So Close to Hearing Bill Clinton

I'm currently staying near Bend, Oregon. If you don't know where that is, basically think 'small town right smack dab in the middle of the state'. Yesterday, Bill Clinton came to Bend and spoke in the gym at Bend High School. I tried to go to the speech, but couldn't because a few thousand too many people showed up.

I think that is pretty cool.

Bill Clinton was scheduled to speak at 5:00pm. We got there at about 4:15pm but didn't get in because the line looked like this:





I didn't think for one second that we would encounter this many people when we were figuring how much time we'd need to get there- and when you think about it, that's pretty sad. I didn't think that enough people, in a city that has 77,780 of them, would go to see the former President of the United States of America whose wife is trying to claim the office of the most powerful, effective, and disastrous President in US history. I didn't think the interest would warrant more people than could fit in a high school gym.

Them's some low expectations.

But you know what? My American neighbors proved me wrong. They showed up by the thousands and behaved like civil, kind, and normal human beings. They proved me wrong in the best possible way.

That's pretty cool.

I'm not proud to admit this but I also not-entirely-secretly expected that when we arrived at the event, we would find a sea of middle-aged women, the majority of them being older than myself, desperate to have a woman President. Thankfully, I was again proven wrong. The people who showed up were high school boys, retired couples, little kids coming along with their parents, people who left work early, young couples, groups of college-aged guys,... definitely not the mob of rolling pin carrying lovesick puppies my MSM poisoned mind had me picturing to find at a Clinton event.

It was a lot of different people, there for many reasons, just like me.

I'm not proud of the stereotype I was picturing, but until being proven wrong by seeing it myself, I can't say that I was really aware of it. Now I am. Now I see clearly how ridiculous that idea was.

A smack in the face by reality. Always pretty cool.

Anyway, by the time we got there, it was quite obvious that we weren't going get in. I'm not going to say that I wasn't really disappointed. I wanted to hear what Bill Clinton would say. I wanted to see what looks were on the other faces in the room. I wanted to hear the real applause level and see what got the biggest responses. I wanted to feel what that event felt like. I wanted a chance to ask a question. I wanted a kick ass blog post full of insights into the campaign. I wanted some kool-aid, baby!

Didn't get it. I might actually be better off.

However, writing about it the next day, there are a few images related to the political conversation that are stuck in my mind:

• The way that I knew the line wasn't moving was that there was a group of about 8 people my age -or maybe a few years younger- all wearing military uniforms who didn't budge the whole time we were there. They were a good line marker. They were pretty easy to spot.
  

• The pretty girl standing behind us in line was holding a copy of My Life by Bill Clinton.

• There was a boy who reminded me of the kid from Two and A Half Men walking up to the high school as we were leaving holding up two Obama signs . On the local news last night, there was a picture of this kid smiling from ear to ear while holding up those signs as people entered the gym at the front of the line.
  

• A good looking guy about my age driving a huge white pick-up truck drove by us and shouted "Vote for McCain! He was a war hero! He was tortured!" as we were crossing the street.
  

Trying to figure out what to make of any of that would a) be useless and b) make my head hurt. So I won't. But I found it all kind of fascinating. Thought I would share.

Basically, there is only one real conclusion that I can draw from this whole experience, and I think it's a good one. It is this:

A lot more people than I thought actually care about what is going on in this country.

Don't you think that's pretty cool?

Iraq War 5 Year Anniversary... Whatever

About a month ago I promised to write a post about the Iraq War on March 19th because it is the 5 year anniversary of that tragic day when we all sat in front of our televisions, watching the greenish night-vision images of the streets of Baghdad, waiting for the military we all finance to start dropping bombs on people who never did a thing to hurt us. I signed up for this blogswarm out of a sense of obligation, because my country started a war 5 long years ago. I have to say something.

Right?

But the closer this day came, as I tried to think of a powerful message to send out into the blogosphere, the more I realized I'm faking it. The anger, the passion, the outrage, the frustration. It's all still there, but there's nothing else to say about it. It's the same old story that's been told now for 5 years straight. Hundreds more Americans have died. Countless more Iraqis have died (because we don't bother to count them). The private contractor to troop ratio has swung more towards the private sector. Billions of more dollars have disappeared.

Blah, blah, blah.

Do we really think a nice day of blogswarming is going to make a damn bit of difference? Do we really think that public displays in Washington DC will matter to the people controlling our country who allow the murder of Iraqis for no true stated reason and who openly steal our collective treasury without a second thought?



I don't. I'm sorry to burst anyone's happy fuzzy 'I did something today' bubble. But our posts and protests aren't doing a thing.

We've written. We've exposed corruption, and fraud, and murder, and lies. We've protested. We've marched, and sat in, and carried signs, and made noise. We've voted. We gave the Democrats the House, and the Senate, and the money, and the momentum.

And what has changed? Bush and Cheney have arranged for permanent bases and a "long term presence".

We're going backwards- and we're a Presidential mood swing away from starting a third war with Iran (because even though we hardly ever talk about it or group-comment on its anniversary, our first war of the century is the still ongoing war in Afghanistan).

I mean, for God's sake, what do any of us really know about the Iraq war, even after all this time? The only things I know for sure are the things I have been told by the people I personally know who have been there. If there is one lesson to be learned in the last five years, it's that when it comes to Iraq and our military endeavors there, our media is largely just regurgitating lies. Therefore, my concrete knowledge can be summed up like this:

• It's hot there in the summer

• Some military guys have shot themselves in order to go home

• There are lots of wild dogs and terrifying looking camel spider bugs -->
  

• Not all the guys who patrol at night get night vision goggles

• There are sandstorms and awesome lightning shows

• PTSD (as in present and post traumatic stress disorder) is treated with a fist full of pills

• American troops' MREs (their meals in a bag) pretty much suck - except for the jambalaya. It's shockingly tasty.

• Money has been distributed within Iraq via backpacks full of cash

• Guys in the military watch a lot of porn while overseas
  

That's about it. That's all I know for sure. What I don't know is how our money is being spent. I don't know what crimes that have been committed by "contractors" in our names. I don't know about the daily lives of the vast majority of our troops, mercenaries, or Iraqi's who are caught in this war turned never-ending occupation. I don't know how re-building is going (if it is going at all). I don't know if our government (including the three Senators running for President) ever intend for us to actually leave and give the Iraqis their country back. I still don't know what the goals of this war have been since the beginning.

What am I supposed to write about? I don't know shit.

The only people that really know what is going on are the people that have been lying to us constantly for over five years. Since they are the only ones in the know, they are the only ones that can stop this.

So, five years have passed. Next year will be six. The year after that will be seven. After that, eight. Nine. 10....

The US embassy in Iraq is a palace.


The US bases are small cities.


The green zone is a US fortress.

Let's stop kidding ourselves.

The Iraq War/Occupation/Clusterfuck is not ending anytime soon and we have no good way to change that.


This isn't to say I'm going to stop writing, protesting, and voting, of course, because our only other option is acceptance of the unacceptable. But my optimism disappears with every March 19th.

However, I'd be thrilled to eat these words if I'm ever proven wrong.


Go here to find the other blogswarm posts

The Future of Little Country Lost

My few regular readers have probably noticed that I've kind of dropped off the radar this month. It's something that is giving me constant anxiety, so even though I was planning to sit on this information for a while longer, I think I owe you guys an explanation. Here it goes:

In the beginning of February, some of you may remember that I was struggling to get posts up because I was having a garage sale. What I didn't tell you was that my boyfriend and I sold almost everything we own. The next week, because we had no furniture, kitchen supplies, or televisions left, I found someone else to take over the lease on our apartment and moved into my father's spare bedroom.

The reason we did all that is because we are taking our savings, selling our cars, and getting out of the country. The first stop will be Europe. We take off April 16th.

We're doing this for a few reasons. First of all, we're both 25 years old (we both turn 26 in the next month) and we want to see the world. Since we don't have any kids or real responsibilities yet, there's no time like the present. My boyfriend has never been to Europe and I love it, so we're going to go there first. We might travel for a few months and move on, or we might try to live there for a while. Who knows. We're purposely going with no plans whatsoever.

But there is also a bigger reason -that I'm not comfortable with admitting but I must -which is that I'm not sure I want to live in the United States. We want to see if there is somewhere else that will lead to a better life.

One of my biggest concern is healthcare, because life isn't that great when you're dead. Like I've said here before, as a writer who needs to buy my own health insurance, if I get really sick or get in some kind of accident, I'm bankrupt. It's that simple. Because of that, I can think of plenty of times that I would have liked to have gone to the doctor's just to check on something, but didn't because I didn't want the bill. Stupid, I know, but it's true. My boyfriend, an engineer who didn't want to go into the weapons industry, was working for a small company that promotes energy efficiency, and it turned out that he had even worse insurance than me! If the only way to have reliable healthcare in this country is to work for a huge, soul-sucking corporation, count me out. On top of that, I can't justify having a child in a place where if I don't have a lot of money, the hospitals would let my child die. It's just not responsible. And I want to have kids. What else can I do other than sell my soul or leave?

Another concern is that I don't think I can have the career I want here in the United States. At least not right now. You guys know the type of stuff I write about. Years ago, when I thought papers like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The LA Times, etc. were covering real news, I figured a bachelors degree in Communications and hard work would get me there. But then I found out that it's almost impossible to get paid to write about... reality. Look at all the established journalists that have been canned for telling the truth. What chance do I have other than either starting my own blog (done) and/or finding somewhere else where news - real news- is still valued? I don't know if a place like that still exists, but I want to find out.

Another reason that I'm shopping for a new home is because of the stranglehold the automobile has on our culture. I grew up in Southern California, which has some of the best weather on earth. It's also a place where people literally spend hours in their cars everyday in bumper to bumper traffic. It's absolutely tragic. Due to the amount of time we are forced to be in our cars (because public transportation is a joke and bike lanes are unbelievably dangerous anywhere other than on the beach) we are generally unhappy, stressed out people. At least I know I am after my 45 minute, 7 mile commute back from the place where I'm currently working. I'd like to find a place where I don't need a car. I had a vehicle-free life for 4 months while living in Germany and didn't miss my car for a second. I want that life back.

Then there's the wars. I don't like them, I don't believe in them, and I don't want to finance them. Since I don't want to be thrown in a Halliburton prison for not paying my taxes, I'm paying them this year and getting the hell out. I'll chip in again when the government stops using my money to kill innocent people.

And finally there's my tin-foil hat. If the Great Depression comes crashing down onto this country, I want Euros in my pocket. If Bush declares martial law and starts rounding up and locking up dissenters, I want to be safely off the continent. If, for whatever reason, my friends and family need somewhere else to go, I want there to be a safe place for them. After the posts I've written in the few short months this blog has existed, I would be a fool to not be preparing myself - even if all my friends and family think I'm kinda nuts.

Do I feel like I'm abandoning my friends and family to an uncertain but dim-looking future? Yup. I struggle with that all the time. But, as my boyfriend said, they haven't and wouldn't listen to me anyway. We've got to do what's best for us.

This doesn't mean that I'm leaving forever or that I'm ever going to stop fighting to save this country. That's where Little Country Lost comes in. My plan since the beginning was to seek out and share news that isn't being reported enough here in the states. I've been able to do it somewhat effectively while living here, through tons of reading and talk radio, but I have no doubt that from Europe, I'll be able to do it much better.

Why do I say that? In 2003, I watched Colon Powell give his speech to the UN before the Iraq War (the one with the mobile weapons units and other such bullshit) from Germany. After the speech, there was a commercial break and then the local news reported that sources out of the UK had reason to believe that his evidence was faulty. I came back to the states just assuming this was common knowledge. Then this information became Breaking News!... in 2006.

We have no idea what is being talked about out there in other parts of the world. I'll be sure to let you know.

So what does that mean for the next few months? Well, until we leave in mid-April, I have a part time job that is taking up a lot of my research time. I had to pick this up in order to make up for the daily decline in the dollar. It's now going to cost me $1.55 to buy 1 Euro. Yesterday, it was $1.54. I don't know how much time I can dedicate to writing between the job, wrapping up loose ends, and spending as much precious time with my friends and family as I possibly can before I go. All I can promise is that I'll write as much as I can - and will stop what I'm doing if the information warrants that reaction.

From there on in, I can't make any promises other than I'll let you know what you need to know. Apparently, a lot of youth hostels (the only accommodations my increasingly worthless savings can afford us) have included internet access, which means it shouldn't be too difficult for me to stay online. Considering I someday want Little Country Lost to be my career, I'll never abandon you guys.

I'm sorry I didn't tell all of you about this sooner. It was nice having a group of people that didn't know what we were planning and would just talk about issues with me for a while. But now you know. I hope you'll come along with me. At the very least, it should be an interesting ride.

It's the Dollar, Stupid!

On Tuesday, March 4th's Thom Hartmann program on Air America Radio, there was another moment of sanity that I would like to share with you guys. If you'll remember, on Tuesday, just about everyone was talking about the mini-Super Tuesday primary (naturally!) and the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (especially the 3am phone call ad. It was quite the twist in the storyline!). Thom Hartmann spent the first two minutes of the show expressing concern that one campaign has gone negative (and he actually made an interesting point, although I don't have the time to transcribe it. You can listen to that specific show for $2 at Air America's website - although the first hour was really the only 'worth the money' part of the show that day, in my opinion. And no- I'm not getting paid to say this.)

But then he said this...

(To let you know, I've changed the language a bit just to make it easier to understand. People speak a lot differently than they write, and do strange thing with words such as "and", "like", and "you know". We also tend to go off on tangents. In places where you see '...' it means I cut out some words unnecessary to the point being made. Things in regular parentheses were added by me because you need to know this stuff to know "storyline". When you see these [ ] around something, it means I've moved this sentence from somewhere else where it makes a bit more sense. The changes are minor, but if you don't believe me, as you probably shouldn't, feel free to check by listening to the show. I'd like to know if someone has a problem with my edit. Feel free to tell me in comments. Keeps me accountable to all of you, which keeps me honest.)

The larger issue, frankly, that concerns me is the economic one. The economy of the United States of America right now. OPEC is meeting as we speak...and the general guess/consensus is that they are probably not going to cut production and they're not going to raise production. The net effect of that- this is from today's Financial Times- "oil hit a record close of $104 a barrel yesterday as the dollar plunged and expectations hardened that OPEC ministers will leave production unchanged when they meet in Vienna tomorrow"... The oil minister of Libya said, "The world has changed. The dollar is down. A hundred dollars is not what it used to be."

And that's the bottom line.

The oil producing countries, the gold producing countries, the copper producing countries, the platinum - I mean, you name the commodity- wheat, rice - right across the board. Anything that is denominated in dollars right now is going up in price. Because what's really happening is not that these things are going up in price. It's not that when Bush came into office oil was 30 bucks a barrel and now its $100 a barrel. It's that when Bush came into office, $30 was worth a barrel of oil and as Bush is leaving office it takes 100 of those pieces of paper that we call 'dollars' to buy a barrel of oil.

The value of our currency is being destroyed by this administration and for a very simple reason. It's because Bush has subscribed to what his father referred to as 'voodoo economics' - Reaganomics. We are watching Reaganomics destroy the currency of the United States. Destroy the economy of the United States. Frankly, I'm starting to get very, very concerned.

This is not a "Hey, run for the hills" kind of rant. I'm not suggesting that at all. No matter what happens we will get through it. We got through the Great Depression, which was pretty bad.

But... My buzzflash.com book of the month... is called Bad Samaritans. It's about how these economic actors- the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO and the believers in, basically, the economic theories of Milton Friedman, Friedrick von Hayek, Tom Friedman - "The Olive Tree and the Lexus", The World is Flat- these people with these economic policies are wrong. No country has ever built itself to be strong without using protectionist measures and without keeping its currency strong. It has always worked that way. These guys come along- and as I've said, it went on steroids with Ronald Reagan and has been continuing for almost 30 years now- we have been seeing, as a consequence, the destruction of the middle class, the erosion of the earning power of wage earners, and enormous wealth being accumulated in this very small number of hands using the corporate forum..

Anyhow, [some governments are doing something about this sort of thing. Again, it's not just the currency. It's also 'how do you protect your economy?']. India -this also in today's Financial Times- "India moves to protect staples supplies". India is now making it illegal to export certain types of rice. They did this late in 2007. From the article by Amy Ye and Javier Blas, "Late in 2007, the Indian government, spurred by the fall in rice reserves and fear of rising food prices banned exports of non-basmati rice." They note also, "domestic demand is also outstripping supply on the back of recent growth. Middle class Indians are eating more and better food. The government has launched major social programs including a national meal plan for children and a food-for-work scheme which have contributed to burgeoning domestic consumption."

So we're looking at even food crisis' around the world.

What really pushed me over the edge is that last night - there's a couple of economic newsletters that I subscribe to and one of them is called Professional Timing Service...In his newsletter from last week, which I got around to reading last night... the author of the Professional Timing Service says, "If you're getting over 2.25%, you should look at what the fund is holding. If one money market fund were to default we could see a run to liquidate them that would put the run on the banks in the 1930s to shame." ... At the same time here, US News and World Report's Luke Mullins and Kimberly Palmer...

"Housing and credit problems are threatening to touch off a troubling new trend: an increase in bank failures. As the banking industry braces for higher loan losses, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC)—which guarantees accounts at more than 8,500 banks and savings associations—has recently increased its tally of "problem" institutions by more than 50 percent, to 76, from the year-earlier period. Meanwhile, the agency is working to bring 25 officials—who served during a wave of bank failures in the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s—out of retirement."

The Controller of the Currency [is] John Dugan ... [and] the FDIC's move is coming after this guy predicted "an increase in bank failures in the coming months." Ben Bernanke (chairman of the Fed) expressed similar concerns in congressional testimony last week but noted that while certain smaller banks, especially those concentrated in real estate lending could go under, the nation's banking giants face less danger....

But its not so much about 'What should the investment strategy be?' but 'Why are our politicians still pursuing- 'Why is the Bush administration?', 'Why are the Republicans?', 'Why are some Democrats?'- still pursuing insane economic and trade policies?'

Ah, sanity. Nice to see you.

Whenever we hear the talking heads discuss the economy, it's always about the band-aids. What's Bernacke going to do? How many dollars will the government hand out as an "economic stimulus"? Can Bush beg Saudi Arabia to give us more oil and drop prices?

None of these conversations address the big picture, which is that Shock Doctrine-ish, Milton Friedman inspired, corporate profit enhancing economic policies are detrimental to the whole world, including the United States because it is causing the rapid decline of the dollar. Our economy may have been boosted for a while because of the unfettered greed of "free trade" (aka: destruction of the rules that govern big business) allowing many people around the world to get crazy rich by participating, but Greedfest had to end sometime. It's basic physics. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Just as the amount of booze consumed in Vegas correlates directly to the pain of the headache and the amount of time needed to function normally again in the following days, the amount of wealth accumulated by The Club was going to eventually correlate directly to the pain felt by those having to sacrifice for it and the amount of time needed to function normally again as a society.

It's reaction time, baby! The hangover ain't gonna be fun.

Here's the thing though. There is a quite simple way to get some water in our system and kick-start our recovery...

While I'm finding my bank account becoming more and more worthless by the day, the heads of Exxon-Mobil, KBR, Halliburton, Raytheon, Northrup-Grumman, AT&T, Verizon, the Bush Family, the Cheney family, the Feinstein family, the Friedman family, the Limbaugh family... they're all doing just fine. In fact, during the past 30 years, they have reaped enormous net gains while normal people, like my parents, look around and wonder where their retirement money has gone.

While normal kids, like myself, after working to get A's and B's in school for almost 20 years, look around and wonder why our college degrees are getting us nothing but debt and dull, soul-sucking desk jobs.

While sick people, like a friend of mine, wonders why being born with an illness means she will never get out from under the weight of her enormous, crushing medical bills.

While we look around and wonder if this is right, they smoke cigars and high-five each other. Life is pretty damn good when the government works for you.

There's a certain group of people that have benefited enormously from the insane economic policies that have been steadily leading to lower qualities of life for the rest of us. The reason that the politicians currently holding office in Washington won't stop these policies is because many of them are the very people who have benefited. They are also the ones who should pay. My regular readers know them as The Club.

But, lucky for us, The Club has quite a bit of water stored up for our hangover. It's called profit. The money on top of the money they actually need to run their companies and their personal lives. They've collected quite a bit of it. Since they don't need it, wouldn't the logical thing to do, as a society, tell them to pay off the debt? After all, their "mistake" in economics is what is sinking the dollar, destroying our economy, and forcing us to wage war after war.

You break it, you bought it... right?

In a sensible world, Exxon-Mobil would turn over every dime they have made in profits in the last 5 years to pay for the Iraq war.

2003 profits = $21.51 billion
2004 profits = $25.3 billion
2005 profits = $36.13 billion
2006 profits = $39.5 billion
2007 profits = $40.6 billion

Give that money back to the country that has lost 3,974 kids in Iraq and 485 in Afghanistan fighting for those profits and $163 trillion will be paid off.

Poof. $163 trillion . Done.

Then, in a just world, we would demand BP, Chevron/Texaco, and all the other smaller oil companies do the same. We also cancel their subsidies (aka: handouts from taxpayer money).

Poof. More debt gone.

In a creative world, then we would take all the workers in the oil industry (clerks, engineers, janitors... all of them) in the United States and offer them similar jobs for the government, which will use those returned profits to build and maintain green infrastructure and a state of the art public transportation system.

Poof. Crippled oil industry, less cars needed, and drastically less carbon emissions. Two birds. One stone.

In a fair world, then KBR, Halliburton, Boeing, Raytheon, and all the other military-industrial-complex war-profiteers that lobbied for and ripped us off during these wars will have to give up the billions (trillions?) that they made in profit during the last 5 years.

Poof. We might actually get to build some new bridges. And some levees.

In a smart world, then we take some of those returned profits and retrofit the factories for GM, Boeing, Raytheon and our other big weapons production factories into factories for electric cars, windmills, under-water tide-mills, and get the energy companies working on creating a strong, secure grid.

Poof. A way for those workers to keep their jobs and to give the companies a needed purpose.

In a sane world, then, if we still needed it, we would demand the return of the profits of the Bush family, the Cheney family, the Rumsfeld family, the Hastert family, the Feinstein family, the Friedman family (both of them), the O'Reilly family, the Limbaugh family - and all the other Forbes' listed Club members that have gotten rich on the backs of others because they promoted and mis-lead people into supporting "free trade" policies and war. Give them enough to live modestly off of, call the whole thing a wash (if we don't want to throw them all in prison), and move on.

Poof. The democracy of the United States of America has a chance.

And if some of these big companies go under, forcing local communities and businesses to find creative solutions to their absences ... well ... cool. As Thom Hartmann said in his review of Bad Samaritans, this is the "Monopoly" game on steroids. I'm OK with more houses on the board than hotels.

But as long as we let these rich politicians and their helpers tell us that their disastrous economic policies and never-ending series of wars are for our own good and we don't scream, "Bullshit!" loud and clear, they will keep that money in their pockets. It's time they start to fear the mobs of people who will hang out, and play music, and generally enjoy themselves, all day everyday, on their front lawns (as some people have done to Nancy Pelosi). It's time they start to fear getting harassed (non-violently, of course) every time they go to a restaurant (like when Sean Hannity got shamed out of a NH restaurant). It's time they start to feel like social pariahs. It's time they start to get loudly, publicly, repeatedly booed.

Violence is not needed. Shame is a powerful motivator too.

What are we waiting for? Bread lines and soup kitchens? Come on, Americans! Stand up and start humiliating! Its time for the carpet baggers to feel like the scum that they are. Only when that behavior is accompanied by shame and social isolation will any of them be inclined to knock it off.

Plus, it would make for some hilarious YouTube.

Naomi Wolf's Choice for President

During January and February, I wrote a series titled the 10 Steps Towards Closing a Society. I wrote the posts, but the ideas behind it were not my own. It was based on the work of Naomi Wolf, specifically an article she wrote for The Guardian called Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps.

Naomi Wolf has written a piece for The Huffington Post that I think anyone that read my series might be interested in, especially considering that the Texas/Ohio primaries on Tuesday may very well determine the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.

Some of the links in the following text are from Naomi Wolf's original post. I have also added a couple that seem relevant.

Naomi Wolf: Why Barack Obama Got My Vote

I just flew back from Australia, where I was speaking about the erosions of our civil liberties. Believe me, the rest of the world is agog at our inaction as what makes us Americans is being set aflame; and they are more scared of what an unsheathed US could do to the rest of the world than we are.

They also get more news out in the rest of the world about these depredations than we do here in our media bubble.

For instance: As the Australian reported earlier this week, New South Wales Justice of the Peace Mamdouh Habib is suing the Australian federal government -- which under the Howard administration had colluded with the US in committing various abuses against detainees and due process -- for having allowed him to be arrested wrongly in Pakistan in 2001, kidnapped and sent illegally to Egypt. There this Justice of the Peace was illegally imprisoned and tortured for six months. After that the United States held him for FOUR YEARS in Guantanamo. His complaint notes that he is a law-abiding citizen who was swept up under false pretexts. "It turns out that Habib has incontrovertible proof of his good standing," the Australian noted. "[H]e is a fully accredited Justice of the Peace in NSW. A search of the NSW Attorney General's Department website reveals that not only Habib, but his wife Maha Habib, is a JP." To become justice of the peace in New South Wales, the Australian added, "you have to be NOMINATED BY A MEMBER OF THE NSW PARLIAMENT and submit to a full character inquiry, including a criminal records check by NSW Police." (ALL CAPS mine)

Get that? A justice of the peace in a developed-world democracy. Had you heard of that?

Me neither.

This gave me chills because, once again, it is so scarily predictable: when I first started trying to alert people about the ramifications of the Military Commissions Act, and how it gives the US power to seize innocent people off the street simply by the President's naming them 'enemy combatants', I pointed out that nothing would prevent the US from rendering an EU minister off the streets of Belgium -- and flying him or her to a `black site' for torture -- if he or she opposed a US pipeline plan, or was prosecuting US war criminals such as Rumsfeld in the Hague. And that the clear lesson of Germany and other closing societies such as Argentina is that once those 'disappearances' begin, that is it; few are then brave enough to object -- and at that point objection is too weak to be effective anyway.

They rendered an Australian justice of the peace -- and that rendition did not even make the US news. So how can we be sure there is something so sacred about an American justice of the peace or even a judge? Say, an American judge who ruled against the Military Commissions?

This kind of leap to the next level of threat to us as citizens seems implausible to many people because they assume that there is an orderly and effective democratic response to this kind of eruption of lawlessness --- (oh gosh, actually it isn't lawlessness any more, now is it) -- or, I should say, to this kind of abrupt shift to a heightened level of state sadism; Well -- someone would bring charges!, one assumes. Or: someone would sue! Or: surely the ACLU would do something!

But seriously, I ask you to consider: What would indeed happen as a countermove if a US justice of the peace or a judge was rendered? The Bar Association would protest? Scary. Intimidating.

I raise this as an urgent matter in part because of a recent conference call I participated in with Hamid Khan, the head of the courageous movement of Pakistani lawyers and judges. In the call, which he made in spite of great danger to himself and probably to his family, there was a moment when he described the internecine warfare and factionalism of the opposition to Musharraf. In his voice was the tired, frustrated sound I have heard so often in this country when groups on the left JUST CAN'T GET IT TOGETHER. No matter how urgent the need is. Whereas in Pakistan's case they were having trouble getting the anti-Musharraf forces to act together -- and there was so much at stake.

What became clear from that call is that we are fools to assume that if the government makes a dramatically violent move, which all the laws I have highlighted now make entirely possible, that anyone will know clearly what to do or how to implement what should be done in response. In Pakistan, it was clear, in spite of this powerful grassroots movement, no one had a clear Plan B when Musharraf declared a state of emergency and began rounding up the lawyers and arresting the judges. No one had an unquestioned leadership structure in place for the countermovement; no one had a subcontinent-sized phone tree or a nice big -- oh, nation-sized -- conference room in which to meet.

We need to consider this right now when we think about our own country: In a sudden sharp move on the part of the US government, even a `small' one such as this imagined scenario of the rendition of a handful of US judges, there is nothing a democracy is prepared effectively to do; that is the nature of democracy. There is no War Room for democracy; no one has an organizational chart detailing who would do what; no one would have a master strategy.

When people think about the many laws that invite this kind of overreaching now in the US -- the National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD 51), for instance, that would give the President control over all branches of government -- executive, legislative, and judicial -- in the event of an emergency -- they just assume that, gosh darn it, WE WON'T TAKE IT. And it may well be that we wouldn't want to take it and we would be willing in great numbers to run to the ramparts. But here is what I have to report to you, that the conference call made clear, and my Pakistani friend would confirm this: in a crackdown, even in the best-case scenario, NO ONE KNOWS WHERE THE RAMPARTS ARE.

Many people have expressed faith in the Military. I am sure most of our military are patriots and cherish freedom; but who would direct a resistance to such an edict? What would be the chain of command? What about ordnance? Many people have expressed faith in the courts, but if they went after the judges -- just a handful of judges -- as they did in Pakistan, would the judiciary prevail? How? All closed societies have judiciaries; the judges just know which way to rule.

Many others assume the media will cover such a depredation and rouse people; well, ideally -- but just days ago we saw a curious blackout of a 60 Minutes report on Don Siegelman, the Democrat probably wrongly jailed in Alabama, by a TV affiliate with close ties to the White House.

Resistance? Sure, but how? The trouble with an aggressive move in any one of these directions on the part of the government is that THEY HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT WHAT IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN and we have not. They aren't surprised or shocked; we are. They have a plan; we don't.

So surely, better to roll back these terrifying laws. Just in case.

I have noted it is always true that societies that begin by torturing people at the margins end up torturing members of their own citizenry. Consider again: the Oscar-winning documentary for this year, Taxi to the Dark Side, which proves that any of us can become a monster torturer, following orders, and proves also that the edict to torture was systemic and came from the very top, won't be seen by most Americans. This is because the Discovery Channel bought it hoping to air it -- but then backed out. (Its affiliates have close ties to the military-industrial complex.) Will the Oscar win get it on the airwaves? Doubtful. Watch it somehow and drag all your friends to see it. Then consider that what happened to Dilawar, an innocent Afghani taxi driver, could happen to you or me.

When I went to see it in a theatre there were six people present. So America can't know in time what is being done to others to take steps to protect ourselves.

Just a quick pause here to let you guys know that HBO has purchased the rights to Taxi to the Dark Side and will air it in September 2008.

What is leadership? Leadership means getting out in front of where people are and waking them up. Right now, given these violent possible threats to us and our families, we are sleeping.

Which is why I am formally coming out of the closet with my support for Senator Barack Obama. Of all the candidates running now, he is the leader on understanding the threat to the Constitution and actually taking action, not just mouthing soundbites, on the need to deny torturers space in our nation and to restore the rule of law.

"Lawyers for Gitmo detainees endorse Obama," read a recent headline on the Boston Globe's political blog. In the article, reporter Charlie Savage notes that "More than 80 volunteer lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainees today endorsed Illinois Senator Barack Obama's presidential bid. The attorneys said in a joint statement that they believed Obama was the best choice to roll back the Bush-Cheney administration's detention policies in the war on terrorism and thereby to 'restore the rule of law, demonstrate our commitment to human rights, and repair our reputation in the world community.'"

The lawyers who signed this letter -- prominent names on the list included Washington lawyer Thomas Wilner, retired federal appeals court judge John Gibbons, and retired Rear Admiral Donald Guter, who was the Navy's top JAG officer from 2000 to 2002 -- applauded Obama for having stood up in 2006 against aspects of the Military Commissions Act. Unfortunately, his fight was ultimately unsuccessful -- which is why we are all still in danger. But unlike other candidates he truly fought and he understood the nature of the danger: "When we were walking the halls of the Capitol trying to win over enough Senators to beat back the Administration's bill, Senator Obama made his key staffers and even his offices available to help us," the lawyers wrote. "Senator Obama worked with us to count the votes, and he personally lobbied colleagues who worried about the political ramifications of voting to preserve habeas corpus for the men held at Guantanamo. He has understood that our strength as a nation stems from our commitment to our core values, and that we are strong enough to protect both our security and those values. Senator Obama demonstrated real leadership then and since, continuing to raise Guantanamo and habeas corpus in his speeches and in the debates."

Senator Clinton also opposed the law. In 2006 she said: "If enacted, this law would give license to this Administration to pick people up off the streets of the United States and hold them indefinitely without charges and without legal recourse." She gets the danger; many of her colleagues do too. But this issue requires bold language and action. Senator Clinton has not foregrounded the issue of the subversion of the rule of law in her appearances or speeches; and I am very VERY sorry to say that she did not oppose torture until she opposed it.

I say this with regret: She and her husband really know how to run a country; they delivered eight years of peace and prosperity. I know her to be a skilled politician and motivated by sincere love of country. Mrs. Clinton would be a terrific executive -- in a stable democracy. But that is not enough right now. These are times that should try men's souls -- and women's also. In a closing society, a leader has to be willing to face down evil, engage it and call it by its name.

Remember: when activists started to push hard to raise awareness of the dangers of torture and indefinite detention, many on the Hill were scared to join the fight because it was then politically unpopular. But to me, if you are not really against torture -- always and under every political change in climate, and let us note that former torture victim and prisoner of war John McCain shamefully dropped his fight against the torture loopholes in the law as well -- then you are not really, in my view, fit to be an American President.

Gender has nothing to do with it. Race has nothing to do with it.

Integrity has something to do with it.

That is why Barack Obama has my vote. Of all the leading candidates, he is the only one on these issues who has consistently acted like a true American.

And if I hear -- as I am likely to -- from legions of US feminists outraged at me for choosing this man over that woman, I will gladly sit down and explain why I am certain that these issues are so urgent that they overshadow absolutely everything else.

Anyway, the man is a feminist; he has a woman-friendly policy vision. And while it would be a thrill to see the first woman elected President, in the last analysis, a real feminist need not define people or support on the basis of gender. Certainly not when our house -- with the precious Constitution held without representation within it -- is burning down.

Naomi Wolf is the author of The End of America (Chelsea Green) and the co-founder of the American Freedom Campaign.

Kurt Vonnegut - Cold Turkey

I apologize for not posting more this week. I've been a little strapped for cash and have had to pick up a part time job, so it's taking me longer to do research. This is a lazy post, I'm aware, but while I work on my next post (which will be a summary of the Don Siegelman situation), I thought you guys might enjoy this article that I found which was published in In These Times in May 2004 by the late Kurt Vonnegut.

It's a much needed affirmation that we are not the ones who are insane.

Many years ago, I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become. the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of. We dreamed of such an America during the Great Depression, when there were no jobs. And then we fought and often died for that dream during the Second World War, when there was no peace.

But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America’s becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.

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When you get to my age, if you get to my age, which is 81, and if you have reproduced, you will find yourself asking your own children, who are themselves middle-aged, what life is all about. I have seven kids, four of them adopted.

Many of you reading this are probably the same age as my grandchildren. They, like you, are being royally shafted and lied to by our Baby Boomer corporations and government.

I put my big question about life to my biological son Mark. Mark is a pediatrician, and author of a memoir, The Eden Express. It is about his crackup, straightjacket and padded cell stuff, from which he recovered sufficiently to graduate from Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Vonnegut said this to his doddering old dad: “Father, we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.” So I pass that on to you. Write it down, and put it in your computer, so you can forget it.

I have to say that’s a pretty good sound bite, almost as good as, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” A lot of people think Jesus said that, because it is so much the sort of thing Jesus liked to say. But it was actually said by Confucius, a Chinese philosopher, 500 years before there was that greatest and most humane of human beings, named Jesus Christ.

The Chinese also gave us, via Marco Polo, pasta and the formula for gunpowder. The Chinese were so dumb they only used gunpowder for fireworks. And everybody was so dumb back then that nobody in either hemisphere even knew that there was another one.

But back to people, like Confucius and Jesus and my son the doctor, Mark, who’ve said how we could behave more humanely, and maybe make the world a less painful place. One of my favorites is Eugene Debs, from Terre Haute in my native state of Indiana. Get a load of this:

Eugene Debs, who died back in 1926, when I was only 4, ran 5 times as the Socialist Party candidate for president, winning 900,000 votes, 6 percent of the popular vote, in 1912, if you can imagine such a ballot. He had this to say while campaigning:

As long as there is a lower class, I am in it.
As long as there is a criminal element, I’m of it.
As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

Doesn’t anything socialistic make you want to throw up? Like great public schools or health insurance for all?

How about Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes?

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. …

And so on.

Not exactly planks in a Republican platform. Not exactly Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney stuff.

For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.

“Blessed are the merciful” in a courtroom? “Blessed are the peacemakers” in the Pentagon? Give me a break!

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There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.

But, when you stop to think about it, only a nut case would want to be a human being, if he or she had a choice. Such treacherous, untrustworthy, lying and greedy animals we are!

I was born a human being in 1922 A.D. What does “A.D.” signify? That commemorates an inmate of this lunatic asylum we call Earth who was nailed to a wooden cross by a bunch of other inmates. With him still conscious, they hammered spikes through his wrists and insteps, and into the wood. Then they set the cross upright, so he dangled up there where even the shortest person in the crowd could see him writhing this way and that.

Can you imagine people doing such a thing to a person?

No problem. That’s entertainment. Ask the devout Roman Catholic Mel Gibson, who, as an act of piety, has just made a fortune with a movie about how Jesus was tortured. Never mind what Jesus said.

During the reign of King Henry the Eighth, founder of the Church of England, he had a counterfeiter boiled alive in public. Show biz again.

Mel Gibson’s next movie should be The Counterfeiter. Box office records will again be broken.

One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.

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And what did the great British historian Edward Gibbon, 1737-1794 A.D., have to say about the human record so far? He said, “History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.”

The same can be said about this morning’s edition of the New York Times.

The French-Algerian writer Albert Camus, who won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, wrote, “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.”

So there’s another barrel of laughs from literature. Camus died in an automobile accident. His dates? 1913-1960 A.D.

Listen. All great literature is about what a bummer it is to be a human being: Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, The Red Badge of Courage, the Iliad and the Odyssey, Crime and Punishment, the Bible and The Charge of the Light Brigade.

But I have to say this in defense of humankind: No matter in what era in history, including the Garden of Eden, everybody just got there. And, except for the Garden of Eden, there were already all these crazy games going on, which could make you act crazy, even if you weren’t crazy to begin with. Some of the games that were already going on when you got here were love and hate, liberalism and conservatism, automobiles and credit cards, golf and girls’ basketball.

Even crazier than golf, though, is modern American politics, where, thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.

Actually, this same sort of thing happened to the people of England generations ago, and Sir William Gilbert, of the radical team of Gilbert and Sullivan, wrote these words for a song about it back then:

I often think it’s comical
How nature always does contrive
That every boy and every gal
That’s born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative.

Which one are you in this country? It’s practically a law of life that you have to be one or the other? If you aren’t one or the other, you might as well be a doughnut.

If some of you still haven’t decided, I’ll make it easy for you.

If you want to take my guns away from me, and you’re all for murdering fetuses, and love it when homosexuals marry each other, and want to give them kitchen appliances at their showers, and you’re for the poor, you’re a liberal.

If you are against those perversions and for the rich, you’re a conservative.

What could be simpler?

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My government’s got a war on drugs. But get this: The two most widely abused and addictive and destructive of all substances are both perfectly legal.

One, of course, is ethyl alcohol. And President George W. Bush, no less, and by his own admission, was smashed or tiddley-poo or four sheets to the wind a good deal of the time from when he was 16 until he was 41. When he was 41, he says, Jesus appeared to him and made him knock off the sauce, stop gargling nose paint.

Other drunks have seen pink elephants.

And do you know why I think he is so pissed off at Arabs? They invented algebra. Arabs also invented the numbers we use, including a symbol for nothing, which nobody else had ever had before. You think Arabs are dumb? Try doing long division with Roman numerals.

We’re spreading democracy, are we? Same way European explorers brought Christianity to the Indians, what we now call “Native Americans.”

How ungrateful they were! How ungrateful are the people of Baghdad today.

So let’s give another big tax cut to the super-rich. That’ll teach bin Laden a lesson he won’t soon forget. Hail to the Chief.

That chief and his cohorts have as little to do with Democracy as the Europeans had to do with Christianity. We the people have absolutely no say in whatever they choose to do next. In case you haven’t noticed, they’ve already cleaned out the treasury, passing it out to pals in the war and national security rackets, leaving your generation and the next one with a perfectly enormous debt that you’ll be asked to repay.

Nobody let out a peep when they did that to you, because they have disconnected every burglar alarm in the Constitution: The House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the FBI, the free press (which, having been embedded, has forsaken the First Amendment) and We the People.

About my own history of foreign substance abuse. I’ve been a coward about heroin and cocaine and LSD and so on, afraid they might put me over the edge. I did smoke a joint of marijuana one time with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, just to be sociable. It didn’t seem to do anything to me, one way or the other, so I never did it again. And by the grace of God, or whatever, I am not an alcoholic, largely a matter of genes. I take a couple of drinks now and then, and will do it again tonight. But two is my limit. No problem.

I am of course notoriously hooked on cigarettes. I keep hoping the things will kill me. A fire at one end and a fool at the other.

But I’ll tell you one thing: I once had a high that not even crack cocaine could match. That was when I got my first driver’s license! Look out, world, here comes Kurt Vonnegut.

And my car back then, a Studebaker, as I recall, was powered, as are almost all means of transportation and other machinery today, and electric power plants and furnaces, by the most abused and addictive and destructive drugs of all: fossil fuels.

When you got here, even when I got here, the industrialized world was already hopelessly hooked on fossil fuels, and very soon now there won’t be any more of those. Cold turkey.

Can I tell you the truth? I mean this isn’t like TV news, is it?

Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey.

And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on.

The Truth About FISA & Telecom Immunity

With the state of today’s media, I think it’s important to circulate the few bits of cold, hard truth that are available. One such example of a straightforward presentation of the facts was the explanation of the FISA controversy given by Air America radio show host Randi Rhodes on Valentine’s Day. (I have a subscription to Air America Premium, which allows me to listen to their broadcasts commercial free on my IPod, which is something I highly recommend for anyone who is looking for a source of news that doesn’t involve staring at a computer screen.) The following is a portion of Randi Rhodes’ February 14th show which will explain the entire FISA/telecom immunity situation in a way that will make perfect sense to anyone that is currently confused. To put the following in context, this show was broadcast the day before the Protect America Act revision to FISA expired.

On the morning in question, Randi started her show by playing a clip of our President greeting the country (on Valentines Day) like this:

PRESIDENT BUSH: “Good morning. At this moment, somewhere in the world, terrorists are planning new attacks on our country.”

Here is Randi’s reaction to that lovely Valentines Day "they're coming to get you!" greeting from our President:

This is all about this stupid FISA bill. It’s going to expire. Do you know that? It’s going to expire on Friday. That’s a good thing. That’s a good thing. You know, I get cranky in the morning too when I don’t get retroactive immunity for stuff I’ve done. But that’s no reason to threaten a whole country...Over the past, oh, I’ll say 7 years – now I know you all think this happened post-9/11 but it didn’t. It didn’t. The National Security Agency was wiretapping Americans way before we were attacked on 9/11 and doing it without getting warrants. See, therein lies the dilemma. The President had been lying about it for a very long time.



(Voice of President Bush) “Anytime you hear the United States government talk about ‘wiretap’, it requires – a wiretap requires- a court order… Constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland because we value the Constitution.”

Well, that was then and this is now. Now, all of a sudden, the President is trying to cover up the crime of wiretapping people without getting warrants, so he wants retroactive immunity to be given to a group of people known as “the telecoms” who are also one of the top five biggest lobbyists in Washington, hence the state of amnesia, and your phone bill…

You know, the Senate gave him what he wanted. The House, like I told you yesterday, has not given him what he wanted.

I did find out why the Democrats voted not to give a 21 day extension to the debate and the reason is –not because they are as bad as the Republicans, no – the reason is because they don’t want to talk about it anymore. They don’t want to give retroactive immunity, case closed. Their legislation does not contain it, never will, don’t need to talk about it for 21 more days...

So, the extension failed yesterday in the House. The House wants to go ahead with its version which does not provide retroactive immunity to the telecoms.

And the only reason to give retroactive immunity is because a crime has been committed, otherwise why would you need immunity? The very words themselves imply a crime has been committed and we need to immunize you telecoms against the crime you did.

Now if you don’t believe that this started before 9/11, I urge you to look up a document titled “Transition 2001”. It was the document that was issued to the Bush administration incoming when the previous administration was on its way out the door. The Bush administration decided that the NSA could participate in all kinds of warrant-less wiretapping and that would be fine with them. Except we thought that the wiretapping that the NSA would conduct, if it ever picked up an American citizen and that citizen had done nothing, that those pieces of information would be destroyed. But that’s not what’s happened here.

I'm going to pause here because Randi didn't tell us (in this particular rant) exactly what is happening, and I think it's an important thing to know. I bring this up a lot, I know, but I don't think the vast majority of people in this country know about the splitter cabinets at AT&T. Here's the post I wrote giving the full story, but basically, the splitter cabinets are dumb devices that have been installed in at least 5 locations (San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Diego) that copy everything that is transmitted over AT&T's fiber optic lines. Emails, text messages, internet searches, phone calls - everything. The splitter cabinets also copy the information of non-AT&T customers that pass through the AT&T network - and any hubs that the AT&T network connects to. These are just the splitter cabinets that we know of at AT&T.

The Bush administration and his protectors have been copying and keeping everything that goes over that telecom's wires. God only knows how many more have been installed by AT&T and the other telecoms that are now currently in need of immunity. That is what is happening here. That is what they don't want (more of) us to know.

So, let’s just say that you don’t need immunity unless you committed a crime. The reason why the President is so desperate for this telecom immunity, now, is because there are at least 40 lawsuits in federal court being brought by people who feel that the have been erroneously, illegally, wiretapped. And when you bring a lawsuit, there’s this period of time before you actually go to court – it takes a long time to meander through the court system – and there’s this thing that happens. Lawyers like to call it “discovery”. Like the space shuttle. And it is an apt name for the space shuttle because it is exploring the unknown... So, discovery of these lawsuits that are pending will go away if the telecom companies are immunized, and they don’t have to go to court...

By the way, we know about the AT&T splitter cabinets because of a technician named Mark Klein who testified in a lawsuit titled Hepting v. AT&T, a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation "accusing the telecom giant of violating the law and the privacy of its customers by collaborating with the National Security Agency (NSA) in its massive, illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans' communications."

And so this is what this is all about. Stopping lawsuits. That’s all its about. It has absolutely no effect on intelligence gathering…And the President’s position is that we’re all gonna die unless the telecoms get the immunity. Sort of telling you a lie, well it is a lie, that if the telecoms don’t get immunity he can’t get them warrants to wiretap people who might want to hurt us. Is he lazy or does he think we’re stupid?

Or is he a just a criminal trying to cover his ass?

So the next time you see some Congressman (or President) stand up and demand immunity for the poor, defenseless, gigantic, uber-wealthy, criminal telecom companies, the first and only question that should pop into your mind is, "What crime is this person trying to cover up and how exactly is this person involved?"

They took an oath to defend and protect the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.

Nothing. Else. Matters. More.

You should then remember that person's name because he or she will have just revealed to you that he or she is a member of The Club and has "embraced the dark side". That person is not on your team. Don't trust anything else that person says. Then do what you can, be it through political donations or good, old-fashioned shit-talking to boot 'em off the island known as Washington DC.

Every member of the House is up for re-election this year and 23 members of the Senate. We pretty much know that our Presidential nominees are going to be Barack Obama and John McCain (thanks to Hillary's meltdown). If you insist upon focusing on the election (as opposed to the criminals that are still in office and doing daily harm) it's time to focus on the Congressional races now.