Category Archives: Shrub Watch

Shrub’s Plan To Amend Privacy Act of 1974

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Pentagon Plans a Computer System That Would Peek at Personal Data of Americans
By John Markoff for the NY Times.

As the director of the effort, Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, has described the system in Pentagon documents and in speeches, it will provide intelligence analysts and law enforcement officials with instant access to information from Internet mail and calling records to credit card and banking transactions and travel documents, without a search warrant…
Admiral Poindexter quietly returned to the government in January to take charge of the Office of Information Awareness at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as Darpa. The office is responsible for developing new surveillance technologies in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
In order to deploy such a system, known as Total Information Awareness, new legislation would be needed, some of which has been proposed by the Bush administration in the Homeland Security Act that is now before Congress. That legislation would amend the Privacy Act of 1974, which was intended to limit what government agencies could do with private information.
The possibility that the system might be deployed domestically to let intelligence officials look into commercial transactions worries civil liberties proponents.

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Bush Prepares To Stack Judiciary

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…and there may be little or nothing we can do about it.
Dangerous Times Ahead After Election 2002
By John W. Dean for FindLaw.

Each of these leading news journals reports that the Bush Administration will soon make a effort to pack the federal courts with socially, economically and politically conservative judges. Worse, these judges will be the type who view positions on the judiciary as a prize opportunity to make their philosophy the law of the land…

…It has been known ever since the early months of the Bush-Cheney administration that the fact they do not even have a majority of public support is, in their view, irrelevant. They have the power, and that’s all that counts…

…We are a divided nation. And when all of the minority parties are added into the equation, the Republicans – particularly the right-wing of the party – remain in the minority. Nevertheless, Bush’s hard right core constituency wants more than anything else to pack the federal courts with those who share their thinking, and are willing to impose it through the court system.
These judges are the most inappropriate conceivable in these times: They are uniform in perspective and activist in imprinting that perspective on the law.
To keep his hard right constituency happy, Bush is scouring the legal community for conservative judicial appointees. I promise, you’ve seen nothing so far: Nominees to come will be, if anything, far more objectionable than those already considered.

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Shrub Scratches The Press Behind Its Ears

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Talkative Bush takes press corps by surprise Drops by for an extended Q&A session
By Laurence McQuillan for USA Today

”It’s the new me,” he joked. ”I’m answering all kinds of questions.”
Regular White House correspondents were caught off guard when Bush strolled over to them on the South Lawn as they waited to watch him depart for a quick trip to Michigan. (He was scheduled to give a speech, then make a campaign appearance for Thaddeus McCotter, a Republican candidate for the House of Representatives from suburban Detroit.)
Bush typically speaks with reporters a couple of times a week, and they rarely get in more than two to four questions.
But on this occasion, Bush answered about 15 questions. After a series of terrorist attacks abroad, he was eager to talk. ”I’ve constantly told the American people that the struggle against terror is going to be a long and difficult struggle; that we’re dealing with cold-blooded killers; that the enemy does not value innocent life like we do; and that we must continue to pursue the enemy before they hurt us again.” He said he suspected the al-Qaeda network was behind the recent attacks.

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More from Senator Byrd Against Bush’s Iraq Resolution

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Note: I will be putting these all on one page sometime tomorrow, but I thought I’d post them as they trickle in for those who are interested.
Quotes from Senator Byrd from my video tape of yesterday’s U.S. Senate hearings (as broadcast on CSPAN):

Let’s go back to that war in Vietnam. I was here (referring to the Senate). I was one of the Senators that voted for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Yes! I voted for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. I’m sorry for it. I’m guilty of doing this.
I should have been one of the two, or at least I should have made it three Senators who voted against that Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, but I’m not wanting to commit that sin twice!
And that’s exactly what we’re doing here. This is another Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. And I’m not going to vote for that this time. No! Don’t count me in that!

A Little Shrub To Start Your Day

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President Bush (when asked to compare Al Queda and Saddam Hussein):

“And so uh, uh, a comparison that uh, uh, is uh, well I can’t make because I can’t distinguish between the two, because they’re both equally as bad, and equally as evil, and equally as destructive.”

Sure you can take out the first part of the sentence out and he won’t look quite so blatantly stupid, but that still won’t change the fact that the second part of the sentence doesn’t make any sense.

“I can’t distinguish between the two, because they’re both equally as bad, and equally as evil, and equally as destructive.”

In a separate statement that came either before or after the one above (but during the same interview), he also said plainly:

“You can’t distinguish between Al Queda and Saddam when you talk about the War On Terror.”

To which Jon Stewart replied during his Daily Show report:

“You can’t? You know what? I’m gonna try. Al Queda is an ideologically-driven underground ultra-Islamic terrorist network and Saddam Hussein is the dictator of a secular middle eastern nation that seeks mild regional dominance. I did it! They said it couldn’t be done!” (Enter confetti and horn blower noises.) “I did it! I’ve done it!”
“Boy! It’s almost a shame we’re going to war anyway!”

Not Quite A Lie, Just A Little Misleading

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Is it a lie if a person says what they believe to be true in their own confused mind?
Democratic Congressman Asserts Bush Would Mislead U.S. on Iraq
By John H. Cushman Jr. for the NY Times.

One of the congressmen, Representative Jim McDermott of Washington State, said today that he thought President Bush was willing “to mislead the American people” about whether the war was needed and that the administration had gone back and forth between citing supposed links between Iraq and the terrorist network Al Qaeda and Iraq’s supposed attempts to obtain weapons of mass destruction…
…Speaking of the administration, Mr. McDermott said, “I believe that sometimes they give out misinformation.” Then he added: “It would not surprise me if they came up with some information that is not provable, and they’ve shifted. First they said it was Al Qaeda, then they said it was weapons of mass destruction. Now they’re going back and saying it’s Al Qaeda again.”
When pressed for evidence about whether President Bush had lied, Mr. McDermott said, “I think the president would mislead the American people.” But he said he believed that inspections of Iraq’s weapons programs could be worked out.

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Senator Byrd Warns The Public About the President and Vice Presidents’ Dangerous Foreign Policy

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Transcription of a clip I saw from Thursday’s session in congress on the Daily Show. They were making fun of Byrd’s dramatic gestures, but if you listen to what he was saying, it’s no laughing matter.

“I’ve been in this Congress fifty years. I have never seen a President of the United States or the Vice President of the United States stoop to such low levels,” said Senator Robert Byrd (D) West Virginia, as he turned and pointed at the people watching at home. “It’s your blood,” he said. “Your sons and daughters.”