Posts from — February 2006

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This just annoyed the hell out of me, reading this CBS article: CIA Head Bashes Wiretapping Disclosure.

The green are quotes from the article.

“The damage has been very severe to our capabilities to carry out our mission,” Goss told the Senate Intelligence Committee. He said a federal grand jury should be empanelled to determine “who is leaking this information.”

The only thing that was leaked by anyone other than the President was that wiretaps were taking place without warrants, which is a matter of law, not of security. If there had been warrants, nothing would have been revealed.

“This was not about domestic surveillance,” Negroponte said.

It is targeting people in the United States who are being monitored, ergo, it is domestic surveillance by definition.

“The president has not only confirmed the existence of the program, he has spoken at length about it repeatedly,” while keeping Congress in the dark, said Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the panel’s senior Democrat.

“The administration wants to have it both ways,” said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.

See, even Senators can figure it out.

Goss complained that leaks to the news media about the surveillance program and activities such as reported CIA secret prisons abroad had damaged his own agency’s work.

They are illegal and in violation of multiple treaties and national laws. People get annoyed when they are kidnapped and hauled off to be tortured in foreign countries.

“I also believe that there has been an erosion of the culture of secrecy and we’re trying to reinstall that,” Goss said.

“I’ve called in the FBI, the Department of Justice. It is my aim and it is my hope that we will witness a grand jury investigation with reporters present, being asked to reveal who is leaking this information,” he said.

Rockefeller suggested that the “leaks” Goss talked about most likely “came from the executive branch” of the government.

That brought a terse response from FBI Director Robert Mueller, who said, “It’s not fair to point a finger as to the responsibility of the leak.”

Maybe it was a bad idea to reveal the name of a CIA NOC agent, Porter. Maybe you should settle that problem first. You lost your WMD net for Southwest Asia when the White House did that.

Yo, Bob, only nine people outside the Executive branch knew about the program, and Porter Goss was one of the nine. Those nine had to figure that they would have their phones and e-mails monitored, as probably happened, so the leaks probably came from the Justice Department, from a lawyer who knew it was unconstitutional, or from the White House which had already been known to leak.

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Proving that when you looking for new leadership while in trouble for corruption you should go with the guy who distributed checks from Big Tobacco to members on the floor of the House: Rep. John Boehner of Ohio is the new majority leader. Of course, being Republicans, they had to re-run the vote when they ended up with more ballots than voters at one point.

Speaking of rodents, the groundhog said six more weeks, which is interesting given the spotty nature of Winter so far.

Because he’s such an accommodating individual, the Culture Ghost takes requests, but he also locates oldies, but goodies. Go and enjoy.

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It turns out the Capitol Police really outdid themselves in their t-shirt arrests.

While everyone knows Cindy Sheehan and the trouble they are in for arresting her, they may be in more personal danger from Beverly Young.

Mrs. Young is not a typical Congressional spouse, and people who know her wouldn’t think it was out of character for her to punch someone out if she felt provoked. She spends a lot of time supporting the troops and working for her causes.

The St. Petersburg Times has a profile from last December. Read the entire article and understand that the newspaper had to convince the Youngs to allow them to do the article.

She’s a Republican so she can vote for her husband in primaries, but that is not her ideological party. She and Ms. Sheehan have a lot in common, but Mrs. Young is definitely not into non-violence or G-rated language.

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Culture Ghost was wondering about the “best” way to view the speech. I don’t watch television, but if I did, I would probably turn off the sound and put on a George Carlin album.

You could go Woody Allen, and pull a What’s Up, Tiger Lily, use the video and write your own dialogue, then dub it in a bad Henry Kissinger or Richard Nixon imitation.

Then you overdub with audience reaction of your choice like Mystery Science Theater.

I did catch the call for the “line item veto”. I guess no one told him that Bill Clinton had it until the Supreme Court pointed out that Congress can’t give away its powers. Of course, with Alito on the Court it may be possible now.

I wonder how the Religious Reich feels about having five Catholics on the Court? That could be an interesting situation given the general view of Catholics among many fundamentalist sects. I wouldn’t have brought that up, but it shut up a neighbor who was ragging on me over the failure of the filibuster.

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February 1, 2003

Commander:
Rick Douglas Husband, Colonel, USAF

Pilot:
William C. McCool, Commander, USN

Payload Commander:
Michael P. Anderson, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF

Mission Specialist:
Kalpana Chawla, PhD
David M. Brown, MD, Captain, USN
Laurel Blair Salton Clark, MD, Captain, USN

Payload Specialist:
Ilan Ramon, Colonel, Israel Air Force

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