WiserBlog

None Dare Call it Treason

"Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason."


"When this unprecedented act first occurred, the president could have immediately demanded the resignation of all persons even tangentially involved. Or, at a minimum, he could have suspended the security clearances of these persons and placed them on administrative leave. Such methods are routine with police forces throughout the country. That would have at least sent the right message around the globe, that we take the security of those risking their lives on behalf of the United States seriously. Instead, we have flooded the foreign airwaves with two years of inaction, political rhetoric, ignorance, and partisan bickering. That's the wrong message. In doing so we have not lessened, but increased the threat to the security and safety of the people of the United States."
--James Marcinkowski

If evidence now coming to light proves that Karl Rove was, indeed, behind the outing of Valerie Plame, he has outdone himself this time.  This bit of handiwork goes beyond his usual dirty tricks. It goes beyond a mere crime.  If the allegations are true, Rove has committed treason.  It is just as simple and brazen and obvious (like the agenda of this administration) as that.  Is that the problem?  Is it just too simple and brazen and obvious that people refuse to digest it?

Below the entire testimony of
James Marcinkowski July 22, 2005:

What is important now is not who wins or loses the political battle or who may or may not be indicted; rather, it is a question of how we will go about protecting the citizens of this country in a very dangerous world. The undisputed fact is that we have irreparably damaged our capability to collect human intelligence and thereby significantly diminished our capability to protect the American people.

Understandable to all Americans is a simple, incontrovertible, but damning truth: the United States government exposed the identity of a clandestine officer working for the CIA. This is not just another partisan "dust-up" between political parties. This unprecedented act will have far-reaching consequences for covert operations around the world. Equally disastrous is that from the time of that first damning act, we have continued on a course of self-inflicted wounds by government officials who have refused to take any responsibility, have played hide-and-seek with the truth and engaged in semantic parlor games for more than two years, all at the expense of the safety of the American people. No government official has that right.

"you can ask it a million different ways"

McClellan: “There’s an investigation going on … you brought up Karl’s name. Let’s be very clear. I thought — I said it was a ridiculous suggestion, I said it’s simply not true that he was involved in leaking classified information, and — nor, did he condone that kind of activity.”

Reporter: Just to be clear, whether Rove condoned it or not, he did -- he also did not participate in that type of activity, as far as you're aware? Is that correct?

McClellan: There is an investigation going on to pull together all that information. I've answered this question. And you can ask it a million different ways, but my response is still going to be the same.

--Press Brieflng by Scott McClellan, October 1, 2003

Hot Sauce

What’s with hot sauce and it’s attractiveness to business ventures of a controversial nature?

One of the very first WiserBlog entries ever posted back in March 2004 was about a particularly offensive hot sauce label I came across in a souvenir shop in Arizona. It was Mac Daddy Hot Ass Sauce: "Mac Daddy's got the finest shit on the street, man. Look here, my shit is hotter than any Ho' I ever turned out! ...Pimpin' ain't easy…but someone's got to do it!" Yum.

Okay, you’re right, that’s what I get for being in an Arizona souvenir shop in the first place.  But anyway…

From Morning Edition, July 20, 2005:
“ When the Watts riots broke out 40 years ago, it's safe to say none of the Afro-American revolutionaries shouting "Burn, baby, burn" expected it to show up on the label of a hot sauce. In 2005, we know better. Of course former Black Panthers want to trademark the expression to sell a hot sauce. The old Panthers say it's to raise money for at-risk youth. It would be called Burn Baby Burn: A Taste of the '60s Revolutionary Hot Sauce.”

Apparently the sauce bottles will ship with a tag noting milestones in the history of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, formed in 1966 by Huey Newton and his college classmate Bobby Seale. I think would be great if people could be educated about the importance of the Black Panther Party and the good works it was responsible for, but I don’t know how the “Burn Baby Burn” hot sauce is going to go over.  Guess we’ll see.

 

Body Burden

In "Body Burden," The Environmental Working Group (EWG) reports on its study of 10 babies--subsequently born in August and September 2004--who were studied in utero. Their umbilical cord blood was collected randomly by the Red Cross and analyzed by researchers at two laboratories.

What was found in the blood of these babies who hadn't yet made contact with our polluted environment? Well... things like pesticides and wastes from "burning coal, gasoline and garbage." Mmmm. Nice.

All in all, the researchers found at least 287 industrial chemicals and pollutants in the umbilical cord blood and EWG insists that had they tested for a "broader array of chemicals, [they] would almost certainly have detected far more than 287."

Later this month, the CDC will release a report, the "Third National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals," which experts suspect will corroborate the findings of the EWG report.

We all know about fetal alcohol syndrome and crack babies and the tragic birth defects resulting from a mother's exposure to drugs and alcohol.  But, you know, until now, doctors haven't really been doing much screening for... gasoline in the blood!

Of course, that isn't going to change any time soon because even the best labs have not yet developed methods to "test human tissues for the vast majority of chemicals on the market."  And, at a cost of $10,000 per blood sample to test, even labs that are equipped cannot afford to pursue this kind of study.

I mean… it’s not like the chemical companies are going to fund them.

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Let's go no more a-Roving, shall we?

because it's [too] late into the night...*

I mean, isn't it a little late in the day for anyone to still be condoning the acts of this administration?

I am moving this October post about Rove to the top of the list because I've been talking to some people about Rove and I don't feel like enumerating again the various slimy, not to mention ILLEGAL? things he has done over the years.  As a matter of fact, I am going to move some other things to the front because, well, I just don't have time to write right now, but I have noticed that a number of posts are quite relevant.  I admit... it's also a cheap attempt to keep people reading WiserBlog during my hiatus.

Initially, I wrote the Rove post because I was apprehensive that the Kerry campaign, nor the collective public memory were equipped to intelligently handle any Rove-manufactured "October Surprises."  At the time, I was not willing to fully resign myself to the fact that (1) the Democratic Party's lack of conviction and political courage would render any skill or preparation pointless  and (2) the tactics of Rove and others like him (sadly, yes, Rove is only the most infamous of the ruthless, devoid-of-all-integrity idealogues controlling the administration and the Republican Party) had already locked up the election. 

Of course, the October Surpise was that there would be no need for an October Surprise--the election would simply be stolen. And no one who could actually do anything about it would care. Who needs an October Surprise when you've  been working your magic on the very machinery of our "democracy" every month for the last four years.  Four decades, really... if you really want to appreciate the full scope of law and policy that the neocons are determined to undo. But that's a tirade for another post. 

For now, I thought I'd refresh people's memory about Rove... bearing in mind that for every slimeball act that has been documented, there are probably a hundred that will go to various graves. If Rove (or whatever Bush operative is eventually given reponsibility for Plame's outing) gets a pass for this and the other hideous things that are sure to come to light, can anyone doubt that this administration no longer even pretends to represent anything except how corrupt and criminally self-serving a government can become and still be considered a democracy?

When is it enough already?  Most "people" would be in jail for the kinds things that Mr. Rovel, for example, has done. Meanwhile, they have made Karl the most powerful advisor in the White House. Of course, much of his effectiveness has come from having the privilege of orchestrating with near invisibility .  Maybe we'll soon see just how much.

Excerpt from "Over Rove's Dead Body," October 1, 2004 at 04:20 PM

The “Mark of Rove”

That's what they call it in political circles... Although somehow I suspect that Rove would have turned out the way he did regardless, the story of Rove always begins with Donald Segretti.  So, we’ll start there too. Rove cut his teeth under the more savage than sage tutelage of Donald Segretti, a Nixon advisor.  Segretti was responsible for, among other things, causing Senator Edward Muskie to break down in tears during the 1972 over lies Segretti leaked to a New Hampshire newspaper.  He also forged letters on fake Muskie letterhead and wreaked havoc that way as well.  Segretti also put the screws to George McGovern, George Wallace, Shirley Chisholm, and McGovern's first vice presidential choice, Senator Tom Eagleton.  Yes, Segretti would have much to teach young Karl.

 

Don't Plame Him

Reposted from June 3, 2004:

Don't Plame Him
June 3, 2004

A couple of things I wanted to note about Bush's reaction to the investigation into who "outed" Valerie Plame as a CIA operative:

(1) Bush has already retained a private, criminal lawyer and

(2) Bush has said that he doubts that the government's investigation will will able ito identify the leak. Why is that? He has had absolute confidence that he will find Saddam and his sons, WMDs, Osama bin Laden--or whomever in whatever deep hole in whatever foreign country they may be. In fact, Mr. Bush has had absolute confidence in just about everything he has decided that this country has needed to do

Even if such confident assertions are just the bluster required to keep people committed to his "course" or simply optimistic. I find it very, very interesting that a President who has been so confident, so unwilling to admit mistakes, so certain of victory on all fronts (if only because god is on his side) would say--at the start of the investigation--that he doubts that we will discover the leak--among a handful of high level officials in the country, the administration, he presides over.  In short, this guy wouldn't express his doubts even if he had the sense to have any.  Unless... well, you tell me.

CVS' ExtraCare

             

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 20, 2005      

CASPIAN Warns of CVS Loyalty Card Security Hole

 Pharmacy chain's ExtraCare card offers up embarrassing secrets       

             
                                                                    

Use your CVS ExtraCare card to buy items like condoms, incontinence pants or an enema kit and coworkers, family members and possibly even your mechanic could know. All they need is access to the ExtraCare loyalty card number dangling from your keychain or printed on your receipt, the first three letters of your last name, and your zip code.              Katherine Albrecht, founder and director of CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering) demonstrated the CVS security hole to several reporters, including Jack Neff, whose account of the company's lax controls over consumer information will run in an Advertising Age article today.

Albrecht asked volunteer reporters to sign up for a CVS ExtraCare card and purchase health-related items. Then she asked only for their card numbers and zip codes. Armed with that information, she accessed the CVS website and requested that the company send a list of purchased items to a temporary email account she had set up for the purpose.

In each case, CVS responded within 24 hours, sending her lists detailing purchases of sensitive items like Trojan Twisted Pleasure condoms, a home pregnancy test kit, and enema kits. Information in the emails included products purchased, date of purchase, price paid, and UPC numbers. An example email is posted at the organization's website at www.nocards.org.

CVS offers the email purchase histories so consumers can prove their over-the-counter medical product purchases qualify for a federal tax program. Qualifying purchases can be reimbursed through a so-called flexible spending account, or FSA. However, CVS makes the information available on every ExtraCare cardholder, whether they request the service or not.

"CVS is collecting massive amounts of information on people through its ExtraCare card, and this program was apparently created as a way to justify their enormous databases to consumers," says Albrecht. "But the scheme backfired and has given us all a sense of how insecure the data really is. This demonstration underscores why companies should not be  collecting purchase information like this in the first place."

Albrecht believes CVS should shut down the program and contact all ExtraCare card holders to let them know that their information has been placed at risk. "They've subjected potentially millions of their customers to privacy invasion," she noted.

Notifying customers of the data security hole could be quite an undertaking for the Woonsocket, RI, based company. They have over 5,000 stores in 36 states and have reportedly issued over 50 million of the cards.

      

CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering)   is a grass-roots consumer group fighting retail surveillance schemes since 1999. With thousands of members in all 50 U.S. states and over 30 countriesworldwide, CASPIAN seeks to educate consumers about marketing strategies that invade their privacy and to encourage privacy-conscious shopping habits across the retail spectrum.

For more information, see:
      http://www.nocards.org

Supreme Court Justice O'Connor Retiring

or

"But...Alberto Hasn't Even Gotten Used to His New Job Yet"

Actually, whether O'Connor is replaced by a known---or as yet unknown--instrument of evil, things have gone from very bad to even worse.

Here's  the CNN article posted a minute ago:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court and a key swing vote on issues such as abortion and the death penalty, said Friday she is retiring.

O'Connor, 75, said she will leave before the start of the court's next term in October, or when the Senate confirms her successor. There was no immediate word from the White House on who might be nominated to replace O'Connor.

It's been 11 years since the last opening on the court, one of the longest uninterrupted stretches in history. O'Connor's decision gives Bush his first opportunity to appoint a justice.

"This is to inform you of my decision to retire from my position as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, effective upon the nomination and confirmation of my successor. It has been a great privilege indeed to have served as a member of the court for 24 terms. I will leave it with enormous respect for the integrity of the court and its role under our constitutional structure."

...