Accidents Will Happen

F.B.I. Gained Unauthorized Access to E-Mail

-AF

Returning From A Journey*

Short trip. Got back late last night. More words soon come.

-AF



*Specimen tune circa 1983. They were the Bat Cave house band.

A Friendly Reminder: We Can't Believe Anything These Fuckers Say

Ever.

Not when our government continues to hold prisoners at Guantanamo for no reason other than to postpone the embarrassment of releasing the innocent (and to set up the next preznit for Republican attacks upon their release i.e. "He's making US unsafe by letting Gitmo prisoners go").

Not when our government tortures to death innocent taxi drivers.

The Bush Administration is so hock full of pathological liars there's at least one new lie every day. While their lies flying too fast and furious to catolog here, Biggest Bush Lies has a nice big list.

-AF

LA Times OP-ED Hammers Bush State Secrets Dodge

Shielded by Secrecy:

"The Bush administration has misused the state secrets privilege to stifle legal oversight of its anti-terror policies. Congress must intervene."

That sez it all.

-AF

"If That Was True, America Would Torture Too..."

Still playing catch-up: Harper's brilliant Scott Horton has Six Questions for Darius Rejali, Author of Torture and Democracy.

-AF

Charles Barkley Goes Off

Former NBA star and TNT b-ball commentator Charles Barkley has never been shy about voicing his opinion. While I don't always agree with "Sir Charles", I'm always interested in what he has to say. Yesterday he appeared on TNT sister network CNN's "Situation Room." Barkley completely went off on Republicans, "fake Christians" and the dearth of role models for the black community sans athletes and entertainers. Not surprisingly Barkley supports Obama.

Raw Story has the clip.

-AF

I Wouldn't Waterboard Joe Lieberman If He Had Hot Coals Burning Body

Lieberman says some waterboarding OK but...

He does not believe the president could authorize having hot coals pressed on someone's flesh to obtain that information.

Good to know, Joe. But there's more:

The difference, he said, is that waterboarding is mostly psychological and there is no permanent physical damage. "It is not like putting burning coals on people's bodies. The person is in no real danger. The impact is psychological," Lieberman said.

So I'm to understand that because "the impact is is psychological" that "the person is in no real danger." What college did Joe get his medical degree from? What's that? You say he has a law degree from Yale? Never mind.

Despite torture memo co-author/co-conspirator and DOJ official Steven Bradbury's claims, waterboarding of any kind is nothing more than a fancy way of choking someone until they tell you not the truth but what they think you want to hear.

The Bush Administration now claims that their version of waterboarding, which was "only" used on three "subjects", was done so as to avoid "prolonged mental harm." That's supposed to make it OK. So just who defines what "prolonged mental harm" is? We the torturers, natch. If you asked anyone who was repeatedly waterboarded methinks their opinion would differ drastically. Anyone who thinks waterboarding cannot lead to permanent psychological damage is starkers. Thalassophobia immediately comes to mind.

Oh and we're supposed to believe we "only" water-boarded "three" individuals. That's right with:

1. The check is in the mail.
2. I won't cum in your mouth.
3. Kids, I never did drugs.
4. Dead stripper? What dead stripper? No siree, Bob. There's no dead stripper here.
   

Bush called these three "the worst of the worst." How exactly does he know? Was there a popularity contest held at Gitmo or Abu Graib? Fuck no. Despite (or perhaps because of) the Bush Administration's use of too clever by far parsing, you can be sure the US has waterboarded and otherwise tortured dozens. If we haven't, we asked others to do it for us.

I'm sorry, George, but that counts too.

-AF

Immunity...Schmunity

While Bush & company try to scare us into supporting an immunity that benefits no one else but themselves, the telecoms flex their considerable monetary muscles by twisting Congressional arms. According to Opensecrets.org, the telecom/electronics lobby ranks #4 w/$2 billion+ spent since 1998. That’s a heckuva lotta of campaign contributions, free dinners and scotches. My guess it that that a majority of this went to Bush, Boehner, DeLay, “Duke”, Blunt, Stevens, Doolittle, Lewis et al.

No small wonder the Republican Representatives walked en masse yesterday. They had been already paid by the telecoms for their day's work to ignore their sworn duty to serve the American people. Inquiring minds want to know how many Dems voting for this bill also received some sort of past or renewed "support" from the telecom lobby.

Glenn Greenwald examines this fandango's latest developments here. In it he snags the following killer Mike McConnell quote from NPR this morning:

"We can't do this mission without their help," he said."Currently there is no retroactive liability protection for them. They're being sued for billions of dollars."

Yes, McConnell cannot "do this mission without their help." But the telecoms also cannot fail to cooperate in any lawful information gathering activity. Glenn fells this strawiest of the eavesdropping straw man arguments:

The claim that telecoms will cease to cooperate without retroactive immunity is deeply dishonest on multiple levels, but the dishonesty is most easily understood when one realizes that, under the law, telecoms are required to cooperate with legal requests from the government. They don't have the option to "refuse." Without amnesty, telecoms will be reluctant in the future to break the law again, which we should want. But there is no risk that they will refuse requests to cooperate with legal surveillance, particularly since they are legally obligated to cooperate in those circumstances. The claim the telecoms will cease to cooperate with surveillance requests is pure fear-mongering, and is purely dishonest.

If the telecoms committed no wrongdoing, what are they so worried about? After all, the telecoms can afford the very best lawyers. And once one suit is dismissed, the rest will soon follow. Its the complete lack of debate over whether any law has been broken that is conspicuous by its absence. (This from an administration still arguing that water boarding is not torture!)

This urgent need for retroactive immunity stems from the fact that all involved in warrantless wiretapping know that their crimes are completely indefensible. If they succeed in giving the telecoms retroactive immunity, the Bush Administration also immunizes themselves from any related prosecution. That is more important to Bush & Co. than protecting the asses of their generous telecommunications industry campaign contributors or, for that matter, the American people.

That is a talking point worthy of wider dissemination.

Meanwhile the clock keeps a tickin' on Bush's shot at scoring hisself sum immunities.

-AF

I'm More or Less Back...

I've come to accept the Super Bowl loss of my beloved New England Patriots. Yes, I'm aware I take this shit too personally. But as one who suffered through the lean years, not to mention the aluminum benches of Schaefer Stadium (Anyone else remember "Shaefer is the one beer to have when you're having more than one!" or or the much later "Pop! Pop! Sitting pretty. All together in Schaefer City!"?), and personally attended the Patriots' second Super Bowl loss, I reserve and retain the right to take my team's losses to heart. After all, football is one of my few true concessions to American popular culture. (I spend the rest of my life snug and smug with the knowledge that my counterculture/underground/indie-cred coffers are overflowing).

Truth is that any other year I'd be excited that my adopted hometown's team, The New York Football Giants, won. I'd be excited if any team finally shut up Bob Kuechenberg and the rest of the '72 Dolphins once and for all. C'est la guerre.

Three things fortify me in the face of such a disastrous end to an historic football season:

1. Former All-World Pats OLB Andre Tippett was finally and deservedly elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Tippett was an extraordinary player overshadowed by the play of NYG's Lawrence Taylor. In the 1984 & 1985 seasons he totaled a whopping 35 sacks -- the highest two season tally by a linebacker ever.
2. Pitchers and catchers have reported. Go Sox!
3. Come July, football will return giving meaning to our otherwise empty lives.

I'll refrain from complaining too much about how the weather here in the NE has largely blotted out the sun and exacerbated the worst symptoms of my chronic disease. Instead I'll re-concentrate my efforts on witty, acerbic, pithy and off-the-wall observations of the world at large. Or something like that.

-AF

Specter Knows Even Less About Football Than He Does About The Constitution

Hard to believe I know. It's strange that Sen. "Snarlin'" Arlen Specter didn't voice his concern about this when it happened last September. It's a transparent bid for publicity. It's a text book case of Republican misdirection. Personally, I think the senior Senator from Pennsylvania is still pissed that the Patriots beat the Eagles three years ago.

Specter's clearly lost his last remaining marble. In today's NY Times, the delusional Republican Senator (Is there any other kind?) claims:

“The N.F.L. has a very preferred status in our country with their antitrust exemption. The American people are entitled to be sure about the integrity of the game. It’s analogous to the C.I.A. destruction of tapes. Or any time you have records destroyed.”

Are you fucking kidding me? Snarlin' Arlen has his panties in a bunch over this when he's actively enabled the worst President in American History to mangle our Constitution in a power grab so bold that it would give Stalin a chubby?

Get a grip, Senator. Get a grip.

The NFL rules were somewhat vague (check out the SportsProf's take) but the intent was clear. Bill Belichick attempted to exploit that gray area and got popped for it. Subsequently, the NFL issued a major clarification of this rule when Belichick's & the Pats' punishment docking them a 1st round pick & $750000 was announced.

Not wanting any more negative attention in this year of Pacman & Michael Vick, the NFL did their best to sweep "Spygate" under the rug ASAP. The league was extremely bent that someone at 410 Park Ave. leaked a clip to Fox. My sources tell me that the tapes were destroyed at least in part to stop additional leaks and to prevent other teams learning anything from the Patriots' methods.

The lack of specifics as to what exactly went down is precisely the reason for so much residual angst. But you really have to know jack all about the complexity of NFL football to believe that someone on the sidelines could effectively steal another team's signals.

When a coach signals in plays, some are dummy calls, some change weekly and some may never be seen again. For this to work during a game, taped signals would have to be transmitted to a crew specifically assembled to interpret the signals. Once the code was broken, the code would have to be explained to spotters with binoculars trained on the opponent’s sideline. These spotters would have about 10 seconds to translate the opponent's signal and alert their sideline for it to be of any use to their team. If the opponent then changes the play at the line of scrimmage, it's all for naught.

The Patriots were certainly recording how long it took each opponent to get their defensive sub packages on and off the field according to game clock, down & distance and score. This explains the Pats' productive penchant for suddenly going to a hurry-up offense in a situation that wouldn't obviously call for such haste.

The Patriots aren't the only team that has ever done this. Jimmy Johnson has freely admitted to doing it during the Cowboys' '90s Super Bowl run. The Pats weren't even the only team do it last year. Regardless, it was a violation of NFL rules and the Patriots were severely punished...but not exactly for "stealing signs."

-AF

**Update: Sports Illustrated's Peter King rips Specter and offers his insights on the Phoenix circus.

***Update #2 -- In his annual Super Bowl press conference NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell stated:

I’m not sure that there’s a coach in the league that doesn’t expect that their signals are being intercepted in some way by opposing teams and that’s why they go to the great lengths. I think it was Coach Parcells that I heard earlier this season who said “Any coach who doesn’t expect his signals to be stolen is stupid.” It’s pretty simple but I think to the large extent teams understand that’s a risk and they have prepared for that.

**Disclaimer: I am a life-long New England Patriots fan. My ass is still callused from sitting on those aluminum Schaeffer Stadium benches all those years ago. This does not prevent me from being critical of the Patriots or objective on this subject.