Hawai'i Forever

Having just returned from Maui, I'm feeling especially homesick for the Islands. When I'm there, I feel like I should be apologizing for what the white man (and other colors of men) have done to the place. Although I try to put the burdens of civilization aside, I'm sure I could read it on the faces of the locals as I cruised around in my convertible rental car. I couldn't help but to feel looks of disdain aimed at my bleached blond hair and red, sunburned face. Maybe it's just me...but I doubt it. I wanted to shout at them all: "I'm one of the good guys!" But I'm a little lost and have no idea who I am really.

Here's one good guy who passed on in 1997, way before his time at 38 years old. (A strange expression, I suppose it was exactly his time.) Israel Kamakawiwo'ole (Braddah Iz) left a legacy of music that celebrates the Islands, the Aloha Spirit and calls for restoring the Islands to their rightful owners: reinstating the Hawaiian Nation.

This song, "Hawai'i '78", from his 1993 album, "Facing Future" asks "What if those who fought for the land could see it now?"

Hawai'i '78

Ua mau ke ea o ka `âina i ka pono `o Hawai'i
Ua mau ke ea o ka `âina i ka pono `o Hawai'i
(Being perpetuated is the sovereignty of the land to righteousness, to balance: Hawai`i

If just for a day our king and queen
Would visit all these islands and saw everything
How would they feel about the changes of our land
Could you just imagine if they were around
And saw highways on their sacred grounds
How would they feel about this modern city life?

Tears would come from each other's eyes
As they would stop to realize
That our people are in great, great danger now
How would they feel?
Would their smiles be content, then cry

Chorus:
Cry for the gods, cry for the people
Cry for the land that was taken away
And then yet you'll find, Hawai'i.

Could you just imagine they came back
And saw traffic lights and railroad tracks
How would they feel about this modern city life
Tears would come from each other's eyes
As they would stop to realize
That our land is in great, great danger now.

All the fighting that the King has done
To conquer all these islands, now these condominiums
How would he feel if he saw Hawai'i nei?
How would he feel? Would his smile be content, then cry?

(E hana hou i ka hui)

Ua mau ke ea o ka `âina i ka pono `o Hawai'i

David, The First Rule Of Lying Is: NEVER BLINK!

Petraeus & Crocker get their stories straight.

General Dave says things are improving in Iraq. He's been saying that for 4 years already and one has to wonder if he's completely lost touch with reality in addition to being just another pro-war stooge for the Bush Administration. Watching him on C-SPAN, I could almost see it in his mind: "We can't leave now if we're going to attack Iran next."

Watch a video documenting Petraeus's 4 years of optimism about the status of Iraq here at firedoglake.com.

ThinkProgress.org made a handy chart which shows Petraeus's heavy-handy hawking for the surge through more than half of August.

These Washington Post articles give an altogether different persepctive, that of the Iraqi people. "According to a new poll based on face-to-face interviews between Aug 17th and 24th, among a random national sample of 2,212 Iraqi adults, and conducted by ABC News, the BBC and the Japanese broadcaster NHK, 7 in 10 Iraqis believe the U.S. troop buildup in Baghdad and Anbar province has made security worse in those areas and nearly half want coalition forces to leave immediately.

Poll numbers show that ordinary Iraqis are significantly more likely to say "things are going badly" than in the early days of the increased U.S. military presence in March."

"The U.S. military's claim that violence has decreased sharply in Iraq in recent months has come under scrutiny from many experts within and outside the government, who contend that some of the underlying statistics are questionable and selectively ignore negative trends."

So, who do we believe? The 2 Stooges of the Bush Administration or 2000 Iraqis, who are, inconceivably, STILL fearing for their lives and living without clean water or dependable electric service?

Judge Strikes Down Part of Patriot Act (Again)

Thankfully, reason still prevails in some part of our government.

"A federal judge struck down a key part of the USA Patriot Act on Thursday in a ruling that defended the need for judicial oversight of laws and bashed Congress for passing a law that makes possible "far-reaching invasions of liberty."

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero immediately stayed the effect of his ruling, allowing the government time to appeal. Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said: "We are reviewing the decision and considering our options at this time."

The ruling handed the American Civil Liberties Union a major victory in its challenge of the post-Sept. 11 law that gave broader investigative powers to law enforcement.

The ACLU had challenged the law on behalf of an Internet service provider, complaining that the law allowed the FBI to demand records without the kind of court supervision required for other government searches. Under the law, investigators can issue so-called national security letters to entities like Internet service providers and phone companies and demand customers' phone and Internet records.

In his ruling, Marrero said much more was at stake than questions about the national security letters.

He said Congress, in the original USA Patriot Act and less so in a 2005 revision, had essentially tried to legislate how the judiciary must review challenges to the law. If done to other bills, they ultimately could all "be styled to make the validation of the law foolproof."

Noting that the courthouse where he resides is several blocks from the fallen World Trade Center, the judge said the Constitution was designed so that the dangers of any given moment could never justify discarding fundamental individual liberties.

He said when "the judiciary lowers its guard on the Constitution, it opens the door to far-reaching invasions of liberty."

Regarding the national security letters, he said, Congress crossed its boundaries so dramatically that to let the law stand might turn an innocent legislative step into "the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering, with an ominous free pass to the hijacking of constitutional values."

He said the ruling does not mean the FBI must obtain the approval of a court prior to ordering records be turned over, but rather must justify to a court the need for secrecy if the orders will last longer than a reasonable and brief period of time.

A March government report showed that the FBI issued about 8,500 national security letter, or NSL, requests in 2000, the year prior to passage of the USA Patriot Act. By 2003, the number of requests had risen to 39,000 and to 56,000 in 2004 before falling to 47,000 in 2005. The overwhelming majority of the requests sought telephone billing records information, telephone or e-mail subscriber information or electronic communication transactional records.

The judge said that through the NSLs, the government can unmask the identity of Internet users engaged in anonymous speech in online discussions, can obtain an itemized list of all e-mails sent and received by someone and can then seek information on those communicating with the individual.

"It may even be able to discover the web sites an individual has visited and queries submitted to search engines," the judge said.

Marrero's lengthy judicial opinion, akin to an eighth-grade civics lesson, described why the framers of the Constitution created three separate but equal branches of government and delegated to the judiciary to say what the law is and to protect the Constitution and the rights it gives citizens.

Marrero said the constitutional barriers against governmental abuse "may eventually collapse, with consequential diminution of the judiciary's function, and hence potential dire effects to individual freedoms."

In that event, he said, the judiciary could become "a mere mouthpiece of the legislature."

Marrero had ruled in 2004, on the initial version of the Patriot Act, that the letters violate the Constitution because they amounted to unreasonable search and seizure. He found free-speech violations in the nondisclosure requirement, which for example, disallowed an Internet service provider from telling customers their records were being turned over to the government.

After he ruled, Congress revised the Patriot Act in 2005, and the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals directed that Marrero review the law's constitutionality a second time."

By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer Fri Sep 7, 2:15 AM ET

Kucinich For President

US Democratic hopeful Kucinich meets Assad, blasts Bush

US Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich, on a Mideast visit that included a stop in Syria, said the country lambasted by the Bush Administration deserves credit for taking in more than a million Iraqi refugees.

Kucinich, a strong anti-war opponent who trails far in the US presidential polls, also said he won't visit Iraq on his trip to the region because he considers the US military deployment there illegal.

"I feel the United States is engaging in an illegal occupation ... I don't want to bless that occupation with my presence," he said in an interview in Lebanon, after visiting Syria. "I will not do it."

Kucinich, who accused the Bush administration of policies that have destabilized the Mideast, met with Syrian President Bashar Assad during his visit to Damascus. He said Assad was receptive to his ideas of "strength through peace."

He also praised Syria for taking in Iraqi refugees.

"What most people are not aware of is that Syria has taken in more than 1.5 million Iraqi refugees," Kucinich said. "The Syrian government has actually shown a lot of compassion in keeping its doors open, and being a host for so many refugees."

Kucinich said he would ask UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to follow up on the "dire conditions" in southern Lebanon, especially Israeli cluster bombs leftover from the war that have killed more than 30 and injured at least 200 since the fighting's end.

"There has to be a commitment to cleaning up these cluster bombs," Kucinich said.

Cheney In '94: Invading Iraq Would Create Quagmire

If anyone still needed proof that what's happening in Iraq today has NOT taken the Neocons in the Bush Administration by surprise, watch this video of Cheney speaking about the issue of invading Baghdad in 1994.

This shows that they knew what would happen, which certainly strengthens the argument that they planned this fiasco. Why? Reports about Peak Oil. The idea of gaining control of Iraq's oil reserves. Strengthening control in the region, and in the global economy.

So, how many dead Americans is that worth? A lot, say the Neocons. I don't agree. I think a better solution would be to loosen the grip on our balls that the oil industry has, go green, and try planning for a lasting civilization instead of Armageddon.

Here's a great post from March 2006 called "The End of Civilization" by Dave Eriqat at CounterCurrents.org. It speaks to the Bush Administration's preparations for Armageddon.

Some say ignorance is bliss. But if you don't, then look at these issues more closely. Write to your representatives in congress and tell them what you think of the direction they're taking us.

Clinton: Terrorist attack would help GOP

I love that Hillary said this. Although Senator Dodd thinks it's "tasteless", I think it's true. I believe that 9/11 was (at the very least) "allowed to happen" and so with that in mind, it seems likely that there will be another such attack, especially if the Republicans are nervous about getting votes in NOV 2008. Of course, if you also believe (as I do) that the elections are being manipulated with the help of Diebold's electronic voting machines, then we don't really need another 9/11.

"She says she is the Democrat best equipped to fight terrorists, but White House hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton told New Hampshire voters Thursday that another attack on the United States would likely help Republican candidates at the polls.

"It's a horrible prospect to ask yourself, 'What if? What if?' " Clinton, a New York Democrat, told a house party in Concord, according to the New York Post and The Associated Press and confirmed by her campaign.

"But, if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world."

Clinton added that if such a scenario occurred, she is the best Democratic presidential candidate "to deal with that."

Clinton was in the crucial early voting state Thursday to unveil her health care plan.

A Clinton spokesman, Isaac Baker, told CNN "Sen. Clinton was making clear that she has the strength and experience to keep the country safe."

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut, who is also competing for the Democratic nomination, issued a statement Friday afternoon calling Clinton's remark "tasteless."

"Frankly, I find it tasteless to discuss political implications when talking about a potential terrorist attack on the United States," he said.

New Mexico Bill Richardson, another Democratic presidential candidate, disparaged Clinton's remark. "We shouldn't be thinking about terrorism in terms of its domestic political consequences, we should be protecting the country from terrorists," said Gov Richardson in a written statement.

By Alexander Mooney, CNN Washington Bureau

updated 5:34 p.m. EDT, Fri August 24, 2007