The Hollywood Liberal

I hadn’t heard a word about my 2004 Republican National Convention arrest in almost 6 months. As the 3 year anniversary approaches of August 31, 2004 the day I along with 1500 others protesters at the convention were arrested, mostly for no reason, I finally get some news about the lawsuits that we are imposing against the city. Maybe now the actual trials can begin. I want my money dammit.

City Is Rebuffed on the Release of ’04 Records

NY Times
Excerpt

A federal judge yesterday rejected New York City’s efforts to prevent the release of nearly 2,000 pages of raw intelligence reports and other documents detailing the Police Department’s covert surveillance of protest groups and individual activists before the Republican National Convention in 2004.

In a 20-page ruling, Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV ordered the disclosure of hundreds of field intelligence reports by undercover investigators who infiltrated and compiled dossiers on protest groups in a huge operation that the police said was needed to head off violence and disruptions at the convention….

The order was the latest development in the long-running case, which posed thorny questions about the free speech rights of protesters and the means used by law enforcement officials to maintain public order.

It appeared that the plaintiffs, who had denounced the police for trampling on the civil liberties of protesters who were fingerprinted and detained at length for minor offenses, had largely won the day, while the city had achieved a more limited objective.

Christopher Dunn, the associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, which represents the lead defendants in a barrage of more than 80 lawsuits, said of the judge’s ruling: “He’s given us everything we asked for. He has redacted the names of undercover agents and the particulars of surveillance techniques. We agreed to that. But he has said the city cannot withhold the information it gathered in these operations.”

HLs Take
The wheels of justice grind slowly, but I’m patient…

Here is my audio interview with my congressman, and Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Henry Waxman. The Interview was conducted this morning over the phone from his LA office. In the interview we discuss Impeachment, The Democrats, Pat Tillman, Sibel Edmonds, Alberto Gonzalez, Condi Rice and more. Its about 24 Minutes long. Have a listen. (may take a few seconds to download)

Audio Interview with Henry Waxman

Transcript
HL: It’s an honor to have with us today Henry Waxman, the congressman representing the 30th district of California, which includes Hollywood. Mr. Waxman is also the Chairman on the Committee on oversight and Government Reform, and has singlehandedly been leading the charge against corruption in the Bush administration. Thank you for coming on

Henry Waxman: Thank You, pleased to be with you.

HL: You’re one of the fighters in the Democratic party and I want to thank you for all your hard work in terms of your investigation of corruption in Oversight I also want to say that I am proud to be from your district, I have voted for you every chance I’ve had, you are the only choice on the ballot I don’t even have to think about.

HW: (Laughs) Thank You

HL. OK lets get to some questions. In a video interview I watched with you back in April you stated that you did not think the American people were in favor of impeachment, do you still feel that way.

HW: I don’t know what the public opinion polls show…some people have told me the majority may be for impeachment, but I’m not sure of that. I don’t think that’s the essential point is whether there is a majority at this point, the question is whether there is enough evidence, whether congress has the ability to go down this road…whether the Senate can muster 2/3 for an Impeachment, when they can’t even get together 60 votes for most worthwhile legislation, and whether it will lead to the public coming to the conclusion that the Democrats may be doing to the Republican, what the Republicans did to the democrats which in my view would be a very bad thought.

HL: Some people are saying that it’s a moral thing, that the constitution mandates impeachment for an executive who tries to go too far in his executive powers regardless of the situation just to show that Congress is against what’s going on but I understand your point of view. According to a recent poll I read 54% of Americans are in favor of Impeachement, and with Bush’s approval rating at 28% I just think that a lot of people feel that now is the time to do it rather then allowing Bush to continue to do what he has been doing for the next 18 months or so .

View the Rest of the Transcript

I guess the commenter who called himself Henry Waxman was really him. I called the number he gave on the comment and got through to someone who emailed me back and said that Mr. Waxman was ready to speak with that morning. Henry represents my district (the 30th) here in Hollywood. I scheduled it for 11 AM this morning. (Wednedsay) I’ll be busy prepping in the morning and will do an audio interview which I will post up here by the afternoon. I did a post on Democratic Underground asking people if they had any questions for him. This is what they asked. If anyone else has any questions leave them here. HL

The democrats could have stopped the war, but no, they decided to keep funding it because they were “afraid” that a country that is 75% against the war would be mad at them for doing what the people put them in there to do. Democrats could have stopped Bush’s illegal surveillance of American Citizens but they didn’t because they were “afraid” that the vast majority of the population who hate Bush would be mad at them for not giving him more power.
Then they took that latest huge check down to the bank and cashed it.

Iraqi Crisis Deepens as 5 More Ministers Quit Cabinet Meetings

Washington Post
ExcerptU.S. Announces Deaths of Nine Soldiers, Four Killed on Monday in Diyala Province

BAGHDAD, Aug. 7 — Iraq’s political crisis deepened Monday as five more ministers withdrew from cabinet meetings, delivering a major blow to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s fractured unity government and efforts to reconcile Iraq’s warring parties.

Hours earlier, a truck bomb in a Shiite village near the northern city of Tall Afar killed 31 people and wounded scores more, striking an area that was once hailed by President Bush and U.S. military commanders as an oasis of stability, following U.S. operations against insurgents there. Six children were among the dead, police said.

The U.S. military also announced the deaths of nine American soldiers, including four killed in an explosion Monday in volatile Diyala province, where U.S. forces are engaged in a major offensive against Sunni insurgents. The blast injured 12 other U.S. soldiers, the military said in a statement.

Tonight’s Debate: A Labor of Love for Democratic Candidates

The American
Excerpt
The Democratic presidential candidates will stand before organized labor tonight at Soldier Field, in a debate sponsored by the AFL-CIO. From a debating perspective, the event will probably be a snoozer, at least when the candidates are discussing the bread and butter issues that are important to the AFL-CIO. (Foreign policy, if it comes up, might be a different matter.)
On merits alone, the most clearly “pro-labor” candidate is John Edwards. Since the end of the last campaign, Edwards has been on a relentless journey to secure labor’s endorsement. His luxurious house and hedge fund gig not withstanding, Edwards walked picket lines with union members, cultivated relationships with key labor leaders, stacked his campaign with former union staffers, and spoken the populist rhetoric that the AFL-CIO craves.

HLs Take
I wonder if anyone will ask the candidates which ones are in favor of repealing NAFTA, and bringing American jobs home instead of sending them to India, and other countries where big buisness can hire people for 6 cents an hour. I wonder what Hilary will say about that. Will she dodge the question like she did last weekend at the blogger convention?

Dubya’s Dudes Dealing, Dodging, and Dancing in Dubai

Huffington Post
Excerpt
I’m still waiting for Congressional investigations to begin into Halliburton’s move to Dubai. Six months ago Halliburton — our leading military contractor in Iraq, thanks largely to no-bid no-look contracts — announced that it was moving its main corporate headquarters and its chief executive from Houston to Dubai.

The apparently hasty move came but a month after Halliburton spun off its military division — KBR — as a separate legal entity and, curiously, about the same time federal investigators started charging that Halliburton, or whatever-the-legal-hair-splitters-now- want-to-call-that-company, had illegally squandered, overcharged, and defrauded U.S. taxpayers out of billions in Iraq.

Just a business move?

Realize that Dubai has become the grand destination for cutthroat corporations seeking to evade domestic taxes and regulations — a Switzerland, Hong Kong, Cayman Islands, and Las Vegas all rolled into one. Plus, Human Rights Watch reports that boomtown Dubai features exploitative and hazardous working conditions that HRW describes as “modern-day slavery.” No corporate taxes, no regulations, no extradition treaties, cheap labor, great golf courses, great beach, great horse track, tallest buildings: such a deal!

Six months ago, leading Democrats demanded an investigation. Should our national security basically be outsourced to Dubai (didn’t we go through this once before with the U.S. ports issue)? Isn’t the re-headquartering, given the war situation and Halliburton’s profitable role in it, just a tad un-American? Should U.S. tax dollars really be flowing into a tax haven? Henry Waxman, Hillary Clinton, Patrick Leahy, Bryon Dorgan, and Charles Schumer all denounced the move and called for investigations. So what happened? Where’s the follow-up?

HLs Take
That will be one of my questions to Henry Waxman if I get to interview him. Apparently Mr. Waxman left a comment on one of my posts telling me to call his LA office for an interview, which I am going to do right now.

“All right. You’ve covered your ass, now.”- Bush 6 years ago. August 6, 2001. After being warned repeatedly that Bin Laden was going to Fly planes into buildings in the US. Then he went on vacation.

Here is a list of the weak, spineless, pathetic, traitorous, paid off Republican shills in democrat clothing who voted to give Bush all the power he ever wanted in regard to warrantless spying on American Citizens. If you live in a state where one of these bastards live. PLEASE make sure you vote against them in the next election. Don’t even let them on the ballot. Get Democrats who are not Bush sack lickers on the ticket, and send these idiots back home never to be heard from again.

Bayh (D-IN)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Conrad (D-ND)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lincoln (D-AR)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Salazar (D-CO)
Webb (D-VA)

And where was Barbara Boxer, she didn’t even bother to show up and vote. I’ll give her a pass this time because she has been a pretty good Senator, unlike are other California Senator Dianne Feinstein who might just as well change her party to Republican. John Kerry wasn’t there either. Kerry has been saying all the right things regarding Bush, and the war lately, but now he is enabling Skull & Bones brother Bush, just like he did in the last electionHere are The Democrats who thought that giving Bush all the power in the world just wasn’t important enough to bother. with.

Boxer (D-CA)
Harkin (D-IA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Murray (D-WA)

The Fear of Fear Itself

NY Times
Excerpt
It was appalling to watch over the last few days as Congress — now led by Democrats — caved in to yet another unnecessary and dangerous expansion of President Bush’s powers, this time to spy on Americans in violation of basic constitutional rights. Many of the 16 Democrats in the Senate and 41 in the House who voted for the bill said that they had acted in the name of national security, but the only security at play was their job security.

There was plenty of bad behavior. Republicans marched in mindless lockstep with the president. There was double-dealing by the White House. The director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, crossed the line from being a steward of this nation’s security to acting as a White House political operative.

But mostly, the spectacle left us wondering what the Democrats — especially their feckless Senate leaders — plan to do with their majority in Congress if they are too scared of Republican campaign ads to use it to protect the Constitution and restrain an out-of-control president.

It’s official, we are police state…

At Largely
Excerpt
“This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.” – Plato

Thanks to 40 Democratic members of the House and the Democratic leadership in the Senate, the FISA Absolute Power bill has now passed. I promise you that whatever tiny restriction the Congress managed to put on the Absolute Power bill, the Decider will attach a signing statement to it making sure that that he gets every inch that he pretended to give. This Congress is a disgrace. Compared to the Congress before it, which redefined corruption and took it to whole new levels, the Democratic Congress is the culture of cowardice and compromised people.

Make NO mistake, we are in serious peril when an Attorney General who has subverted the Constitution per request of his boss, lied, obstructed justice, and defended torture, is now in full authority to declare who is going to be a target of warrant-less surveillance. You may not see this as seriously as I do, but then again, you have not lived under a dictatorship to know the difference. Mostly though, the people who failed most, are the citizens of this country – who should have taken to the streets and shut down all commerce, all traffic, and disengaged from the machine of government. You did not shut it down. You did not even try. You waited as your hopes were put entirely in the hands of cowards.

Ron Paul Doubled the vote of the rest of the field combined. How will the Republicans stop this guy. You know they want to.

Vote Who Won The Republican Debate

ABC News

Ron Paul Champions Internet Freedom

Infowars
Excerpt

Presidential candidate Ron Paul has stated in no uncertain terms that he is thoroughly against internet regulation and has spoken out against federal rubric of the web in the week after a bill was passed by the Senate Commerce Committee as a pretext towards implementation of universal filtering on the Internet….

“I believe strongly that the internet should not be regulated by the federal government and believes even more strongly that people should be free to engage in the activities they wish, as long as they are willing to take responsibility for their actions.”