This is called motive.

President Bush and others assure me that they are not trolling through my personal life.  No listening in or taping my phone conversations, they're just keeping track of when, where, who and how often I'm calling anyone, and gosh darn-it it doesn't appear that person has to be in a foreign country after all. 

Man, does that make me feel better!  How about you?

Oh yeah, I forgot to put in one of the best lines from that USA Today article about how the NSA's unwillingness to offer firmer legal justification for participating in the surveillance program left the Qwest lawyers so uneasy.  It goes something like this:

 The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. "They told (Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them," one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this version of events.

Yep, the NSA was afraid that neither the FISA courts or the Justice Department would say what they were doing was okay so they refused to go that route.  Really makes you feel confident about the whole venture doesn't it? 

I'm trying to figure out if the lesson to this sad tale is to keep massive government surveillance programs as secret as possible for as long as possible and then slowly watch embarrassing details slip out and hope nobody cares, or just be open about them from the get go?  Maybe its just that old adage that just because you have the capacity to do something doesn't always mean that you should... it'll be interesting to see what other surprises await?

Jon Aravosis goes after CNN national security correspondent David Ensor for saying no laws have been broken because its likely that both the government and the telecommunications companies legally vetted everything before proceeding with creating the world's largest database of US domestic telephone calls affecting tens of millions of American citizens. 

While I'm sure Ensor thinks he's acting the responsible dispassionate veteran reporter in poo-pooing growing outrage over the extent of the NSA program, if he looked a little closer at the USA Today article he'd see that one company, Qwest, did have major legal concerns and they even went so far as asking the NSA to have the Attorney General's office offer a legal finding authorizing the turning over of their phone records.  When NSA refused to do that or provide your typical FISA court order, Qwest refused to cooperate. 

Me thinks a much more interesting story would look at how much effort the other companies went to to explore the legal ramifications of their cooperation in this program before they said yes to the NSA?

Are you among the tens of millions of Americans whose calls are being tracked by the NSA? Are you using AT&T, Verizon or BellSouth? The president today said, “Our efforts are focused on links to al Qaeda and their known affiliates.” Tens of millions of us are in Al Qaeda???

I quote from my favorite book:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized" (Amendment IV of the Bill of Rights to the Constitution).

Check it out, it's good readin'!:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html

--E.

Rep. Jerry Lewis, (R-Redlands), Chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee, sucked into the Cunningham bribery probe.  This one could get way big, if the DoD's own criminal investigator is to be believed.  According to him,  

      "This is much bigger and wider than just Randy 'Duke' Cunningham.  All that has just not come out yet, but it won't be much longer and then you will know just how widespread this is."

Its always the scandal you never expected that takes you down.

Today's USA Today reported that the NSA is recording the existence of almost every telephone call in America.  I can tell you that the lawyers are gonna have a field day with this one.  Every divorce lawyer in America is salivating at the opportunity to take a good look at all of those calls cheating spouses have made over the years.  Expect subpoenas to fly soon for data related to particular numbers.

Plunging poll numbers and a well-deserved reputation for ineptitude and suddenly every little thing the Bush people do wrong makes news; like sanitation workers finding official White House papers giving every detail of the President's recent trip to Florida in the regular old trash.

HUD secretary Alphonso Jackson tells a national minority real estate consortium meeting in Dallas that he prevented a prospective minority contractor from getting a contract after that contractor told him, "I don't like President Bush."

Update (5/10/06): HUD spokesperson:  Whoops, he was just kidding.  Story didn't actually happen but was a hypothetical example.  Broader message or what he meant: You better kiss the President's ass if you want me to give you money.  While this contradicts previous HUD explanations, that's the story.  There, it's all better now, right? 

The New York Times Magazine put out an article over the weekend called "Contra-Contraception" about the evolving religious conservative movement against contraception.  Its a very interesting piece but one exchange between the author and a state legislator from Illinois really caught my attention:

Ron Stephens is both a pharmacist and a Republican state legislator in Illinois, one of the states that are currently battlegrounds between pharmacists who claim the right to refuse to fill prescriptions for emergency contraceptives and women's and civil rights groups that argue that pharmacists must fill all prescriptions presented to them. Stephens not only supports the pharmacists' right of refusal but he also refuses to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception himself. He does, however, fill prescriptions for the birth control pill. When I asked him recently to explain his thinking on the two drugs, he said: "It's the difference between stopping a pregnancy from happening and ending a pregnancy. My understanding of the science is that the morning-after pill can end a pregnancy, whereas birth control pills will make a woman's body believe she is already pregnant so that the egg will not be fertilized." And what if studies show that, in fact, both drugs can prevent implantation? "Everyone has their natural prejudice," Stephens replied. "I'm going to understand it my way, and the issue is that you should not be forced to do something you believe is immoral."  (emphasis mine)

Yes, whereas most people are able to change their minds or reevaluate their position when confronted with inconvenient facts or glaring contradictions, Rep. Stephens has a "natural prejudice" and will always "understand it (his) way" so don't even bother arguing with him.  Problem? Birth control pill and morning after pill are basically the same thing, they both prevent the ovaries from inconveniently releasing an egg thus preventing any chance of fertilization, or pregnancy. 

Now, if you want to argue about timing or that one is a stronger dose or marketed differently than the other, that's fine, but people like Rep. Stephens want to have it both ways.  Attacking a very widely used and popular choice of contraception, like the pill, is a political loser, but keep Plan B off the shelf and you help restore the value of unwanted pregnancy as a cautionary tale; ie. women should be punished for having sex not geared towards procreation.  While you'll never be able to convince Rep. Stephens that Plan B is not the same as an abortion, the contradictions in the way these two products are treated by and large suggests this is more about women controlling their reproductive life versus the people who think that just promotes promiscuity. 

Wow, I just flipped to the Washington Post and it appears Porter Goss is abruptly stepping down.  Seems like only a few months ago there was a lot of praise coming out of the White House for the job he was doing exerting political control over the CIA and after seeing the number of experienced people who left the Agency since the start of his tenure he must have been making headway.  Anyway, its kinda strange that no one mentioned that he's been somewhat implicated in the poker party/prostitution ring at the Watergate?

Pondering the recent Spanish Star-Spangled Banner controversy I have to agree with Atrios that we indeed are "living in stupid times."  Let's leave history out of this faux controversy, which doesn't bode well for the outraged, and look at those hoping to exploit some sort of immigrant backlash.  I know a lot has happened in the last five years, but don't you think that the President when asked to make a statement might also mention that his 2000 campaign regularly pandered to the Hispanic vote by, yes, singing the national anthem in Spanish at campaign events or that that particular campaign spectacle was so popular that Jon Secada performed the national anthem in Spanish at the first Bush inaugural and somehow nobody thought it was a big deal?  

Lesson:  Okay to use national anthem to pander to ethnic group you hope will help you get elected, not okay to use national anthem to pander to ethnic group if its suddenly a big political issue that offends the more conservative and nativistic element of your political base in an election year.  Who knew?

Kudos to Think Progress for being all over this.  Too bad somebody in the mainstream media couldn't have done a little more research on this instead... although I guess CNN's Ed Henry has finally asked the question.

Update (5/4/06): I meant to do this sooner, but the Washington Post looked into it yesterday and it appears Jon Secada sang "America, the Beautiful" in Spanish at the inaugural.  On everything else, the White House communications people seems to have "CRS" disease.

Conservation at its finest.  Kudos to the enterprising photographer who snapped Denny Hastert getting out of his hydrogen-powered prop vehicle and getting back in that good old gas guzzler of an SUV.  Seems they were doing a press conference at a local gas station talking about our current energy problems, although if its the gas station I'm thinking of, they pretty much could have walked back to Capitol Hill because they were only a few blocks away...not to mention that Metro line nearby? 

(via Ezra at Tapped)

The President usually puts me at a loss but has anybody noticed that his preferred governing style seems to be, "Give me the powers of a Monarch and despite my record so far I'll save the day."   I'm surprised he hasn't just declared that rising gas prices are part of the War on Terror and declared Congress' authorization of force legislation allows him to unilaterally set fuel standards. 

BTW, did anyone else laugh when Bush said in this piece, "... I intend to use it wisely if Congress will give me that authority"? 

Did anybody notice something strange about this piece in TPM Muckraker?  No, not the fact that a lobbyist ran a hooker ring/poker party out of the Watergate geared toward servicing members of Congress or the fact that the current CIA chief and his #3 likely met at Mr. Wilke's party.  No, the oddest statement in this piece comes from former Congressman Charlie Wilson (D-TX) who quote, "says he was there, although he never stuck around for the women."  "Good-time Charlie" Wilson not staying around for the ladies?  I know the man has slowed down in his later years, but anyone whose read Charlie Wilson's War would have a hard time believing that statement.   

Ever wonder why the White House always remains so cocksure of itself and/or out of touch with the national mood in general?  Well, maybe its because nobody there watches anything but Fox News.  Check out this exchange between Scott McClellan and a reporter complaining that he can't get anyone at the White House to turn to another news channel, even on Air Force One!