Gather at 12 noon at 23rd St. & Constitution Ave. NW in Washington, D.C.!

“[T]here is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us”

Cross posted at Guys from Area 51

It’s taken me a full day to wrap my head around the fact that Barack Obama is the President-elect of the United States. A full day and it’s still real. A world of weight has been taken of my chest. The sober tone in which he addressed the Nation election night–following McCain’s gracious concession speech–spoke volumes about the potential this country has left in it. Not that I have renounced my deep cynicism when it comes to all humanity:

Dems lower expectations
By Mike Soraghan
Posted: 11/05/08

Democratic leaders are tamping down on expectations for rapid change and trying to signal they will place a calm hand on the nation’s tiller.

“The country must be governed from the middle,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Wednesday. Repeating themes from election night, she said she plans to emphasize “civility” and “fiscal responsibility.”

Her comments emphasized that after an election consistently referred to as “historic,” Democrats face the daunting task of dealing with the plunging economy and two wars.

Yet, they face massive expectations for change and deep-seated fears of overreaching. But senior aides say they’ve learned from the mistakes of the past. Nearly every member of the current Democratic leadership in the House served through the 1992 election, when Bill Clinton was elected president. Two years later, the GOP gained control of Congress.

It’s just that I don’t have too many excuses to not be Hopey. For now. Until probably… mid-February.

In and out in under 5minutes. No long lines, no confusion. Lever machines. New York does it right.

Congress investigates Reds in Hollywood

On October 20, 1947, the notorious Red Scare kicks into high gear in Washington, as a Congressional committee begins investigating Communist influence in one of the world’s richest and most glamorous communities: Hollywood.

After World War II, the Cold War began to heat up between the world’s two superpowers–the United States and the communist-controlled Soviet Union. In Washington, conservative watchdogs worked to out communists in government before setting their sights on alleged “Reds” in the famously liberal movie industry. In an investigation that began in October 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) grilled a number of prominent witnesses, asking bluntly “Are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” Whether out of patriotism or fear, some witnesses–including director Elia Kazan, actors Gary Cooper and Robert Taylor and studio honchos Walt Disney and Jack Warner–gave the committee names of colleagues they suspected of being communists.

A small group known as the “Hollywood Ten” resisted, complaining that the hearings were illegal and violated their First Amendment rights. They were all convicted of obstructing the investigation and served jail terms. Pressured by Congress, the Hollywood establishment started a blacklist policy, banning the work of about 325 screenwriters, actors and directors who had not been cleared by the committee. Those blacklisted included composer Aaron Copland, writers Dashiell Hammett, Lillian Hellman and Dorothy Parker, playwright Arthur Miller and actor and filmmaker Orson Welles.

I’m glad all that silly red-baiting nonsense hasn’t a place in this country anymore. I couldn’t imagine that an elected official would run around screaming about his or her fellow countrymen being “un-American” in this day and age. /snark

Judges Are No Reason to Vote for McCain

Also recommended:

• We should not fall prey to that argument that somehow we’re killing innocent civilians.
• McCain In 2003: We Can ‘Muddle Through In Afghanistan.’
• Out of this Furnace.

Interview With Senator Barack Obama; Should Clinton Be Forming Exit Strategy?
Aired May 8, 2008 – 16:00 ET

BLITZER: You know a lot about the Supreme Court. And the next president of the United States will have an opportunity to nominate justices for the Supreme Court.

He gave a speech, McCain, this week saying he wants justices like Samuel Alito and John Roberts. And he defined the kind of criteria he wants.

So, what would be your criteria?

OBAMA: Well, I think that my first criteria is to make sure that these are people who are capable and competent, and that they are interpreting the law. And, 95 percent of the time, the law is so clear, that it’s just a matter of applying the law. I’m not somebody who believes in a bunch of judicial lawmaking. I think…

BLITZER: Are there members, justices right now upon who you would model, you would look at? Who do you like?

OBAMA: Well, you know, I think actually Justice Breyer, Justice Ginsburg are very sensible judges.

I think that Justice Souter, who was a Republican appointee, is a sensible judge. What you’re looking for is somebody who is going to apply the law where it’s clear. Now, there’s going to be those 5 percent of cases or 1 percent of cases where the law isn’t clear. And the judge then has to bring in his or her own perspectives, his ethics, his or her moral bearings.

And, in those circumstances, what I do want is a judge who’s sympathetic enough to those who are on the outside, those who are vulnerable, those who are powerless, those who can’t have access to political power, and, as a consequence, can’t protect themselves from being — from being dealt with sometimes unfairly, that the courts become a refuge for judges.

That’s been its historic role. That was its role in Brown vs. Board of Education. I think a judge who is unsympathetic to the fact that, in some cases, we have got to make sure that civil rights are protected, that we have got to make sure that civil liberties are protected, because, oftentimes, there’s pressures that are placed on politicians to want to set civil liberties aside, especially at a time when we have had terrorist attacks, making sure that we maintain our separation of powers, so that we don’t have a president who is taking over more and more power.

I think those are all criteria by which I would judge whether or not this is a good appointee.

-You voted for Clinton in the primaries. Heh, to each his own. However, if you did vote for Clinton it is beyond me why you couldn’t vote for Barack in November.

…you’ll probably see me praise Fox:

Fox Refuses To Pay FCC Indecency Fine
By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 25, 2008; Page D01

In an unusually aggressive step, Fox Broadcasting yesterday refused to pay a $91,000 indecency fine levied by the Federal Communications Commission for an episode of a long-canceled reality television show, even as the network fights two other indecency fines in the Supreme Court.

The FCC proposed fining all 169 Fox-owned and affiliate stations a total of $1.2 million in 2004 for airing a 2003 episode of “Married by America,” which featured digitally obscured nudity and whipped-cream-covered strippers.

Fox appealed immediately after the FCC ruling. Last month — four years later — the FCC changed its mind, saying it would fine only the 13 Fox stations located in cities that generated viewer complaints about the program. That reduced the fine to $91,000.

Despite the sharp reduction, Fox said it would not pay the fine on principle, calling it “arbitrary and capricious, inconsistent with precedent, and patently unconstitutional” in a statement released yesterday.

House Votes to Reject Immunity for Phone Companies Involved in Wiretaps
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
March 15, 2008

WASHINGTON — After its first secret session in a quarter-century, the House on Friday rejected retroactive immunity for the phone companies that took part in the National Security Agency’s program of eavesdropping without warrants, and it voted to place tighter restrictions on the government’s wiretapping powers.

The decision, by a largely party line vote of 213 to 197, is one of the few instances when Democrats have been willing to buck the White House on a matter of national security. It also ensures that the monthslong battle over the government’s wiretapping powers will drag on for at least a few more weeks — and possibly much longer.

The White House immediately criticized the vote, calling it “a significant step backward in defending our country against terrorism.” The White House predicted that the measure would be “dead on arrival” when it moved to the Senate and promised that, even were it to be approved there, it “would be vetoed by the president if it ever got to his desk.”

With President Bush and Democratic leaders squaring off almost daily on the wiretapping question, neither side has shown any inclination to budge, leaving them at a political impasse. A temporary wiretapping measure expired last month.

The Senate will take up the question again next month after a two-week break. It passed a bill last month that was much more to the liking of the White House. Unlike the bill approved Friday by the House, it would give legal immunity to those phone providers that helped in the wiretapping program, and would give the security agency broader discretion in deciding how it goes about wiretapping in the pursuit of terrorist targets.

I’ve been hard on the Democratic party over the last year, and rightfully so. Charlie Brown and Lucy football kicking scenarios get old quick. But this is a step in the right direction. This along with the enactment of an Independent Office of Congressional Ethics is two steps in the right direction. Can we dare hope to see three?

See also:

• Petraeus concedes Iraq not making ’sufficient progress’
• Weak Dollar Costs U.S. Economy Its World No. 1 Spot
• Will American war crimes be revealed?

WASHINGTON — Senior officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation repeatedly approved the use of “blanket” records demands to justify the improper collection of thousands of phone records, according to officials briefed on the practice.

The bureau appears to have used the blanket records demands at least 11 times in 2006 alone as a quick way to clean up mistakes made over several years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to a letter provided to Congress by a lawyer for an F.B.I. agent who witnessed the missteps.

The F.B.I. has come under fire for its use of so-called national security letters to inappropriately gather records on Americans in terrorism investigations, but details have not previously been disclosed about its use of “blanket” warrants, a one-step operation used to justify the collection of hundreds of phone and e-mail records at a time.

Under the USA Patriot Act, the F.B.I. received broadened authority to issue the national security letters on its own authority — without the approval of a judge — to gather records like phone bills or e-mail transactions that might be considered relevant to a particular terrorism investigation. The Justice Department inspector general found in March 2007 that the F.B.I. had routinely violated the standards for using the letters and that officials often cited “exigent” or emergency situations that did not really exist in issuing them to phone providers and other private companies.

In an updated report due out on Thursday, the inspector general is expected to report that the violations continued through 2006, when the F.B.I. instituted new internal procedures.

-I guess Democrats can just put checking this out on the to do list…somewhere down below steroids in baseball, or something.