The Goldwaters Endorse Obama

Ever since the primary campaign for President began, what seems so long ago, I have related to readers of Emptywheel and FDL just how strong of a distaste that long time native Arizonans have always had for John McCain. It is not just the "new McCain", that is a euphemism for silly big time journalists that got snookered by the self serving kiss up, beat down blowhard. The John Sidney McCain III that you see lashing out in anger and careening wildly is the same McCain we have always known. And the "we" includes legendary Arizona conservative Republicans Barry Goldwater and John Rhodes. John McCain does not possess the personal honor or character necessary to lead this nation.

Today, the direct descendants of Barry Goldwater vote the conscience of their conservative grandfather. CC Goldwater has this damning message to the McCain Campaign:

My grandfather had undying respect for the U.S. Constitution, and an understanding of its true meanings.

There always have been a glimmer of hope that someday, someone would "race through the gate" full steam in Goldwater style. Unfortunately, this hasn’t happened, and the Republican brand has been tarnished in a shameless effort to gain votes and appeal to the lowest emotion, fear. Nothing about McCain, except for maybe a uniform, compares to the same ideology of what Goldwater stood for as a politician. The McCain/Palin plan is to appear diverse and inclusive, using women and minorities to push an agenda that makes us all financially vulnerable, fearful, and less safe.

When you see the candidate’s in political ads, you can’t help but be reminded of the 1964 presidential campaign of Johnson/Goldwater, the ‘origin of spin’, that twists the truth and obscures what really matters. Nothing about the Republican ticket offers the hope America needs to regain it’s standing in the world, that’s why we’re going to support Barack Obama. I think that Obama has shown his ability and integrity.

After the last eight years, there’s a lot of clean up do. Roll up your sleeves, Senators Obama and Biden, and we Goldwaters will roll ours up with you.

And Alison Goldwater Ross chimed in with another devastating blow to the gut of the dishonorable cad that falsely claims the mantle of her grandfather:

Meanwhile, the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s "Political Insider" blog reported Tuesday that Alison Goldwater Ross, another granddaughter, already cast an early ballot for Obama in Georgia’s Fulton County.

“Coming from a political family, I had insight into a lot of things,” Goldwater Ross told the newspaper, pointedly adding that doesn’t "have respect" for McCain.

Take it from the longtime native Arizonans that have known, watched, and lived through nearly three decades of the infinite angry ambition of John McCain. The man does not possess the requisite morals, temperament nor dedicated skills to serve as President of the United States. Vote Obama.

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84 replies
  1. perris says:

    bmaz, one heartwarming post I must say

    the only thing I fear is that obama will indeed “reach across the aisle”

    that is exactly what should NOT happen, the republicans can do the reaching if they want re-election, the demmocrats need not and better not if they want to remain in their seat of power

  2. TheraP says:

    bmaz, I love your posts and comments on this topic. And all I can say, probably again, is that your view of this man so fits all the psychological dynamics visible in his behavior and dovetailing with everything I’ve read about him. A phony to the core. And totally full of himself. And it’s always a pleasure to have you confirm that. I have never trusted this guy.

    Karma is really dishing it out to him this year!

  3. bmaz says:

    Okay guys, I just about never say this, but let’s see if we can’t bury this dagger into the beast. Hit that Digg button! Thanks.

  4. Mary says:

    OT – further to your 16 words piece, did you see the second half of this article?

    Remember how the defense made it pretty clear that all the allegations – pretty much everything GOV was relying on to claim these guys were involved in a terrorist plot – came from a disgruntled and imprisioned ex-inlaw of one, along with GOV’s allegations to the court that honorifics like “Abu Mohammed” were aliases, only used in Muslim societies by terrorists?

    Eh – apparently gov, when faced with having to file a responsive pleading, is now at the “we withdraw” stage.

    In a cryptic filing made public on Tuesday, the Justice Department said that in a classified filing it had withdrawn “reliance on certain assertions.”

    Robert C. Kirsch, a lawyer for the six men, said he could not discuss the classified filing. But he said that in an unclassified conversation, Justice Department lawyers had told him that after more than six years, the government did not plan to introduce any evidence about the embassy bomb plot.

    • bmaz says:

      Yeah, I did see that. What I don’t understand is why judges don’t start throwing these asswipes that unethically bring this crap into their court into the stocks.

    • chetnolian says:

      And have you seen what the English High Court said yesterday about the US approach to the Binyam Mohamed case? Wish I could do links. It’s on Guardian unlimited

  5. jdmckay says:

    Thanks bmaz, I think that’s pretty heartwarming.

    I lived in Phx for entire ’80s, was a floor covering contractor at the time. Most of the work in Maricopa county then was doing cracker box tract homes. I had strong rep for hi quality work and thusly got real good share of hi end (expensive: eg. a lousy tradesman f’ing/u $50k of material bad risk) work.

    I did Goldwater’s house on mnt… ‘88 I think. Barry was getting old, but still very sharp and ambulatory, but a little slow. Myself & crew was in their house for 4 days, he was there for most of it. We talked a lot, I really liked the guy very much. He had integrity written all over him.

    Those were transformational year for me… I still call ‘em my knowledge-quest years. So w/out really knowing all that much about him then, the conversation was extremely engaging and riveting… an experience I’ve been grateful for all these years now.

    I don’t know, don’t want to count chickens before they’re hatched, but I’m seeing stuff just like your Goldwater store here in ABQ. Our GOTV for early voting is showing very big increase in Obama voters in my precincts over counts just a month ago. Awful lot of repubs here jumping ship.

    • bmaz says:

      Hey, I knew Barry from the time I was a little kid; literally from my earliest memories. Not terribly close or anything, our respective families were friends. He was a hell of a guy. The right winginess really receded as he aged, and in his later years, with the turn toward nuttiness of the GOP, he was probably closer to a centrist Democrat to be honest. But always a kind man of strong principle, whether you agreed with him or not. Every election he would ask my mother if she voted for him. She would say “No, but you’re getting closer Barry”. He would just laugh and mix her a drink. She finally did vote for him the last time he ran.

      • jdmckay says:

        She would say “No, but you’re getting closer Barry”. He would just laugh and mix her a drink. She finally did vote for him the last time he ran.

        Thanks, nice story & glad to hear it.

        WO @ 32

        Ken Silverstein made a funny:
        McCain Maintains Advantage In Poll Of Family Members: But Obama closing gap

        I watched Chris Matthews this evening, he asked question @ into:

        WHAT COST MORE: Palin’s clothes or Joe the Plumber’s house?

        He later answered: Joe could’a bought his house w/Palin’s wardrobe expense and had $25k left over.

        (Was this McCain’s wardrobe malfunction?)

  6. Ishmael says:

    Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com seems convinced that McCain will prevail in Arizona on election night, but it would be very sweet if his home state rejected him for the reasons you cite in your post. My favorite Goldwater quote was in response to Jerry Falwell saying in 1981 that “every good Christian should be concerned” that Sandra Day O’Connor had been appointed to the Supreme Court: “I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass!” McCain tried to imitate the Goldwater straight talk, until it became inconvenient, which is the real difference between the two. Goldwater and I would never agree on many issues, but he did have remarkably consistent positions for a politician, unlike McCain.

    • bmaz says:

      If I had to bet right this second, I would agree with Silver. But it is a hell of a lot closer than people think; at least that is the sense I pick up on. If there is a massive turnout, with nearly all of the newly registered voting, Obama has a decent shot.

  7. Peterr says:

    From CC’s message:

    My grandfather (Paka) would never suggest denying a woman’s right to choose. My grandmother co-founded Planned Parenthood in Arizona in the 1930’s, a cause my grandfather supported.

    That’s a message the GOP won’t like hearing.

  8. AlbertFall says:

    The Republican party is being distilled down to the core nut groups, courtesy of Bush’s 8 years of bullying and mismanagement, and McCain gets appointed captain of the Titanic after it has already hit the iceberg.

    I bet he’s bummed about it…

  9. ratfood says:

    I hope the Goldwater story gets a lot of play in AZ. It would be wonderful if McCain failed to carry his home state.

  10. nahant says:

    Well Put Bamz! There is nothing but self serving lust to get elected to office. He knows bounds in what he and sarah will do and say!!

  11. Leen says:

    sent your news out to Raw Story, Crooks and liars, Huffington Post and a few more not up at those sites yet

  12. readerOfTeaLeaves says:

    bmaz, as story after story, and news item after news item have confirmed your insights about McCain, it’s really felt like one revelation after another. I might well have voted for this man in 2000, and the very thought now makes me shudder.

    I have to say that ‘roll up your sleeves’ ending really warms my heart.
    In the end, that’s about as “American” a statement as I’ve ever read.

    Stunning.
    Still picking my jaw up off the desk.

  13. Synoia says:

    Between Bush & McCain, we probably got the better person for the last 8 years. Now that’s an interesting thought.

  14. alank says:

    John W. Dean wrote last May:

    Arizona Senator John McCain recently completed a “biographical” tour of the country in an effort to keep his name in the media as the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, given the fact that Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are currently consuming much of the newsroom oxygen. McCain ended that tour in Prescott, Arizona.

    A Prescott newspaper noted the symbolism of McCain’s final speech at the historic Yavapai County Courthouse. This was the location where McCain’s Republican predecessor, Barry Goldwater, started all his bids for office. McCain likes to refer to himself as a Goldwater Republican. Accordingly, the McCain campaign welcomes and invites editorials like that of the St. Louis Post Dispatch, which found him to be “in the mold of Barry Goldwater, a principled conservative, not a kleptocratic opportunist.”

    In truth, however, “kleptocratic opportunist” is a pretty good description of John McCain, and certainly more accurate than one describing him as fitting into the Goldwater mold. I say this because I knew Senator Goldwater virtually from the time of his arrival in the Senate until his death, and I have just completed a book with his son (and my longtime friend), Barry Jr., which is based on a previously-unpublished private journal kept by Senator Goldwater. We call the book Pure Goldwater.

  15. readerOfTeaLeaves says:

    Ah, for the days when people who didn’t all vote the same way could still mix one another drinks, and enjoy an evening’s conversation. The world was more sane then; we need it to be that sane again.

    A landslide — so huge that there is no argument about who won — could restore sanity IMHO.

    Personally, I’m looking forward to McClellan’s statement also; he’s grown a lot the last few years as a human being.

    • punaise says:

      I’m all for the piling on of defectors to break the back of the Republican party.

      lots of Republican defecators have already “piled on” the Constitution…

  16. MadDog says:

    bmaz, pardon my minor OT interruption – from TPMMuckraker:

    Congress Daily: White House Fires Scott Bloch

    Apparently there’s more to Scott Bloch’s resignation as head of U.S. Special Counsel that meets the eye. According to the National Journal’s Congress Daily, Bloch was fired today in a meeting with White House officials.

    …On Monday Bloch announced plans to resign on Jan. 5. OSC employees said Federal Protective Service employees barred Bloch from his office today…

    • MadDog says:

      More on my “Scott Bloch Fired” OT – From POGO:

      Here’s what we know: There were federal agents from the FBI and/or Federal Protective Service stationed at the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) while Special Counsel Scott Bloch was having a White House meeting this morning (at their request). There is an all hands meeting about to happen at OSC 4. In the mean time, all requests for comments from the OSC are being referred to the White House.

      We have heard rumors that he was physically removed, but this is NOT TRUE…

      UPDATE: BLOCH HAS BEEN FORCED TO RESIGN. Bloch is on administrative leave until the end of his term, December 12. The President has appointed William E. Reukauf to be acting Special Counsel.

      (My Bold)

      Anybody want to bet that Bloch will soon (tommorrow?) be indicted?

      The White House, as we all know, has been openly scared reluctant” to fire Bloch for months now.

      Many have opined that had to do with the likelihood that Bloch had the “dirt” on some facet or facets of White House criminality.

      If that was indeed the case, then the only reason that the White House would fire him now (after he just announced his resignation this very week), would likely be that AG Mumbles Mukasey and his pet DOJ told the White House that the FBI had completed its investigation of Bloch’s “handling” …cough, cough…theft of certain materials and was planning on arresting and charging him pronto!

      And the White House, of course, could not afford to keep Bloch “The Blackmailer” on the payroll lest they too be more deeply tarred and feathered by his arrest and indictment.

      So, anyone want to bet on this? I gotta a nickel I’ll wager.

  17. Katherine Graham Cracker says:

    I’ve sending people the 1964 electoral map but now it looks like McCain won’t carry AZ either. It’s hard to imagine doing worse then Mondale or Carter against Reagan but McCain appears headed there.

  18. alank says:

    Libertarians regarded Goldwater as the image of John Galt (I think it was the square jaw, but it could’ve been the trousers).

  19. foothillsmike says:

    Tweety reporting on circular firing squad forming in Rethug party even Buchanon stating mcShame is wrong.

  20. readerOfTeaLeaves says:

    Whoa.
    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/…..y_id=31878

    If you put a screen shot of McClellan taken in 2005 next to the 30 second video clip of him taken (what looks like today), and also note the setting in which he’s endorsing Obama… you kind of have to do a double-take to be sure you’re looking at the same guy. IMHO, he sure looks happier and healthier these days.

    • dosido says:

      Can we call him a recovering Republican?

      I’m glad to see more people distancing themselves from the Toxin called the GOP.

      • bmaz says:

        He really does seem to have taken on life doesn’t he? He has a personality, a little humor, and seems to actually be alive now.

  21. Sixty Something says:

    What a shame that this post isn’t getting more prime time on FDL.

    I think what we are witnessing here is an admission by the “powers that be” that McCain isn’t suitable for the job of President of the United States. It. Will. Not. Happen. Rephrased, they will not let it happen.

    It really brings home, at least to me, what conservatives, Republicans,liberals, Democrats, and pundits of all persuasions are finally admitting, that McCain does not have the integrity, stamina, nor the intellect to be President.

    • freepatriot says:

      What a shame that this post isn’t getting more prime time on FDL

      what do we need those hosers for ???

      (wink)

        • freepatriot says:

          Okay, who let the Sooner through the door??

          it was one of those fookin Canadians you signed up at the bus depot

          and last week, when ya had me thrown out, one of them moose jockey goons you sent after me gave me a hat and a coat, but I didn’t have a hat and coat when I came in

          I hope all the bribes you collected to register those hosers was in canadian cash, btw

          (wink)

          *this comment is in not intended to insult canadians in any way. I might have to join our slow-witted neighbors to the norht soon, and I don’t want them to be able to recognize me

  22. bonjonno says:

    bmaz- you were the guy who first hipped me to what McCain was all about. Your word is even better than the Goldwater’s.

  23. GregB says:

    I never thought the GOP would collapse the way they have.

    The confidence game of theirs is all busted to hell.

    -G

    • KayInMaine says:

      GregB, I just wanted to tell you I loved, loved, loved your comment the other day:

      “Yes we can. ~ God”

      Hysterical!!! We should all make lawn signs with that on it.

  24. Mary says:

    32 – did they poll the first wife’s relatives I wonder?

    11 – I had not seen that, thank you.
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl…..mo-torture

    Yikes – the court said:

    … claims by [Binyam’s] lawyers that the US was refusing to release the papers because “torturers do not readily hand over evidence of their conduct” could not be dismissed and required an answer

    Which brings me back to Clement’s representations to the Sup Ct here and bmaz’s observations that the courts and bar associations don’t seem to care much about fibs and misconduct unless your name is Nifong.

    The British court (which seems to have more of a memory of what dealing with imperialism is like) is pretty shocked that the US “using confessions made after two years of unlawful ‘incommunicado detention’ on charges where the death penalty might be sought” and that’s even without getting into the razoring of genitals.

    Then they go from sounding pretty dismissive of Milibrand’s reasons for requesting that info be suppressed:

    They said David Miliband, the foreign secretary, conceded there was an “arguable case” that Mohamed had been subjected to torture and inhuman treatment. Yet Miliband also wanted to suppress relevant documents, not because they would reveal any intelligence operations but because the US claimed that if they were disclosed serious harm would be done to “intelligence sharing” between the UK and the US.

    (BTW – who made that claim for the US – shouldn’t Congress ask?)

    to also almost flat out asking the media to ask them to revisit their rulings on keeping some of the argument secret:

    The judges took the extraordinary step of inviting the media to challenge previous decisions to hold many of the case’s hearings in camera.

    “Although the argument took place in closed session,” they said, “the issue is one of considerable importance in the context of open justice [and] to the rule of law.”

    • DWBartoo says:

      Once again, Mary, you amaze and astond with your ‘discoveries’ …

      That the Brit High Court, specifically regarding ’secrecy’ as it applies to American ‘torture’ or American-sponsored ‘toture’ is not happy about the Bush administration’s willful noncompliance with that court as regards Binyam, and the court’s clear signal to the media to question such secrecy is nothing short of incredible.

      To be topped, in that department, only by the unwillingness of the US Congress to address these same concerns in America.

      In a world, in any fashion touched by reason and a modicum of enlightenment, the disgust of the Brit court would resonate very strongly here.

      At least among the better students of jurisprudence, if not among their professors, one hopes that the current ‘education’ is not going to waste.

  25. Mary says:

    One final OT bmaz.

    So far the “public” report on the NSA wiretaping is being … classified.
    http://www.newsweek.com/id/165235

    Dem stalwart Silvestre Reyes has complained. To be honest, Obama gave the Bushboys until July of NEXT Year to ante anything up, so I’m not too shocked and horrified. What was interesting to me though, is that after all this time, all the lawsuits, the torture, the felonies piling and compiling, the lies to Congress, the doubling down on more lies to Congress, etc. – finally someone in Congress thinks to make a specific request for a “preservation order” to be circulated through the Exec Branch.

    Reyes’s letter also included a request that the inspectors general issue a “preservation order” preventing White House or intelligence community officials from removing or destroying documents relating to the warrantless-surveillance program. With barely three months left in the administration, Reyes wanted to make sure that “they don’t destroy anything before they walk out the door,” Littig says.

    Gee – you mean like emails and videotapes?

    Hold that booyah though. Not only is it so many years into crime that everything worth destroying or altering or creating and backdating has already been destroyed, altered, etc. – but
    A) the request isn’t also being made of counsel for the telecoms and
    B) more importantly, Reyes didn’t bother to ask anyone who actually CAN issue a preservation in the WH.

    As for the demands for a preservation order, the official said: “Directives have been issued to preserve records relating to this surveillance program. But, as Congress is aware, intelligence community inspectors general have clearly defined authorities. Those authorities don’t, as a rule, extend to giving orders to the White House.”

    OTOH, at least the IG’s office probably still responds to Reyes and other Dems letters – unlike CIA Counsel, WH Counsel, all of DOJ, NSA Counsel, FBI Counsel …

    Oh well, at least Obama’s office is still vaguely kinda sorta saying – well, not very damn much. And lucky us, Mueller wants to continue his stellar pro-torture, pro-amnesty, pro-asscovering ways in the next administration:

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/200…..litics_fbi

    FBI Director Robert Mueller, a leader of the Bush administration’s fight against terrorism, intends to serve out a 10-year term and has sought to quash rumors he would soon quit, a spokesman said on Tuesday.

    Oh goody.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      There are ways to request and obtain his resignation. The corruption of Bush’s DOJ, including excesses at the FBI (e.g., admitted illegal use of national security letters), is widespread. An orderly, clean sweep is essential to both setting and implementing a fresh agenda.

  26. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Principled conservatives speak out about the corruption of Rove’s electioneering-as-governing-because-that’s-what-I-sell-and-Shrub-can’t-govern, administrate, manage or learn. Sad we didn’t hear this eight or four years ago, but welcome.

    That the McCain we see now is what he’s always been is clear as soon as you look at him. His anger, his brutish sense of entitlement, his devotion to hiding behind the nearest flagpole, POW hut, aide or woman, stand out. As does his willingness to abandon any principle for what will give him a leg up, be it MIA’s, election laws, torture, or all women. John McCain is an exhausted, angry man at the end of his tether. He who would do greater damage to our country than Cheney and Shrub.

    John McCain will lose. He won’t be able to accept it. He will choke on his bile, perched along with his peers on the bare, burnt branches of the GOP tree. Green may break through, but not until they’re gone.

    Meanwhile, there’ll be lots to do. We won’t agree about all of it, or how best to fix it. But we’ll need all hands on deck. Something tells me several million voters, several tens of millions of Americans, agree. Let’s get going.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      I think that’s right on at least two levels. McCain was never part of the GOP power structure during Cheney’s occupation of the White House. He benefited from its dominance, but didn’t drive where they went. So dissing him is easy. Dissing him also diverts attention from the realization that this vote is a referendum on the GOP’s “stewardship” of the past eight plus years, not just a referendum on McCain’s suitability to be president. It won’t be just a loss for McCain, but for his party and what it’s become.

      “Moving ahead” does require looking back, requires an assessment of what needs fixing (and what doesn’t) and why. We’re not talking about a few bucks in the collection plate here; we’ll be digging deep for years to pick up the pieces. Explaining why is a necessary foundation for that sustained effort.

      • Leen says:

        “moving ahead does require looking back” And holding individuals who committed very serious crimes ACCOUNTABLE. I have spent my whole life as a blue collar working folk. Most of us are brought up on pull yourself up by your boot straps, pay your way, take responsibility for your mistakes yada yada. For eight years we have witnessed an administration run wild over the Constitution, break laws, send individuals to war based on a “pack of lies” torture, undermine the Dept of Justice, manipulate elections, illegally wiretap etc etc.

        I demand that the same standards of the law be applied to them as would be applied to the working folks out here. Is that too much to ask?

  27. JThomason says:

    How are the inequities of the the neo-feudal victories so thoroughly consolidated with the financial crisis, golden parachutes, bank bail-outs, domestic surveillance, homeland security, depraved tactics and cronyism to be reversed? Shock works both ways.

    Sec. Paulson states on Charlie Rose notes that AIG merited saving because of the “hard assets” on its books in the form of collectible “premiums.” The buzz phrase “human capitol” so fashionable in Washington in the new corporate milieu will not easily be undone.

    Without revolutionary change fealty will continue to be demanded as taxes, premiums and in social responses to coercive agendas. Financial services are not tangible assets. The arbitrageurs posture that they are removing inefficiencies from the markets but even progressive entrepreneurs seek new “measurables.” The true task at hand is to remove inefficiencies from the dialectic in the context of emergent material conditions.

    Mechanization increasingly liberates billions from the historic bonds of toil globally. The dominator instinct is left helplessly naked. Here comes everybody. I will miss nature.

    The new National Anthem is writ: “All in itself, when you hear it, you will know what I am talking about.” It bears replaying.

  28. Mary says:

    I meant to mention how nice it was to see that a part of this post also wrapped in Georgia – with Alison Goldwater Ross casting her vote and talking about it too.

    Georgia shouldn’t be on the radar even, and yet…

    69 – I’m too broke with vet bills to betya cuz it makes sense that you’d collect. I can see Bloch being the kind of guy that Mukasey might let a case go forward against (while still sitting on any charges for the Dept of Interior guys-making Chevron and their newish inhouse counsel, torture posterboy and Addington pal Haynes a happy camper).

    Then he can adopt the pretense that he’s been doing something other than covering for Bush crimes. Especially if they can go after Bloch on something that they can cleanly disentangle from a direct WH chain of authorization.

    63- Yeah, but I just gotta think Kumbayah is being channeled – Mueller is trying to make it tough for that resignation to be requested until he finishes running out all the statutes of limitations he can and getting as much info deep sixed as possible – while having Mueller serve in that role simplifies life for an Obama who doesn’t want to deal with the mangey mess anyway. It will be interesting to see, after the election, if things go according to Hoyle, what Obama will begin to have to say about the fights over releasing cleared detainees, the decisions to keep GITMO operating, and in particular the botching of any negotiations with Iraq. I’m not real optimistic over what will be forthcoming, but I’ll hope for the best.

    65 – thanks much, but credit goes to chetnolian for the info from the British court.

    • DWBartoo says:

      My thanks then, Mary, to chetnolian for the ‘tip’ and to you for the linkerage and considered commentary.

      :~D

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      As much as Obama doesn’t want to inquire into the mess that is the DOJ, my hope is that his HLR Editor-in-Chief past, and his law school peers who went into criminal law, will haunt him into purging the DOJ of its worst politicos, its worst new policies, its worst excesses and omissions of judgment.

      The DOJ really is the tool shed from which Bush’s faithful took the legal shovels that buried the bodies, and the legal switches that turned on the virtual switches used to spy on ourselves. At a minimum, Obama must have a few personal choices for the top slots, including the OLC (his choices may even include someone from Yale) and they will have the stomach to look at what crawls out from under the Rovian stones and rotted wood now littering its shelves.

  29. MadDog says:

    More totally OT – Another OLC opinion surfaces where acting head of the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel Steven Bradbury sees things that are not there and doesn’t see the things that are there:

    Constitutionality Of Direct Reporting Requirement In Section 802(E)(1) Of The Implementing Recommendations Of The 9/11 Commission Act Of 2007

    My summary – Congress legislated that:

    …that the Chief Privacy Officer (”CPO”) of the Department of Homeland Security (”DHS” or “the Department”) must submit reports “directly to the Congress . . . without any prior comment or amendment by the Secretary, Deputy Secretary, or any other officer or employee of the Department or of the Office of Management and Budget”…

    Why might this all be important you ask? Because the Department of Homeland Security’s Chief Privacy Officer is legislatively tasked to:

    As provided in section 802, the CPO is responsible for investigating and ensuring departmental compliance with federal privacy laws and programs, and has policymaking authority over departmental policies as well as regulatory and legislative proposals for the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information by the federal Government generally.

    You know, stuff like whether everyday normal American folks are included on Terrorist Watch Lists, Warrantless Surveillance.

    Stuff like whether rumors, misinformation, out-and-out inaccurate information on everyday normal American folks are hoovered up into US Government databases.

    And the gist of Bradbury’s opinion? Congress can’t prevent the Unitary Executive from re-writing the report from this supposedly “independent” Chief Privacy Officer of the Department of Homeland Security who has been legislatively mandated to report directly to Congress on any DHS privacy crimes and violations.

    Guess we’re all surprised. NOT!

  30. randiego says:

    Great post brother. I’m really enjoying the education on Arizona. It will really help when y’all come to visit next summer.

    Dugg.

    • bmaz says:

      Yeah, you guys just love all the gazillions of invading Zonies. Uh huh. Crikey, they annoy even me when I’m over there; they must drive you nuts.

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