Politics: FISA and You

Courtesy of The Political Cat

Do you ever wonder if the telcos handed your phone records and other information to which they might have had access, to the spy agencies? Sure, you do. You and most other Americans probably have a low-level stress alert set on FISA, because we know damned well those bastards have been spying on all of us since March of 2001. For the date- or history-impaired, that would be six months before the incidents of 11th September.

The FISA votes have been wending their constipated way through the Legislature for years now. A little movement here, a little squeeze there, while we all sit and fume and wonder what the fuckers are up to now.

AP tells us that the Chimperor is determined that telcos will have immunity for their illegal acts in aiding spying on American citizens. One way he's doing this is to order his rage of hunchmen (yes, Frank Zappa coined that phrase) to do everything they can to delay the so-called "stimulus" package in return for FISA concessions. This will make it look as though the Democrats in the Legislature are failing to give money to the suffering masses.

First off, the chutzpah of this boondoggle just fucking blows our socks off here at La Casa de Los Gatos. Even the gatos' tiny white socks have been blasted to various corners of the universe by this unholy level of total fucking cheek.

What they're trying to do, the Republican legislators and the Chimpidiots, is ensure that you can never find out whether you were spied on. No, really. If these telco pigs get their proposed "immunity," you can't force them to disclose whether they handed your records to anybody. They're immune from prosecution.

This also means you can't find out whether any other shenanigans were going on - you know, like, did the Misadministration funnel millions in taxpayer money to the telcos specifically for acts that violate the FISA laws or the constitution? Did they encourage violation of the constitution by, say, tapping the phones of attorneys talking to clients (that is ANY attorney talking to ANY client, like, oh, your divorce lawyer, or your spouse's patent lawyer; your bankruptcy lawyer - lots of potential for ugly right here).

Did they hand over for future use to intelligence agencies damaging information gleaned from illegal surveillance - like, were you, an elected official, bopping your boyfriend on the taxpayers' time? Or were you, a person with hopes of running for office someday, exchanging incriminating communications with your homo-, bi-, or generally queer-sexual partner or fling? Or a Young Republican engaging in sexual shenanigans of which your church, family, community, and state would thoroughly disapprove?


If Darth and Idiot Boy get telco immunity, you're screwed - we're all screwed. We won't be able to find out what they've got on us, when they started collecting it, what laws they violated - we probably won't even be able to get them to stop, or to turn over the information (not that that would do much good. That which has been seen cannot be unseen).

Already, our slimy AG, Michael Mucousy, has sent a letter to Harry Reid warning of the proposed veto.

In ten days' time the current FISA law will expire. Thus, the Republicans and the Misadministration are going all-out to ensure that the version that passes will protect their good buddies at the telcos, and, incidentally, screw the people. We're only good for paying taxes and working and spending to keep the economy going so these crooks and liars can spend our money making themselves and their friends rich.

If not for Senator Chris Dodd, we'd already be screwed.

So hie thee over to McJoan's excellent post on who you need to call and what you need to tell them. Because if you don't pressure your whiny sad-assed legislators to protect you, you better start purchasing lube by the gallon.

Oh, you might want to send these to your legislator. They've long since proved they haven't got any.

WEATHER

Tornadoes rip through South, killing 54
Monkeyfister is having some scary bad ass weather as many are to the south and east as nasty ass killer storms I'm sure are rolling through many states. Tornadoes will kill you so fast and glad we don't get severe weather very often. The sun came out a bit today and did a rather poor video on just how much there is. Over all it must be 4-5 feet everywhere. There will be a long mud season and a massive runoff. March is the snowiest month. We all know about snow slides but did you know this way snow can kill you? Hope all are okay down there but it doesn't look good.


An letter about tree well dangers from todays paper.

It Grows On Trees

Courtesy of Distributorcap. This is too good not to share.

(1952) The Bushes are a typical happy American family trying to live on too little money. Mrs. Laura Bush acquires two mysterious trees that got into a nursery shipment by mistake. Guess what: they turn out to be money trees! After initial problems, Laura decides to spend the money. But there's one logical consequence of money grown on trees that no one's considered.

What the Bushes didn't consider was that the money picked off those trees would crumple and die, since it was really just a living part of the tree. As usual, anything a Bush touches just dies.

And like leaves on those money trees, George Bush picks the Lincolns, Jacksons, Hamiltons and Franklins as quickly as he can. He then spends those precious (and short lived) leaves on projects and programs that do nothing but contribute to health of companies like Bechtel, Halliburton and Blackwater, while marching the American economy to a death by a thousand budget cuts.

Today, the Hemorrhoid disguised as a President released the details of those 3.1 trillion leaves in his (hopefully) final budget. And guess what – there were NO surprises. Can anyone guess what the big winner was? I will give you a hint -- it wasn’t kids, education, energy, health care or the environment. Ok, One more, think five-sided building in Virginia. Think a giant rake.

At least Bush is going green – they didn’t print this piece of garbage on paper – you have to go online and print it out yourself. At least it is a clean budget. The final Bush exercise in creative accounting buys the Pentagon a bigger Hoover vacuum cleaner – we get a dust-free 7.5% increase in military suck for more overblown projects, $400 toilet seats, and of course the endless Iraqi abyss. Remember how ExxonMobil earned revenues of $469 billion in 2007. Ha! that is just a mere bag of shells compared to the US DOD. The Pentagon surpasses that with $515 billion. So not only can the Pentagon buy Belgium, they can get that paradise on the Indus River, Pakistan, as well.

And while the Pentagon gets 7.5% more, the rest of government will just have to go begging for paper clips and limousines. Of course one area that didn’t suffer the Bush chainsaw was combating illegal immigration. That will get an increase of 17 percent. The Energy Department will get $21 billion for nuclear weapons development. Health care for kids through S-CHIP, not one wooden nickel.

To pay for the Pentagon’s largesse, something’s gotta give. Say goodbye to 47 programs in education including the elimination of such “welfare” as encouraging arts in schools, bringing low-income students on trips to Washington and providing mental health services. Also the Decider has decided to eliminate the $283 million (not billion) federal program to help people make their homes more energy efficient and would cut energy aid to poor households by $500 million. Those two programs are less than 1.5% of the Pentagon’s budget. The lower economic rungs of society will just have to get used to being cold while being safe. Of course, they could just buy more Chinese made gloves and hats.

The budget also requests deep cuts in many popular domestic programs such as highway funds and other projects to develop renewable energy sources. It also failed to include any provisions after this year for keeping the incredibly nasty and expensive alternative minimum tax (AMT), originally aimed at the wealthy, from hitting millions of middle-class taxpayers. The AMT is nothing more than a big shell game --- any tax cut you might have saved from Bush gets eaten up by the AMT. What a Robin Hood that Bush is -- robs Peter to pay Halliburton.

And as a final kick-in-the-ass to an aging population, the budget includes $178 billion in cuts to Medicare over the next 5 years.

And under the guise of a policy “why look a gift horse in the mouth” this piece of economic toilet paper fails to include the full costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Mr. Commander Guy knows that the easiest part of his incredibly hard job is to march over to only bank left in the US with easy lending policies -- the Bank of PelosiReid and request the needed Iraq War funds -- outside budgetary approval. After all, CEO Nancy is a girl who just can’t say no!

Remember this word -- surplus [sur-pluhs, -pluh s]. Well Bush got rid of those in 2001, but back in 2004 he “claimed” the deficits would get smaller and return to a suplus before he left office. Well today, the douchebag said the deficit would reach a near-record level of $410 billion for the budget year 2008 and stay at a flat $407 billion for fiscal 2009. That is $817 billion for two years – gee now Mexico can buy us!

"The budget protects America and encourages economic growth. Congress needs to pass it," Bush said after meeting with his Cabinet. Bush also said despite the worsening near-term deficit, it would still be possible to balance the budget by 2012, while making permanent tax cuts he made in 2001 and 2003. What Bush failed to say is that he literally passing this economic time bomb to the next president, who will have to deal with the repercussions of such disastrous management.

So we have an increase in governmental spending, by deficit financing and lower governmental revenues by cutting taxes --- I am no economist, but is there something fundamentally ass-backward with this logic?

Bush’s 8 years of budgets have been nothing other that one giant earmark for his friends. The national debt (which for the most part is being financed by those purveyors of poison pet food and toys – China) has increase by nearly 2/3 to over $9 trillion from January 2001. The dollar is worthless abroad. Oil is nearing $100 barrel, gold $1000/ounce. Who's better off now than back in 2008. The CEOs of failed banks are.

While the usual Republican lemmings welcomed the budget (they would welcome the budget even if it meant they would have to be castrated), New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, the senior Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, showed he was somewhat willing to keep his balls, by saying “it lacked credibility.”

"This budget must have been viewed by them more as an academic exercise than a serious exercise because it's not a serious budget," Gregg told Reuters in an interview. "There are even more games than usual."

The bigger deficits, caused by a combination of weakening revenues and soaring costs in Iraq, would reverse a trend of the past three years in which annual deficits declined. I guess the Chimpinator figures since he is leaving he might as well go out with one helluva party.

Let’s not forget the Pelosi-Boner $150 billion stimulus package of tax rebates to jolt the economy will also add to the deficit. You want job security in these times of troubles --- become a manufacturer of money presses. But I would bet my entire stimulus check those machines are ALL made in China.

The Political Cat sharin da luv

In the spirit of BAD many new friends have been made all over the place and one of mine is ThePoliticalCat who was kind enough to put a post of mine at the top of the page today plus a link as there is a link here to the Cat. Make a point to visit as it's worth it. There are a number of new links here that will continue to be expanded. There's so many small sites that have content that puts the big boys to shame indeed! The media whores are bit players in this game of truth that's for damn sure.

Just saw another of the same from Monkeyfister who probably has had associations with cornfields. Thank you Mr. Fister! Coming back at ya guys.

9 Iraqi civilians accidentally killed

"The U.S. military said Monday that it had accidentally killed nine Iraqi civilians during an operation targeting al-Qaida in Iraq — the deadliest known case of mistaken identity in recent months"

Fucking a right! Just an accident. So that makes it all otay and after they investigate they will let all know the truth. After all we're fighting al-Qaida member that? When I heard the phrase "I am a human being" for the first time over 30 years ago it struck me as odd but I was fresh outta of that cornfield and didn't have a clue. I feel for this country and the people in Iraq as they deserved none of this. The neo-murderers and the monkey are to blame and I despise them with all my being. Sonsofbitches!

Farther up it goes

Tiger Woods trailed by four shots coming into Sunday's final round. No matter. The world's No. 1 player just went out and fired a final-round 65 to win by a shot at the Dubai Desert Classic.

This young man has a bit of maturing to do on the course but he has enough class to brush this off. You can damn well bet this incident will only make him better because if the truth be known he does want to shove this noose up many people's asses. Two in a row. Keep kicking ass Tigger! Did I say he likes to fish?

A good day on the Internets

It's good because skippy and others plus even more are linking to each other and sharing the common themes many have. The bigger including the little guys such as myself. Individually and as a collective the whole truth and the rest of the story has been and will continue to be told on this medium. Jon Swift has been a major player in this too. I find reading the little guys more entertaining and just about as informative. Our opinions have more credibility than the whores in the media because of just that. They sold their sorry worn out asses long ago and look where the fuck we are now. Pounding out our frustrations because these bastards do not have a goddamn ounce of integrity left in them anywhere to tell the truth. I gotta get busy with my link list and hope you do the same and encourage any who visit here to start your own blog if you do not have one and become part of this important and crazy world of the internets.

Take a bit of a trip.

west africa wins always is a site I recently found written by Pauline who lives in Abidjan. This girl has the ability with a bit of imagination to take you into the world of what is West Africa along with great photos. This goes on my links list too because it's just good reading. Put "Where the hell is Matt" here once again as it's fun and both Matt and Pauline remind me so much how I wish to travel and revisit the tropics someplace as it's been so very long. The travel plans for me are driving back to the cornfield in the middle of a harsh winter to spend time with my Dad who at 88 is struggling. I'm glad I can do that.

Marching Democracy

Baghdad bombs kill at least 64. We can not imagine what life must be like in this county. We are responsible for this but more importantly it is the killer chimp and the neo-thugs who are the real dealers in death. This will never change never! They hate us and will always hate us and it is not insurgents it is Iraqi's doing this and we are the cause. All for goddamn lies. These low lifes and media can spew bull shit all day long about progress in this country we occupy and it is just that-bull shit. This is so fucking disgusting!!! And now this idiot wants to cut billions from health programs so he can have plenty to kill at will in Iraq.
Make that at least 73 dead as we march Iraq along the road to democracy. Bastards! Make it an even 100. Sonsofbitches

Meet the Present Day Dr. Strangelove

An analogy that hits home hard. You would think our society would have progressed away from continual war but the reality is the opposite. Will we be lied into yet another conflict the benefits only the corporations that profit grotesquely from such? Our leaders love war as it's the contributions from those same corporations that get them reelected. Sonsofbitches!