We had a bit of server trouble, but we have returned.

Its painful to look at the transcript to Homeland Security chief Chertoff's press conference today because its pretty obvious nobody in the White House talked to DHS about the details of the President's new border control strategy or how it should be implemented before he went on TV last night.

 Our double secret correspondent just saw Scooter Libby leave his lawyers at Patton Boggs only a few minutes ago.  Does this mean an indictment for Rove?  Cheney going down?  Only time will tell.

Okay, so we do a crappy job of providing pre and neo-natal care to all Americans and we have the highest infant mortality rate among industrialized nations, but what to do?  While some might suggest reforming the health care system, moving towards universal coverage, or putting more money into programs targeting poor and at-risk pregnant women, the federal government has instead decided to set guidelines saying women need to think about and take care of themselves as if they were always on the verge of being pregnant.....oh, and doctors should always treat all women as if they might get pregnant.  Of course this applies whether the women plan to get pregnant or not, because obviously the problem with high infant mortality rates is all these unplanned pregnancies and not the fact that over 17 million women in this country have no health insurance or put off seeing doctors because they can't afford to.  Christ, these truly are strange times we live in.

This is making the rounds, but enforcing the border with Mexico has been such a priority for this administration, that they proposed adding an additional 10,000 border agents in last year's budget and then decided not to because of "budget constraints".  Extending capital gains and dividend tax cuts to the tune of $70 billion...ah, no problem!

This headline should probably read: Bush to base: "I hear you!" 

This is called motive.

Bush breaks the magical 30% barrier.

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.