Condi vs. Hillary

It's 4 years away, but the rumblings have begun. Dick Morris makes a pretty persuasive case for a 2008 Condi run - a choice which not only neutralizes Hillary, but effectively counters any other potential Democratic candidate, most likely an old white man.

I'd like to remind readers that I predicted a Condi run for the White House on January 28th, 2005...the day she was sworn in as Secretary of State.

The problem is not that the GOP is so predictable...it's the fact that the DEMS see it coming, and still fail to do anything about it. Stay alert, stay alive. It's Condi in 2008.

Bend Over and Take It

There is a bill called the "Class Action Fairness Act"sailing through Congress that isn't getting a lot ink, but it's potentially devastating (more here) to the ability of plaintiffs to hold corporations accountable for their malfeasance.

If we plugged "Class Action Fairness Act" into our handy, RightWingSpeak Translator, we'd probably get a something like the "Let's Screw The Average American By Siding With Corporate Interests...Again Act". Taking a closer look, we learn that there's nothing 'fair' about the intent of this bill. It's just another attempt, like "The Clean Air Act" and "No Child Left Behind", to convey the opposite of this bill's actual intent. This bill works directly against the ability of a plaintiff and her attorney to pursue a complaint against corporate negligence in a timely and expedient way by forcing Class Action cases to be filed in an already crowded and overloaded federal court system, rather than the state court in the plaintiff's district.

As it stands now, Plaintiffs' attorneys (or, as the wingnuts prefer, trial lawyers... gasp!) have the choice to file a class action in the courts of any state in which the harm in question has occurred. The case is then consolidated in that state's court system with each class member, no matter where they live, represented by the attorneys in that specific courtroom. Opponents of class actions call this "forum shopping", but as I learned during my time working at a class action firm in San Francisco, the decision of one court over another is often driven by the strength of individual plaintiff's cases.

For example, if we had a case against Acme Widget Co. charging that Acme had falsely advertised the capabilities of their widgets, we would look for the plaintiff with the strongest case against Acme, no matter where they were. If they were in Texas, so be it. We never left behind a strong plaintiff because we had the opportunity to make our case in a "friendlier" court. The plaintiff with the stronger case would be named the lead plaintiff, and the case would move on in the court of the lead's district.

A potentially enormous problem looms with this bill:

"Worse still, say the bill's opponents, federal courts often refuse to hear class-action cases submitted by petitioners from multiple states. 'No one wants to file a class-action suit at a federal level because they often get dismissed if they include plaintiffs from a patchwork of different states, all of which have different laws,' explained Jude McCartin, an aide to Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., who has been a vocal critic of certain sections of the bill. 'There isn't one state law that is applicable, and there is no guidance for federal judges as to where they can apply just one state's laws.'"

As it stands now, state courts can apply their law to the entire class, regardless of where the other plaintiffs reside. To remove this ability by moving the cases to federal court, attorneys will likely be more reluctant to bring broad Class Action complaints against companies, out of the fear that the case will be tossed out on the technicality described above. Both a group of 15 attorney generals and a group of 16 environmental organizations have sent letters to congress urging a vote against this bill, but something tells me that won't really matter to the unthinking right-wing lap dogs of the Republican cogressional majority.

The courts are one of the last modes of redress for the majority of Americans when it comes to gaining a measure of relief from the misdeeds and poor business practices of corporate entities. The voices of a couple hundred thousand wronged individuals (as is often the case, in my experience) are a lot louder than the voice of just one. The ability of plaintiffs to have their cases heard in a timely and expedient manner is vital to stopping potentially dangerous corporate activity (such as local pollution or harmful business practices) and achieving injuctive relief as quickly as possible.

Requiring Class Action complaints to be heard in federal court not only slows down the process, but it takes the option for local remedies out of the hands of the communities local to the problems. Making the process even more difficult than it already is will further remove any incentive for corporations to self-regulate their behavior. If the government won't hold them accountable, and the people can't hold them accountable, why should they care who they shit on?

Leak? What leak?

And the saga of tracking down the source of the CIA leak continues, with nary a charge in sight.

Feb. 11, 2005 Washington -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has stepped aside from the Justice Department investigation into the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity.

Gonzales had been involved in the case as White House legal counsel, testifying before a federal grand jury and giving advice about it to White House personnel.


He recused himself from the matter shortly after he was sworn in as attorney general last week, Justice Department spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said Friday. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft had also removed himself from any role in the investigation.

The article goes on to note that:

The leak investigation is in its second year with no charges brought. [Special Counsel US Attorney Patrick] Fitzgerald is battling with reporters from Time magazine and The New York Times for access to their confidential sources, which a federal judge has ruled they must divulge or face possible jail time. The reporters have appealed the ruling.

May I humbly suggest that Fitzgerald might just discover the source of the leak if they force right-wing shill -and possible traitor - Robert Novak to reveal who it was that leaked him the info.

Oh, and instead of pursuing reporters from the NYT and Time magazine, perhaps Fitzgerald might actually turn up some evidence if he pursued fake columnist and liar James Guckert, who somehow managed to gain access to classified CIA documents, despite the fact that he was operating under an assumed name.

Maybe going after the ones we know have been directly involved with the CIA leak would actually turn up some evidence. It's so crazy, it just might work!

"Hi. My name is 'Jeff Gannon.' And I'm a fictional person."

Unbelievable. A lying piece o' shite named James D. Guckert makes up a fake reporter named "Jeff Gannon," gains acces to the White House press briefings for over TWO YEARS, files numerous "reports" - which are little more than GOP press releases - on a "news" site - which is little more than a propaganda machine for the GOP...and to make matters even worse, he has ties to the White House's outing of Valerie Plame. Which has led many to believe that either: 1)White House security is so lax, it will allow virtually anyone a press pass and access to confidential material relating to the CIA and National Security. Or. 2) The White House set up a fake news reporter to be a right-wing mouthpiece, feeding him press releases and classified info, safely hidden behind an anonymous veil of lies and deception.

Media Matters documents words of praise for the phony reporter from such credible sources like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh who remain, when last I checked, employed, despite their perpetuating the myth that Gannon is a real person.

Oh, and to make matters EVEN worse..."Talon News" has long been used by right-wing media to corroborate and "authenticate" FAKE news stories and rumors! I'm sure it will come as no surprise to anyone that it was "Talon News" that fanned the flames over the 'CBS fake memos story' - in fact, according to Sean Hannity, on The Sean Hannity Show, 9/10/04, it was Guckert (posing as Gannon) who BROKE THE EXCLUSIVE STORY on the National Guard memos being fake!

Gee, if I didn't know better, it almost seems like the fake reporter KNEW those memos were forgeries all along, and was just waiting for someone to take the bait so he could bust them. Almost like the fake memos were delibrately planted to entrap an eager reporter, looking for a smoking gun on Bush's military record. Oh, and by the way, while those specific memos were fake, the fact remains that the President DID NOT meet his service requirements, nor has he been forthcoming about it, a fact which the CBS memo scandal obscured, as Media Matters notes.

So what do we know? We know that Guckert has hidden behind a fake name to flog phony stories for the White House, and has been doing so for three years. We know that, at the very least, he's lied to the Secret Service and the American People and that his lying is potentially a criminal act. Oh. And he probably played a part in outing CIA agent Valerie Plame, thereby weakening our National Security and compromising Plame's own safety ... which is a felony.

I look forward to the day when Guckart is behind bars, but I doubt I'll ever see it. After all, it wasn't Guckert who did all those nasty, illegal things. It was Jeff Gannon. Good luck finding him.

A liar by any other name...

...would still be our current Secretary of State. Oh, sweet Jaaaa-zus. Not only did our counterterrorism expert WARN our then-National Security Advisor about the impending threat of the "al-Quida" terrorist network, and not only did said National Security Advisor IGNORE said warning, but then, after FAILING to stop the 9/11 attacks because of her own ineptitude, she LIES about it to Congress. And now we have actual, written DOCUMENTATION that clearly PROVES she lied about it.

With the deaths of thousands of innocent Americans on her head (because, you know, as SECURITY ADVISOR, it was her JOB to provide SECURITY for the US and she failed miserably at that), how does she sleep at night? Knowing what she knows, knowing that maybe - just maybe - if she had acted upon the numerous warnings or paid a little more attention to the intelligence community or maybe if she had just shown up to work in AUGUST of 2001 - maybe she could have averted tragedy. But it looks like the only security she's interested in is her own.

I dunno. Maybe she thought this memo was an "historical document," too.


How does she sleep at night.

Cole 1, Goldberg 0 (and holding on for dear life)

Anyone who's anyone has already linked to this, but you should really see Juan Cole's smackdown of Jonah Goldberg today regarding the War in Iraq and Goldberg's "punditry", among other things.

Feel the sizzle, and this should whet your whistle:

"But I did not say that Goldberg's judgment is always faulty. I said he doesn't at the moment know what he is talking about when it comes to Iraq and the Middle East, and there is no reason anyone should pay attention to what he thinks about those subjects, as a result. If judgment means anything, it has to be grounded in at least a minimum amount of knowledge. Part of the implication of my assertion is that Goldberg could actually improve his knowledge of the Middle East and consequently could improve his judgment about it (although increased knowledge would only help judgment if it were used honestly and analytically). I don't think he is intrinsically ignorant, I think he is being wilfully ignorant. He'd be welcome to get a sabbatical and come study with me for a year some time."

It's all this good. Check it out.

Revelations

Anyone who follows progressive thought knows Bill Moyers, who, until recently, hosted a weekly series called "NOW with Bill Moyers" on PBS. He's a great journo and thinker, which causes me to be even more freaked out by this recent article, called "There Is No Tomorrow".

It's a commentary on the rise of Christian fundamentalists in the halls of American power, and asks some sobering questions about where our country is headed.

Here's a couple representative graphs:

"Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the
facts.

[snip]

"Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th Congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian right advocacy groups. They include Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Conference Chair Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Policy Chair Jon Kyl of Arizona, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Whip Roy Blunt. The only Democrat to score 100 percent with the Christian coalition was Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, who recently quoted from the biblical book of Amos on the Senate floor: "The days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land." He seemed to be relishing the thought."

I'm not going to lie, this stuff freaks me out. As a rational secularist, I can't fathom tying my future expectations to the sort of religious/philosophical viewpoint Moyers describes, much less see my democracy become a theocracy. To discount scientific evidence in favor of biblical prediction/explanation (hello evolution v. creationism) strikes me as not only intellectually dishonest, but also willfully ignorant. The Christian evangelicals who espouse this line of thought are great threats to our Democracy and real threats to the progressive legacy of this country. In my mind, their Armageddon/Doomsday philosophy is not too far from that of the Muslim radicals who attacked us on 9/11. They go blindly forward, casting stones and passing judgement (often in direct contradiction with the teachings of Jesus himself), eager to see those who disagree fall burning into hell as they ascend righteously into the presence of the Lord.

Is that too shrill? I can never tell...

Checks and Balances... sick and dying.

As I began to shake off my Superbowl induced haze this morning, this diary at DailyKos caught my attention.

It's about a bill currently in committee in the House of Representatives that proposes sweeping new powers for the Secretary of Homeland Security. In general, the bill deals with Homeland Security and updating laws surrounding immigration policy, uses of I.D.'s, etc.

Section 102 raises the eyebrows, however. In this section we see the following:

SEC. 102. WAIVER OF LAWS NECESSARY FOR IMPROVEMENT OF BARRIERS AT BORDERS.
Section 102(c) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (8 U.S.C. 1103 note) is amended to read as follows: `(c) Waiver- `(1) IN GENERAL- Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall have the authority to waive, and shall waive, all laws such Secretary, in such Secretary's sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section. `(2) NO JUDICIAL REVIEW- Notwithstanding any other provision of law (statutory or nonstatutory), no court shall have jurisdiction-- `(A) to hear any cause or claim arising from any action undertaken, or any decision made, by the Secretary of Homeland Security pursuant to paragraph (1); or `(B) to order compensatory, declaratory, injunctive, equitable, or any other relief for damage alleged to arise from any such action or decision.'. (emphasis added)

Frightened yet?

Basically, this bill includes a provision to allow the Secretary of Homeland Security to waive laws as he sees fit, and then removes the ability of the courts to challenge this act of waiver. The question really is, what is the limit of this power?

It's incredible to think that a congressional committee wouldn't laugh this kind of language right out of the room. The problem is that the Chairman of this committee is the same congressman (Rep. David Drier (R-CA)) who wanted to put a similar provision in place soon after 9/11.

Read the linked diaries for more info, and I'll try to keep an eye on this as it goes through committee. This is where the Dems (and Nancy Pelosi, specifically) need to make this into a public issue. There are a lot of other topics getting front page ink right now (Social Security, Iraq, etc.) but a bill that places the Department of Homeland Security above the law is something that needs some individual attention, especially since the Congress just confirmed an Attorney General who believes the President has an "executive override" over laws he doesn't agree with. The trend here is becoming disturbing.

"Sure it causes cancer, but it's fireproof!"

Okay. So, it's been about a week now. And most of the people who have an opinion on the SOTU have made their opinions known. But with all the attention being given to the major points of the speech (privatizing Social Security, elections in Iraq, Syria and Iran, tax cuts, gay marriage...), there are a few minor points which no one is talking about.

Every pundit in the US has focused on the impending battle over the future of Social Security, yet no one is talking about this little gem from the SOTU:

Small business is the path of advancement, especially for women and minorities,
so we must free small businesses from needless regulation and protect honest
job-creators from junk lawsuits. (Applause.) Justice is distorted, and our
economy is held back by irresponsible class-actions and frivolous asbestos
claims -- and I urge Congress to pass legal reforms this year. (Applause.)

"Frivolous asbestos claims." That's right. The President believes that our legal system is tied up with too many lawsuits related to asbestos claims. And apparently, this phrase was not made up on the spot. He began the year talking about it. Apparently, the President is very concerned about the rights of companies, businesses, and corporations who spend years knowingly poisoning their employees. He made it the highlight of a recent visit to Michigan. So, clearly it concerns him.

WTF? Uh, last I checked, asbestos causes cancer, as well as a host of other ailments. And we've known about it since the 1970s. Numerous companies knew this and did nothing about it, knowingly exposing their employees to hazardous conditions. And thousands upon thousands of people have been affected by this utter lack of humanity. And if the inhumanity of allowing people to be slowly poisoned doesn't move ya, just imagine the enormous medical costs of treating the asbestos related illnesses. But we need to do something about these frivolous asbestos claims.

If companies are not aware that asbestos in the workplace might be endangering their employees, it's negligance and justice demands compensation. If companies are aware that asbestos in the workplace might be endangering their employees, than justice CERTAINLY demands compensation. Either way, I can't see how asbestos claims could be frivolous. Are there really THAT many people who completely fabricate asbestos claims? Seriously. Show me some data, facts, figures - whatever. No one with any common sense would think that individual Americans should be stripped of their legal rights and that companies should be further insulated and protected from justice.

Insurance agencies ... I'll say that again ... INSURANCE AGENCIES, and the American Insurance Association have put together "fact" sheets such as this designed to - SHOCKER - distort the truth and convince people that it's better for everyone if we protect companies from any liabilities that may arise from asbestos related injuries or illness. The amount of misinformation, half-truths, and inaccuracies put out by the Insurance industry is stunning. But not surprising. Oh, and almost every "fact" put out by the INSURANCE INDUSTRY has been repeated by the President. Just in case you were wondering where he's getting his information. And we all know he thinks that the intelligence he gets is "pretty darn good."


For some accurate statistics and facts, you can look here or here.

Clearly, the problem is not individuals seeking compensation, but instead companies seeking protection from the law. Yeah, they want to make trial lawyers out to be the bad guys here, but let's not forget that trial lawyers ONLY make real money if they win their cases. Seems to me that "junk lawsuits" aren't the real problem here - it's junk business practices that need to be fixed.

So, there you have it. On one side, massive corporations and insurance companies. On the other side, individual Americans. Whose side are you on? Because, as he made clear in the SOTU, I know which side the President is on.