Biffster’s World

There are places where you expect to see people lashing out against the Bush administration’s civil liberties abuses, including DailyKos. And then there are places where you don’t expect it, such as on PC guru John C. Dvorak’s blog, Dvorak Uncensored. Dvorak takes the Bush administration to task in an entry titled “Erosion of Freedoms x 2″:

We old folks used to talk about Nixon and his imperial presidency. He was a lightweight in comparison to what’s going on these days.Erosion #1: DOJ: NSA Could’ve Monitored Lawyers’ Calls

The National Security Agency could have legally monitored ordinarily confidential communications between doctors and patients or attorneys and their clients, the Justice Department said Friday of its controversial warrantless surveillance program.

Responding to questions from Congress, the department also said that it sees no prohibition to using information collected under the NSA’s program in court.

Erosion #2: The Job of the FBI…

On March 14, [Common Cause President Chellie] Pingree participated on a panel on open government sponsored by the League of Women Voters.

A week after the panel, an FBI agent contacted the local League president, Susan Gilbert, to raise questions about Pingree’s published remarks at the panel.

For some reason, Roger Waters “The Tide Is Turning” keeps playing over and over in my head. I don’t know whether that gives me hope or makes me sad, though…

Some good news out of Washington. Finally.  The Senate judiciary committee approved the Kennedy/McCain guest worker bill! Next step is, of course debate and a vote in front of the full Senate. But this is a huge step forward towards a moderate, sane immigration policy. The key parts of the bill are:

In general, the bill is designed to strengthen enforcement of U.S. borders, regulate the flow into the country of so-called guest workers and determine the legal future of the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally.

The bill would double the Border Patrol and authorizes a “virtual wall” of unmanned vehicles, cameras and sensors to monitor the U.S.-Mexico border.

It also allows more visas for nurses and agriculture workers, and shelters humanitarian organizations from prosecution if they provide non-emergency assistance to illegal residents.

The most controversial provision would permit illegal aliens currently in the country to apply for citizenship without first having to return home, a process that would take at least six years or more. They would have to pay a fine, learn English, study American civics, demonstrate they had paid their taxes and take their place behind other applicants for citizenship, according to aides to Kennedy.

Of course, there are those on the Senate floor who don’t like to take the sane, moderate path:

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., seeking re-election this fall in his border state, said the bill offered amnesty to illegal immigrants, and sought unsuccessfully to insert tougher provisions. He told fellow committee members that the economy would turn sour some day and Americans workers would want the jobs that now go to illegal immigrants. They will ask, “how could you have let this happen,” he added.

[..]

“Well over 60 percent of Americans in all the polls I see think it’s OK to have temporary workers, but you do not have to make them citizens,” said Kyl.

“We have a fundamental difference between the way you look at them and the way I look at them,” Kennedy observed later.

Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain, a potential presidential contender who worked with Kennedy on the issue, told reporters the street demonstrations had made an impact. “All those people who were demonstrating are not here illegally. They are the children and grandchildren” of those who may have been, he said.

The committee met as several thousand demonstrators rallied at the foot of the Capitol. Many were members of the clergy who donned handcuffs and sang “We Shall Overcome,” the unofficial anthem of the civil rights era.

After a weekend of enormous rallies — a crowd of as many as 500,000 demonstrators in Los Angeles — thousands of students walked out of class in California and Texas to protest proposals to crack down on illegal immigrants.

NOTE: Apparently I forgot to post this a few weeks back… 

Apparently, the Pentagon believes that only terrorists would dare wear a digital wristwatch. And that wearing a digital watch is enough evidence to get your ass thrown into Guantanamo!

Wearing a Casio is cited among the unclassified evidence against at least eight of the detainees whose transcripts were released by the Pentagon after a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by The Associated Press.The prisoners, who stand accused of links to al-Qaida or to the Taliban in Afghanistan, say they have been shocked that wearing a cheap watch sold worldwide could be used against them.
“Millions and millions of people have these types of Casio watches,” Mazin Salih Musaid, a Saudi detainee, told his military tribunal.

Even guards at Guantanamo wear Casios, noted Usama Hassan Ahmend Abu Kabir, a Jordanian accused of belonging to a group linked to al-Qaida, the terror organization that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

“I have a Casio watch due to the fact that they are inexpensive and they last a long time,” the 34-year-old detainee told a tribunal. “I like my watch because it is durable. It had a calculator and was waterproof, and before prayers we have to wash up all the way to my elbows.”

Now, does anyone else but me find this extremely scary?

Apparently, if the Democratic leadership isn’t going to speak out against the Bush administration, then George Clooney is going to speak out against the Democratic leadership:

“The fear of (being) criticized can be paralyzing. Just look at the way so many Democrats caved in the run up to the war,” Clooney said Monday in a profanity-laced posting on The Huffington Post blog site.

“In 2003, a lot of us were saying, `Where is the link between Saddam and bin Laden? What does Iraq have to do with 9/11?”‘ Clooney wrote. “We have to agree that it’s not unpatriotic to hold our leaders accountable and to speak out.”

This is so very true. But I can’t just feel sorry for the Democrats. It is up to them to make a stand against the administration. The mood of the country has changed, the Democrats need to grow a spine and lead.

Ugh ugh ugh…. you know that the Catholic church is doing something wrong when members of its own organizations (in this case Catholic charities) resign in protest of the Church’s new medeival views on gay adoption:

The state’s four Catholic bishops said this month that the law threatens the church’s religious freedom by forcing it to do something it considers immoral.

Eight members of Catholic Charities board later stepped down in protest of the bishops’ stance. The 42-member board had voted unanimously in December to continue considering gay households for adoptions.

Catholic Charities has been involved in adoptions for about a century but has had a contract with the state for the past two decades to provide such services to children with severe emotional and physical needs. Its contract with the state expires June 30.

In that time, Catholic Charities has placed 720 children in adoptive homes, including 13 who were placed with same-sex couples, Catholic Charities said.

I have a mini-rant that I keep meaning to expand into a full-blown essay. One day, I am going to write it. But the basics are a list of differences between neoconservatives and liberals. And one of the main differences regards the right to free speech. Liberals not just tolerate a person’s right to free speech, they fight for it. Neoconservatives, on the other hand, thing that the right to free speech is spurious, and that not everyone deserves that right. In fact, they’ll go so far as to try to get good teachers fired for words that the teachers say.

Neoconservatives fear free speech. They fear open minds. They fear critical thinking. But what’s worse, they try to stifle these. They try to force silence on those who dare to voice an opinion they disagree with. And they want teachers, instructors and professors to only teach from one point-of-view: the neoconservative point of view.

Fortunately, there are rays of hope in the younger generation:

Students walked out of Overland High School Thursday in protest over the case of a teacher criticized for airing his political views during class.

Most of the students walked out in support of geography teacher Jay Bennish, whose comments against the Bush Administration’s war policy were audiotaped by a student. Bennish has been placed on paid leave by the Cherry Creek School District.

But what was so horrible, that the teacher had to be put on paid leave? Bennish’s harshest comments were, “‘I’m not saying Bush and Hitler are exactly the same, obviously they’re not. OK? But there are some eerie similarities to the tones that they use.’” Harsh? Sure. And it brings to mind Jon Stewart’s rant about over-using comparisons to Hitler. But is there anything in that rant to cause such an uproar?

Exposing kids to different viewpoints is a good thing! It gives them information they need to do some critical thinking, to figure out what they believe, as opposed to what they are told they should believe.

But then again, critical thinking isn’t part of the neoconservative agenda.

Damn, I need to find a way to blog more frequently. I was listening to the Jay Marvin show on Monday, and heard Gary Lindstrom announe that he is officially dropping out of the race for the Democratic nomination for governor. Unfortunately, since I couldn’t find time to blog it, ColoradoPols beat me to it. By two full days!

Democrat Gary Lindstrom reportedly announced this morning on Jay Marvin’s radio show that he would drop out of the race for governor and not run for re-election to his House seat.

Interesting that Lindstrom also isn’t going to run for re-election in the Colorado House of Representatives. From the Rocky Mountain News:

Lindstrom also announced that he would not run for re-election to the state legislature. He said the health of his wife, who has multiple sclerosis, was a major factor in his decision to end his political career.

“My wife is virtually paralyzed from the neck down,” he said. “I know what it takes to run a campaign, and I need to spend more time with her.”

I actually admire Lindstrom for making this choice. I would do the same thing in his position. Politics is second: family should always come first.