In 1994, the Democrats lost control of the House for the first time in generations.  As the new minority party, they promptly re-elected the same House leadership which had brought them to disaster.

They were in the minority for 12 years.

In 2006 the Republicans lost control of the House.  As the new minority party, they promptly re-elected the same House leadership that had brought them to disaster.

However just 4 years later, the Republicans have a real shot at taking the House.

They don’t deserve it.

And I say this as someone who would like to see the Republicans re-take the House at some point, but not this Republican Party.  When the Republicans got control of the House in 1994, they had been out of power in the House for a long time.  There was a lot of pent up demand for change, and Gingrich’s Contract with America was the blueprint for that change.  That Republican Party was serious about the deficit and spending cuts.  The battle between the Republican Congress and the Democratic President resulted in a balanced federal budget and arguably good governance on the federal level for several years.

But 2010 is not 1994.  The Republican Party leadership in the House is basically the same (minus former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, who retired) leadership that was ousted in 2006.  Have they changed their ways in 4 years?

Congressman Pete Sessions and Senator John Cornyn had the opportunity to show what the Republicans were made of on last week’s Meet the Press.  Apparently what they are made of is jelly.

Mr. Gregory:  This has been a debate so far this morning about, you know, the relative merits of Republican rule during the Bush years and what this president has or has not accomplished so far.  I think what a lot of people want to know is if Republicans do get back into power, what are they going to do?

REP. SESSIONS:  It’s quite simple that the American people do understand the agendas that are before us.  They understand what the president and the speaker stand for, and they understand what Republicans stand for. Republicans, and especially our candidates who are all over this country, very strong standing with the American people back home, we need to live within our own means.  And certainly the projections that are ahead including health care and the projections for unemployment for a long time and debt for as far as we can see is staggering.  We need to live within our own means.  Secondly, we need to make sure that we read the bills.  These bills are so bad, which is why we don’t have a budget that is being looked at now.  The 2011 budget is staggering in terms of taxes, and the, the discipline that is lacking from this House Democratic leadership to even debate and bring the bill for the budget and appropriations to the floor is a lack of leadership.  And lastly…[blah blah blah…]

MR. GREGORY:  But, Congressman, that’s a, that’s a pretty gauzy agenda so far.  I mean, what specific–what painful choices are Republicans prepared to make?  Are they going to campaign on repealing health care, for instance, repealing financial regulation?  Would you like to see those two things done?

REP. SESSIONS:  Well, first of all, let’s go right to it.  We’re going to balance the budget.  We should live within our own means, and we should read the bills and work with the American people.

MR. GREGORY:  How do you do it?  Tell me how you do it.  Name a painful choice that Republicans are prepared to say we ought to make.

REP. SESSIONS:  Well, first of all, we need to make sure that as we look at all that we are spending in Washington, D.C., with, not only the, the entitlement spending but also the bigger government, we cannot afford anymore. We have to empower the free enterprise system.  See, this is where…

MR. GREGORY:  Congressman, these are not specifics.

REP. SESSIONS:  Oh, they…

MR. GREGORY:  And voters get, get tired of that.

REP. SESSIONS:  That, that…

MR. GREGORY:  You want to deal with entitlement spending…

REP. SESSIONS:  They are…

MR. GREGORY:  …will you raise the retirement age on Social Security, will you cut benefits in Social Security?

REP. SESSIONS:  Let, let–let’s go…

MR. GREGORY:  Will you repeal health care?

REP. SESSIONS:  Let’s go right to it.

Pretty clearly Sessions was clueless.  It’s as if he had not once thought about what the Republicans would do if they controlled the Majority.  The Senate did not make a great showing either.

MR. GREGORY:  Senator, I’m sorry, I’m not hearing an answer here on specific–what painful choices to really deal with the deficit.  Is Social Security on the table?  What will Republicans do that, that, that would give them–like ‘94, there was a Contract With America.  What are voters going to say, “Hey, this is what Republicans will say yes to”?

SEN. CORNYN:  Well, the president has a debt commission that reports December the 1st, and I think we’d all like to see what they come back with.  We’ve got three of our most outstanding members on that commission–Mike Crapo, Tom Coburn and Judd Gregg–and I–my hope is they’ll come back with a bipartisan solution to the debt and particularly entitlement reform, as you, as you mentioned.  But I…

MR. GREGORY:  But wait a minute, conservatives need a, a Democratic president’s debt commission to figure out what it is they want to cut?

SEN. CORNYN:  I said we need to do this on a bipartisan basis.  We’ve, we’ve had a, we’ve had a…

MR. GREGORY:  But what is the Republican Party stand for with regard…

SEN. CORNYN:  …we’ve had a partisan juggernaut.

MR. GREGORY:  Right.

SEN. CORNYN:  Well, I mean, in, in part, what I alluded to earlier is what people are tired of is the runaway spending and the debt, and I think that is a positive agenda–smaller government, living with their means.

So what I get from that is that Republicans need to wait for Obama’s deficit commission, the same commission Cornyn voted against, before they can decide what they should do.

Then we can have a smaller government and live within our means.

Seriously?

How could any Republican in the House or Senate not be able to list off the top of their head a dozen ideas for cutting programs and reducing government?  If the Republican strategy is to wait for Obama’s debt commission, then the 2010 election is already lost, even if the Republicans win.

As someone who believes that our structural deficit threatens our ability to remain a major world power, it’s discouraging to hear such pablum from the Republicans, particularly when the majority of the country has recoiled from the big spending Democratic agenda.  That agenda is simply “more.”  More government, in every way, forever.  However like an Eastern Airline pilot, Chrysler auto worker, or a Greek government worker, eventually more becomes too much and the whole thing collapses. 

There are Republicans out there who are serious about saving the Democrats from themselves and the country from the Democrats.  New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has become a YouTube sensation for his in your face Town Halls and Wyoming Congressman Paul Ryan, who developed a plan to cut the size of government, reform entitlements, and pay off the national debt, are the clear heirs to Reagan.  The Tea Party movement, much hated by the left and the media (same thing I know) are the outgrowth of sticker shock over Obamaism and the clear recognition that spending and deficits like this can’t go on.

But their biggest obstacle isn’t the Democrats; it’s the establishment Republicans.   Republicans who recognize that even in a center right country, the wheels of power; the media and permanent Washington establishment, are grounded on the left.  And they want to be part of it.  That’s why “conservative” former Republican Senate leader Trent Lott has no use for the Tea Partiers:

“We don’t need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples,” Lott told the Washington Post, referring to the conservative South Carolina senator who has been a gadfly for party leadership and a champion for upstart conservative candidates. “As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them.”

But Lott is no longer in the Republican leadership — he resigned from the Senate in December 2007, mid-term, just before a law kicked in that would have required him to wait two years before lobbying the Senate. So who is he talking about when he says “we need to co-opt them”?

“We” means the K Street wing of the Republican Party.

A K Street co-opted Republican Party, the kind that Lott, Boehner, and many other in and out of elected office prefer, would probably have a record little different than that of the Pelosi Democratic House majority.  Eh… maybe a little bit less of this or that, but still going in the same direction:  Greece.   The important signature issues, such as repealing the odious health care bill, are beyond reach anyway until after 2012 because of Obama’s veto pen. 

Gingrich wasn’t afraid to tell the American people what he wanted to do with a Republican House majority.  The current Republican leadership is, which tells me that their real goal is just to get their bigger offices back.

Republicans may need more time in the wilderness, and a clearing out of the old guard, before they are ready to lead again.  Although Democratic implosion may force Republicans back in the driver’s seat again before they are ready, if Republicans are not able to pick up the mantle of leadership and run with it, they may be back on the skids again two years later.

And they would have deserved it.

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Occasionally some media type reporter will be interviewing some politician or some foreign policy wonk, and the media type will toss the softest of soft ball foreign policy questions to the political type, “What is it that keeps you awake at night?”  The question is great because, if the interviewer knows his role as lickspittle, he won’t follow up, and the interviewee is free to toss out some random word, and sound both thoughtful and obscure.

“Pakistan.”   Ohhh; hushed awe at the wisdom of the politico.  We don’t exactly know what he means by that, but it sounds profound.  Or it does as long as there is no follow up question, “What aspect of Pakistan worries you?”   Then of course, the jig is up.  “Uh something about their nukes, or the terrorists… yeah, terrorist nukes!” 

So much for profound.

 I had always thought if I were asked that question I would respond in a serious tone, “Djibouti.”  Now there is some method to my madness.  There are US operations conducted from that country against… other countries.  It’s all very hush-hush of course, but it’s a little reported but important part of the globe.  But honestly, that doesn’t keep me up at night.  The truth is, I just love the sound of that name, Dee-ja-bootie.  It’s a funny name and I love saying it!  I can say Djibouti over and over and just make myself laugh!  If I ever achieve vast wealth and power, I will take over a town and rename it Djibouti; or some variation.  Maybe “Djibouti City,” “Djiboutown,” or “New Djibouti.”  What this country needs is a Djibouti of our very own.

But that’s not what really keeps me up at night.

I was reminded of what does while recently reading, One Second After, by William R. Forstchen.  Forstchen’s book is a terrifying what if.  On a typical normal day in America, some unknown enemy launches a nuclear warhead modified to emit a strong electromagnetic pulse, capable of shorting out every microchip and electronic device in its line of sight.  Line of sight in this case includes the entire country.  It’s worse than just shutting down the power grid, it’s every device that relies on electronics, connected or not to a power source.  Every cell phone, virtually every car built in the last 40 years, every, TV, radio… and computers; it goes without saying.

It may take a moment to follow the implications of that.  Down here in Florida we are aware that hurricane conditions can shut down power for days, and sometimes for weeks in particularly hard hit storm areas.  But they don’t shut down power everywhere.  Backup generators will ensure that local emergency services still work as well as TV and radio.  We still know what’s going on, when power companies expect to get power on, where we can get water, what the weather conditions are, and that police and firefighters are still functioning. 

But what if when the power goes out, we lose everything?  If every vehicle is dead, than police and fire protection don’t exist either.  No ambulances are going to come, and unless you have a gravity fed water system, no water is going to flow to your house.  The stores won’t be re-supplied nor will the pharmacies, and there will be no State, or Federal government response.  The situation, nationwide, would get desperate and quick.  No water, no food, or at least none where people need it, and no way to get it to them.  In short, it’s the end of the world as we know it.  The United States becomes a 4^th world country immediately.  Haiti and Chad would have their shit more together than us.

The book details a small college town in North Carolina near Asheville, and its struggle to survive and hold it together in the face of food shortages, refugees pouring in from the cities, and being thrown back into an 18^th Century existence. An existence with no radio or communications, the townspeople don’t even know who attacked them or why.

And yes, bullets do become the new currency!  Ha!  I knew it!

One of the most terrifying things of the book is the rapid death rate that occurs over the course of just a few months.  The author, in conducting his research for the book, estimated that 90% of the US population could die within the first year.  If the figure seems a little high, figure that beyond the early die off from the initial chaos, without being able to move food from where we grow it to where we eat it we would see millions die from starvation.  Without high tech food production, storage, and transportation, the breadbasket of the world becomes a basket case.

One Second After reminds me in tone of Alas, Babylon, a 1959 post nuclear war tale of a small Florida town trying to survive after a nuclear war. Like One Second After, its not the large tale of a world with the United States and most of the West thrust back to the middle ages, but a small tale of a community fighting to survive day by day from disease, marauding gangs, and most of all, hunger. 

One of the marks of a good book to me is what I’m left with after I’ve read it.  In this case, I’ve thought quite a bit about the story and its implications.  It does make you think; particularly, how long could my family survive on the food and water we have in the house.  Answer: Not that long.  When we prepare for hurricanes, we prepare for a limited time.  Things will get back to normal eventually.

And they do.

But that’s what makes an EMP attack so insidious.  There will be no getting back to normal.  The days of the United States being a power, or possibly even a nation, will be over.  There would be no real recovery from an event like that, at least not in the lifetimes of anyone alive at the time of the event.  A single nuclear weapon going off in a big city, dirty bombs, weaponized plagues, hacking of the electric or utility grid; in fact everything except maybe a good old fashioned full scale nuclear war we would be able to recover from,  but not this.

So that’s what keeps me up at night.  I just wish I could really just say Djibouti.

Watching the promos for a new ABC series Lost several years ago, my impressions were of a show about plane crash survivors with a Michael Crichton touch.  You know, maybe an island with descendants of pirates on it.  Or perhaps a little Clive Cussler; the castaways find some ancient relics from Egypt or maybe Atlantis.  That was enough to get my interest to watch.  I knew whatever the mystery was, it would be a slow reveal, and it could last all the way to the first season finale!

And then there was the polar bear.

You just don’t throw a polar bear there in the middle of the jungle and not purposefully try to say, “Hey guys, where are we?” 

Obviously I wasn’t in the room when J.J Abrams first made his pitch to the execs at ABC for Lost.  I’m pretty sure he didn’t say, “ There is this island that moves back and forth through time and space, and it periodically throws people in all times and places and there are two godlike beings representing good and evil…”  at that point, Abrams would have been given the boot and told to pitch his idea to the Syfy channel.  Then Lost would have had a mega piranha or a giant snake in it.

But the creators were slyer than that.  And I’m not talking about what they told the ABC suits.  We, the viewing public were the primary ones that had to be fooled; or maybe led.  We couldn’t have the full scope of the show because we were not ready for it., and honestly, I’m not sure they knew where they were going at first.  They started us off slowly.  Polar bears, the Others, the hatch; all firmly rooted in the “real” world.  So that’s how I and I assume millions of others viewed the show.  A tantalizing mystery yes, but still rooted in at least a TV version of reality.

But from the hatch we went to the button, the other stations, Dharma, and mysterious electromagnetic phenomena.  Then rescue, time travel and we are still at the midpoint of the story arc.

Wait, did I say time travel?

We were given a wider picture of the Lost universe.  This was no more grounded to the real world than Back to the Future.  So, Lost is really a science fiction show.

Or was it?  I forgot to mention all the dead people walking, miraculous cures, the smoke monster, Kate’s horse.  So there was LSD in the island water?

There was the cabin, Jacob, the Man in Black, return to the island, Locke, the un-Locke, and the cave of light.  Then I realized this wasn’t science fiction.  This was a fantasy; a full on, Lord of the Rings style fantasy.  Powerful god like beings, protecting a source of power, and trying to keep chained an evil creature from  going out into the world and “end” everything.  This had quest written all over it, with Jacob starring as Gandalf!

**Spoilers below.  If you have not seen the series finale, you might want to hold off***

The finale left me with mixed feelings.  I would describe it as “mostly satisfying,” in spite of the multitude of questions still unanswered.  If I had a twinge of disappointment it was that the “alternate universe” was not really an alternate universe at all.  It was a holding area for the dead.   They stayed there until they could remember the moment of their deaths, and then they could move on.  Desmond and Hurley were not just remembering the island, they were remembering their lives, up till their deaths.  Some of those deaths must have occurred far in the future from where the story ends in “island time,” with Jack’s eye closing (yes he died).  But ultimately they all did.  Hurley and Ben referenced who knows how long a tenure with Hurley in the Jacob role and Ben in the Richard Alpert role.  Who knows how long that lasted, centuries?

This may not have to do with anything, but Kate (actress Evangeline Lilly) never looked sexier as when she was trying to coax Jack’s memory out of him outside the church. 

Wow.

OK that really doesn’t have to do with the story, but she can really turn it on when she needs to.

This almost seemed like it should have been two separate finales.  The prolonged post death 6^th Sense realization that they were dead, and then there was still that goddamn island.

What’s the light all about?  What does it do?  What were their destinies?  How did this whole island thing get started, what’s with the 4 toes on the statue….

That finale I don’t feel I ever got.  All the characters?  I guess they got their resolution because they’re dead.  Whether the alternate universe waiting room is something that everyone gets when they die or just the Losties because of their connection to each other and the island is unanswered, but what their destinies were in life is unclear.  What was Locke’s destiny?  To get strangled in a hotel room?  Jack’s destiny?  To fix something he had Desmond break in the first place?

I want to know these things because the show worked.  I fell for it and fell into the story and wanted answers.  Of course ultimately, the joke is on me because really, there are no answers.  This is a TV show after all and to a certain extent they were making it up as they went along.  They didn’t have the cave of light in mind when they penned the pilot episode.  If the show had ended after the first season, we probably would have been given the Crichton version of an ending.  A speech by the leader of the Others that they were all descendents of the survivors of the Black Rock.  However as the show gained in popularity the creators were stuck with upping the ante.  That’s how we went from mystery thriller to fantasy.  But… they did it well.  We were lead one step at a time slowly enough that we could shed our suspension of disbelief.  Being able to do that in a way that seems to logically flow is nearly impossible.  Imagine Law & Order suddenly dealing with a sex pervert from the future?  The show would lose all credibility.  It would seem ridiculous.   That Lost followed the path from thriller to fantasy, with a stop over in science fiction, successfully, is a testament to the writers.

I think ultimately, that will be Lost’s TV legacy.  A show that managed to pull off multiple genre switches without seeming ridiculous.  I don’t expect to see another show that can pull that off.

If there was ever a clearer sign that the Obama administration is making it up as they go along as far as the war on terror goes, it was Attorney General Eric Holder’s appearance on the Sunday shows yesterday. 

First, it took them until Sunday to admit that, yep, maybe the Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, was an actual Islamic terrorist, not merely a crazed “Tea Bagger” upset about the health care bill or the foreclosure of his home by greedy Wall Street fat cat bankers.  Specifically, a terrorist of the Pakistani Taliban; a group allied both with the Afghani version of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Most of the country had figured that out already.  As columnist Mark Steyn noted, whenever a terrorist event happens, “there seem to be two kinds of reactions:

a) Some people go, “Hmm. I wonder if this involves some guy with a name like Mohammed who has e-mails from Yemen.”

b) Other people go, “Don’t worry, there’s no connection to terrorism, and anyway, even if there is, it’s all very amateurish, and besides he’s most likely an isolated extremist or lone wolf.””

As is usually the case, the people picking the second category, which includes almost all liberals, government spokesmen, and media types, are almost always wrong. 

Even wrong, the FBI, New York City Police Department, and apparently, the U.S. Army, managed to capture Shahzad in a little more than two days and before Shahzad could flee the country.  So certainly my hats off to those fine folks, and the investigation they ran.

Even the post capture investigation is going well.  The administration finally deployed their High Value Interrogation Group to interrogate Shahzad, and of course, good news for us, Shahzad is cooperating.

So, why is it that the Attorney General ready to throw Miranda rights to the wolves?

On ABC’s This Week, Holder said, “If we are going to have a system that is capable of dealing, in a public safety context, with this new threat, I think we have to give serious consideration to at least modifying that public safety exception [of Miranda warnings].”

Setting aside for the moment that Holder actually views terrorism as a new threat, why has he fought so hard to avoid enemy combatant detainee rules, and military hearings if he intends to turn the civilian criminal process into a vague copy of the enemy combatant one?

“One of the things that I think we’re going to be reaching out to Congress to do – to come up with a proposal that is both Constitutional, but that is also relevant to our time and the threat that we now face.”

I may be going out on a limb here, but I’m pretty sure many of the people who voted for Obama because they felt that terrorists shouldn’t be held in military custody and tried in military courts,  didn’t intend to see Miranda weakened, and thereby all American’s rights under a normal criminal proceeding. 

I’m not one of those who believe that the constitution requires a specific Miranda warning, but I’ve always felt that there should be a clear separation between the rights of American citizens in criminal courts and terrorists in league with a foreign organization waging war against the United States.  The Obama administration, so urgently wanted to separate itself from the Bush era military detentions and tribunals, now seem to be beginning the process of recreating it in the civilian court system.   The Obama administration is slowly learning and trying to adapt what the Bush administration had already figured out:  Terrorists are not common criminals, and they can’t practically be treated that way.   Interrogation is not just about getting a conviction, it’s about trying to prevent the next attack; a key difference between the civilian court system and a military detainee system.

Shahzad is different however.  He’s an American citizen, not just a captured detainee.  He does have rights that are not (or should not be) available to the average underwear bomber.  But the President still retains the authority to declare even American citizens  enemy combatants.  That would be a better alternative to altering our rights in order to accommodate the legitimate national security needs we have in fighting terrorism.  The last administration had already set up a system to do that.  But the new administration, in a bid to be the un-Bush, seems intent to set up a system in the civilian court system more Bushy than Bush ever dreamed.

And I’m guessing the pussy left will say nothing, proving once again the hypocrites that they are.

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Stardate 2010 point 04 point 18.  Assuming the command lounger of the USS Livingroom, I prepared for subspace comms from the usual Sunday morning suspects.  On the view screen, was Chris Matthews, on the syndicated and poor stepsister of Hardball, The Chris Matthews Show.  I know, it sounds like it should be some variety hour from the 1970’s.  However, anyone tuning in expecting a little song and dance would not be disappointed.

 Klein gets seditious

 Says Joe Klein, “I did a little bit of research just before this show – it’s on this little napkin here. I looked up the definition of sedition which is conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of the state. And a lot of these statements, especially the ones coming from people like Glenn Beck and to a certain extent Sarah Palin, rub right up close to being seditious.”

I nearly spit out my morning coffee. Liberals making accusations of sedition?  What is this, the 1800’s?  And that’s when it finally hit me.  The beard should have been a dead give away:  Joe Klein was from the Mirror Universe!

 The Mirror Universe is a concept originating from the original Star Trek episode, Mirror, Mirror.  In the episode, a transporter accident sends the gang into a parallel universe filled with evil twin counterparts of the regular Enterprise crew.  Instead of the USS Enterprise serving as the flagship of a peaceful Federation, wanting nothing more than exploration, kumbaya singing, and handholding, the ISS Enterprise is a warship of the Terran Empire, bent on conquest and exploitation of peaceful native peoples.  You know; evil like the humans in Avatar.

 The most popular of the Mirror Universe characters was clearly the evil Spock, who could use Vulcan logic to argue his support of the Terran Empire in the same way “good” Spock could use Vulcan logic to argue in favor of the Federation.

 In my opinion they were both out of their Vulcan minds.

 Get it?                    Ahem, with apologies to Ron & Ron.

 So sitting there in the command lounger, I realized that not only was Joe Klein from the Mirror Universe, but that there must have been other liberals replaced by their Mirror Universe counterparts for a while now, maybe years.  As I thought back, some of the clues that I had seen slowly started coming together…

 One of the early Obama Administration appointments to chair the National Intelligence Council was Charles “Chas” Freeman.  Freeman was unique in that he was not only an anti-Israel supporter of Saudi Arabia, but actually supported China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown of democracy supporters.  Liberals from this universe would be expected to be appalled by such a choice right?

 Nope.  They quickly suckled up to Freeman’s anti-Semitic, pro-Tiananmen crackdown.

 As astounding as that was, that was only one example where liberals took mirror universe positions.   The Citizen’s United case saw liberals turn snarling against the first amendment, even to the extent of wanting to repeal and replace the 1^st Amendment to the Constitution. 

 Remember how evil rendition was during the Bush administration?  No more!  Angry leftists (that should really be one word) should have been a bit disappointed.  This is not an issue that President Obama just has not gotten around to, considering how busy he has been restoring hope to the world; Obama signed an executive order authorizing the CIA to continue to “carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.”  Leon Panetta, as CIA director nominee said renditions would continue under a Obama administration.

 So to paraphrase Gordon Gekko, Rendition, for lack of a better word, is good.

 The biggest turnabout though was on the Patriot Act.  This was renewed in February with barely a whisper.  This would have caused street protests and been the leading topic on the nightly news just a few short years ago.  Now, it gets you only a shrug. 

 So clearly I was right.  The only logical explanation for this strange turnaround on liberal opinion is that liberals themselves are being replaced with their Mirror Universe counterparts.  Is this prelude to an invasion?  Or are they refugees driven out by a third Bush term in the other universe?  I don’t know yet, but clearly I’m on to something.  Obviously these counterparts are not conservatives in their universe, not by any standards we would recognize, but they are certainly not the liberals I’ve known and made fun of for years.  Joe Klein, a man who participated in anti-war street protests, is now ready to drop the sedition hammer on sign waving grandmas, and have Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck hauled off to the gulag.

 I can only hope that maybe a Mirror Universe Cartman will drop through to our universe to clear things up.  Maybe a goateed Maureen Dowd, or Paul Krugman – wait, he already has a beard, drats!  Another one!  Until we can get to the bottom of this invasion, trust no liberals!  It’s always been good advice but it’s never been more important.  We don’t know what plans they hold for our world, but if they are anything like our world’s liberals, it’s nothing good.

 Keep watching the skies!

Just like virtually everyone else in the country that lives at a fixed address, I received a census form in the mail a few weeks ago.  Apparently my “response is required by law” and I have no intention of disappointing the Commerce Department.  I’ll fill it out.  A quick perusal shows that more than any other issue, this version is concerned about my race.  They could have at least asked, “How ya doing?  Everything OK?”  Nope, just upteen different options for racial and ethnic identity.

Post racial era indeed.

Not wanting to disappoint, I checked all of my potential ethnic check boxes.  One thing that caught my eye, “Negro” has made its appearance on the census once again.  I suppose it’s an after the fact legitimization of Harry Reid’s “Negro” remark.   See?  It’s perfectly OK to say!

Apparently not everyone is a Harry Reid supporter, since the Census Bureau received plenty of complaints on the use of the word. But hey, there were experimenting with terminology.  Some people, mostly older people, still prefer it.  Not everyone got the word that Jesse Jackson renamed Blacks African American.  Now that is power!  I’m still working on my plan to rename the city of Deltona into Miketopia.  Residents would be called, of course, Miketopians.  But it’s not as easy as Jackson made it appear.

The term Hispanic, is even vaguer than the handful of acceptable terms for black.  The United States is the only country in the world in which a Spaniard can fly out of Madrid as “white” but by the time he lands in New York, he’s no longer white, he’s Hispanic.  The census does break down three nationalities from that, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Mexican (and it’s derivatives; Mexican-American and Chicano).  But everyone else?  You’re Hispanic.

The word Hispanic wasn’t a word that boiled up from Latin culture, it came from US government bureaucracy, specifically, the Ad Hoc Committee on Racial and Ethnic Definitions.  Although I’m a little vague on why the already existing word Latino, was not acceptable, for some reason the Committee wanted to exclude non Spanish Latins, such as Portuguese and Italians.

So in census terms, an Italian is white, but a Spaniard is not, he’s Hispanic.  No book definition defines Hispanic as a racial term, merely a cultural one, but on the census form, it’s used as a de facto racial term.  This adds to the confusion of who is white and who isn’t, since 30 million Hispanics are also white.  This to me seems to make the entire exercise of identifying Hispanic on the census form irrelevant.  Since I’m not Hispanic, the government feels it needs to know what race I am, but if I’m Hispanic, I could be White, Black, Indian, or mixed race.   If you are Hispanic, you get to check two boxes, race and Hispanic ethnicity.  Lucky bastards.  I wish I had two boxes!

Of course, who is white and who isn’t is an evolving standard.  A century ago, Southern Europeans, like Italians, Slavs, and European Jews were not considered “white” by common American standards.  The Irish were just barely white.  The Supreme Court determined that Indians (those from the Indian subcontinent, not American Indians, who are actually Asian), who although Caucasian, were not white enough to be Americans.  Arabs however, were considered white, even though they were not Caucasian.  Now days, a Muslim from Syria, a Swede, and yes, even the Irish, are all considered white.

Confusing, but race as a concept has more to do with a social construct than DNA.  Several years ago I worked in the Health Department screening pregnant women for a State program that provided prenatal services to qualifying expectant women.  Much of our screening was demographic.  One day I was interviewing a woman from Belize, who by all appearances was black.  However she had put herself down as white on the demographic questionnaire.  Later I asked my supervisor about this, “So should I just change this to black?”   My supervisor just shrugged, “Let her be whatever race she wants to be.”  That turned out to be really good advice.  People really are whatever race they think they are.  If you have blond hair, blue eyes, and were raised in a Spanish household, maybe you identify far more as Hispanic than white.

This makes me think that the entire effort of trying to track race via the census as ridiculous and ultimately self defeating.  A hundred years ago a Polish immigrant probably thought of himself as far more Polish than white, in the then current American sense.  His descendents today probably think of themselves as more white, in the current American sense of the word, than as either a Pole or even Polish-American.

We are identifying Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, and Cubans as separate groups on the census now, but will they still think of themselves by those nationalities a century from now, as, white, black, or mestizo, or will they think of themselves as Hispanic?  Or for that matter, will they think of themselves as having a non American identity at all?

This country has done a pretty good job of creating quite a melting pot of ethnicities to create a new, American identity, and although we’ve have had plenty of hiccups along the way, including the competing “Salad Bowl” theory, we’ve probably done better than any other nation in welcoming and integrating newcomers.  In a perfect census, we wouldn’t even ask about racial or ethnic identification.  It just shouldn’t be a compelling state interest to know how much melanin I have.

Back in the real world, there are various competing groups that really feel that there is a compelling state interest to know who is part of what group, so these questions won’t be going away anytime soon.  In fact, they will probably get more ridiculous in each successive version of the census, at least for the next few decades.  Hopefully at some point though, we will wonder why we ever cared.

A couple  years ago, at a party in Titusville, I was asked by a person I have supreme respect for to write a 500 word article for his online newspaper,  The Harbinger.  I was humbled and honored that he would ask me to do something like this for his publication. After I agreed I went home and got to work and found out how exquisitely hard this was going to be. Seriously, 500 words? Me? My ‘post-it’ notes laying around the house reminding of things I need to do are over 600 words. How could I possibly write only 500 words. Not too worry Jaffe said to me..“don’t force it, just write.. I will find the space to put it.”

and so it began.

After some months and some staff changes (hi Jackie :) ) the Harbinger published it’s last edition, but not before I was honored and humbled once again. See another person I have supreme respect for said if I wanted to continue to write, he would give me a spot on the front page of his website. Anyone coming to this site for the first time, would see my words staring back at them.. I don’t know how he continued to get hits. ..  but we did.

Not long after my first blogs, Lil Mike was asked to give his side of the political story and that’s when the fun started. It was the height of the most followed political season in recent memory, Lil mike with his ‘always right’ and me and my ‘proper gander’ battled it out to give the readers both sides of the choices in front of them.

Something seemed to click and Mike and I started to get more of a following. It wasn’t just MucheDumbre forum readers reading us now. Our ‘choice’ words were showing up out in the blog-sphere and occasionally out of the mouths of people we’d least expect it from.

I think I can speak for Mike when I say that we’ve have an amazing time posting here on the Muche page. We’ve had some great topics and intense discussions..it truly has been a blast! But, as the seasons change… so must the days of our lives.

After much discussion I have decided to move to a new place. After even more discussion, Mickey has built it for me. You cannot know or understand the level of patience and comprehension of ‘girl-speak’ this man has. From a description of “You know, kinda frilly with a dirty side.. like.. umm.. that one backdrop on that one show..” Not to  mention everyone’s favorite “Can you move this over here… ummm.. no, it looked better where it was before, can you move it back”.. through it all he was able to create my new home.. and I fucking love it! and I hope you will to.

It’s still in the infant stages and the move isn’t complete… parts of the place are still dusty with construction, but please.. stop by for a peek and stay for the ride..because the beer is cold, the game is tied, the pipe is primed and the fun is just starting.

The Velvet StraitJacket

Because Insanity Should Be Comfortable

I am hoping Lil Mike and his ‘always right’ will be joining me soon and before long we will be back up and running in full, ridiculous fashion. We’ve both searched high and low and while there are great blogs out there that offer you the ‘right’ slant of the story..or the ‘left’ slant of the story.. there are none that offer you both sides of the story the way we are able to. Hubris? Yes.. undeserved? No… We have done this kind of thing together for over 10 years now, there is simply no one better at it than we are. We may not see eye to eye on much of anything (short joke-ha!) but we agree that we are goddamn good at what we do.

For those of you who gave me your trust and the opportunity.. I thank you. You took a chance on a wordy-opinionated bitch and I hope that in some small way I have justified that trust. Muchedumbre readers, thank you for all the support you have given me over the years, I do this for you… and I hope that you will continue reading…

Kelly.

The VSJ

No really.  What is it?  This turned out to be much more difficult to answer then you would think.   Of course, I’m not talking about boiling someone’s feet, or taking a blowtorch to the eyeballs.  Those acts seem to be rather uncontroversially designated as torture.  No, I’m talking about that crown prince of enhanced interrogation; waterboarding.   

 On a philosophical and personal level, I feel waterboarding is torture.  Its purpose is to cause mental anguish enough to cause the subject to spill their guts on plans and operations.  Still, unlike a blow torch to the eyeball or boiling feet, people are lining up to have themselves waterboarded, either for a bet, charity, or publicity.   One wonders why Jackass star Steve-O didn’t think of it.  Vanity Fair journalist Christopher Hitchens did think of it.  As well as Chicago radio personality Mancow (allegedly) and Central Florida radio listener Evil Eye.  Sean Hannity made the offer to do it, but as yet hasn’t made good on his offer.  In a battle of the ratings can Chris Matthews and Glenn Beck be far behind?

On a legal level however, I have grave doubts on if waterboarding meets the standard.   Torture is against Federal law, specifically, Title 18 Part 1 Chapter 113C of the US Code.  However what does it actually say?  The law defines torture this way:

(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;

(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—

(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;

(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;

(C) the threat of imminent death; or

(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and

 It would be difficult to argue in court that waterboarding results in severe mental or physical pain.  No marks or physical damage after all, and no reported mental issues from waterboarding.  Or at least I have not heard of anyone suffering from Post traumatic Stress Syndrome or other long term issue from the interrogation method.

This was the gist of the “Torture Memos” which I had discussed a few weeks ago.  The former Justice Department attorney’s, whom President Obama has decided to give the Kangaroo Court go ahead to the Attorney General, made a fairly good case that waterboarding doesn’t violate US law as torture.  That’s not an argument that waterboarding is a harmless prank, or around the level of good cop/ bad cop when it comes to interrogations, but it does give good evidence that the high bar to define it legally as torture was not met.

And who should confirm that conclusion? None other than Attorney General Eric Holder.  Holder gave away the store a few weeks ago during a Congressional hearing on closing the detainee facility at Gitmo. Holder was being questioned specifically about torture and confirmed again (as he did during his confirmation hearing) that he regarded waterboarding as torture.  Then he was asked if he regarded the waterboarding that Navy Seals received during their training as torture.

Holder:  No, it’s not torture in the legal sense because you’re not doing it with the intention of harming these people physically or mentally, all we’re trying to do is train them —

 Rep. Dan Lungren:  So it’s the question of intent?

Holder:  Intent is a huge part.

Lungren:  So if the intent was to solicit information but not do permanent harm, how is that torture?

 Holder:  Well, it… uh… it… one has to look at… ah… it comes out to question of fact as one is determining the intention of the person who is administering the waterboarding.  When the Communist Chinese did it, when the Japanese did it, when they did it in the Spanish Inquisition we knew then that was not a training exercise they were engaging in. They were doing it in a way that was violative of all of the statutes recognizing what torture is. What we are doing to our own troops to equip them to deal with any illegal act — that is not torture.

 Rep. Louie Gohmert:  Whether waterboarding is torture you say is an issue of intent.  If our officers when waterboarding have no intent and in fact knew absolutely they would do no permanent harm to the person being waterboarded, and the only intent was to get information to save people in this country then they would not have tortured under your definition, isn’t that correct? 

Holder:  No, not at all.  Intent is a fact question, it’s a fact specific question.

 Gohmert:  So what kind of intent were you talking about?

 Holder:  Well, what is the intention of the person doing the act?  Was it logical that the result of doing the act would have been to physically or mentally harm the person?

 Gohmert:  I said that in my question.  The intent was not to physically harm them because they knew there would be no permanent harm — there would be discomfort but there would be no permanent harm — knew that for sure.  So, is the intent, are you saying it’s in the mind of the one being water-boarded, whether they felt they had been tortured.  Or is the intent in the mind of the actor who knows beyond any question that he is doing no permanent harm, that he is only making them think he’s doing harm.

 Holder:  The intent is in the person who would be charged with the offense, the actor, as determined by a trier of fact looking at all of the circumstances.  That is ultimately how one decides whether or not that person has the requisite intent.  

   So Holder, seems to be saying, without outright admitting it, that in a legal sense, under Title 18 Part 1 Chapter 113C, the waterboarding that was done by the CIA was not torture.  It’s all about the intent.  And Holder practices what he preaches.  That is the exact position the Justice Department is taking in another case, Demjanjuk v. Holder.  In that case, John Demjanuk, a former Nazi camp guard was fighting deportation to Germany to stand trial on the grounds that considering his age, poor health, and expected bad treatment at the hands of German jailors (ohh irony!),  would be the equivalent of torture due to the “severe Pain and suffering” that he would be expected to endure.  Demjanjuk lost, since the court found there was no established intent (there is that word again!) by German authorities to torture him.

And yet, law is apparently not going to stand in the way of political opportunism both for the Obama administration and the Holder Justice Department.  A leaked DOJ ethics report on John Yoo and Jay Bybee, two of the authors of the infamous torture memos, will recommend disciplinary action.  All because they devised the legal strategy that Holder is using in another case, and has basically admitted in hearings is correct.

Frankly, this is bullshit.  I know it and Attorney General Holder knows it, but with such a friendly press, there is never going to be a gotcha moment in a press conference; at least not one that will receive wide coverage.  Did you catch Holder’s admission on intent in those hearings leading the nightly news?  Neither did I, even though it exposes the hypocrisy of deriding a legal theory in public that the Obama administration is accepting as it’s own on the down low.

Was it worth it?  The waterboarding I mean.  The former Bush administration took a political risk in adopting that technique, and competing camps have battled on cable shows on whether waterboarding was effective or saved American lives.  However the opinion of the intelligence community seems to be yes, it did.  A Washington Post piece describes the “second wave” attack that had been planned for Los Angeles.  A hijacked airliner would have been used to crash into the Library tower in LA.  Thanks to information collected through waterboarding, we were able to stop the plot before it ever got off the ground (pun is mine).

You can have a philosophical argument on if any sort of enhanced interrogation is ever justified, regardless of the lives saved.  Some people, incredibly, would rather see such plots go forward rather than sully their hands at the dirty work of intelligence collection.  But that’s different from the legal argument on whether the three Al Qaeda terrorists that were waterboarded were legally tortured.  I would have to say, based on the preponderance of evidence that they were not.  As I said at the beginning of this piece, I do personally regard waterboarding as torture, however there are several other techniques I may feel personally are torture that just don’t meet the legal standard.  Letting me drink a couple of beers and then not letting me pee for instance.  President Obama has already banned the use of waterboarding as an interrogation technique by executive order, but don’t look for the Congress to try bring up another bill to outlaw the technique, like they did during the Bush administration.  I imagine if there is another 9/11 style attack, that executive order will quietly be rescinded, in a closing the barn door after the horses are out kind of way.

So we now live in a world in which we can waterboard Mancow, or any other publicity whore, but not Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or if we ever catch him Osama Bin Ladin.  I’m not sure we could even force KSM to listen to Mancow. Maybe if KSM would agree to be waterboarded  for charity…

Hypocrisy

1. a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess.

If there is one party who can really step into a mess, it’s the Democratic party.

If there is one party who can exploit that mess, it’s the Republican party. The republicans have a viciousness to them, a ‘pit bull’ streak that finds an opening and goes in for the kill. And like any wild animal when cornered, the attack is bloody and savage. Just look at the attacks on Nancy Pelosi over the last couple of weeks.

“I think this is the most despicable, dishonest and vicious political effort I’ve seen in my lifetime.”

“She is a trivial politician, viciously using partisanship for the narrowist of purposes, and she dishonors the Congress by her behavior.” -Newt Gingrich

Accusations of ‘viciously using partisanship’ from Newt Gingrich are not only comical but over the top,unabated, pure hypocrisy. Newt is the poster child for being the loudest one to complain, condemn and prosecute  someone else for doing exactly the same thing he was secretly doing.  As if his infidelity while his mission to attack Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky affair wasn’t proof enough of his hypocrisy, his problem of using tax-exempt funding to advance his political goals should have limited his ‘Pelosi dishonors Congress’ rhetoric. But, it didn’t.

Newt is old news though, an unimportant politically partisan pitbull hoping his hypocrisy has been forgiven. It hasn’t.  But what about newer more relevant GOP members?

“Lying to the Congress of the United States is a crime,” Boehner said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “And if the speaker is accusing the CIA and other intelligence officials of lying or misleading the Congress, then she should come forward with evidence and turn that over to the Justice Department so they can be prosecuted.”

He added: “And if that’s not the case, I think she ought to apologize to our intelligence professionals around the world.”

That’s right, Nancy Pelosi should apologize to the CIA from claiming that they have misinformed congress. It is a disparaging remark and like Boehner says, she needs to ‘put up or shut up’.

It doesn’t matter that Pelosi’s accusations that the CIA memo’s are misleading seem to be panning out or that even some Republicans agree that the briefing notes contain many errors, such as briefings that listed former Chairman Porter Goss as the head of committee when Rep. Pete Hoekstra had already taken over. Because Hoekstra says, those errors are meaningless

Of Course those errors are meaningless. It doesn’t matter that 2 separate briefings have a low-level staffer as  being in on the top-secret,code-word clearance briefings. It’s meaningless that this staffer says he was actually asked to leave, which would be expected since he  only  two walked members to the room. It doesn’t matter that this staffer,Paul Juola, has asked the CIA to “immediately correct this record.”

It doesn’t matter that former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham came out and said not only did the CIA hide details from him during his briefings, but that 3 of the 4 dates the CIA said they briefed Graham were in error

…he(Graham) asked agency officials to confirm how many times they briefed him on torture. They gave him four dates, but after Graham went through his personal records and disproved three of those dates, he said the agency admitted their mistake and confirmed that he had, in fact, received only one briefing.

When our intelligence agency says they briefed someone 4 times and they really only briefed them once, when they say the person who headed  the committee was someone who had already been replaced, when they say that they allowed a staffer in on a code-word clearance briefing, none of it is relevant, in fact it’s ‘meaningless’. But when you go out in public and say that the CIA is misleading congress, that disqualifies you as from continuing as speaker. Or so Newt Gingrich says.

“To have the person third in line to be president say that the CIA misleads us all the time is so utterly irresponsible and such an attack on the men and women who are risking their lives … that she disqualifies herself for being speaker of the House,”

Now, this has nothing to do with partisan attacks, Newt,Boehner and Hoekstra wouldn’t do that. No, they are truly outraged that someone would smear the CIA by claiming they have mislead congress on some issue…

Well, except when it’s Hoekstra, and the CIA has just destroyed torture video tapes that they were warned not to destroy. When that happens

…it’s important for Congress to hold this community accountable. This community did not tell — the CIA did not tell us about the existence of these tapes. They did not tell us that they were going to be destroyed. They need — there’s a Constitutional responsibility for them to keep Congress informed and they have not and we need to hold them accountable

Or so Mr. Hoekstra says.

It’s OK for Mr. Hoekstra to say the CIA  mislead Congress. Even better, when you are on Fox News being interviewed by Chris Wallace, it’s ok to get down right nasty on the CIA.

WALLACE: Congress man Hoekstra, Hayden appeared this week before your committee. Are you satisfied that over the years the CIA acted in good faith?

HOEKSTRA: No, I’m not. There are certain statements that might have been misleading to Congress as to exactly what existed. I think you’ve got a systemic problem here. I think the community is incomPetent. It is arrogant. And it has developed — it’s become political. This — you know, you take a look at wmd in iraq. They were wrong.

Hoekstra went even farther than just calling them arrogant,incompetant and saying that they have mislead congress , he also said

…you’ve got a community that’s incomPetent. They are arrogant and they are political, and they don’t believe that they are accountable to anybody. They don’t believe that they’re accountable to the president. They’ve clearly demonstrated through the tapes case that they don’t believe they are accountable to Congress. And when we are at war, that is a terrible position for the intelligence community to be. If they had done what they are supposed to do on the tapes, keep us informed, listen to the kind of recommendations that my colleague Jane Harman made to them, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion today. But because of their arrogance and their willingness to move independent, that’s it.

The CIA? they’re political? They don’t believe they are accountable the President much less Congress? They’re incompetent?  These are just a few of the things that are OK to say about the CIA, unless of course you’re Nancy Pelosi.

Quick question, if the CIA mislead Congress, destroyed evidence… are arrogant,political,incompetent and admittedly prone to briefing errors.. why exactly are we or the GOP taking anything the CIA says over Nancy Pelosi?

It wouldn’t be to get the stink of another political land-mine off of them would it?

“..when you say that the community is incompetent, I’m telling you I don’t have confidence in the community. You know, I have high confidence that the community continues to be broken and is not giving us as policymakers the information that we need to make good decisions.-HOEKSTRA

Hypocrisy

“She is a trivial politician, viciously using partisanship for the narrowist of purposes, and she dishonors the Congress by her behavior.” -Newt Gingrich

1. a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess.

UPDATE

Yes, the CIA has lied to Congress and covered it up. I think Newt might be the one who should step down and go back into hiding, after apologizing to Pelosi of course…

Related articles by Zemanta

• Gingrich: ‘Absolute obligation’ to investigate Pelosi (cnn.com)
• Did the CIA lie about torture? (guardian.co.uk)
• Newt Gingrich: CIA Bully-Boy Since 1995 (firedoglake.com)

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