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Justice Scalia Supports Dictatorships Around the World

It's mind-boggling the logic being applied in politics these days. Why was Scalia one of the worst supreme court appointees in history? How about this, after ruling against someone who refused to make patronage appointments repaying republican politcal favors in New York:

Justice Scalia and the other members of the high court were not persuaded by arguments that “one-party rule” effectively denied some people “a fair shot” at a judicial nomination.

“The reason one-party rule is entrenched may be (and usually is) that voters approve of the positions and candidates that the party regularly puts forward,” Justice Scalia wrote.

Yes, that piece of brilliant logic comes from a supreme court justice. Single party rule is very democratic. Working great in Pakistan. Hugo Chavez would agree. North Korea seems amenable to the concept. It's being demonstrated in practice in Burma. I'm glad the republican-appointed judiciary agrees. Maybe we can entrench that style of democracy in the US.

Unless they all get thrown in jail for fundraising for terrorists. That gives a whole new meaning to "strong on terrorism".

Labels: corruption, republicans, scalia, terrorists

Posted by Mark Wednesday, January 16, 2008 2:31:00 PM | permalink | (0) comments

US Government Plane With 3.7 Tons of Cocaine Crashes in Mexico

A US plane with 3.7 tons of cocaine crashed in Mexico - a plane spotted at Guantanamo Bay and suspected of being used to transport prisoners. i.e. a CIA plane.

The highly successful "war on drugs" must be going smashingly, since the Bush administration appears to be importing more opponents. Nothing like a dummy US company bringing in drugs under the protection of the CIA. This way we can keep up the supply so the hard-working state and local police have someone to arrest.

No wonder Mexico is getting fed up with US complaints about drug imports. Our own government is doing it to us, just like they did during the Iran-contra mess. If you haven't looked at the Lessig's lecture below, now would be a good time.

Labels: Bush, corruption, drugs

Posted by Mark Sunday, October 14, 2007 12:23:00 PM | permalink | (0) comments

Lessig Talks About Corruption

As a followup to the last post about illegal surveillance, here's the new Lessig lecture on how to fight corruption in government.

If you don't know Lawrence Lessig, he's considered one of the top legal minds in the country and a likely supreme court justice at some point in his career, except that he chose to fight the mess of the US intellectual property system instead (e.g. bad patents, lousy copyrights, and a patent process overrun by greed and incompetence) because he felt that it was compromising our society and economy.

Now he's aiming at the bigger target of government corruption. I hope he becomes this era's Elliot Ness. We need one.

Labels: corruption, government, lessig

Posted by Mark 11:31:00 AM | permalink | (0) comments

US Government Started Spying on Us PRIOR to 9/11

This news is huge, and explains why all the telcos want retroactive immunity for breaking the law: former Qwest CEO says the NSA started illegal surveillance in February, 2001. What does this mean for the effectiveness of our government surveillance? This:

If the program was started in February 2001, then it completely failed to provide any information to help prevent the September, 2001 attacks.

Today, all this warrantless search and spying has been justified as a response to 9/11 and the need to "fight terrorism". But it started 8 months prior? And it was a complete failure?

In other words, illegal domestic spying by the Bush administration has nothing to do with terrorism, and trying to justify it after the fact in light of this total failure is a lie. Now we're on the path to getting a new attorney general who's as bad as Gonzales to help cover it up.

There are people in both parties who oppose covering up these actions and giving the telcos retroactive immunity, but not enough. The rampant corruption in this government never seems to stop and it won't if people don't hold their representatives accountable. Call your congresscritter and tell them not to give up more of your rights.

Labels: ATT, Bellsouth, corruption, nsa, surveillance, Verizon

Posted by Mark 11:05:00 AM | permalink | (0) comments