Che Guevara Flag Lunacy

Steve Benen has the best response I’ve seen so far to this collective insanity on the right: “The far-right sure does find some odd things to get excited about.” So exactly right.

If a Che poster put up by some volunteers in advance of the Obama staff’s arrival sends the righties into such a tizzy, Robert Farley wants to know, they might want to consider these items in the Texas State Republican Party’s platform:

• The Party calls for the United States monetary system to be returned to the gold standard. Since the Federal Reserve System is a private corporation, has no reserves, and is not subject to taxation or audit, we call on Congress to abolish this institution and reassume its authority, enumerated by Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, for the coinage of money.
• The party opposes the decriminalization of sodomy….We publicly rebuke judges Chief Justice Murphy and John Anderson, who ruled that the 100 year-old Texas sodomy law is unconstitutional, and ask that all members of the Republican Party of Texas oppose their re-election.
• We urge that the IRS be abolished and the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution be repealed. A constitutional tax, collected and controlled by the States, must generate sufficient revenue for the legitimate tasks of the national government.
• The Party believes the minimum wage law should be repealed.
• The Party believes it is in the best interest of the citizens of the United States that we immediately rescind our membership in, as well as all financial and military contributions to, the United Nations.
• The Party urges Congress to support HJR 77, the Panama and America Security Act, which declare the Carter-Torrijos Treaty null and void. We support re-establishing United States control over the Canal in order to retain our military bases in Panama, to preserve our right to transit through the Canal, and to prevent the establishment of Chinese missile bases in Panama.

Ron Chusid writes that the Che nonsense is one of three recent attacks on Obama, all misleading or untrue — the other two being that Obama can’t speak without a teleprompter, and that he is a “very-high-tax candidate.” Maybe the right is starting to believe that Obama will be the Democratic nominee?

Encouraging the Wrong Elements

Little Green Fascists:

If I’m “insinuating” anything, it’s this: when you actively pander to and encourage the radical leftist elements of your party, as the Democrats have been determinedly doing for the past eight years, you’re going to end up with embarrassing scenes like this.

Hahahaha:

James and John, I’m sorry Johnston and Morrisey are being such idiots – but when you “actively pander to and encourage” the radical rightist elements of your party (e.g. LGF), as the Republicans have been determinedly doing for the past twenty years, you’re going to end up with embarrassing scenes like this.

Senate Passes Telecom Bill With Immunity Provision

Telecom immunity for spying on Americans’ email and phone conversations has been approved by the Senate. There is a petition at Firedoglake (co-sponsored by Glenn Greenwald) asking House members to reject the Senate-approved bill.

The text of the petition:

The FISA bill passed by the Senate is a disgrace. By legalizing warrantless spying on Americans and granting retroactive amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms, the Senate seeks to ensure that the Bush administration’s illegal spying programs are never investigated or subjected to the rule of law. The Senate bill is a profound betrayal of the votes of millions of Americans who voted in 2006 to put Democrats in control of Congress in order to increase, not eliminate, checks and oversight on this administration, and to restore the rule of law to our country.

The House’s RESTORE Act is an infinitely superior bill. It provides real safeguards on the President’s spying powers while providing him with the surveillance powers he needs to protect the country. It enables the issue of the legality of the President’s spying programs to be decided where it belongs — in a court of law. And it preserves the crucial balance that has existed for decades between enabiling necessary surveillance on Americans and ensuring that our political leaders do not abuse that power.

In the wake of the discovery of the Watergate crimes and decades of surveillance abuses, the Congress of the mid-1970s acted on a bipartisan basis to put into place safeguards to ensure that even our highest political officials must adhere to the law and can only exercise eavesdropping powers with real safeguards. The RESTORE Act continues that tradition, while the Senate bill eviscerates it. We urge Democratic House members to stand firm behind the bill they passed and not capitulate once again to the bullying, manipulative demands of the Bush administration for ever-greater unchecked power, as embodied by the warrantless eavesdropping and telecom immunity provisions of the Senate bill.

Glenn reminds us of the congressional storm of protest that ensued when the wireless surveillance program was first revealed:

It’s worth taking a step back and recalling that all of this is the result of the December, 2005 story by the New York Times which first reported that the Bush administration was illegally spying on Americans for many years without warrants of any kind. All sorts of “controversy” erupted from that story. Democrats everywhere expressed dramatic, unbridled outrage, vowing that this would not stand. James Risen and Eric Lichtblau were awarded Pulitzer Prizes for exposing this serious lawbreaking. All sorts of Committees were formed, papers written, speeches given, conferences convened, and editorials published to denounce this extreme abuse of presidential power. This was illegality and corruption at the highest level of government, on the grandest scale, and of the most transparent strain.

What was the outcome of all of that sturm und drang? What were the consequences for the President for having broken the law so deliberately and transparently? Absolutely nothing. To the contrary, the Senate is about to enact a bill which has two simple purposes: (1) to render retroactively legal the President’s illegal spying program by legalizing its crux: warrantless eavesdropping on Americans, and (2) to stifle forever the sole remaining avenue for finding out what the Government did and obtaining a judicial ruling as to its legality: namely, the lawsuits brought against the co-conspiring telecoms. In other words, the only steps taken by our political class upon exposure by the NYT of this profound lawbreaking is to endorse it all and then suppress any and all efforts to investigate it and subject it to the rule of law.

First Draft has the names of the Democratic senators who voted against Chris Dodd’s amendment (which would have removed the immunity provision). Barack Obama’s name, you will see, is not among them. He voted against the inclusion of immunity. Hillary Clinton was not present, and did not vote.

I was struck by a convergence of headlines.

Michelle Malkin: “The FISA Fight: Nutroots Lose, America Wins.”

Scholars and Rogues: “FISA Fight: Senate Passes Telecom Immunity and Flips the Bird To America.”

I’ve read the U.S. Constitution, so I know which of the two is correct.

Happy Darwin Day

Today, 12 February, has been designated as Darwin Day, so says the Institute for Humanist Studies from Albany, NY. Here is the news release.

These excerpts struck me as particularly relevant

“Darwin Day promotes understanding of evolution and the scientific method,” said Matt Cherry, executive director of the Institute for Humanist Studies. “This celebration expresses gratitude for the enormous benefit that scientific knowledge has contributed to the advancement of humanity.”

[ . . . ]

Recent Gallup polls show that 43 percent of Americans reject the theory of evolution and instead believe that “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.” And at least four 2008 presidential candidates have said they do not believe the theory of evolution.

Having been exposed to religion long before I ever heard of Darwin or evolution, I must say that religion did not make a lot of sense and evolution was the world I saw.

Tom Lantos 1928 – 2008 R.I.P.

Tom Lantos, a ‘lion’ in working for the powerless and the oppressed, has succumbed to esophageal cancer. I always new that he was a champion of the underdog and you can read more about him here and here.

Someone will eventually take his Congressional seat, but there is no one on the horizon who will be filling his shoes.

Rest In Peace, Mr. Lantos, the world is a much better place for you having been part of it.