Tip of the hat to Secrecy News for unearthing this one:
In a "shocking and inexcusable" action that may threaten the institution of congressional intelligence oversight, an anonymous Senator yesterday blocked Senate consideration of the pending Intelligence Authorization Act for FY 2007. No intelligence authorization bill has been passed by Congress for the past two years.
The article itself outs Senator DeMint (R-SC) as the culprit and cites his covering for Bush on secret CIA prisons as the reason. However, they do a better job than I could explaining how this could end Congressional oversight of the intelligence community, so I recommend you Check out the post.
This past midterm I volunteered with one of our new netroots challengers. I spent a LOT of time working data entry. Lots of people with clipboards wandering around in a strange land. Lots of volunteer hours 10-keying results into the computer. Lots of GOTV ninja waiting for data to arrive before planning the next move.
This election is extremely important. The country is just plain jacked up. The Republican controlled Congress is completely dysfunctional. The civil war we're trapped in the middle of over in Iraq is keeping us from pursuing Al-Qaeda and dealing with nuclear proliferation. Our Governor isn't getting hardly anything done for us. And when he does get something done, it's usually against us. It's time for change in Washington and Sacramento. Good thing we get to have our say on November 7th.
I phone banked at the SEIU hall in San Francisco a couple hours ago for Phil Angelides. There were Schwarzenegger supporters and Angelides supporters out front demonstrating. We might be able to use the Schwarzenegger supporters against themselves.
My mother forwarded me an email she recieved from an old family friend who's a pretty staunch Republican about a speech on immigration and multiculturalism. A pretty xenophobic screed.
It was called "W: Death of America (a MUST read)" and it outlined 8 supposed ways to destroy America and California simply by leaving people be. Snip:
First, to destroy America, turn America into a bilingual or multilingual and bicultural country." History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; however, it is a curse for a society to be bilingual....
It goes on from there. My rebuttal below the flip.
The 24 hour news cycle could churn this controversy under. This week we have to tie the Foley/Hastert problem to other problems. We have to show that this is just one example of a pattern of failure, corruption and incompetence.
With Iraq, the republicans chose to turn a blind eye to the evidence clearly stating that Saddam had no WMD's and considered Al Qaeda as much an enemy as we do. With Katrina, the republicans chose to turn a blind eye to the evidence that a storm was gonna wreck New Orleans. And with Foley, the republicans chose to turn a blind eye to evidence that one of their own was an enemy of our youth.
I don't work for the campaign, I've volunteered walking precincts a few times. There could be more of us out there.
Specifically the campaign could use a li'l more love from those of us who live on the west side of the hills. Especially in areas that are just starting to have a volunteer effort in place.
Follow me below for information about carpooling, contacts and such.
During the event, however, McCain made a joke about a monkey flying an airplane, the Hampton Roads Daily Press reports. This comment came as Allen fights criticism for having called opponent Jim Webb's campaign worker "macaca," which is a genus of monkey.
"Islamic fascism is dangerous because all fascism is dangerous. Fascists seek to take control of a people and destroy democracy. This is happening here: in America. But it's from the people you least suspect."
Today, the Open Voting Foundation found a gigantor security hole in Diebold electronic voting machines. Literally, you can flip off certified code with a switch and have it run uncertified code. Then flip it back. No traces.
Anyway, there's more to this expose. In the pics, it appears that there are a few interesting connectors on the mainboard. More below the fold.
...So why aren't there a wealth of amazing and interactive services available for mobile devices? Why is there no MySpace, Craigslist, Amazon, Flikr, or eBay accessible through this network?...
It's simple. Because the cell phone carriers control what services are allowed to use their networks. There is no net neutrality on the cell phone network.
I've been registered as "decline to state" since I turned 18. And now, at 31 I've just dropped a new voter reg form in the mail. And in so doing I've declared myself a Democrat. Read on for why and why now.
In my diary regarding the net neutrality panel at yearlykos I asked rhetorically "where was the EFF" and said I'd follow up with them. I just got back from their office after a nice chat.
These are my updates from friday at YearlyKos, leaving off from yesterdays diary. Cadidates, parties and more. Neutron took better pics than i did so check out his stream.
