NY Times: Lott to Resign as Senate Republican Leader. This leaves Bill Frist as a potential front runner for the leadership post.

Paranoid conspiracy thought: did Lott get pushed out so the White House could install a more friendly majority leader to push its agenda through the White House? What is Lott’s record with respect to Bush’s policies?

True confession: posting the “win without war” petition link has gotten me a ton of traffic over the next two days; mostly because I’m the number 2 hit for that search on Google and the number one hit exceeded his ISP’s traffic quota. So far there has been a minimal amount of feedback on the piece, though: no comments, two emails, one for and one against.

The one that didn’t like what I was doing—well, I hesitate to say this reader opposed the petition because it’s not apparent that the reader read it.

It is amazing to me how this was not a petition when Clinton went on his "little" bombing runs.  It would do you and the people that think like you to realize that President Bush doesn't want to go to war.  We are dealing with a man that is providing weapons and funding to people that don't want to hug us.  They want us dead.  Have faith in this President and believe he has evidence to support his position.  He will release prior to any war action.

I have a brother, brother-in-law, and many friends that are active military and would definitely be called up.  I would rather not go to war.  However, they all volunteered are proud and willing to do what it takes to support their country.  The victims and families of the WTC didn't have that choice.  Thank goodness our fore-fathers had a stronger backbone then you and the people like you.  Thank goodness there was no Hollywood when this great country you live in and benefit from was founded!

Hmm. Last time I checked there wasn’t a reference to Hollywood in either the petition or in anything I wrote. Last time I checked, I didn’t suggest anything more radical than that President Bush let due process take its course. If I, and the signers of this petition, display a little cynicism about whether Bush has sufficient evidence to go to war and are reluctant to trust him without seeing it, I would argue it’s only a natural consequence of this administration’s reluctance to trust the American public with other information about its workings, such as the records of meetings with energy industry executives while creating the Bush energy plan. Or why Cheney is blasting big holes in the grounds of the Naval Observatory, in a residential and ambassadorial neighborhood.

Finally, my reader claims higher privilege by invoking friends and relatives on active duty. I have friends on active duty too, and I don’t presume to speak for them. But you might want to have a gander at the words of Lawrence Kida (son of a twice wounded WWII Marine) in the Seattle Times editorial page, who points out: “Can someone please explain to me why I am being told there is distinct proof of Iraqi involvement in ‘weapons of mass destruction,’ yet when the State Department is queried as to specifics, the reply is that the burden of proof rests on the government of Iraq?”

Esta hits two topics this morning that are near and dear to my heart: Trent Lott’s retraction of his idiotic statement saying the country would have been better off with a segregationist president and churches that are supportive of gay and lesbian rights.

The latter is particularly close to my mind right now, as we are in the process of trying to find a church home out here in Seattle. Lisa and I didn’t find too many Presbyterian churches in Boston and went Congregationalist there. Trying to find a Presbyterian church out here, I’m butting up against the growing divide in the denomination over gay rights. (There’s a really good history of the church’s positions on gays in ministry here; it doesn’t cover an amendment to the PCUSA constitution from last summer that is in the process of being considered by all the churches in the denomination.) I have too many gay and lesbian friends who are better Christians than I to consider membership in a church that would not accept them as a minister, elder, or deacon. Accordingly, I’m having to scrutinize each church’s website and weed out the ones that have taken actions such as joining the Confessing Church Movement.

I feel a little sick having to go through and do this, and tired of having to use this issue as a litmus test. But I feel I’ve been given little choice. These churches don’t represent the same faith I grew up in.

I’m generally skeptical about the usefulness of Internet petitions. However, I think the organizers of the petition to Let the Inspections Work at MoveOn.org have the right idea about how to make a petition useful. They’re taking out a full page ad in the New York Times on Monday, and they’ll be including the number of petition signatories in the ad.

Take a minute and go to the petition. I think the petition letter below and at the link sends a balanced message about the situation in Iraq:

TO: President Bush
CC: Secretary of State Powell and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan
SUBJECT: Please Let the Inspections Work

Dear Mr. President,
On October 11, the U.S. Congress passed a joint resolution on Iraq that authorizes you to use war as a last resort — if and only if diplomacy fails to accomplish the U.S.’s national goals.

We are concerned that you found Iraq’s response “not encouraging” when the inspectors had only been at work for a week and so far had not encountered Iraqi obstruction.

In this context, we are also concerned by your Administration’s repeated attempts to frame Iraqi anti-aircraft fire within the no-fly-zone as a material breach of the resolution. As U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and other U.N. diplomats have pointed out, the resolution clearly excludes such events from its jurisdiction.

The United States has made a commitment to approaching the danger that Saddam Hussein poses through the international community. The resumption of the inspections regime is a triumph for the U.S., international law and multilateralism. But the United States will lose all credibility with its allies if it appears that it will go to war regardless of the inspections’ success. And by alienating and infuriating allies through unilateral action, the U.S. could throw the success of the campaign against terrorism into jeopardy.

Mr. President, it appears that your administration is looking for an excuse to go to war, when a peaceful and just solution may be at hand. We ask that you live up to your word and give diplomacy a chance.

We can win without war.

The only possible question that can be asked about the resignations of Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and White House economic advisor Lawrence Lindsey today is: what took so long? Did our president wake up this morning and say, “The economy is in the toilet. Guess I better do something”? Was that news to him?

I like the New York Times’ coverage best, including the list of O’Neill’s gaffes. “If you set aside Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the safety record of nuclear is really very good.” Is that like saying, If you set aside unemployment, deficit spending, and recession, the economic record of the second Bush administration is really very good?

I should post a link to the other article that set me off this morning, also in the Washington Post: “In Terror War, 2nd Track for Suspects: Those Designated 'Combatants' Lose Legal Protections.” The Post is coming around to points that I started making last year:

...under authority it already has or is asserting in court cases, the administration, with approval of the special Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, could order a clandestine search of a U.S. citizen's home and, based on the information gathered, secretly declare the citizen an enemy combatant, to be held indefinitely at a U.S. military base. Courts would have very limited authority to second-guess the detention, to the extent that they were aware of it.

The article says that part of the debate is about who gets to declare someone an enemy combatant. The administration wants the power to reside solely in the president, with no checks save re-election. Says Solicitor General Theodore Olson: “Who will finally decide [whether the decision to designate someone an enemy combatant is a right or just decision]? Will it be a judge, or will it be the president of the United States, elected by the people, specifically to perform that function, with the capacity to have the information at his disposal with the assistance of those who work for him?”

Personally I think the Constitution has been pretty clear from the start that the job of the judiciary is to make the decision that the executive branch is acting rightly and justly. But then, what do I know? I’m just a Grouchy Blogger.

I have been deliberately not blogging about matters political, including our charming Attorney General Singin’ John Ashcroft, for a while. But the latest report in the Washington Post, that Ashcroft urged his staffers to deny FOIA requests, tipped me over the edge.

The story is bad enough. The Justice Department has in the past withheld data that it knew made its positions untenable, including enforcement of gun laws (Reno) and failure to prosecute terrorism cases (Ashcroft); now it’s implicitly promising its staffers that they will be shielded and supported if they decide to deny a FOIA request in part or whole, thus institutionalizing the denial of access to data that could prove it acted in error. The subtext is scarier. It is emblematic of the Bush Administration’s, and Ashcroft’s blatant disregard of the laws and Constitutional framing that they have sworn to uphold that Ashcroft has reversed the direction of the previous administration to consider all government information public unless there is a pressing need to keep the information secret. The author of the article, James Grimaldi, writes, “Justice Department bureaucrats, with Ashcroft's blessing, are trying to muzzle the watchdogs.” It seems to me that that’s not all they’re trying to do.

John Ashcroft is conspiring, with the complicity of the Bush administration, to draw a dark cloak of secrecy over the workings of government. At the same time, he is lifting all the restraints that have kept our government from trampling the rights that our founding fathers fought for.

Now is the time to act. Write your congressman. If they’re a member of the Republican majority, maybe they’ll stop serving in Bush’s chorus long enough to think about what they’re signing up the country for. If they’re in the Democratic minority, maybe they’ll have an awakening of conscience and start acting like a principled, visionary opposition party.

But act. Before Bush and Ashcroft succeed in making dissent illegal.

Esta is doing her Thanksgiving blogging a day early, and gives thanks for a long list, including the keiretsu, our Pop-pop, and Parliament, among others.

I’m thankful too, for:

• My loving and patient wife Lisa;
• Esta: her encouragement, wit, and blog;
• My Pop-pop, for his enduring humor, strength, and everything else;
• My parents and in-laws for their love and support;
• Our house and the fact that it’s still standing;
• All my friends from Sloan;
• Greg and Craig, for wit, insight, and steadfast friendship;
• Tony Pierce, Doc Searls, and Moxie for good reading;
• Brent Simmons, for good reading, good software, and net.friendship;
• Dave Winer, for the above, plus good platforms and for surviving his surgery to blog, blog again;
• Sonic Youth and Arvo Pärt, for transcendence;
• the Cascadian Chorale and the E-52s, for the opportunity to perform;
• My readers, for the feedback, the sympathy, and the flow;
• This weblog, for helping me keep my sanity.

... of erosion of civil rights, strong arm international politics, and failure to respond intelligently to terrorism.

Of course, we remember what happened the last time the Republicans controlled both houses, right?

Biggest regrets so far:

• Walter Mondale (and I hope I’m wrong about his chances, but having a six point spread at 25% of the vote counted doesn’t sound good)
• Tara Sue Grubb. But hey, I’m reading she polled almost 10% of the vote. It doesn’'t get Coble out, but it puts her on the map.

Esta: Vote.

“If you don’t vote you’re a heinous wreck of a human being, and small children will point at you with horror and run away screaming.

Plus you won’t have the right to complain, and we all know that that’s no fun.

So vote.

Don’t make me tell you again.”

During my blogout yesterday, Larry Lessig argued his case against the Bono Copyright Extension Act of 1998 in front of the Supreme Court. The case meaning what it does to the Net, there was a ton of coverage of various depth out there. My favorites include

• This article from the New York Times (and their version of the AP wire)
• Kwin’s all text summary of the proceedings
• LawMeme’s blog of the arguments as they happened

Lots of interesting quotes abound, both from the actual arguments and from the commentary. For starters, Sandra Day O’Connor sums up the issues with the case when she says, “I can find a lot of fault with what Congress did...This flies directly in the face of what the framers of the Constitution had in mind, but is it unconstitutional?” (from the AP coverage).

Kwin seems to have the best summary of the entire arguments of both sides. He writes:

“Lessig has framed a very conservative argument. ... Congress has retrospectively extended copyright -- ie, granted term extension to existing (as opposed to new) works -- numerous times. Doing so violates both of the constitutional limits on Congress's copyright-granting powers.

“In addition, Lessig advances a second, separate argument that extending the terms of existing copyright violates Freedom of Speech protections under Article I, because the ‘restrictions on speech’ greatly outweigh any plausible societal ‘benefits.’ As I understand it, this test of restrictions/benefits is termed the ‘intermediate’ test under First Amendment law, and is the general test applied to content-neutral regulation of speech.”

Kwin goes on to state that the Supremes challenged the first point mostly on what it would do to previous copyright term extensions (such as the 1976 extension), but essentially drilled the second point out of existence. This is going to disappoint a lot of the Internet folks who wanted a broader ruling about free speech from this case.

Kwin also writes,

“The one non-obvious tack Olson’s argument took was to continually emphasize that the ‘promot[ing] progress’ language wasn’t intended to apply just to authorship, but also to distribution. Making things widely available required that publishers have a strong economic interest in the copyright system. By implication, the 1998 law was intended to promote progress by strengthening publishers' interest.”

This is an interesting argument and one that I didn’t see coming: argue that publishers really are adding value and as such are entitled to the same considerations as content creators. Justice Breyer aggressively questioned the economic rationale behind this point and asked whether the damage done directly and indirectly (by letting works fall out of circulation because finding the copyright holders would be too difficult) exceeded the “benefits” of the law.

It’s all fascinating. The fact that the Supremes implicitly acknowledged the real economic harm done by copyright extension and that the current practice of extending copyright without limits may violate the Constitution is encouraging. But I’ll leave it to Greg to do the legal handicapping.

Greg points to the Al Gore speech and points out some interesting parallels between now and 1991, when the campaign was under way and Gore was part of a team hammering Senior about the economy.

Because of Greg’s link, I finally went back and read Gore’s speech. And I have to say, I’m actually pretty impressed. The speech echoes my thoughts of the past six months:

At this fateful juncture in our history it is vital that we see clearly who are our enemies, and that we deal with them. It is also important, however, that in the process we preserve not only ourselves as individuals, but our nature as a people dedicated to the rule of law ...

What this doctrine does is to destroy the goal of a world in which states consider themselves subject to law, particularly in the matter of standards for the use of violence against each other. That concept would be displaced by the notion that there is no law but the discretion of the President of the United States.

Follow up to my previous article: Greg reports that the Senate is sitting on Bush’s proposal to fight forest fires by giving the logging companies authority to clear old growth forests and immunity from enforcement suits under the National Environmental Policy Act. Tom Daschle has forced a “supermajority” vote to pass the bill, meaning that it won’t go anywhere for a while, if ever.

...members of the Alabama GOP accused the Democratic governor there of wrangling an endorsement from Charlton Heston by taking advantage of his recent announcement that he had Alzheimer's. I don't know. According to the record, he was endorsed because of a strong pro-gun and pro-conservation record, Heston's two hot buttons. The NRA is required by its charter, apparently, to give any candidate an endorsement who gets an A on their annual scorecard.

I don't know if Heston was "grossly manipulated" by the Democrats, but I do think that State GOP Chairman Marty Connors ("a gross manipulation of Mr. Heston") and Republican candidate Bob Riley's campaign spokesman David Azbell ("you have got to wonder if people are acting in Mr. Heston's best interests") have together done more to destroy Heston's political capital than his disease has.

Greg has a good list of links going as well, including music and poetry as well as last year's on the spot thoughts from our New York friend the Tin Man.

Doc Searls has a linkroll of today's 9/11 related writings. I'm included, but my site has been down most of the afternoon so I'll be surprised if anyone comes. Anyway, hi to all visitors from Doc and look below for the meat.

I just finished singing in the Bellevue Rolling Requiem. What a difference from a year ago. Then I had just finished writing a weblog update and had gone into the library to study. Starting up my web browser to download some course notes, I hit the message on Yahoo (images weren't loading) that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I went looking for more information and found it at Scripting News. Shellshocked, I left the library and walked into the lobby of E-52, Sloan's main building, where I joined a gathering crowd of students, faculty, administration staff, and others watching the coverage. I saw the videos, and I saw the second tower go down on live TV as I watched. After a while I walked next door to the E-51 lobby, worried about my friend Kate's fiancé Oli who worked in the financial district. I ran into my finance professor, who was just coming out of class and had no idea what was happening. I told him that both towers had come down and the Pentagon had been hit. "Oh my God," he said, as if he had been slapped. I found Kate. At the time she hadn't heard from Oli (he was fine). We just sat and watched and listened.

Today singing the Requiem I really didn't think about any of that, just the time I used to spend, lonely from the isolation of my fourth year studies, hanging out in Doug's dorm with the man now known as Tin Man and some Glee Club friends. Many hands of spades were played, much laughter was had. And I couldn't believe that this life, and so many others, had been taken.

The Mozart Requiem differs from all other Requiem masses in one of two ways. Later Requiems such as Gabriel Fauré's close on a note of hope. Earlier Requiems may close on a note of fear, prayer or penitence. Mozart's Requiem closes on the same theme with which it began, having briefly gone through a dancelike Hosanna to return to the cosmic awe of the request to support the deceased in their new home beyond our knowledge: "Grant them rest, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them." It is pleading, angry, demanding.

And it's not Mozart's, not really. Mozart died while writing the Requiem (legend has it, after singing through the first bars of the "Lacrymosa") and his pupil Süssmayer completed the mass by taking parts the master had already written together with new material to finish the sequence. The end result is we end the mass without closure, with our anger and confusion and grief still intact. Which is how I feel today, one year after 3,025 lives (what a ridiculously precise number) were taken from us. My only consolation is that I've spent so much of the last year thinking about the war, the erosion of our rights and liberties, the madness of unilateral war, and the insanity of suicidal terrorism, only to find today a way to give voice to my grief for those who died without other thoughts and voices drowning out the message.

It is hard to believe that it has been a year. When the clock radio went off this morning, I sat bolt upright, listening to see if anything had happened.

In an hour I'll be "on stage" at Bellevue Square warming up for the Rolling Requiem. I dedicate today to Doug Ketcham, my friend from University of Virginia, who was at Cantor Fitzgerald and who was killed a year ago.

I guess it's true: those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

BBC: Stiffing: Deceived and confused. The BBC elucidates the American "folksy idiom" behind President Bush's recent utterance, and can't resist pointing out that stiff "already has a number of slang definitions. The word can be used to mean a corpse, an erection, a dull person and to describe a strong alcoholic drink." I will leave out the obvious, though salicious, comment about which of these applies to the warbloggers and their baying for Saddam's blood.

President Bush has asked that the US remember September 11 as Patriot Day in memory of those killed in the terrorist attack in 2001. Sounds good, but I wonder what Massachussetts will do.

I had almost forgotten when I saw this come up recently in the press that the day had been designated as Patriot Day last December. I'll be observing the day by singing the Mozart Requiem with the Cascadian Chorale.

Washington Post: Secret Court Rebuffs Ashcroft. In an almost unprecedented decision, the court that oversees the Justice Department's requests for wiretaps and search warrants refused to give the Justice Department broad powers because they've done such a bad job providing evidence to date. Apparently this is the first time the FISA court has ever unanimously voted to release an opinion.

According to the article, the court "alleges that Justice Department and FBI officials supplied erroneous information to the court in more than 75 applications for search warrants and wiretaps." As a result, the court felt that giving Justice carte blanche under Ashcroft's proposed new procedures would "would have given prosecutors too much control over counterintelligence investigations and would have effectively allowed the government to misuse intelligence information for criminal cases."

When even your rubberstamp court of record is telling you they don't trust you with extended powers, your brain, if you were Attorney General, might dig up something long forgotten from your civics classes. Something about checks and balances, perhaps, or limits of government power. Probably not anything about the Bill of Rights, but hey, we can always hope.

NYT: Bush, Citing Fires, Will Seek to Ease Laws on Logging. Um, excuse me? How did this get pitched—no, how did anyone say this with a straight face? “OK, we appear to have a fire fighting problem. Might as well cut all the trees down.”

Greg points to the primary results in Georgia. Of particular note: "Cynthia McKinney, a 10-year incumbent, lost her primary by 16 points." My question to Greg: Now that she's out of the picture, what are you going to do next? (Other than play Soup Dragons--oh, and I suppose Jesus Jones, if you must, though I ceased being a fan about 10 years ago.)

Seriously, there are a couple of worthy candidates in need of serious campaign savvy, including Tara Sue Grubb, who's running against the infamous Rep. Howard Coble (of Berman and Coble) for a House seat and may be the first candidate to run her own blog (Sheila Lennon's coverage of Tara Sue is good). I'd love to see you working with her.

Nicholas D. Kristof in the New York Times: Bush Vs. Women. Is the administration’s appalling record of actively trampling efforts to better the condition of women worldwide the result of

• (a) a low prioritization of women’s rights
• (b) a confusion about whether the issue is abortion or survival
• (c) a Talibanesque desire to push women worldwide back into the Stone Age?

Kristof makes an alarming case, based on the administration’s record, that the real story is closer to (c).

Greg sums up some interesting thoughts floating around about the right way to take campaign finance reform: make the giving of campaign money as secret as the ballot. Interesting reading for a Sunday morning.

I've been waiting to add this link until I found out more about the case, but I've finally linked to the website of Eldred v. Ashcroft over the issue of the challenge to the Sonny Bono Extension of Copyright act, which extended by 20 years both existing and future copyrights. The tradeoff of copyright is between the rights of the creator and the rights of the public, a balance which this suit alleges has been tipped unfairly in favor of the creators at the expense of the public's rights. I urge you, if you are a creator or consumer of any kind of content, a user of libraries, or a reader of electronic texts, check out the site. The archive of materials about the case is richer than anything I could possibly say here.

Except to point to Aaron Swartz's summary of the Justice Department's response to the suit, which was essentially to say, "You don't have a right to question this law."

...Richard Milhouse Nixon resigned as president of the United States when it became clear that he was going to be impeached for the Watergate crimes. Despite continuous attempts to claim executive privilege, in the end it became clear that not even the highest office in the land was above the law that it was chartered to uphold.

Is that still true today?

Greg: Alex Cockburn, Arbiter of Black Authenticity. Greg unleashes some pointed thought on the issue of whether one can be "black in skin tone but not in philosohy" (I'm paraphrasing). Greg sez:

...you get to spell out what my fellow Alabamans -- Condolezza Rice and Cynthia Tucker -- and I have in common save skin tone, good looks and a firm conviction that Dreamland cooks the best barbecue ever.

And maybe then you can help me figure out why you and Pat Buchanan don't seem to think much alike. How am I supposed to know which one of you is philosophially white?

Paul Krugman in the New York Times: The Memory Hole. Krugman discusses the origins of the "trifecta" quote (about Bush's statement that he said he would only let the budget go into deficit in case of war, recession or national emergency; there's no evidence he ever promised any such thing). Now evidence that OMB and other agencies may not be telling the truth in new budget deficit projections just disappears.

Every government tries to make excuses for its past errors, but I don't think any previous U.S. administration has been this brazen about rewriting history to make itself look good. For this kind of thing to happen you have to have politicians who have no qualms about playing Big Brother; officials whose partisan loyalty trumps their professional scruples; and a press corps that, with some honorable exceptions, lets the people in power get away with it.

Lucky us: we hit the trifecta.

Thanks to Brendan Nyhan at Spinsanity for the link.

Update: Forgot I wrote about the trifecta already; just linked it in.

Time: Could 9/11 Have Been Prevented? Scary view into how the sloth-like, generally arteriosclerotic processes of government caused a plan to take out Al Qaeda to be lost during the transition between the Clinton administration and the Harken-Halliburton administration. The article details a series of missed opportunities, the detailed warnings that a big attack was coming--and the breakdowns in government function that caused a failure to act. Scary thoughts:

No other great power handles the transition from one government to another in so shambolic a way as the U.S.-new appointments take months to be confirmed by the Senate; incoming Administrations tinker with even the most sensible of existing policies. The fight against terrorism was one of the casualties of the transition, as Washington spent eight months going over and over a document whose outline had long been clear.

Thanks to Scott Rosenberg at Salon for the link. While I was writing this, Dave summed up the essence of the nightmare here: "Sometimes when we bluster and attack aimlessly, we cement relationships between forces that wish us harm."

By the way, if anyone out there uses the phrase "Harken-Halliburton Presidency," do me credit and point back to my first use of the phrase. A check of Google doesn't reveal any prior use of the phrase; I think I'm the first.

NYT: Again, Election Confusion for the Florida Secretary of State. Seems that the state of Florida, who have already given us the Harken-Halliburton presidency, continue to blaze a trail in creative interpretation of electoral law. It seems that Katherine Harris (yes, former Florida secretary of state Katherine Harris, who was so insistent during the recount controversy in 2000 about sticking to the letter of the electoral law) is running for Congress, but hasn't figured out how Florida electoral law applies to her. By violating Florida's "resign to run" law, she's landed herself in a bit of a mess.

I like the commentary from the Florida Democratic Party:

"She doesn't know election law," said Bob Poe, head of the Florida Democratic Party. "She couldn't even resign properly."

Tip of the hat to Greg, whose blog is rapidly becoming required political reading, for the pointer.

AP (in the New York Times): In a stunning show of proof that idiocy knows no party line, "Rep. Howard L. Berman, D-Calif., formally proposed legislation that would give the industry unprecedented new authority to secretly hack into consumers' computers or knock them off-line entirely if they are caught downloading copyrighted material."

Under the provisions of the bill, there would be little or no legal recourse for consumers if they are so attacked.

I somehow doubt (well, hope) that wiser heads in Congress will not allow this unfettered delegation of executive and judicial power to corporations. But stranger things have happened.

Dave feels pretty strongly about this. George thinks we should wait and see. I think we should show Berman (and his RIAA and MPAA cronies) the bum rush.

Greg Greene blogs a few articles I missed reporting conservative views on one of the Bush administration's big embarrassments. From the New York Times:

"Most striking, however, is how some conservatives who were Mr. Ashcroft's biggest promoters for his cabinet appointment after he lost his re-election to the Senate in 2000 have lost enthusiasm. They cite his anti-terrorist positions as enhancing the kind of government power that they instinctively oppose."

And Matthew Yglesias goes further:

Ultimately, Ashcroft is George Bush, just as the rest of Bush's cabinet is. It's really time for conservatives (who, unlike we liberals, might be able to exercise some influence on the administration) to name names and say that Bush — not Ashcroft, not Powell, not Mineta, not Ridge, not Rove — is doing bad things and ought to stop.

Salon: Dow roars back, up 488 points. Boy, you gotta love the market. Arrest a few executives and look what happens! Now if we could just nail a few more people in a meaningful way. Like a conviction on Enron (not their accounting partners). Or a few real Al Qaeda spooks, not their addled American "followers." Or maybe a few former executives from Halliburton.

BTW, thanks and a shout to Scott Rosenberg at Salon. Quickly becoming a must-read blog.

Looks like the Internet Archive has part of the Prelinger archive online. This is really cool. I guess I can stop worrying if I’m no longer able to use the “Ephemeral Films” CD-ROMs that Prelinger put out a few years ago—after all, you can now stream such wonders as “A is for Atom,” “Personal Hygiene” (parts I and II!), and “This is Coffee” as well as tons of old newsreel footage and commercials. Very cool.

Yahoo: HIV-Positive TV Muppet Worries U.S. Lawmakers. The article quotes a letter sent to PBS as saying "We look forward to working with you to ensure that only age and culturally appropriate programs air on PBS" and says that the letter "gives [the president of PBS] until Friday to answer such questions as the amount of money PBS dedicates to 'Sesame Street,' how much is being earmarked for the new Muppet, whether she will be introduced to the United States and whether corporate underwriters might participate in the decision-making process."

I can't see straight, I'm so angry about this foolishness.

• First of all, the new HIV-positive Muppet is on the South African version of Sesame Street, where 1.1 million young people are HIV positive. At what age, precisely, is it time to educate kids in an environment like that about what it means to live with someone who is very sick but still needs support?
• Second of all, what a caring attitude from our lawmakers, who have nothing better to do than to worry about the lives of children in South Africa. Bullshit. This is a transparent stroke-the-archconservative move that makes Quayle's taking on Murphy Brown look like kid stuff.
• Besides, the Committee on Energy and Commerce does have something better to do: worry about the continuing fallout from Enron, Worldcom, and other corporate meltdowns, and address the painful question of whether Dick Cheney and George Bush have been guilty of the same ethical lapses they're now reluctantly calling the business community on.

Please, take a second and fax the idiots behind this boondoggle:

• W.J. "Billy" Tauzin, R-Louisiana
• Joe Barton, R-Texas
• Richard Burr, R-North Carolina
• Charles "Chip" Pickering, R-Mississippi
• Cliff Stearns, R-Florida
• Fred Upton, R-Michigan

Update: Greg makes some cogent points about the motivations behind stirring up this noise--like an invite to Washington Week in Review...

The 226th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, also known as Independence Day. Did the Founding Fathers really know what they were getting into? Today should be a day of quiet reflection as well as celebration, especially after everything that’s happened in the last year.

... because, according to the Wall Street Journal, they violated the Trading with the Enemy act. We’re just now finding out about this thanks to a FOIA lawsuit filed by Public Citizen and the Corporate Crime Reporter. According to the Journal, “Treasury is planning to make such settlements public on a regular basis.”

Unusually for the Journal, they also point out who’s not been charged: Dick Cheney.

The Treasury's latest list didn't include Halliburton Co., Dallas, the oil-services company formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney. Halliburton opened an office in Tehran in 2000, when Mr. Cheney was chief executive officer. When the news became public last year, the company denied its office violated the U.S. law.

Washington Post: A Sound Bite So Good, the President Wishes He Had Said It. The Post catches Bush lifting from Al Gore, of all people, in his famous comment about not allowing the budget to go into deficit “except during war, recession, or national emergency”:

In this space last week, it was noted that President Bush often tells audiences that he promised during the 2000 presidential campaign that he would allow the federal budget to go into deficit in times of war, recession or national emergency, but he never imagined he would "have a trifecta." Nobody inside or outside the White House, however, had been able to produce evidence that Bush actually said this during the campaign.

Now comes information that the three caveats were uttered before the 2000 campaign -- by Bush's Democratic opponent, Vice President Al Gore.

New York Times: Case Against Seven Tied to Group Labeled Terrorist Is Dismissed. The judge ruled that the Justice Department’s case against seven people accused of sending charitable donations to an Iranian military group that the State Department labels “terrorist” is “unconstitutional on its face.” This is a major repudiation of a 1996 antiterrorism law that criminalizes providing “material support” to “any foreign organization that the State Department deems a threat to national security.” Judge Robert M. Takasugi cites erosion of due process as the reason for the ruling:

…the law gives these groups "no notice and no opportunity" to contest their designation as a terrorist organization, a violation of due process, Judge Takasugi ruled.

"I will not abdicate my responsibilities as a district judge and turn a blind eye to the constitutional infirmities" of the law, Judge Takasugi wrote.

Because the government made its list of terrorist organizations in secret, without giving foreign groups a chance to defend themselves, the defendants "are deprived of their liberty based on an unconstitutional designation that they could never challenge," he said.