Politics

As reported at the Reason blog: GIBSON: According to a recent Rasmussen Report poll, 35 percent of Democrats think President Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks beforehand. The so-called 9/11 Truth Movement has already infected people like Rosie O’Donnell and one in three Democrats, and many other people, Americans evidently, including Congressman Ron Paul. With me now is FOX News contributor and syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin. So, Michelle, this stuns me. It wouldn’t have stunned me had it come up in the Democratic debate, but it’s a jaw-dropper to see it in the Republican debate. ...

An excellent John Hodgman appearance on The Daily Show. Here’s the context of the final Bush quotation: I like the idea of people running for office. There’s a positive effect when you run for office. Maybe some will run for office and say, vote for me, I look forward to blowing up America. I don’t know, I don’t know if that will be their platform or not. But it’s – I don’t think so. I think people who generally run for office say, vote for me, I’m looking forward to fixing your potholes, or making sure you got bread on the table. And so – but Hezbollah is on the terrorist list for a reason, and remain on the terrorist list for a reason. Our position has not changed on Hezbollah.Crazy.

Anthony Sciubba, a student at Higley High School, was featured in a profile in the school yearbook. That profile edited out some of the statement he submitted–specifically removing a statement where he gave credit to God for his accomplishments. He was told in advance that his bio would contain no references to God. The school and yearbook editors have failed to understand that voluntary, student-initiated speech attributed to no one but the student does not violate the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution. There was no establishment clause violation prevented by this censorship; the school was wrong to prohibit it. More detail and mostly uninformed commentary on this issue may be found at the Arizona Republic’s website. One commenter appealed to an Illinois federal court case in defense of the school–De La Rosa v. Rock Island School District, where a student’s cover artwork included the phrase “God Bless America.” The difference is that in that case, the expression was on the cover of the yearbook, implying that the school endorsed the expression. Ed Brayton points out that a similar case in Michigan was resolved in favor of the student with the help of the ACLU.

My buyer’s remorse about contributing to his campaign has been greatly reduced, if not eliminated. MR. GOLER: Congressman Paul, I believe you are the only man on the stage who opposes the war in Iraq, who would bring the troops home as quickly as – almost immediately, sir. Are you out of step with your party? Is your party out of step with the rest of the world? If either of those is the case, why are you seeking its nomination? ...

Susan Ralston, who was personal assistant to Jack Abramoff before she was special assistant to the president reporting to Karl Rove, is seeking immunity in order to testify before Rep. Henry Waxman’s Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. With any luck, this will be sufficient to tie Rove to the Abramoff scandal and result in criminal charges against him.

The Senate Judiciary committee subpoenaed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to appear before them yesterday at 2 p.m. EDT with copies of all of Karl Rove’s emails regarding the U.S. Attorney scandal. He didn’t show up. Here’s the letter from chairman Patrick Leahy and ranking member Arlen Specter to Gonzales, which includes this paragraph: You ignored the subpoena, did not come forward today, did not produce the documents and did not even offer an explanation for your noncompliance. Your action today is in defiance of the Committee’s subpoena without explanation of any legal basis for doing so.Hasn’t the Bush administration already made it abundantly clear that it does not consider itself bound by the rule of law? UPDATE: The Department of Justice has responded to the subpoena by producing a single Karl Rove email sent on February 28, 2007.

There’s now much discussion in the blogosphere about former Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey’s testimony before Congress. Comey related that in 2004, the warrantless wiretapping program had come up for reauthorization–the previous authorization was due to expire the following day. Comey, filling in for Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was in the hospital for emergency gall bladder surgery, refused to sign Bush’s order for reauthorization. Bush secretly sent his White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andrew Card to Ashcroft’s hospital bedside to get his signature, but an aide to Ashcroft tipped off Comey. Comey rushed to the hospital, and obtained from FBI Director Robert Mueller a directive to Ashcroft’s security staff to not remove Comey even if Gonzales and Card insisted upon it. At the hospital, Ashcroft also refused to sign the reauthorization directive. Comey related that the entire senior staff of the Department of Justice, including himself and FBI Director Mueller, were prepared to resign over the issue. Had that happened–in an election year, no less–perhaps the outcome of that election would have been different. Bush consulted directly with Comey and Mueller, and gave them assurances that the program would be modified to comply with Department of Justice recommendations, and Comey signed the reauthorization several weeks later. It’s not clear whether it continued to operate without authorization for that period of weeks. A Talking Points Memo reader comments: ...

Kearny board of education member Paul Castelli has apparently decided that the town hasn’t had enough controversy over history teacher David Paskiewicz’s misuse of the classroom as an evangelizing pulpit, and has gone public with a denunciation of the board’s conciliatory statement from last week. The Observer reports: “Matthew LaClair is absolutely not a hero,” Castelli said, referring to a statement the Board made last week that praised Matthew for standing up for his rights. “His parents are opportunists and it’s a combination of both Matthew and his parents. Though I leave it up to the people to decide for themselves, it’s pretty obvious that he (Matt’s father, Paul) did just as much speaking as his son did.” In addition to seeing Matt as far from a hero, Castelli also said he was not convinced the Anti-Defamation League’s curriculum was what was needed. The ADL will soon be instructing students and teachers on the parameters involved in the separation of church and state. “I would have been more comfortable if there had been more specifics as to what they would be teaching the students and teachers,” Castelli said. “It was really unclear what they were actually going to do.” He also says the Board was never given a clear resolution to a Board-directed investigation into suspected harassment against Matthew. Matthew claimed to have been harassed numerous times by classmates, including a death threat on his Myspace Web page — an incident that was investigated by the Kearny Police Department. Finally, Castelli says that despite suspected closure in the matter with the agreement, he still feels the Board is susceptible to being named in a lawsuit, should someone (he didn’t mention anyone or entity specifically) decide to sue the LaClairs.Who, and on what grounds, would someone sue the LaClairs? They’ve done nothing wrong–all they’ve done is insist that the board of education do the right thing about improper classroom behavior by a teacher whose initial defense was to deny what he had been recorded doing. Castelli is also quoted at the Observer saying that he doesn’t feel sorry for Matthew LaClair for receiving taunts and threats from classmates, stating (incorrectly) that “Throughout the ordeal, he was asked to identify the kids who had done these things to him, and not once did he identify anyone. How could anyone be expected to take action if they didn’t know whom they were taking action against? It wasn’t possible. And it wasn’t possible to feel sorry for someone unless they were willing to give up the information we needed to ensure a proper investigation took place.” As the Observer points out, “Matthew has said it was impossible to identify possible threat makers because often, taunts would be hurled from within a large group of kids. Additionally, Matthew did identify, for police, the student who made the Myspace death threat against him several months ago.”

Tomorrow night on PBS’s Frontline is “Spying on the Homefront”: FRONTLINE addresses an issue of major consequence for all Americans: Is the Bush administration’s domestic war on terrorism jeopardizing our civil liberties? Reporter Hedrick Smith presents new material on how the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program works and examines clashing viewpoints on whether the president has violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and infringed on constitutional protections. In another dramatic story, the program shows how the FBI vacuumed up records on 250,000 ordinary Americans who chose Las Vegas as the destination for their Christmas-New Year’s holiday, and the subsequent revelation that the FBI has misused National Security Letters to gather information. Probing such projects as Total Information Awareness, and its little known successors, Smith discloses that even former government intelligence officials now worry that the combination of new security threats, advances in communications technologies, and radical interpretations of presidential authority may be threatening the privacy of Americans.(Via the Electronic Frontier Foundation.)

Today’s the day that providers of VoIP and broadband Internet in the United States must comply with CALEA, mandating that they supply a way for law enforcement to eavesdrop on any communications carried over those mechanisms. I suspect many VoIP providers are in compliance but that fewer broadband Internet providers are, since the draft standard for CALEA for data over broadband Internet only came out in March. (And if you’d like to read the standard, it will cost you $164 for the PDF or $185 for a paper copy.) Bob Hagen at the Global Crossing blog points out some free tools that can be used to protect your privacy.