Clinton campaign's talking points.

That's right on so many levels. Barack Obama obviously got it, as within a day he released a statement acknowledging that the world is a more dangerous place thanks to the actions of this Administration, and that the war in Iraq has fueled terrorism around the world. It's not exactly where Edwards is, but it's certainly closer than Hillary and her borrowed talking point of "safer but not yet safe." This led to a New York Times story on the issue, where the Clinton camp decided to narrow the issue to domestic security, particularly in New York City, since 9/11. But that's really unimaginative thinking, and represents a desire to maintain the foreign policy status quo by omitting it from the debate. I agree with Simon Rosenberg:

I have to admit that I am not sympathetic to Hillary's position. With DHS a mess, our military degraded, our standing in the world diminished, the Middle East in much greater turmoil than prior to 9/11, terrorism around the world on the rise, Bin Laden still on the loose, Iran moving towards nuclearization, our great ally Israel weakened, international institutions like the UN and the World Bank under assault, climate change ignored, Russia slipping back into an aggressive autocracy.....are we really safer today? Is America and the world really better off as a result of the Bush years?

(By the way, check this story out by Justin Rood if you want to learn more about the Department of Homeland Security, a dumping ground for the worst hack political appointees and fundraisers imaginable. This is who Hillary's banking on to keep America safe?)

But let me get back to Edwards, who is far beyond where Hillary or even Obama is on this issue. He outlined a plan to fight terrorism today that immediately states that George Bush has used the fear of terrorism to push forward an ideological agenda that has resulted in an increasingly dangerous world, and that we have to get past bumper-sticker slogans and start thinking about how to manage this threat if we want to reverse the situation. Here are the steps:

As president, Edwards will take the following six key steps to shut down terrorism both its effects and its root causes. The Edwards plan will:

Rebalance our force structure for the challenges of the new century to ensure the force structure of our military matches its mission. Edwards believes we need to ensure that our force structure is well-equipped for the challenges of the new century. We must have enough troops to rebuild from Iraq; to bolster deterrence; to decrease our heavy reliance on Guard and Reserve members in military operations; and to deploy in Afghanistan and any other trouble spots that could develop.

Ensure our intelligence strategy adheres to proven and effective methods and avoids actions that will give terrorists or even other nations an excuse to abandon international law.

Hold regular meetings with top military leadership. Edwards will also reinstate a basic doctrine of national security management—military professionals will have primary responsibility in matters of tactics and operations, while civilian leadership will have authority in all matters of broad strategy and political decisions.

Create a "Marshall Corps" of 10,000 professionals, modeled on the Reserves systems, to stabilize weak and failing states.

Re-invest in the maintenance of our equipment so our strategy against terrorists is as effective as possible.

Implement a new National Security Budget that will include all security activities by the Pentagon and the Department of Energy, and our homeland security, intelligence, and foreign affairs agencies.

Most of this, like refurbishing equipment and re-jiggering the budget and reinstating the civilian/military decision-making process and outlawing torture and not using the Guard and Reserve as Army Pt II, is just common sense that this idiotic Administration has strayed from. But it's the fundamental approach that really appeals to me. This "Marshall Corps" is a great way to restore our image in the world and make fundamentalist radical Islam look far worse by comparison. And it's lines like this that shows Edwards has the best understanding of how the past six years have transpired: "Today, we know two unequivocal truths about the results of Bush's approach -- there are more terrorists and we have fewer allies."

I believe this vision by Edwards is similar to what Fareed Zakaria laid out in a much-discussed Newsweek article on how to restore America's place in the world. An excerpt:

We must begin to think about life after Bush [...] In 19 months he will be a private citizen, giving speeches to insurance executives. America, however, will have to move on and restore its place in the world. To do this we must first tackle the consequences of our foreign policy of fear. Having spooked ourselves into believing that we have no option but to act fast, alone, unilaterally and pre-emptively, we have managed in six years to destroy decades of international good will, alienate allies, embolden enemies and yet solve few of the major international problems we face [...]

The problem today is not that America is too strong but that it is seen as too arrogant, uncaring and insensitive. Countries around the world believe that the United States, obsessed with its own notions of terrorism, has stopped listening to the rest of the world.

(Read the whole thing, though Zakaria is somewhat establishment, it's fantastic.)

This is exactly equivalent to what Edwards has been saying, and it's what I think he would work to change as President. We know what the Republicans think; they may be running from Bush on some issues, but on foreign policy they want to be Bush on steroids. Chief among them is Rudy Giuliani, and look what Edwards had to say about him today.

"If Mayor Giuliani believes that what President Bush has done is good, and wants to embrace it and run a campaign for the Presidency saying, 'I will give you four more years of what this president has given you,' then he’s allowed to do that. He’ll never be elected President of the United States, but he’s allowed to do that."

The goal of terrorism is to sow fear. If we succumb to it and use all of our energies to react to it, we have changed America and given the terrorists their victory. John Edwards appears to be the only candidate brave enough to call bullshit on the entire operation, the only one prepared to engage with the world on his own terms rather than on the terrorists'. Chris Matthews picked up on this today on Hardball as it relates to Giuliani, leading to this fantastic commentary...

"I agree with what Fareed Zakaria wrote in Newsweek this week, which is that terrorism isn't bombs and explosions and death... terrorism is when you change your society because of those explosions... and you become fearful to the point that you shut out immigration, you shut out student exchanges, you keep people out of buildings ... and begin to act in an almost fascist manner because you're afraid of what might happen to you, and that's when terrorism becomes real, and frighteningly succesful. That's what I believe, and that's why I question the way Giuliani has raised this issue. He raises it as a specter, and in a weird way, he helps the bad guys."

But what Matthews hasn't seen is that John Edwards is on the opposite pole, unwilling to let America be drowned in fear. This is why, at this stage, I have to announce my support for him.

Stop Hating America

Bob Geiger lists the 38 Senators, Republicans all, who voted against implementing the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission and protecting the country from nefariousness. It was far more important to them that TSA screeners don't get limited union protections than that all Americans get homeland security protections. Got it.

Those Republicans voted against this:

• Enhanced information sharing between different branches of government and between federal, state, county and local governments.

• Interoperable Communications-provides funding to ensure that different branches of first responders (i.e. firefighters and police) can communicate with each other. Their inability to do cost lives on 9/11.

• Cracks down on loopholes in visa waiver law that enable terrorist travel.

• Strengthens biosurveillance, private sector preparedness

• Enhanced disclosure

That'll make a hell of an ad in 2008. Won't it, Sens. Sununu, Chambliss, Domenici, McConnell, and Hagel? (yes, Chuck Hagel, shining light to bipartisans everywhere, hates working people and doesn't want America to be safe)