A QUICK TRIP OUT OF THE HIDEY-HOLE:

A brief peek out from under the ragged edge of my own personal hidey-hole blanket -- an archaic leftover from a long-departed era where people you knew actually made things with their bare hands; in this case, a preciously frayed knitted “afghan” that’s always exuded this inexplicable odor of yarn soaked in over-boiled tea -- shows me a mildly unexpected sight ... our brave Democratic Vichyite appeasers in the Senate have, again, surprisingly beaten back the little yappy chihuahua of retroactive telecom “immunity.” Not that it means diddly in the long run, since we all know that Reid will cravenly cave in eventually. But, for a brief moment at least, we can indulge the dishonest fiction that the Dem “leadership” actually stands for something. What a nice squishy fantasy that is.

Come on, let’s face it: the present clatch of Vichy Democrats in Congress have no chance, and even less inclination, to put the brakes to this runaway freight train full of pure vetch and bad intentions, otherwise known as the Neo-Con Experience. I welcome unexpected surprises like what happened today, as would anybody with an intellectual capacity somewhere beyond a bag of doorknobs and/or a box of rocks. But my desperation at the state of things is fundamentally tempered by a bottomless, cynical realism; in other words, there’s no way in fucking hell one tiny little tactical “victory,” if that’s even the proper characterization for this temporary telecom thing, can possibly make up for literally years of savage betrayals on the part of the Democratic “leaders.” They tell us what we want to hear in order to take control of Congress, then they rat-fuck us all every day since ... Are we just supposed to forget (not to mention forgive) this rather ugly, iron-clad fact? I can’t, at any rate. But a number of “liberal” and self-declared “progressive” bloggers and punditizers are doing just that -- I even saw one piece that deliriously celebrated the apparently re-discovered Democratic “spine,” which has been missing in action for god knows how long. Oh jeeze, give me a stinkin’ break.

I heard Pelosi’s introduction of Monkey Man and his “state of the union” vaudeville routine. Actually, the only time this catastrophe of a House speaker should be invoking the name of this giggling untermensch is when articles of impeachment are being introduced. Hah hah. But anyway, Pelosi’s gushing over this pimply little killer is enough for me -- I’m pulling the blanket back over my head. Wake me in a year or so ...

I GUESS HEAD COLDS SERVE A USEFUL PURPOSE AFTER ALL

Clawing slowly out of the existential sump of one of the worst head colds in memory; gradually fighting off the residual after-effects of poisonous nasal goo and bucketfulls of brain pus; several days of guzzling sudsy cocktails compounded of Airborne and Alka-Seltzer; feeling almost human again, my temporary lapse of unreason irresistibly disappears along with the cracked block of cement lodged in the middle of my skull ...

It’s only within the context of a quickly retreating illness, a prosaic affliction that always has the power to surprise by its sheer unpredictability, that I realize just how little I’ve been paying attention -- well, to anything beyond over-the-counter cold medicine, cough drops, and my nearly complete collection of South Park and Absolutely Fabulous DVD’s. So how do I celebrate yanking my bleary and bloodshot head out from under the stinky wool blanket of sinus bugs and viruses from hell? By being bludgeoned by idiotic (but not particularly surprising) feces-duels between the two corporate-ordained “front runners” for the Democratic nomination, followed up by an unhealthy dollop or two of the stock market-driven economic fun-and-games that are soon to inflict a massive financial enema on the poor dumb masses ... Oh, and choking on NATO’s new death-clutch on its collection of nuclear-tipped wangs. For starters.

Anyway, I’ve come to the conclusion that a severe cold has its positive aspects -- I haven’t had to expend my well-being on impotent rages and temper tantrums. At least for a couple of weeks. Actually, I almost wish I’d catch another cold, so I could just drift away in ignorant, highly congested bliss. No such luck.

***

As far as the primary stupidity-fest is concerned, there are any number of venomous screeds I could concoct in response to such Republican jizz-juice as the Clinton-Obama self-destruction thing. However, I’ll let a real blogger -- the Rude Pundit -- deliver his pithy two cents; after all, the Rude One is, truly, the only real blogger out there. From today:

Clinton, Obama, and the Stink of Rove:

Our political landscape is haunted by the specter of Karl Rove, the bald, bejowled gargoyle who feeds himself on the viscera of Democratic candidates, his rotting gore-filled teeth emitting a stench that can be sensed from the Potomac to the Pacific. Rove is always there, in actuality or spirit, licking his sweaty upper lip at the possibility of dining on the next nominee. And as the race for the Democratic nomination gets nastier and nastier, the whole thing is spinning like a merry-go-round where Rove controls the levers. He may not be directly involved (although the Rude Pundit has his suspicions), but once you introduce a pollution to an ecological system, it's almost impossible to completely eradicate it.

For, at this point in the Barack Obama/Hillary Clinton kerfuffle, which Rovean narrative do you want? The battle of the white male fears: the castrating, vindictive bitch-hag (who, as an added sexist bonus, is constantly photographed in high-def as a way of highlighting her severe-looking wrinkles-how dare that bitch age) versus the angry black man (who, as an added racist bonus, is so handsome that it just looks like he wants to rape him some white pussy-how dare he have abs)? The white plantation owners slapping down the uppity nigger who wants to own some land? Or, just looking at Clinton, the wannabe strong woman who needs to have her man get her back? Fuck, it's like a script written by the man himself.

Rove himself has not been inactive here, penning articles where he advised Obama how to beat Clinton and then turning around and trying to bitch slap Obama for not beating Clinton and for being "trash-talking" and "lazy," like a stoop-sitting thug-lifer. Rove sees them both as spineless wimps, and, clearly, both are now attempting to show they are ready to tussle, which makes them reveal their weaknesses, which is where Rove will come back into the scene. Remember: This is the shit he's saying publicly. You can bet that behind the scenes, he's whipped off his pants and danced a little grotesque jig, yanking his tiny cock in glee for the coming battle. He's prepping the ground, man, like a malevolent farmer who knows you gotta get the equipment ready in the winter and do the planting in the spring so you can harvest in the fall. He had a shitty year in 2006, but that's just made him sharpen his plows and get more radioactive seeds to set those fields ablazing with turd blossoms.

Really, Clinton and Obama are playing into Rove's hand. Much of the blame here rests with the Clintons, who, truly, are campaigning as a single, buy-one-get-one-free unit, for when Bill says that he consulted Hillary on every decision he made when president, the implicit promise is that Hillary will consult him and, c'mon, don't we want Bill back in the White House? They are fighting a campaign that is better suited to 2000 or 2004. Someone needs to kick Bill Clinton in the nuts and say, "Down, boy." He's playing the short game, which used to be the way you win elections.

At this point, the Democrats could nominate a sock monkey or a slice of provolone and it would beat John McCain or Mitt Romney. As long as that sock monkey wore a "Bring the troops home" t-shirt. But the Clintons are waging the slash and burn war of tiny marginal advantages here and there that'll let them conquer 51% of the territory and declare victory, very much like the way Rove operates, very much like how Clinton adviser Mark Penn sees marketing. (Rove, by the way, must be chafing at the bit to go after consultant Howard Wolfson and other Glover Park Group members.)

That ain't the zeitgeist this time. The population craves unity. The citizens want someone they can rally around. Yeah, yeah, it's true that any nominee will face a fucking firestorm of negative bullshit from Republicans, that putting candidates through the paces now helps inure them to repeat attacks. But the Rude Pundit doesn't believe it's gonna play now. Not with this war, an economy in the shitter, and a bunch of desiccated corpses as the only options over in the GOP.

The question is whether or not Hillary Clinton can be that rallying figure. It's whether she and her husband are willing to shift their rhetoric to transform her into it. It is up to her. Obama is, for the most part, in reaction mode.

The way to real victory that leads to real potential changes in the nation is not to play Rove's game. He is the master. Win or lose the battle, who cares, the true master knows, the real essence is what happens during the arc of the war. Don't believe it? Ask yourself how much that thrillingly new Democratic Congress actually got done that wouldn't have been done under a Republican one.

Man, he says it all far better than I can, that’s for sure. Then, Mike Malloy chimes in:

Does anyone care? Anyone? Hello . . .????

The story appeared late yesterday from the Associated Press titled, "False Statements Preceded War."

It said, in part, "A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements [goddam lies!] about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.The study concluded that the statements 'were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.'"

The article, by AP writer Douglass K. Daniel, continued. "The study counted 935 false statements [lies, goddam it; lies!] in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both."

Astonishing. Criminal. Nazi-like lies from the most corrupt regime ever to control the U.S. - the Bush Crime Family.

The article continued: "It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information [goddam lies!] that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

Named in the study along with Bush were his then top officials: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

The article concluded, "The cumulative effect of these false statements [goddam lies!] — amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts — was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war," the study concluded.

"Some journalists — indeed, even some entire news organizations — have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, 'independent' validation of the Bush administration's false statements [goddam lies!] about Iraq," it said.

And Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the rest of the cowardly, complicit Democratic Party leadership refuses - utterly refuses! - immediately to begin impeachment proceedings against the murderous bastards who are taking the U.S. directly into its own destruction.

Really -- what could I possibly add? How about a few random quotes from my overflowing grab-bag of such painfully inutile gobbledygook:

There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you sick at heart, that you can’t take part ... and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels and you’ve got to make it stop.

-- Mario Savio

We must change
& we can’t
We never could
Individuals alone
can change
I can change
You can change
They cannot
You & I will
never be them.
They may be us
but never can
they be you or me.

-- Robert Hunter, A Strange Music

All worldly pursuits have but the one unavoidable and inevitable end, which is sorrow: acquisitions end in dispersion; buildings, in destruction; meetings, in separation; births, in death. Knowing this, one should from the very first renounce acquisition and heaping-up, and building and meeting, and ... set about realizing the Truth. ... Life is short, and the time of death is uncertain; so apply yourselves to meditation.

-- Milarepa, 10th century AD

Along the streets that lead away from the apartment he can never see anything through the concrete and brick and neon but he knows that buried within it are grotesque, twisted souls forever trying the manners that will convince themselves they possess Quality, learning strange poses of style and glamour vended by dream magazines and other mass media, and paid for by the vendors of substance. He thinks of them at night alone with their advertised glamorous shoes and stockings and underclothes off, staring through the sooty windows at the grotesque shells revealed beyond them, when the poses weaken, and the truth creeps in, the only truth that exists here, crying to heaven, God, there is nothing here but dead neon and cement and brick.

-- Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Given a choice between a folly and a sacrament, one should always choose the folly -- because we know a sacrament will not bring us closer to God and there’s always a chance that a folly will.

-- Erasmus

You only live twice:
once after you’re born
and once before you die.

-- Basho

OK, OK. Enough is enough. I think I’m going to French-kiss the next person I meet who has a sniffle -- I’ve found that I actually prefer a sickness-induced ignorance coma. Eegads.

*sigh*

ART AND THE A-BOMB

Thanks to Mike Malloy for pointing us all here:

YOU ARE WHAT YOU IS

2008 finds me in much the same circumstantial posture -- mentally, physically, and otherwise -- that was all too apparent at the ass-end of '07 (and '06, '05, etc). That's neither good nor bad, an intelligent person might conclude. Then again, an intelligent person would hardly waste his or her ever-dwindling attention span by offering opinions on a desiccated bonehead such as myself. That's reasonable, I suppose.

Bear with me, please. I have no idea where this is going, which itself is the most blatantly obvious personal characteristic carried over from the previous year(s). Sigh.

***

Whatever. You are what you is, as Frank Zappa once so elegantly phrased it. The human refuse who plague my usual beer outlets and watering holes -- mostly homogenized suburban slummers and artificial midtown sophisticates without an original thought in their pointed little heads -- is, naturally, disposed toward turgid and ridiculously credulous gum-flapping over totally transparent, made-for-TV trash like "The Moment Of Truth," Presidential politics, and/or something called the "Bowl Championship Series." I, on the other hand, is apparently fated to do little more than spit useless bile over this poisonous rash of chuckleheads, this existential eczema of halfwits marring even further the body politic's already grotty and highly questionable complexion. Somebody has to play the role of cheap, over-the-counter pore-flusher that doesn't really do anything. I just wonder why it has to be me.

Yeah, well, you can just keep on wondering, you dumb bastard. And while you're wondering about something you can't possibly understand, also try to clue in on the fact that your feeble potshots of pusillanimous puerility won't change a muck-stinkin' thing. Nope -- nothing. And, truth be told, it doesn't really matter, since expectation is merely one of a myriad of fetid effluvia incontinently spewed from the human ego machine. Give up on the reptilian imperative; divorce yourself from the narrow-field vision of profit and loss, domination and control, fear and loathing, desire and despair. Just sink your teeth into the cheesy fabric of 21st-Century existence, and chew all those gag-inducing toxins and lead-based paint like they was the yummiest thing you ever choked on. Just do your thing. Man. Like Frank said:

Do you know what you are?
You are what you is
You is what you am
(A cow don't make ham ...)
You ain't what you're not
So see what you got
You are what you is
An' that's all it 'tis

Ah -- pure poetry.

(Incidentally, if there's anybody out there who can authoritatively assure me that this post makes any amount of sense whatsoever, well, I'd like to hear from you. Seriously.)

A FINAL STUMBLING WORD

What can I say about the (thankfully) expiring year of 2007? I mean, above and beyond the voluminous vomitus of words already out there, the sheer useless mass of which does little but crush our existential windpipes and choke off the ever-dwindling supply of psychic oxygen to our rapidly-shriveling intellects and identities as individuals ... ? Uh, the answer would have to be: absolutely nothing. Not a thing.

No, seriously.

Actually, not having anything to say has never been an effective impediment to opening my mouth and forcibly ejecting one collection of malformed opinions or another; small consolation lies in the fact that I'm hardly original in this regard. Whatever. In any case, here's a small dose of purposeless superfluity, or maybe gratuitous garrulousness if you will, the last such tidbit of twaddle you people will have to suffer through this calendar year ...

(Please excuse me -- the brewpub waitress just smells great ... my mind wandered for a brief moment. Sorry.)

As comprehensively awful as 2007 undoubtedly was, the unmistakable impression I have is that 2008 is going to be the make-or-break year for the senior republic on the North American continent. The conceptual idea of representative democracy will either burst out in a renaissance of revitalization, in an unlooked-for explosion of near revolutionary fervor; or it will finally see the ultimate realization of the long-range Bush-Cheney-Reid-Pelosi program of despicably self-imposed immolation, an enthusiastic and monumentally spineless self-interment akin to the French Third Republic. Those are the choices, stark as they are. The coming year will likely be the watershed moment of American democracy, possibly the final moment of individual liberty, the last feeble gasp of free thought before a monstrous deluge of darkness. Or not -- the choice, I suppose, is in our hands, the anonymous millions. Hope springs eternal, as they say, and as much as I desperately desire to swath myself with the intoxicating fog of optimism ...

Best leave that thought unfinished. In the meantime, I would remind everyone to keep your eyes and ears open -- New Year’s Eve being the ridiculous Amateur Night that it is. Watch yourselves, don't drink too much, and let's hit '08 consumed with a righteous determination to do something about the disease-riddled neo-con rodentia that would eat us alive.

Take care; I'll see you all next year.

BENAZIR BHUTTO, 2 NOVEMBER 2007

At approximately the 6-minute point, she says: "... the man who murdered Osama bin Laden."

To which I say, huh?

Anybody else catch this?

WHO I WOULD VOTE FOR IF I WASN'T A REGISTERED GREEN

For better or worse, I've been registered as a Green since before the (gasp) 1996 Presidential election. And yes, I did vote for Nader. Twice. If you have a problem with that, well, I don't really give a shit. Anyway, fast-forward to 2007: I realized that the only Democratic candidate I can stomach is John Edwards.

Not that my opinion means anything, I just wanted it on the record, as it were.

Anyway ...

A HOLIDAY GREETING, OF SORTS

It's been so long since I had sufficient energy to attend to this "business"; the miserable time of year goes a long way toward explaining such dereliction, while the ever-foul stench puffing out of the scaly armpit of political power that has all us poor dumb saps in a (seemingly) terminal headlock -- reaching unheard-of levels of noisome corruption in recent days -- is quite sufficient to push me completely past the edge into a petulant and infuriated silence. I'm there still, pretty much.

***

So, it's Christmas again. As would be expected, I started writing one of those patented Christmas Sucks Donkey Balls sort of posts, and I managed to come up with this gem:

... time again for the relentless, rapacious, bloody knuckle-dragging, brain-challenged monster known as Christmas to make its catastrophic appearance; smothering all with its hollow, wobbling bulk and sickeningly vapid halitosis compounded from stupidity and greed ... Crushing everything in its path, obliterating what little sense remains among the breathlessly dumb animatronic retards who comprise the moronic mass of American "citizenry," yanking the consumerist chains of blubbery halfwits and cloven-headed clodhoppers the world over. Here it comes -- over-dressed in obnoxious fakery and gulag-produced frippery, lurching and stomping and careening and caterwauling in a frenetic boogaloo of psychic and financial destruction. Gag me with a plastic Chinese Christmas tree; beat me with a rubber yule log; choke me with a half-off sale.

And so on and so forth, in a ridiculous display of prose-puke excess that was leaving even me a bit queasy and disoriented. I should remark that I've never claimed to be a poet, or a literary figure of any sort. As if that needed pointing out.

In any case, it isn't my intention really to indulge in what is likely the most shamelessly masturbatory activity to be found in all of blogdom: the self-quoting thing. How revolting. I can't imagine anything I might say actually improving with repetition (especially by me), or even being worthy of such nonsense -- and, now that I think about it, the same might be said for the pathetic debris that constitutes the vast bulk of the virtual world. Anyway, I'm only engaging in this questionable pastime to illustrate a point, of some kind or other. And that point is ... Wait a second, it'll come to me.

Well, the point would be something like this, perhaps: even I, the human heat-sink of snarky bile, a champion purveyor of vitriolic and incomprehensible frustration, one angry little pimple lost within an immense ocean of existential acne, the harsh bastard of uncivility and non-compromise ... even I am sick to death of the raging shitstorm of negativity that passes for discourse in this sad, blighted, terminally-ill epoch. Even your ill-mannered, foul-tempered, gutter-mouthed barstool jockey here has had enough of this repulsive bullshit. But then, I should say that this empty gesture (if that's the proper word), arguably reasonable and even noble in intent, applies only to Christmas -- to the memory of Christmas' past, when I was a kid and things were both simpler and made more sense. In tribute to times and places ... and people ... that are no more, I've decided to choke down my innate cynical nastiness for one day, anyway, and keep my unsolicited vomitus opinions to myself. For one day. The day after Christmas, needless to say, all bets are off.

What the hell.

Happy holidays.

ONE MORE DIVERSION (AT LEAST)

Derek Trucks with the Allman Brothers, "Rockin' Horse"

Absolutely unreal ...

REAL POSTING TO RE-COMMENCE MOMENTARILY ...

The Clash, "Train in Vain"

(Sometimes, simpler is better ...)

HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU SEE THE WORD "IMPEACHMENT" IN THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE FROM JOHN CONYERS?

This is precisely the sort of "thing" that chaps my ass to no end: a ranking member of the official "opposition" party, the one single political animal in the whole corrupted menagerie of the House of Representatives who could easily put a stop to the revolting neo-con experiment known as the Bush administration, sending a long-winded mass e-mail to a nobody like me. Conyers could start the demolition process -- Pelosi be damned -- if he really wanted to. Guess he doesn't really want to.

Anyhow, see how many times the dreaded "I" word pops up in this masterful political epistle:

Setting the Record Straight on FISA

In recent weeks, there has been lot of conflicting information floating around about efforts by House Democrats to protect the country by adopting rules for intelligence gathering that are both flexible and constitutional. This week, President Bush suggested that my legislative alternative to this summer's hastily-enacted Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) reform, the "Protect America Act," would take away important tools from our intelligence community. He characterized as "obstruction" the skepticism that many of us have about granting amnesty to telecommunications carriers who may have cooperated in warrantless surveillance. I was disappointed that the President did not propose any concrete steps to improve our capabilities or protect our freedoms -- he just repeated his demand for immunity.

This comes close on the heels of a recent controversy concerning the House Democrats' FISA legislation stemming from Joe Klein's column in Time Magazine on November 21st, in which his Republican sources seem to have spun a tale that led Mr. Klein to characterize our efforts as "more than stupid."

I believe that it is time for a comprehensive and detailed response to the President's accusations of obstruction, the misinformation in the Time Magazine column, and the debate over warrantless surveillance. Below is that response. Please let me know what you think, and feel free to pass along to your friends and colleagues.

Joe Klein's recent column deriding the House-passed FISA legislation, along with his subsequent stumbling efforts to clarify its intent, and Time Magazine's failure to publish the protests my Democratic colleagues and I had regarding its many inaccuracies are only the most recent manifestation of disinformation put forth concerning the Bush Administration's warrantless surveillance program and legislative efforts to modify the law. As the lead author, along with Silvestre Reyes, of the RESTORE Act, allow me to set the record straight once and for all.

First, contrary to GOP and media spin, the RESTORE Act does not grant "terrorists the same rights as Americans." Section 105A of the RESTORE Act explicitly provides that foreign-to-foreign communications are totally exempt from FISA – clearly, this exception for foreigners such as members of Al Qaeda does not apply to Americans. In cases involving foreign agents where communications with Americans could be picked up, Section 105B of the legislation provides for liberalized "basket warrant" procedures by which entire terrorist organizations can be surveilled without the need to obtain individual warrants from the FISA court. Again, this new authority is aimed at foreign terrorists, not Americans.

Mr. Klein appears to base much of his criticism of our bill on our use of the term "person" to describe who may be surveilled, based on the suggestion of a Republican "source" that this risks an interpretation that terrorist groups would not be covered. The truth is that under FISA the term person has been clearly defined for almost thirty years to include "any group, entity, association, corporation, or foreign power." It is also notable that both the RESTORE Act, and the Administration's bill passed this summer, contain the exact same language that Mr. Klein questions, yet we've never heard an objection to the Administration's bill on this score.

Second, I must strongly disagree with Mr. Klein's assertion that the Speaker "quashed ... a bipartisan [compromise] effort." As the Chairman of the Committee with principal jurisdiction over FISA, the House Judiciary Committee, I am aware of no effort to prevent bipartisan compromise on this issue. As a matter of fact, last summer, beginning in July, Democrats tirelessly negotiated with Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Mike McConnell, to develop consensus legislation to address the Administration's stated concerns about our intelligence capability.

We addressed every one of the concerns Mr. McConnell raised. He said he needed to clarify that a court order was not required for foreign-to-foreign communications -- our bill did just that. McConnell said he needed an assurance that telecommunications companies would be compelled to assist in gathering of national security information – our bill did that. The DNI said he needed provisions to extend FISA to foreign intelligence in addition to terrorism – the bill did that. He asked us to eliminate the requirement that the FISA Court adjudicate how recurring communications to the United States from foreign targets would be handled – the bill did that. McConnell insisted that basket warrants be structured to allow additional targets to be added after the warrant was initially approved – again, the bill did that. When this legislation was described to DNI McConnell, he acknowledged that "it significantly enhances America's security.''

Yet, suddenly, on the eve of the vote, Director McConnell withdrew his support after consultation with the White House. If the media wanted to identify over-the-top partisanship, they could begin by citing the declaration of David Addington, Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff, that "We're one bomb away from getting rid of that obnoxious FISA Court," and DNI McConnell's assertion that by merely having an open debate on surveillance, "some Americans are going to die."

Third, the RESTORE Act legislation is badly needed to provide accountability to the Bush Administration's unilateral approach to surveillance. The warrantless surveillance program has been riddled with deceptions that only began to come to light when The New York Times first disclosed the existence of the program in 2005. The program itself appears to directly violate FISA and the Fourth Amendment, as a federal court, the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, numerous Republican legislators, and independent legal scholars have found.

The Administration has also mischaracterized the existence, degree, extent and nature of the program itself as well as how much information it has shared with Congress. For instance, compare the President's speech in 2004 with his admission that there was indeed a program of warrantless surveillance. When high-ranking DOJ officials found the program lacking, the White House went to absurd, if not comical lengths, to convince a dangerously ill and hospitalized Attorney General Ashcroft to overrule them. Even today, the Administration continues to obscure its own past misconduct with extravagant claims that the "state secrets" doctrine bars any legal challenges whatsoever - a position that has been rejected by the Court of Appeals.

The Administration's hastily enacted legislation, signed this summer, is little better. Instead of being limited to the stated problem of foreign-to-foreign electronic surveillance, it could apply to domestic business records, library files, personal mail, and even searches of our homes.

Against that backdrop, it is clear we need a new law with the critical oversight provisions included in the RESTORE Act, such as requiring the Administration to turn over relevant documents to Congress, mandating periodic Inspector General reports, and acknowledging that the Administration is indeed bound by FISA.

Finally, the Administration has yet to explain why offering retroactive immunity to telephone giants who may have participated in an unlawful program is vital to our national security. Under current law, the phone companies can easily avoid liability if they can establish they received either an appropriate court order or legal certification from the Attorney General. Asking Congress to grant legal immunity at a time when the Administration has refused to provide the House of Representatives with relevant legal documents for more than eleven months is not only unreasonable, it is irresponsible.

Civil liberties and national security need not be contradictory policies, rather they are inexorably linked. Perhaps nowhere is this interrelationship more true than in intelligence gathering, where information must be reliable and untainted by abuse to be useful. So when we discuss FISA, the first thing we need to do is drop the partisan rhetoric, and stick to the actual record. Under the RESTORE Act, the intelligence community has the flexibility to intercept communications by foreign terrorists without obtaining individual warrants, and the Court and Congress are given the authority to perform their constitutional oversight roles. The only parties who lose in this process are the terrorists, and those who want the executive branch to have absolute and unreviewable power.

Rather than being, in Mr. Klein's words, "well beyond stupid," the RESTORE Act offers a smart and well balanced approach to updating FISA and reining in the excesses of an unchecked executive branch.

Your Friend,

John Conyers, Jr.

Now, not to belabor the point too much, but it doesn't require a truckload of intelligence to figure out what the solution to this problem actually is. I know it, the two or three people who accidentally read this blog once in awhile know it, the microcephalic baboon living upstairs from me who loudly cheers on the Green Bay Packers by herself could probably get a clue about this. Why can't John Conyers? What the hell is his stake in the continuation of this gut-churning disaster?

Well, just another reason why the bloggerizing has been a little thin of late -- I'm sick to death of pointing out the obvious and asking rhetorical questions that can't be answered. I think I'll crawl back into my alcohol-soaked hidey-hole until this is all over ...

ANOTHER "CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE" SORT OF NON-POST

Neil Young, "Unknown Legend"

MONDAY BLUES NIGHT IN THE NEARLY DESERTED BREWPUB ...

The brewpub is practically empty, here at the drab epicenter of the late Monday afternoon dead zone. Not much of a surprise. Personally, my capacity for rage and indignation is much like the strangely bland atmosphere in this rather over-weened beer-hole: stupefyingly bloated, over-full and largely immobilized. Does that make sense? Probably not.

I haven't been myself recently, so please bear with me. I'm in the middle of starting up a business -- no lie -- and that sort of madness is more than enough to yank one's psycho-existential underpants up over one's head ... What the fuck?

Yes, well. This week's blues excursion features the incomparable Freddie King, complete with choreographed horn players and go-go dancers. Outstanding.



(Real blog posts to recommence one of these days)

RING THIS GODDAMNED THING ... AGAIN

ON THE SUBJECT OF MUSIC ...

As far as music is concerned, some horn-blowing of my own is in order, I guess. Here's a couple of songs I home-recorded with my brother and sister, and had reviewed by Recording Magazine. What the fuck, as they say:

"Vanishing Red"

"Kokomo Platter"

What does any of this have to do with, well, anything? Hmmm ... good question.

Minor note: I'm the bass player ...

TO NO REAL PURPOSE -- ALBERT COLLINS

Drinking and web-trolling finds me this video of one of my all-time favorite bluesmen, Albert Collins. Nobody could get stuck in a blues groove like this guy; blues is a perfect descriptor for our neo-con pukefest.

I wish Albert was still with us ...

HAPPY VETERAN'S DAY

"CROSSFIRE"

Near closing time at the groovy midtown Sacramento brewpub; a song comes on the electric muzak machine, and strikes a chord, as they say --

CROSSFIRE (by Stevie Ray Vaughn)

Day by day night after night....blinded by the neon lights
Hurry here hustlin there....no ones got the time to spare
Moneys tight nothin free....won't somebody come and rescue me
I am stranded....caught in the crossfire
Stranded....caught in the crossfire.

Tooth for tooth eye for an eye....sell your soul just to buy buy buy
Beggin a dollar stealin a dime....come on can't you see that I
I am stranded....caught in the crossfire
I am stranded....caught in the crossfire.

I need some kind of kindness....some kind of sympathy oh no
Were stranded....caught in the crossfire

Save the strong lose the weak....never turning the other cheek
Trust nobody dont be no fool....whatever happened to the golden rule
We got stranded....caught in the crossfire
We got stranded....caught in the crossfire
We got stranded....caught in the crossfire
Stranded....caught in the crossfire
Help me

"Help me ..." No shit.

NOW, HERE'S ONE THAT REALLY PISSES ME OFF

Via Crooks & Liars:

1 In 4 Homeless Americans Are Veterans

AP Via Yahoo:

Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population, according to a report to be released Thursday.

And homelessness is not just a problem among middle-age and elderly veterans. Younger veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are trickling into shelters and soup kitchens seeking services, treatment or help with finding a job.

“We’re going to be having a tsunami of them eventually because the mental health toll from this war is enormous,” said Daniel Tooth, director of veterans affairs for Lancaster County, Pa. Read on…

Unspeakable fury ... Incalculable loathing ... I can't fucking stand it ...

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT ...

Tangentially related note: how quickly do you suppose Kucinich's motion to impeach Cheney will be tabled ... by Democrats? Just wondering.