These kittens, spurred on by their disingenuous Congressional taskmasters, are all over the tube this morning trying to gin up additional outrage over this NSA domestic “spy story ”—even as the President stands firm and defends the practice.

This kitten is part of a lavishly funded and monolithic media effort to misreport the Iraq war for the purpose of bringing down the Bush administration.

This kitten recoils unthinkingly from the obvious fact that our national security requires policies that are a step (but only a careful step) removed from ACLU dogma.

This kitten engages in demagogic rhetoric about ‘imperial’ presidents and ‘monarchic’ pretensions, with no evidence that the president has abused his discretion, which is foolish and irresponsible.

I believe that this kitten should be investigated, prosecuted and suffer the consequences of her actions in a time of war.

Our evolving valuation of liberty:

don’t care if every single American, is spied on, including myself, if it will prevent another devastating 911 — terrorist attack from happening. And if someone is attempting to board a plane with hidden weapons — it’s too late if the privacy of all passengers was not invaded for the safety and protection of all concerned.

Kaye Grogan
So what else is new . . . about eavesdropping?
12/29/2005

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Benjamin Franklin
Historical Review of Pennsylvania
1759

Before the terrorists carry out their destructive plans, I can assure you they could care less who is inside their targeted areas. Be it children, dignitaries, Democrats, Republicans, blacks or whites — you are going to join the death statistics, and you won’t be around to protest strategic schemes to promote safety, if the plan to use nuclear weapons is carried out.

So, it would be to your best interest to encourage the president to do everything he can to foil the plans of our enemies, instead of putting him down for caring enough to do everything in his power to shelter you from another senseless onslaught by terrorists, who have no respect for human life period.

Kaye Grogan
So what else is new . . . about eavesdropping?
12/29/2005

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

John Adams
from his journal
1772

With plans brewing by terrorists to carry out Osama bin Laden’s plot to kill at least four million Americans in the next attack — it is ludicrous to concentrate on protecting privacy above the safety of U.S. citizens.

Kaye Grogan
So what else is new . . . about eavesdropping?
12/29/2005

Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.

Patrick Henry
to the Virginia Legislature
1775

Abramhoffapalooza or whatever is going to be awesome:

Abramoff is the central figure in what could become the biggest congressional corruption scandal in generations. Justice Department prosecutors are pressing him and his lawyers to settle fraud and bribery allegations by the end of this week, sources knowledgeable about the case said. Unless he reaches a plea deal, he faces a trial Jan. 9 in Florida in a related fraud case. […]

Alan K. Simpson (R), the former Wyoming senator who was in Washington during the last big congressional scandal — the Abscam FBI sting in the late 1970s and early 1980s, in which six House members and one senator were convicted — said the Abramoff case looks bigger. Simpson said he recently rode in a plane with one of Abramoff’s attorneys, who told him: “There are going to be guys in your former line of work who are going to be taken down.”

They’re gonna cuff ya and stuff ya!

Who am I? What am I doing here? Who are you people? What day is it? Where’s my Scotch?

Oh, it’s coming back to me, now. That mysterious bar. A pint glass of Jagermeister that, no matter how much I drank, I could never empty. And that mysterious sideburn man - or was it two? or four? or was it a kitten? - urging me on, until he - they? - proposed that horrible bet … Well, the details don’t matter, and I’m not in the mood to relive them for you. God, I wouldn’t wish this hangover on France.

I suppose I’ll have to do this, then, but I don’t have to like it. As far as I’m concerned, all this “Kipmas” nonsense is just the most insidious attack in the War on Christmas and our Christian heritage, and, if I were running things, I’d slide dow the chimney of the people responsible for it and give them five in the egg noggin’*, if you know what I’m talking about. And I think you do.

Anyhoo, I suppose I should do this, or I’ll never get my collection of “Junior High Manga Panty Sluts” back. Alright, let’s get it over with. We’ve tallied all 20,000 votes, and can now announce the winners of the first annual Kippie Awards for Distinguished Wingnuttery:

The Chickenhawk of the Year Award:

The voting was extremely heavy in this prestigious and timely category, but one man - and I use the term extremely loosely - rose, like a tube of EZ-bake Buttery Pillsbury Crescent Rolls, above the rest. The winners:

  • Second runner-up: Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH), for calling veteran John Murtha a coward.
  • Runner-up: Worst President Ever, for ducking into TANG during Viet Nam, and then ducking his minimal TANG service–and then sending our troops to war as president.
  • Winner: Jonah Goldberg, for his excuse that fighting is only for the poor, unmarried, and childless.

The Fluffy

This category was much more competative than oddsmakers had expected, but, in the end, one man’s Adamantium Knees powered him to victory.

The Purple Teardrop with Clutched Pearls Cluster

This was a hard year for True Americans, what with all the twisting and lying by the liberal Em-Ess-Em. But while we may seem heartless group when it comes to cheering for torture abroad and the end of democracy at home, we are not afraid to cry when you kick us in our chapped, long-suffering reproductive organs. The winners:

~ Halftime Show ~

Please enjoy this revealing video of a formative moment in the life of young Assrocket.

Seems like some things never change. And now, back to the action:

The Soggy Biscuit Award

Across the fact-free fraternity of the wingnutosphere, there are always any number of pointless circle jerks going on in which you can participate. But there can be only one ultimate circle jerk of the year, and this year, I am proud to say, I had a hand in the winner.

Wank of the Year

The wingnuttosphere is justly famous for being unfailingly self-correcting, but even more significant is the self-abusing nature of the right-wing media geek show. The prize-winning wanks of the year:


The Palme d’Hair

The contest for the highest honor in all of wingnuttery should be closely contested, but, this year, it was no contest at all. One man above all others proved that he had a firm grip on something this year … and I’m not talkin’ about Reality!

  • Second runner up: Assrocket
  • Runner up: Michelle Malkin
  • Winner: Bill O’Reilly

Congratulations to Bill O’Reilly, who wins a lifetime supply of falafel and loofahs, as well as all the other deserving “winners” in the First Annual Kippie Awards!!

And, now that my obligation is complete, let me just say this: you liberals may think that these people deserve these crappy awards, but as far as I’m concerned, they all deserve a medal!

* Copyright attaturk industries.

Well, we’re beginning to get a little more clarity on what, exactly, the NSA’s carefree warrantless wonderland entails. DefenseTech notes a new Times article, and its claim that the NSA’s program revolved around large scale snarfing (technical hax0r term) of data at switches:

The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system’s main arteries, they said.

As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said.

Well, duh.

The fact is none of this is particularly secret; the FCC has been quite publically trying to promulgate rules that would make VOIP (internet telephony) and internet service providers provide the same levvel of access that telephone companies have been cheerfully offering up for eleven years:

New federal wiretapping rules forcing Internet service providers and universities to rewire their networks for FBI surveillance of e-mail and Web browsing are being challenged in court.

Telecommunications firms, nonprofit organizations and educators are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., to overturn the controversial rules, which dramatically extend the sweep of an 11-year-old surveillance law designed to guarantee police the ability to eavesdrop on telephone calls.

When you place a phone call, connect to the internet, use an ATM, offer up your credit card, or basically do anything which involves point-to-point communications over any distance greater than shouting range, that information is - if it’s analog - digitized, “trunked” (combined with like communications on extremely high bandwidth backbone lines), and routed, across a network, over a series of switches, to it’s destination. If it is big enough - a part of the backbone - that switch has, BY LAW, been tapped by the NSA for eleven or more years. That capacity, domestically and internationally, is the backbone of the NSA’s surveillance capability (the FBI angle in the article is a big ol’ fakeout. No Such Agency leaves their name out of the papers). The NSA has the theoretical capability to monitor any telecommunications link, voice or data, that passes in any capacity through the United States. This is not news. It’s what they do. The checks and balances that existed prior to November 2001 were matters of software: while the data was acquired, it was not analyzed; the capacity remained theoretical. The NSA only gained the right to analyze this data - by listening, by crunching numbers, by correlating it to criminal investigations - when the FISA court issued a warrant. Paranoids and cypherpunks have argued for years that a legal restriction against hitting the “Tap Everybody” button is a wildly inadequate corrective pressure, but that’s sort of academic now. The genie has left the bottle, long since.

A few days ago, based on my own understanding and some conversations with educated outsiders, I posted a best-guess suggestion for what the NSA have been ordered to do. With the revelations of the past few days, notably in the oft-mocked NYT, I can narrow that down a bit, and paint a hypothetical portrait of the lifecycle of a warrantless wiretap.

The process begins in Afghanistan or Berlin or Cairo, when a known Al Qaeda associate coughs up his cell phone or address book or calling records, or stops in at a house and uses the phone, or pisses in an alley two blocks over from a restaurant with a phone line. However it happens, a set of numbers with some vague association to terrorism is acquired, and transferred to the NSA. The NSA takes those numbers and adds them to a large master list. That master list is a filter; it fords the great gushing torrent of conversation (every international call that passes through a US facility), calls to and from marked numbers duplicated on over to the NSA. When a US phone number calls, or is called by, a number on the master list, that phone is immediately and automatically tapped. At whatever [redacted] NSA facility, the agents on call (and, as we have heard so many times, their shift supervisor), are notified of the existence of the tap. Large, fancy computer programs begin to analyze the calling patterns of the number in question, and the content of conversations held on that line. After some while (probably not that long: them clever computers) the operative and his supervisor are informed that this number is 96 or 98 or 99% certain to NOT be a “dirty number” used by terrorists, or the terrorist adjacent. At that point, the shift supervisor makes the decision to hit “stop”, and the tap is ended. Or alternatively, the computer can’t attain that level of certainty, and the tap remains, indefinitely, periodically monitored by live humans, but mostly just run through automated speech analysis. If the tapped line makes a lot of calls to some other international number, that number might end up on the master list, and the process begins all over again, one step removed.

So there you go. Again, I’m speculating, but it’s a pretty good bet that they’re doing this or something like it. It’s neither particularly new nor particularly difficult technology, and has been used to different ends by private industry for many years.

From Tim Lambert:

Global Warming Sceptic Bingo and

DDT Ban Myth Bingo

Everybody, let’s play along!

… While you’re at it, Pimp My Nutcracker!

An Amazon reviewer on John Gibson’s “The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought”:

It is hard for me to review this book objectively, because I knew John Gibson personally 15 years ago. To say the least, it was not a positive experience for me or my family. Knowing what I know, it is the height of irony that John Gibson, a man who caused so much pain for me and my family one Christmas, would write a book defending Christmas.

In 1989, John Gibson worked as a weekend anchorman at the local television station (KCRA channel 3) that my mother worked at in Sacramento, and she would occasionally invite him to have dinner with us (her, my sister, and me). This happened mayber 5 or 6 times, and then when Christmas came, she invited him to have Christmas dinner with us. He arrived drunk.

I remember how he spent our Christmas dinner just railing and yelling about all the people at the TV station he hated, ranting and raving and hitting the table. We ate in silence, hoping he wouldn’t get even angrier. After dinner, he wanted to watch TV, and insisted that my 14-year-old sister sit right next to him. After about five minutes with his hands all over her, and hugging her, she managed to get away, and my mother suggested that he go home. He got angry and left, but not before smashing a serving plate made of china that our grandmother had left us. Thankfully, that was the last I saw of him in person.

I don’t know if he is the same man today that he was then, though I have heard through professional contacts that he still has an alcohol and temper problem. When I sometimes see him get upset on the air with a guest, I hear the same tone of voice, and the same look in his eye that I remember from that night. He certainly didn’t give us a very nice Christmas, and this book has brought back memories me and my sister would rather forget.

Were they serving falafel? I hear it drives those FOX News men crazy.

Tis the season, as they say.

Well, isn’t that special?

Fox affiliate “FOX Carolina” last month ran a one-sided fluff piece exploring StormFront.org, an online hub for white supremacists.

The Anti-Defamation League describes StormFront as a “veritable supermarket of online hate, stocking its shelves with many forms of anti-Semitism and racism.” Yet not a single critical voice is included in the Fox story — only StormFront members and moderators are included.

Your move, MSNBC.

The Anti-Defamation League describes StormFront as a “supermarket of hate”, but Stormfront prefers to be seen as a “White Nationalist Community”. Tomayto, tomahto. FOX is often called a “conservative” station, but that’s not really true. It’s a Republican Party station. Or, more precisely, it’s the station of those elements of Republican Party who are currently driving the agenda. And the agenda is being driven ever Rightward. No, let’s be precise again: the overt agenda is heading Rightward, ever closer to the white Dixiecrat rebellion which is the heart and soul of the modern Republican majority. And the folks at Stormfront couldn’t be more pleased with the publicity Bush’s party organ is giving them:

Just saw the video clip from Fox news, and I felt very proud when Storfront was introduced to the rest of the country as the web site for the survival of the “White Race”. I’m so glad we are finally getting our voice out there.

I’ve never emailed my parents and their friends re: Stormfront.
Now I will.
Thank you Mr Kelso & Mr Whitaker.

That was by far the most fair and unbiased news report concerning Stormfront or racialism that I’ve ever heard.

As I said about the picture thread, it is critical that we stop letting them drive us into hiding.
You can only get freedom of speech by demanding it in the OPEN.
You seem to be saying that Kelso and I helped make it acceptable to demand it in the open.
Thanks. That’s a hell of a compliment.

This isn’t happening in a vacuum, of course. Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage Weiner and others have made themselves wealthy by walking as close to the white supremacist line as advertisers - and polite society - will allow. Hey, there’s an audience for this stuff, so someone’s going to take advantage.

Getting away with it in polite society is a delicate balance, and you have to be very tuned in to the ever-shifting rules of what is and isn’t allowed. Think about what happened to poor Trent Lott. The story is that, after however many decades playing footsie with the Confederate movement, Republicans were shocked - shocked! - to discover that he was for racial segregation. But that’s not what happened. Nor did Lott get caught by a sudden change in Repblican ethical standards - he simply misread the gradual drift in the rules of political kabuki which govern Republican racist and extremist rhetoric. What was sufficiently subtle 20 years ago - phrases like “all these problems over the years” in reference to the civil rights movement - had become, to the modern audience, too transparent. Awkward, dated performances like this break the illusion which holds the Republican Party together, and it is that which is unacceptable, and has always been unacceptable, and it is for this that he was punished. Had Lott been hit with a moral censure, he would not be in Congress at all, but that’s not what happened. He just got a bad review.

But things are moving the other way, now. Watching this determined but cautious “coming out” for the racist Right - like a boy eagerly sliding his hand up his girl’s thigh, unsure how much he’ll be allowed to get away with, as slowly as he can and as quickly as he dares - you can see what is enabling it: the mainstreaming of radical right-wing messages in popular media outlets, the rise of Republican politicians indebted to the “conservative” “Christian” scions of the Old South, the Minuteman Project and an uncertain economy provoking very public anti-(Mexican)-immigrant rhetoric, and, best of all, 9/11 and the War on Terror, which has been an absolute Godsend for bigots looking for some popular justification for their views. You do still have to be politic, though; it’s just that, like with Trent Lott, the rules aren’t constant. Here, for example, is how David Yeagley - from David Horowitz’s funny-sad “Discover The Network” blog - explains praising neo-Nazi singing twins “Prussian Blue”:

I misperceived them as “white nationalists” — rebelling against a multiculturalism that allows every other group to express ethnic pride except whites.

In other words, then, you thought they were Stormfront. As seen on TV.

Oh, ye gentle Gods of Wuss Metal, you know what daddy wants this year:

Jack Abramoff, the Republican lobbyist under indictment for fraud in South Florida, is expected to complete a plea agreement in the Miami criminal case, setting the stage for him to become a crucial witness in a broad federal corruption investigation, people with direct knowledge of the case said.

One participant in the case said the deal could be made final as early as next week.

The terms of the plea deal have not been completed, and the negotiations are especially complicated because they involve prosecutors both in Miami and in Washington, where Mr. Abramoff is being investigated in a separate influence-peddling inquiry, participants said. Details of what he feels comfortable pleading guilty to are “probably largely worked out,” the participant said, while the details of the prison sentence are less resolved. […]

At the same time, prosecutors in Washington have been sifting through evidence of what they believe is a corruption scheme involving at least a dozen lawmakers and their former staff members, many of whom worked closely on legislation with Mr. Abramoff and accepted gifts and favors from him. Although Mr. Abramoff is also in negotiations in that case, it is unclear whether a settlement can be reached in time for both agreements to be announced at once.

QUESTION: Attorney General Gonzales, if the Senate does not reauthorize this provision for the Patriot Act, does the president have the authority under Article 2 and the authorization of use of force to give the go-ahead for these procedures on his own?

GONZALES: What I will say is we continue to have hope that these provisions will be reauthorized.

To the extent that they’re not reauthorized, we will look at the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies throughout the government to see what authorities do exist. And we will do what we can do under existing authorities to continue to protect America.

Alberto Gonzales
CNN

AD 2005

The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism - ownership of government power by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private power.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt
AD 1938

A republic, if you can keep it.

Benjamin Franklin
AD 1787

Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom.

Edward Gibbons
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
AD 1776

Nam si violandum est ius, regnandi gratia violandum est: aliis rebus pietatem colas.

Gaius Julius Caesar
100 - 44 BC

It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy … I love the Republic. The power you give me I will lay down once this crisis has abated.

Senator Palpatine
A Long, Long Time Ago

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