RCN Responds to My NSA Inquiry

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Friday May 12, 2006 · 3:50 PM PDT

2006/05/12 · 15:50

To keep everyone abreast of who is or isn't conspiring with the NSA to violate our privacy rights, I thought I'd post this reply from RCN Customer Service.

RCN is my telephone company (both local and long-distance). Last night, I sent them a simple question: Has RCN turned over any of my phone records to the NSA?

Apparently not. RCN is one of the good guys, like Qwest. They should be applauded. Their very thoughtful and TELLING reply is below the fold. Read More

DeLay Donor Files Bankruptcy (Beats Deadline)

valabor

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Friday October 14, 2005 · 8:35 PM PDT

2005/10/14 · 20:35

This is the most ironic and hypocritical thing I've seen from the GOP in the last...er, uh...hour.

It seems that one of DeLay's businessmen cronies -- who served as Treasurer of the Texans for a Republican Majority PAC -- has filed for personal bankruptcy, in the face of lawsuits stemming from his various alleged wrongdoings in financing campaigns to defeat Democrats.

That's right. Here's one guy who made sure the bankruptcy law passed -- but apparently feels the need to beat the October 17 deadline for filing for bankruptcy before that bankruptcy law takes effect. He doesn't want those new bankruptcy rules applying to HIM, of course.

Meet Bill Ceverha below the fold. Read More

Donna Brazile: Shilling for the Prez

valabor

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Saturday September 17, 2005 · 11:54 AM PDT

2005/09/17 · 11:54

Americablog has a great entry on today's Washington Post column by Donna Brazile, wherein she embarrasses herself with praise for Bush's speech and a humiliating display of her aching desire to be a part of the powerbrokers in Washington. Americablog labels it "Stockholm Syndrome." However you want to explain Brazile's behavior, it is clear that she is shilling for Bush. The fact that she has a position within the Democratic Party is inexplicable.

She is from New Orleans -- so my sympathies to her. But what she wrote today was dense and unforgivable. And, frankly, disturbing.

Read the whole thing and try to keep your lunch down. But here's my favoritest part: Read More

NYT (& many others) Call on Bush to Rescind Wage Rule Suspension

valabor

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Friday September 09, 2005 · 11:15 PM PDT

2005/09/09 · 23:15

In a new editorial, the New York Times is calling on Bush to rescind his proclamation suspending the Davis-Bacon Act -- the law that requires federal contractors to pay prevailing wages. Bush's move hits the working people of the Gulf Coast where it hurts most when you've lost everything -- in the wallet -- while increasing the profits of friendly contractors.

By any standard of human decency, condemning many already poor and now bereft people to subpar wages - thus perpetuating their poverty - is unacceptable. It is also bad for the economy. Without the law, called the Davis-Bacon Act, contractors will be able to pay less, but they'll also get less, as lower wages invariably mean lower productivity.

valabor

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Wednesday September 07, 2005 · 8:52 PM PDT

2005/09/07 · 20:52

Tomorrow the GOP is moving a bill "on suspension" through the House to provide $51.8 billion in hurricane relief. "On suspension" means there will be no opportunity to read the bill, no opportunity to amend it, no opportunity to insert language to keep tabs on how the money is used or misused. It's their way or the highway.

And, on top of that, here is Rep. Bill Thomas, Chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee, on how the GOP will fund Katrina Relief:

Meanwhile, House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif., said he envisions three separate bills moving, one per week over the next three weeks, beginning with a vote Thursday on freeing up funds under programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and also encouraging charitable donations.
"We're not putting a lot of new money out there; it's freeing up money that's there already," Thomas said. That would then be followed by funds for infrastructure repairs and then bills aimed at longer-term recovery.

valabor

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Wednesday September 07, 2005 · 8:24 PM PDT

2005/09/07 · 20:24

These words from Carl Jensen, the director of Project Censored, seem pretty prescient in light of the new outright repression of press coverage of the Katrina disaster. He is describing two forms of censorship...

Type A:

In societies perceived as free, we find the information output determined by economic pressures to produce corporate profits, by a systematic distribution of "punishment and reward" to workers in the media, and by a less obvious, but nonetheless effective, control of the means of production of the information industry. The latter is well-documented in Ben Bagdikian's book "The Media Monopoly."

valabor

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Thursday September 01, 2005 · 9:35 PM PDT

2005/09/01 · 21:35

I just went to a site that promotes riding a bike to work.

It happens to have a compilation of 2000 data on car-free households.

In 2000, over 27% of households in New Orleans DID NOT HAVE AN AUTOMOBILE. And the percentage of families in New Orleans living below the poverty line in 2000 was about 23%.

I'm getting pretty sick of Homeland Secretary Chertoff and FEMA Director Brown (who was an estate planning lawyer before coming to FEMA and whose only qualification for the job appears to be that he was a Bush donor/fundraiser) trying to divert blame from their own sublime incompetence in the wake of Katrina -- and blame the victims. They are now repeating certain talking points: "These people chose to stay...these people decided to stay...these people ignored the warnings..." But the Census Bureau shows that many of these people had no means of getting out of the city. They're poor. Read More

Katrina knocks out grain shipments

valabor

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Wednesday August 31, 2005 · 8:12 PM PDT

2005/08/31 · 20:12

On top of the refinery and pipeline issues, now this:

Katrina's economic impact is being felt far from the Gulf Coast. Barge operators in Missouri and farmers in Iowa are worrying about how long the Mississippi River might be closed to barge and ship traffic.
"A lot of our grain here goes down the river to the Gulf of Mexico, and we don't know how long it is before the ports down there open," said LuAnn Robinson, a grain negotiator for the National Farmers Organization in Ames, Iowa. "There's going to be piles all over if we can't ship down the river."
Barge operators don't have anywhere to drop off the last stored grains, and the fall corn harvest begins in less than a month.
"All the facilities are knocked out. We can get everything but there are no facilities down there," said Bruce Engert, the general manager of the Missouri Barge Line Co. in Cape Girardeau, Mo.

An economic disaster right up the middle of Red America. Bush's diversion of funds to Iraq that made this disaster possible is criminal.

Silver Spring, MD, candlelight vigil

valabor

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Wednesday August 17, 2005 · 7:50 PM PDT

2005/08/17 · 19:50

At the corners of Spring Street and Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring, Maryland -- all four corners of the intersection were covered. Perhaps 250 people in attendance. TONS of supportive honks from passing cars. Here are the pics, below the fold:
Read More

Did Gonzalez Conspire to Obstruct Justice in Plame Investigation?

valabor

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Sunday July 17, 2005 · 9:48 AM PDT

2005/07/17 · 09:48

In all the focus on the minutia of the Plame leak, and with a possible Gonzalez Supreme Court nomination, I wanted to remind everyone of this Harkin moment in the Congressional Record.

Could Alberto Gonzalez be a subject in the cover-up portion of the Plame investigation???

In short, after Attorney General John Ashcroft delayed mounting any investigation into the Plame leak, he then delayed informing the White House of the investigation (in order to trigger their duty to preserve documents). Once Ashcroft did notify the White House, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez asked if he could wait until the next day to send out the official notice to White House staff to preserve documents relevant to the investigation. Even though the request was extraordinary, and outside any normal prosecutorial procedures, Ashcroft obliged. Harkin laid it all out way back in October 2003.

More here.

(I posted this last night, in the wee hours of the morning, but feel it deserves a better time slot.)

Did Gonzalez and Ashcroft Conspire to Obstruct Justice?

valabor

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Saturday July 16, 2005 · 11:50 PM PDT

2005/07/16 · 23:50

In all the focus on the minutia of the Plame leak, and with a possible Gonzalez Supreme Court nomination, I wanted to remind everyone of this Harkin moment in the Congressional Record (after the flip).

Could Alberto Gonzalez be a subject in the cover-up portion of the Plame investigation???

valabor

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Saturday July 16, 2005 · 10:12 PM PDT

2005/07/16 · 22:12

This is an oldie but a goodie. Back in September 2003, an unnamed senior administration official came forward to the Washington Post because "he or she" felt the Plame leak was "wrong and a huge miscalculation." And, most importantly (for today's purposes), "he or she" explained that the leak was "purely and simply for revenge."

In other words (or, more precisely, in this senior official's words), the fact that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative was "irrelevant" to the veracity of what Joe Wilson was saying about the lack of evidence of an Iraq-Niger yellowcake deal.

Now, who WAS that?

Obviously, this explanation doesn't square with current GOP talking points -- REVENGE implies INTENT -- and KNOWING WHAT YOU ARE DOING, namely, BLOWING THE MAN'S WIFE'S COVER.

Here's the story:

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RCN Responds to My NSA Inquiry

DeLay Donor Files Bankruptcy (Beats Deadline)

Donna Brazile: Shilling for the Prez

NYT (& many others) Call on Bush to Rescind Wage Rule Suspension

Outrageous!!! - GOP taking from the poor to provide hurricane relief

Two ways to censor the press

Car-free households in New Orleans

Katrina knocks out grain shipments

Silver Spring, MD, candlelight vigil

Did Gonzalez Conspire to Obstruct Justice in Plame Investigation?

Did Gonzalez and Ashcroft Conspire to Obstruct Justice?

Senior White House Official: Plame Leak "Purely and simply for revenge"