The Pagan Science Monitor

Full disclosure

Yesterday, it was the "family jewels," the day before, it was FBI spying on the National Lawyers Guild, today it's a subpoena about the illegal eavesdropping. The ruling class is having an orgy of contrition over its bad behavior. Or...maybe it's just like what trial lawyers have to do sometimes: Squarely face up to the "bad facts" that are going to come out in front of the jury anyway.
Sometimes, where the government's bad faith is concerned, you have to go looking for the facts yourself. A very smart lawyer did the hard work to track down the number of custody deaths of immigration detainees (the government doesn't keep track!) and wrote a report for the UN.

NO WAY! FBI documents show decades of spying on NLG

The only surprise here is that the New York Times is covering it. The NLG Chicago member who called this morning to make sure I would buy the paper agreed with my theory: The Times wants to atone for Judith Miller and swallowing the Bush regime's lies before the war.
Anyway, the story:
In 1977, the New York City chapter of the National Lawyers Guild sued the FBI, seeking relief from the persistent surveillance, infiltration, and disruption.
The case moved speedily along, as these sorts of suits always do, and twelve years later the government settled with the Guild. As part of the settlement, the FBI turned over 400,000 pages (you read that right) of surveillance logs, typed reports and handwritten notes by infiltrators, and dossiers on provocateurs.

Friday afternoon conspiracy theory: 6-15-07

Beware the shadowy North American Union.
It started like these things always do. The Founding Fathers were all Freak Macons, and, to this day, the Freak Macons annually hold -- on Confed'rit Memorial Day -- what's rumored to be the wildest mint julep party in the world in the basement of the Wall-Mart on the corner of Oglethorpe Street and General The Reverend Lucious Pell-Mell Klan-Founder Ass-Kickin Boulevard. And you best watch out for the Great North American Union Conspiracy Theory, ably exposed by Joshua Holland today on AlterNet.

Tag: conspiracy theories.

Is Paris burning?

...down there?...And is that why she got out of jail for a minute?
You celebrity-obsessed pinheads, why do you care?!
And if you are a celebrity-obsessed pinhead (who got here by following a link), you may as well hit the BACK button right now, because this is a pure rant.
Rant #1: Do you even care about women in prison unless it's Paris or Martha? Do you have a heart in your chest or a brain in your head? If so, what do you think they're there for? Would you please begin using them sometime, soon?
Rant #2: Letting somebody out of the klink for medical care is called, in corrections-public health jargon, "compassionate release," and it happens approximately never, as in never, ever.

Grumpy old men seized in wild JFK terror plot

This is not the lead in any of the COMA (Corporate Media) stories about the alleged terror plot to blow up JFK airport:
New York, June 3 -- A convicted drug dealer infiltrated an anti-American coffee klatch of four grumpy old men and recorded them saying angry things, authorities revealed today, unsealing an indictment against the men, three of whom have been arrested. The drug dealer received cash from the FBI, and will receive a reduced sentence.
The COMA stories will not continue:
Authorities accused members of the terror cell 4OMCK ("Four Old Men's Coffee Klatch") of using Google Earth to look at aerial photos of JFK airport, and of seeking (but not receiving) money and bombs from a Trinidadian group, Jamaat Al-Muslimeen, which is alleged to be a gang of common criminals.

Quotation du jour

The QDJ is wordless. Today, it is a sound.
It is the refrain from "Isn't She Lovely" (Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life, 1976), played (with heart) on a little harmonica, by someone I glimpsed in the bustle of pedestrians on the south side of the Federal Plaza here, about 4:45 this afternoon.
The sound pulled me out of the silent world you go to in loud public places and in intense private moments. It pulled me back into the other sounds of the street, back into contact.
(Aside: Listen to Patti Smith, Twelve, 2007.)
There's a lot of grousing on these pages. It's been a grim week in this world. The sound reminded me: Thank you. The I.D. social worker who tells me, "I'm too tired to laugh." The public defender who will be drunk again tonight. The prisoner advocate who will not be (again, tonight, and for fourteen years, three weeks, and two days, right?). The accountant ("don't call me that!") at the AIDS-service non-profit who is supposed to call in a few minutes (perhaps with a proposal to get drunk). Thank you. It's been a hell of a week, all the way around, for a lot of people. But there was a sound that pulled me back into the sunlight. May you all find something, too.

Tags: politics, Stevie Wonder, Patti Smith, Quotation du Jour, QDJ, social work, social workers, public defenders, indigent defense, non-profits, Iraq, Cindy Sheehan, gratitude.

Anti-death penalty lesbian prosecutor for president in 2008

So you work in public-interest law, and you'd rather be thought of as a reader than a TV-watcher, but your secret, guilty pleasure is a crappy police procedural on NBC. So how thrilled are you to learn that Serena Southerlyn is going to be the next president of the United States? Will it make you start taking electoral politics seriously? Get off your bicycle and put your clothes back on? Stop wringing your hands about the war and the war and the war and the war and the torture and the torture and the other torture and the wiretapping and the wiretapping and the wiretapping and the wiretapping and, oh yeah, the war?!
Oh, you answered, "Yes"?
Well, screw you, it's actually this guy who's running for president.

He sure looks presidential, too, huh?


Oh, yeah, don't forget to call the corporate media the COMA.


Tags: politics, election, 2008, presidential race, media, corporate media, COMA, "Law & Order", Elisabeth Rohm, Fred Dalton Thompson, Fred Thompson, LGBT, lesbians, Iraq, Iraq war, torture, eavesdropping, wiretapping, FISA, skepticism, Critical Mass, World Naked Bike Ride, Zombies.

Rosie-Hasselbeck make-up: most important thing in the whole world!

Please take ten minutes to care about something else tonight.
What would Rosie want you to do?
Darfur can be understood. And there's something you can do right now: Have an informed opinion.
That is a picture of a refugee camp.

Quotation du jour

pray for a new age
pray for information
i can hope, see
even if i don't believe

"It's partly good" set to replace hackneyed go-to phrase

In recognition that the Democrats will not end the war, impeach the crooks, stop the torture, or unplug the wiretaps, the Official Registry of A-List Lingo (O.R.A.L.) announced today that "It's all good" will no longer be said.
Further, persons continuing to use the demonstrably false hipster/poseur phrase may be ruthlessly mocked under the new O.R.A.L. rule.
The new rule was adopted on the same day in which the Democratic leadership gave oodles & oodles of blood money to the president with no strings attached.

Tags: politics, law, policy, Iraq, Iraq war, Congress, funding bill, Pelosi, David Obey, Maurice Hinchey, benchmarks, anna eshoo.