Free Speech, Free Commerce Threatened by "Free Trade" Champion

Go read this at Common Dreams, links at site:

WASHINGTON - October 23 - Hundreds of activist organizations had their internet service turned off last night after the US Chamber of Commerce strong-armed an upstream provider, Hurricane Electric, to pull the plug on The Yes Men and May First / People Link, a 400-member-strong organization with a strong commitment to protecting free speech.

"This is a blow against free speech, and it demonstrates in gory detail the full hypocrisy of the Chamber," said Andy Bichlbaum of The Yes Men. "The only freedom they care about is the economic freedom of large corporations to operate free of the hassles of science, reality, and democracy."

After suffering embarrassment at the hands of the Yes Men on Monday, the Chamber immediately threatened legal action, then followed through Thursday by sending a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice to Hurricane Electric Internet Services. In the DMCA notice, the Chamber claimed that the parody Chamber website operated by The Yes Men constituted copyright infringement, and demanded that the site be shut down immediately and that the creator's service be canceled.

Yes, let's not bother with the legal niceties of actually proving copyright infringement in a court of law. Hell, we might lose. Let's fuck with 'em like we have the right to do that like we would in a perfect Amurikkka. IOKIYAR.

But the Yes Men are not served directly by Hurricane Electric, but by May First / People Link. And when Hurricane Electric shut down the fake Chamber of Commerce site (now relocated), they also took down the websites of 400 other organizations.

May First / People Link fought back. They immediately "mirrored" the site, and then quickly negotiated with Hurricane Electric to restore service to their other members.

I'll bet the 'negotiations' involved phrases like 'restraint of trade' and 'sue yer shorts off'.

This isn't the first time a Yes Men site has found itself targeted by a DMCA complaint brought by a large corporation. The Yes Men have in the past received DMCA notices from Exxon, Dow Chemical, DeBeers, and the New York Times. In each case, the the Yes Men (represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation) refused to comply, and prevailed. Even the George W. Bush campaign sent a complaint to try to interrupt service to GWBush.com, in 2000, resulting in extensive ridicule that culminated in Bush's mind-boggling gaffe that "There ought to be limits to freedom."

So what's next? Complain about your utility company and they shut your electricity off because you can't call the emperor names?

The US Chamber of Commerce isn't really a chamber of commerce. It's just a bunch of throwback right winger lobbyists who think business and trade should be left alone to go its greedy way unfettered by law, science, or reason. There aren't as many of them as they say, and they're losing membership pretty quickly due to their ignorant stance on climate change. They're the wizard behind the curtain pretending they have great power when they actually have none. All they can do is bully and apparently this ISP fell for it. Chumps. Hey dudes, the Reagan/Bush era is over whether you like it or not.

They need to be prosecuted over this deal.

Everybody hates Grayson ...

So you know he's doing the right thing:

...

The problem here is that Grayson makes a lot of people uncomfortable. The right hates him for obvious reasons. He is willing to call them out on their own terms and they just aren't used to that. But let's face it, he also makes the Democratic establishment nervous. He indicts them when he indicts the system of legalized bribery and inside job thievery that takes place among the ruling class of both parties. Many others are just made socially uncomfortable by someone who says impolitic things. (I don't call the Democrats the "don't make trouble" party for nothing.)They all have reason to be out for his head.

...

Keep going, pal. You didn't go to Congress to make friends, you went there to represent your constituents. Do right by them and you'll have nothing to worry about.

It ain't just us ...

Who see Afghanistan as a no-win situation:

When Matthew Hoh joined the Foreign Service early this year, he was exactly the kind of smart civil-military hybrid the administration was looking for to help expand its development efforts in Afghanistan.

...

But last month, in a move that has sent ripples all the way to the White House, Hoh, 36, became the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war, which he had come to believe simply fueled the insurgency.

"I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan," he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department's head of personnel. "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end." [my em]

...

You and me both, pal. The only reason we went there to begin with was to give George Bush and the neocons a stepping stone into Iraq. Any goals they had to turn Afghanistan into some sort of democratic nation and "bring them freedom" was all bullshit to get the American people on a war footing; to tie Saddam to al-Qaeda. Believe you me, were it not their route to Iraq, we wouldn't be there right now. We should call it as such, pack up, and get out.

Great thanks to Nicole for the link.

Hey, There's a Senate Health Care Bill That Doesn't Suck

Go read The Rude One on Reid's inclusion of the public option. Links at site.

In the scheme of things, on the already rigged-to-the-right playing field that we were given, Senator Harry Reid's announcement yesterday that the Senate version of the health care reform bill will contain a public option, with the stupid-states-can-bail opt-out clause, was actually a victory of sorts for the left. Sure, sure, the whole public option debate is about a moderately conservative approach to getting insurance to the uninsured. But, at this point in the degraded American health care system, we could very well have had a bill that said the insurance companies couldn't walk into hospital rooms, shoot patients in the head, and fuck the bullet hole in front of their families. Of course, had such a bill been offered, progressives would be told to suck it up, that it's reform, that at least fewer people would have their head wounds fucked by insurers and isn't that an improvement?

So, relative to the terms of the debate, this is one small, sweet success for the left in the Democratic Party. It's an in-yer-fookin-gob moment to the teabaggers, their faux movement, and their remora-like politicians and media figures. They've been marginalized and shoved out of the debate for the time being.

Of course, for some, as with any perceived victory by liberals, it's just weakness and pandering on the part of Congressional supporters. In a pathetically sad column, Dana Milbank goes after Harry Reid, saying that his announcement of the bill is more about propping up his re-election bid than about doing the right thing. Milbank writes, "As Democratic aides described it, the moment had less to do with health-care policy than with Nevada politics -- and one vulnerable senator's justifiable fear of liberal anger."

There's a notion implicit in what Milbank is saying, beyond his clinging to the bipartisan ghost, that, if liberal groups support what Reid said, it will fail. Milbank mocks Reid for not being sure if he has the votes to pass the legislation. It presupposes something else: that liberals are wrong. It's what much of the media always presupposes, that if liberals want something, it must be against the interests of the country because it's not "moderate" (which really means "conservative"). Somebody's power was gonna be asserted in the bill - left, right, corporate. You just want to raise your hand and say, "Umm, can you tell us what we on the left were wrong about in the last decade or so? No, really, what have you got?" All Milbank has is snide, oh-so-insider-y insinuation and worthless failure-mongering.

Still, for a moment here, and against the sayers of nay, like Milbank (not to mention the insanitoid rantings from the actual right wing), we can be satisfied that progressives didn't roll over, that we stood strong, and that we were able to push that fucking boulder of health care reform forward. The question remaining is whether we're Hercules or Sisyphus.

Let's hope it's not Sisyphus. Been there, done that since the dawn of the Reagan era which has passed for the moment.

Let's also hope Congress realizes that Hercules was not tasked with refilling the Augean stables after he cleaned them.

Springsteen and Jon Stewart too!

Ex-U.S. Attorney & Current Rove Flunky Sinking Fast In NJ Governor Race -- Verse-Case Scenario by Tony Peyser

Voters aren't getting misty about Chris Christie
Of him, they'll soon wash their manos.
In related news, doesn't he look like Bacala
Who was a capo on "The Sopranos?"

To us innocent Westerners, everybody from New Jersey looks like that!

Prosecutorial misconduct in the Chicago Reich

Retired Judge H. Lee Sarokin:

I am always offended and annoyed with the labeling of some recent conduct or person with Nazism or Hitler or drawing analogies with the Holocaust and thereby belittling those horrific events in our history with some current less appalling and even minor occurrences. But I truly believe that the attempt of prosecutors to subpoena "the grades, grading criteria, class syllabus, expense reports and e-mail messages of their journalism students themselves" at Northwestern University warrants and deserves the Gestapo label.

It is a flagrant attempt to intimidate the Medill Innocence Project and other similar projects which have been so successful in overturning wrongful convictions. The alleged justification is that the prosecutors want to determine "whether students believed that they would receive better grades if witnesses they interviewed provided evidence to exonerate Mr. McKinney." So I take it that would mean that every time a detective obtained incriminating evidence, his entire background could be examined in order to determine his motives when interviewing a witness; whether he had received or expected a raise or a promotion; and if so whether he needed money; how much his debt was; what he was paying for rent and alimony, etc. In other words, the scope of the investigation would be extended to the motives of the investigator rather than the witness being investigated and interrogated.

Then there is the equally significant question of whether information directly relating to the guilt or innocence of the defendant can be sought from student journalists. Whether there is or should be a reporter's privilege has been the subject of great debate. If the prosecutor here were seeking incriminating (rather than exonerating) evidence derived from the student interviews, I would gladly withdraw my Gestapo label. At least in that instance, their purpose, but not necessarily their legal position, would be justified and acceptable. But the effort to investigate the students themselves warrants that label. The spokesperson for the prosecutor's office defends its actions:

"At the end of the day, all we're seeking is the same thing these students are: justice and truth." Rather it seems that they are trying to suppress the truth and subvert justice.

I'm all for actual criminals going to prison, but the judge is absolutely right and the prosecutor's office is fulla shit. Prosecutors do not seek 'truth and justice', they seek convictions. It's how they keep score. Sometimes they're not too ethical in how they go about it, and view exculpatory evidence as something to be suppressed in their goal. They have the awesome power of the state behind them in their efforts, whether for good or ill, and don't seem to mind locking up an innocent person occasionally if their conviction rate demands it or it proves too difficult for the police to find the actual criminal. This seems to me to be particularly true in the case of people of color, and what the hell, they all look alike anyway and one is as good as any other.

They don't like having their convictions overturned, either. It makes them look bad and it should.

The flip side of this is that these are journalism students, young and idealistic about their chosen field, which is a good thing as we desperately need more idealism in journalism these days about speaking truth to power. They're learning about the real world and what happens when they take on the establishment. The ones who survive will be the wiser for it.

The only place you'll see this realistic view of prosecutors on TV in our "damn the facts, lock 'em up!" society on any kind of regular basis is in the character of the pathetic ADA Sonya on L&O:SVU, which I only watch out of unrequited lust a sense of loyalty to a former Miss My Home Town who appears on it.

My view of prosecutors comes from years of experience in my town's defendant pool. Once one of the usual suspects, I am now a Defendant Emeritus. Our motto is "I'm gettin' too old for this shit".

Franken on medical bankruptcies

From Firedoglake's YouTube channel:

Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) humbles Hudson Institute dilettante over health care bankruptcies
This during a senate Judiciary sub-committee hearing on bankruptcies driven by catastrophic medical expenses

No shit ...

CNN's ratings have crashed through the basement floor:

...

Wolf Blitzer has two traits, incredible blandness and mixed with stupidity; Larry King is a horrid mix of Charlie Rose and Methuselah. CNN tries to play off the notion it doesn't "spin" news, but what the heck is Lou Dobbs? Dobbs ratings are terrible, so bad that when his contract is up he won't even be able to do the "Tucker Carlson Failure Tour" and hit each and every cable news network while circling the drain. MSNBC doesn't want him, even FoxNews doesn't want him.

If Lou wants to work in TV, it looks like he'll have to do news on Telemundo.

...

I was hoping Wolfie wasn't really as dumb as he acts but I guess it ain't an act (I only tune in when I get home from work to see Jack). When I see Larry King, I half expect him to keel over any second, wondering if paramedics are always waiting just off-camera. I won't get into Fox-wannabe Lou Dobbs.

If CNN wants to recapture its former ratings glory, the first thing to do is pay Ted Turner a lot of money to come back. Then clean house and find some anchors like Bernie Shaw, you know, with some brains in their head instead of a 60 mph wind blowing between their ears.

Even George Will ...

Ain't buying Cheney's schtick anymore:

Conservative columnist George Will went after former Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday, saying the Bush administration could have used some "dithering" before they invaded Iraq.

...

"A bit of dithering might have been in order before we went into Iraq in pursuit of non-existent weapons of mass destruction," Will said on ABC's "This Week. "For a representative of the Bush administration to accuse someone of taking too much time is missing the point. We have much more to fear in this town from hasty than from slow government action."

...

Too bad he couldn't have had this epiphany in '02 and '03 (considering the platform he has, it might have done some good), but then he would have been an un-American traitorous bastid. Today he's a straight shooter.

Great thanks to Maru for the link.

Real good ...

Captain Obvious. From Mr. Supertrain in toto:

According to Dana Bash, the public option made it into the Senate bill because Reid and others started to get worried that if they don't throw a bone to the base voters then they won't turnout and they'll lose their jobs.

I'm glad these assholes are finally getting the fact that without a 'public option', their days in Congress are numbered.

Poking the Cobra

Will Durst via YubaNet.

Now is the time for all good men to put their hands together, pull them apart and rapidly put them back together again, and repeat, to give props to the president for not curling up into a fetal position with a "Kick Me" sign taped to his butt. You know. Like a Democrat.

He's taking it straight to his perceived enemy, calling both Fox News and Rush Limbaugh radical and out of the mainstream, making the two crazier than a preacher at a whorehouse with a parishioner working the door. Because that is exactly what they say about him. Methinks there may be a bad case of "can dish it out but not take it" going around.

Yep. They dish it out, deny it, can't take it, lie about it. Typical wingnut M.O.

Though he lacks military service, Barack Obama seems to grasp the concept of "target acquired." Obviously, this sustained adversarial offensive is all part of a choreographed campaign to marginalize critics. An effort to paint the GOP as a wee bit of a sliver of a party, chock full of pro-rape, white, Southern ditto-heads and fringe-licking extremists. Following the script perfected by that fabled wartime tactician: Karl Rove. If you're going to steal, take from the best.

It must be said that refusing to appear on Fox News does seem to fly in the face of the president's official policy to open a dialogue with all evil-doers. Which normally, he does. Iran. Hamas. North Korea. Syria. Everyone it seems, except Rupert Murdoch. "If we want fair and balanced, we'll get our fair and balanced from MSNBC, thank you very much." Not very Peace Prize-ish if you ask me.

A final concern is all this fresh flummery could cause Rush to bloat up to dirigible size and then explode, which some experts say may force the evacuation of the entire Eastern Seaboard due to fears of Oxycontin contamination. But most importantly, Obama needs to keep in mind the advice my father regularly spouted after his third six-pack: never get in a fight with an ugly person; he's got nothing to lose. You know. Like a Republican.

Freedom's just another word
For nothing left to lose.

I'll be glad when the Repugs set themselves free. Please go read the rest.

"She'll do down on you like a Hoover set on deep pile."

If the thought of gettin' yer knob polished by Olympia Snowe doesn't send ya screaming inta the woods, go read The Rude Pundit.

As for me, a double bleach straight up an' a side of heroin, please.

A coupla Quotes of the Day

From P.M.Carpenter in a larger article about health care:

Open a party's flaps and you get Big Tent Chaos; close them and you get small-minded, ideological insurgency -- either way, and in any combination, you get a legislative brick wall.

Nothing a suitable application of high explosives won't fix, old chap!

Sure, Congressional Democrats are, uh, dispiriting. But even the slightly suggested prospect of a Speaker John Boehner? A Majority Leader Eric Cantor? Pass the Prozac -- and supersize me on that.

A 55 gallon drum oughta do it...

Obama Signs Veterans Health Care Budget Reform

This is from a few days ago. Better late than never...

From Obama-Mamas (I swear!), includes video and full text of the Prez's remarks:

Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director & Founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) announced some “big news” this afternoon. The President signed THE VETERANS HEALTH CARE BUDGET REFORM AND TRANSPARENCY ACT, permanently changing the funding process for VA healthcare.

Inexplicably, the VA used to have to request funds each and every quarter. Probably had something to do with not giving Vets what they had coming for too awfully long after their services to the country with rifles in their hands were no longer required. This now appears to be fixed. I say 'appears' because I'll believe it when I see it. Veterans will understand that because they know that anything involving bennies for the troops is usually as fucked up as Hogan's goat, to use an old apocryphal Marine Corps saying.

From the President's remarks:

We dramatically increased funding for veterans health care: more care for women’s veterans, for our wounded warriors from Iraq and Afghanistan suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, traumatic brain injuries. For 500,000 “Priority 8″ veterans, we’re restoring VA health care coverage.

I'm a Priority 8. These are Vets with no service-connected health problems who were allowed into the VA program in the '90s when the VA was starting to run out of WWII, Korean War, and Vietnam customers with service-connected health issues. Luckily, I needed health benefits before Vets started coming back from Iraq all fucked up and strained the system to the breaking point.

All told, we have made the biggest commitment to veterans — the largest percentage increase in the VA budget — in more than 30 years. (Applause.) And this includes funding the post-9/11 GI Bill — making sure it works as intended so our newest veterans and their families have the chance to pursue their education and live out their dreams.

But we’re here today because a problem that’s gone on for far too long — the delays and uncertainty that often plague funding for veterans’ health care. Over the past two decades, the VA budget has been late almost every year, often by months.

At this very moment, the VA is operating without a budget, making it harder for VA medical centers and clinics to deliver the care our vets need. The hardworking folks at the VA know this. I was there at headquarters this spring. Michelle was there — if I’m not mistaken, Ric — just this Tuesday. It’s frustrating for them and it’s frustrating for our vets who pay the price when budgets are delayed: the new doctors, nurses, and critical staff that aren’t hired; the new medical equipment that isn’t purchased; the construction of new facilities and clinics that isn’t started; the new programs for medical care that are delayed.

This is inexcusable. It’s unacceptable. It’s time for it to stop. And that’s just what we’ll do with this landmark legislation — the Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act.

Good. Finally we may me leaving behind the Bush-era (shudder!) philosophy of 'no pull trigger, no get food'.

Also out of the House and under consideration by the Senate according to Nancy Pelosi's website is:

...the Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act, to help service members take full advantage of homebuyer incentives.

I bought my first house with a Vietnam Era GI Bill loan guarantee. I hope this one passes and helps Vets out.

Veterans are more unique than ever in this society of me-me-me where most people never give a thought to anyone but themselves or recognize that someone actually sacrifices some time and maybe some blood or their life so they can have that despicable attitude without ever having to think about it other than putting a little yellow Chinese magnetic ribbon on their SUVs.

Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines know that in the final analysis, their job is to stop bullets so the rest of Americans don't have to, or even have to think about why they're safe in their beds.

We owe Veterans a hell of a lot more than what they've been getting and I'm glad the Prez signed this bill.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

New Formula Adds 7 Million To Ranks of Poverty
They're now eligible to receive lip service.

Belief in Global Warming Wanes
Most Americans more concerned about Mayan calendar, Illuminati.

Denver Newspaper to Hire Medicinal Marijuana Reviewer
Publisher still sifting through 375,000 résumés.

??? ~ News Quiz ~ ???

T. Boone Pickens says the U. S. is “entitled” to Iraqi oil because:
A ) We spent a trillion dollars to get our hands on it.
B ) Our brave soldiers fought and died for it.
C ) We destroyed their country for it.
D ) Our government is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Exxon/Mobil.
Hint: Actually, Chevron also has a piece.

But war is more important ...

Than health care for all. Right? Greenwald:

...

So according to The Washington Post, dropping bombs on, controlling and occupying Afghanistan -- all while simultaneously ensuring "effective governance, economic development, education, the elimination of corruption, the protection of women's rights" to Afghan citizens in Afghanistan -- is an absolutely vital necessity that must be done no matter the cost. But providing basic services (such as health care) to American citizens, in the U.S., is a secondary priority at best, something totally unnecessary that should wait for a few years or a couple decades until we can afford it and until our various wars are finished, if that ever happens. "U.S. interests in South Asia" are paramount; U.S. interests in the welfare of those in American cities, suburbs and rural areas are an afterthought.

As demented as that sounds, isn't that exactly the priority scheme we've adopted as a country? We're a nation that couldn't even manage to get clean drinking water to our own citizens who were dying in the middle of New Orleans. We have tens of thousands of people dying every year because they lack basic health care coverage. The rich-poor gap continues to expand to third-world levels. And The Post claims that war and "nation-building" in Afghanistan are crucial while health care for Americans is not because "wars, unlike entitlement programs, eventually come to an end."

...

If 45,000 Americans died per annum from a certain cause (from any other cause than the lack of health insurance), you can bet we'd have declared war on it. Instead, we bankrupt ourselves in a war we will never win while Americans lose their homes and become destitute attempting to make and keep themselves healthy.

Summer camp ...

Feels like summer here in NY for the past few days. Yeah, more French music but we had it on while I was working on the Mrs.' office today. This is one of our favorites:

Pierre Perret - Les Jolies Colonies de Vacances*

*The Beautiful Summer Camps

Take warning, 'tards

Rita Hosking is a local folkie in my area code. The other side of the hill down in Gold Country, I think.

Cousin Jack was the name given to the Cornish miners who came to California and Nevada in the 19th century.

This goes out to all Repugs.

Rita Hosking & Cousin Jack ~ Sow It On The Mountain

Thanks to Rita Hosking.

A little Sunday afternoon flatpickin'

Doc Watson plays a guitar pretty good for a guy who's never seen one...

I've always loved the interesting anecdote that Doc developed his now legendary flatpicking style while playing a Les Paul (electric solid body guitar) while he was playing in a Rockabilly band in the 1950's. Additionally, I've heard that he actually didn't even own an acoustic guitar at that time.
...

I've always wondered what kind of reception a picker would get at the National Flatpicking Contest in Winfield Kansas if he were to show up to compete with a Les Paul in hand!

Well, according to the rules, he could play it, he just couldn't plug it in.

Doc Watson ~ Black Mountain Rag

Thanks to UncleSkidder.

Dallas Pendejo Dept. Gives Traffic Tickets For Not Speaking English

Raw Story

Police officers in Dallas, TX have issued at least 39 citations to drivers in the last three years for the non-existent infraction of not speaking English.

Police Chief David Kunkle has apologized publicly to the city's Spanish-speaking community. "I was stunned that this would happen," Kunkle stated. "In my world, you would never tell someone not to speak Spanish."

All pending citations will be dismissed, fines will be returned, and the offices involved will be investigated for dereliction of duty.

It's a sad commentary that people would actually pay fines for bogus tickets out of ignorance and/or fear than go against the system even a little bit.

Go see the photo of the lady who finally questioned this bullshit. Good on ya, Señora Mondragon.

According to WFAA, "Brenda Mondragon said her mother is still learning English. She added that she believes Officer Bromley -- who is still in training -- clearly needs more of it. "

Pinches chotas.

Note: besides being slang for 'cop', chota is also slang for 'taint' and for sitting in the middle in the back seat. Heh.