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Just a "shell game."

Let's see the Stu-Pack get around this one: "The American people and the Catholic bishops have been promised that, in any final bill, no federal funds would be used for abortion and that the legal status quo would be respected," said Cardinal Francis George, USCCB president. "However, the bishops were left disappointed and puzzled to learn that the basis for any vote on health care will be the Senate bill passed on Christmas Eve," he added. Well, duh, Frank. We knew that weeks ago. Welcome to the party.

Yet here he is giving yet ANOTHER campaign style rally on health care!

It was just February 25th when Obama told McCain at the Blair House summit setup on health care that “we’re not campaigning anymore. The election’s over.” And Obama declared the “time for talk is over” regarding health care in July, again on March 8th and March 11th.

But here he is again in Ohio, this time in Strongsville, on March 15 waving that angry finger in the air and telling us all we don’t know what is good for us if we don’t buy his snake oil!

President Barack Obama speaks on healthcare insurance reform at the Walter F. Ehrnelt Recreation and Senior Center in Strongsville, Ohio, on March 15, 2010. Obama pleaded with lawmakers to pass his health reform bill, relating the heart-rending plight of a cancer victim at the 11th hour of a bitter debate.

Doesn’t this egomaniac know that we are getting sick and tired of him telling us to shut up and do as we are told? On a related matter, in September the Iranians were told that the time for talking about nukes was just about over. Obama seems to have more patience for the mad Mullahs than he does for the American people. And at the rate Obama wags his finger and demands an end to discussion, the Iranians will have a dozen nukes all targeted on the U.S. by the time Obama’s done campaigning!

This man is SUCH an ASS!

From a Geraghty reader. I just got off the phone with his office who told me that he was still undecided and waiting on the final language. I reminded them of the abortion promise, and the staffer told me unequivocally that if the abortion language does not change he will oppose the bill. He also said that if the middle-class taxes that are a part of the senate bill are not changed, that would lead him to oppose the bill.

(Makestickers.com)

It’s Demcare crunch time. Bring out more babies! The House Speaker surrounded herself this afternoon with a fresh batch of kiddie human shields:

The caption on the Yahoo! News/AP pic reads: “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif. takes part in a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, March 15, 2010, following a meeting with children’s advocates to discuss health care overhaul legislation.”

Just a reminder of how Nancy Pelosi really views those infant props – from January 2009:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?

PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those – one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?

PELOSI: No apologies. No. We have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

As for the young men on Capitol Hill whom Democrat Rep. Eric Massa allegedly groped at his creepy playhouse, Pelosi remains coldly indifferent.

The GOP House Leader’s office remains on the case: Massa Mess: Democratic Leaders Leave Questions Unanswered.

Last week we reported a piece of news that a cynic could say was act of White House pressure on Congressman Stupak and his pro-life coalition
Connie Saltonstall of Charlevoix said today she plans to run against Stupak for the Democratic nomination of Michigan’s First Congressional District, citing Stupak’s efforts to stop health care reform if it doesn’t ban use of government money for abortions. Stupak, a former state trooper from Menominee, has held the seat since 1993.Speaker Nancy Pelosi is famous for muscling her members in the last hours before a vote. She may pull that trick off again with health care, but the unusual nature of the bill presents new obstacles for the Pelosi method. In today's WSJ John Fund says that kind of pressure may not be coming from the White House, but from the President's designated goons, the SEIU:
Normally, a House speaker can smooth over the concerns of balky members by promising to fix areas of concern in the conference committee that reconciles the House and Senate versions of a bill. But Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid decided to skip a conference committee on health care, so the House must pass the Senate bill -- unpopular with many members -- with no changes at all. House members will just have to trust the Senate's good faith in using the awkward "budget reconciliation" process later to change the now-law of the land to the House's liking. "It's a real concern with some members that the Senate won't follow through," Rep. Eliot Engel, a New York Democrat, told me.

With fewer carrots, the Speaker and her allies are brandishing more sticks to corral the necessary votes. MoveOn.org has been raising money to finance liberal challengers to vulnerable House Democrats who vote against the bill. Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan, leader of pro-life House Democrats who oppose the Senate's abortion funding language, tells Robert Costa of National Review that he has even been threatened with ethics complaints.

Likewise, the Service Employees International Union, which stands to gain many unionized members if health care passes, has also been active. New York Democrat Mike McMahon was visited by a top SEIU official and told that he won't get union funding if he votes "no." Indeed, union representatives hinted they might look for a primary challenger or third-party candidate to run in his Staten Island district.

Such threats may not be as effective as liberal interest groups hope. Mr. McMahon's district voted for John McCain last year and Democrats know any last-minute primary challenger to Mr. McMahon would likely lose to a Republican in the fall, even if he or she succeeded in toppling the incumbent in the Democratic primary. Threats by MoveOn.org and SEIU against many incumbents are also less than believable simply because the filing deadline to mount primary challenges has already passed for more than 40% of House seats. Meanwhile, the debate over health care has dragged on so long that many Democratic members are now clearly more worried about the impact on general election voters than on the party faithful. Big Government supposes that the White House is so close to their friends at the SEIU they may be changing their "dress" to wear SEIU Colors (check out the matching wristbands):

Add caption

I thought it was odd that Robert Gibbs was wearing a purple bracelet (and a purple tie) during his appearance on “Fox News Sunday” and CBS’ “Face The Nation.” SEIU president Andy Stern, the top visitor to the White House, wore a similar, if not the same, purple bracelet at one point, too. And in virtually every photo of Stern, he’s wearing SEIU’s purple color. Am I making too much out of nothing? Maybe. Who knows.I do believe that the Purple dress code is a coincidence....maybe. It doesn't change the fact that the SEIU has a huge role in the Obamacare Fight, and they will do whatever they need to guarantee its passage. The SEIU National Industry Pension Fund is only funded at 65%, which puts it on the borderline of endangered and critical. The financial relief brought by Obamacare, will help the union free up funds to restock their dying pension plans.


















The bracelet is kind of a signal to tell Stern that the administration has it under control and ObamaCare will be delivered. Just a few more Democrats need to be shown the Chicago way.Please email me at yidwithlid@aol.com to be put onto my mailing list. Feel free to reproduce any article but please link back to http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of fossilized liberals who, despite those Harvard MBA's, didn't have the smarts to figure out that the internet (which is approaching 20 years old in terms of popular usage) destroyed their business model. And they still don't get it. For newspapers, which still provide the largest share of reportorial journalism in the United States, the metaphor that comes to mind is sand in an hourglass. The shrinking money left in print, which still provides 90% of the industry's funds, is the amount of time left to invent new revenue models online. The industry must find a new model before that money runs out.

A picture of the president with a cross superimposed in the background is surprising given the source.

An air of fauxmentum in the Democrat camp as results from a swing district poll should be giving a lot of Nancy's troops heartburn

While some polls show Specter leading, this pollster used a much better pool of voters. One key reason for the difference is Susquehanna’s specific selection of respondents; it polled only those who voted in general elections from 2005-2008, emphasizing off-year voters “to reflect likely turnout in a non-presidential general election.”

Ethanol is a controversial issue. To some the use of corn to make fuel is causing food shortages and driving up to cost of food. Here is a little secret. It would be much more efficient to use sugar cane to make ethanol than corn. Corn Ethanol generates 2x the energy than it takes to produce it. Sugar Cane Ethanol generates 8x the energy than it takes to produce it. So why are we using Corn? Well Sugar Cane comes from other countries, and most of our Corn based Ethanol comes from Illinois conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland. During the Campaign, the NY Times reported:
Obama's lead advisor on energy and environmental issues, Jason Grumet, came to the campaign from the National Commission on Energy Policy, a bipartisan initiative associated with Daschle and Bob Dole, the Kansas Republican who is also a former Senate majority leader and a big ethanol backer who had close ties to the agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland.Not long after arriving in the Senate, Obama himself briefly provoked a controversy by flying at subsidized rates on corporate airplanes, including twice on jets owned by Archer Daniels Midland, which is the nation's largest ethanol producer and is based in his home state.Now there is another "bump" in the corn ethanol road. A new analysis (embedded below) analyzes greenhouse gas release for maize ethanol produced in the United States. The study shows that at the very least Corn based ethanol does not reduce green house and it may very well increase green house emissions.
In the March 2010 issue of BioScience, researchers present a sophisticated new analysis of the effects of boosting use of maize-derived ethanol on greenhouse gas emissions. The study, conducted by Thomas W. Hertel of Purdue University and five co-authors, focuses on how mandated increases in production of the biofuel in the United States will trigger land-use changes domestically and elsewhere. In response to the increased demand for maize, farmers convert additional land to crops, and this conversion can boost carbon dioxide emissions.

The analysis combines ecological data with a global economic commodity and trade model to project the effects of US maize ethanol production on carbon dioxide emissions resulting from land-use changes in 18 regions across the globe. The researchers' main conclusion is stark: These indirect, market-mediated effects on greenhouse gas emissions "are enough to cancel out the benefits the corn ethanol has on global warming."

The indirect effects of increasing production of maize ethanol were first addressed in 2008 by Timothy Searchinger and his coauthors, who presented a simpler calculation in Science. Searchinger concluded that burning maize ethanol led to greenhouse gas emissions twice as large as if gasoline had been burned instead. The question assumed global importance because the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act mandates a steep increase in US production of biofuels over the next dozen years, and certifications about life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions are needed for some of this increase. In addition, the California Air Resources Board's Low Carbon Fuel Standard requires including estimates of the effects of indirect land-use change on greenhouse gas emissions. The board's approach is based on the work reported in BioScience.

Hertel and colleagues' analysis incorporates some effects that could lessen the impact of land-use conversion, but their bottom line, though only one-quarter as large as the earlier estimate of Searchinger and his coauthors, still indicates that the maize ethanol now being produced in the United States will not significantly reduce total greenhouse gas emissions, compared with burning gasoline. The authors acknowledge that some game-changing technical or economic development could render their estimates moot, but sensitivity analyses undertaken in their study suggest that the findings are quite robust.
Hertel Please email me at yidwithlid@aol.com to be put onto my mailing list. Feel free to reproduce any article but please link back to http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com

Last Thursday, the Eleventh Circuit handed down a Fourth Amendment case, Rehberg v. Paulk, that takes a very narrow view of how the Fourth Amendment applies to e-mail. The Eleventh Circuit held that constitutional protection in stored copies of e-mail held by third parties disappears as soon as any copy of the communication is delivered.    Under this new decision, if the government wants get your e-mails, the Fourth Amendment lets the government go to your ISP, wait the seconds it normally takes for the e-mail to be delivered, and then run off copies of your messages.

In this post, I want to explain why the Eleventh Circuit’s position is wrong.   I’ll start by explaining the argument’s origins in postal mail cases;  I’ll turn next to Rehberg; I’ll then explain why I think the decision is based on a conceptual error; and I’ll conclude with some final thoughts.

I.  The Source of the Argument: Fourth Amendment Protection in Postal Mail

To see where the 11th Circuit is getting this argument, you need to know a little bit about how the Fourth Amendment protects postal mail and packages.  The Fourth Amendment ordinarily protects postal mail and packages during delivery.  The same rule applies to both government postal mail and private delivery companies like UPS:  As soon as the sender drops off the mail in the mailbox, both the sender and recipient enjoy Fourth Amendment protection in the contents of the mail during delivery.  When the mail is delivered to the recipient, the sender loses his Fourth Amendment protection: The Fourth Amendment rights are transfered solely to the recipient.  In practice, this works pretty simply:  Each party has Fourth Amendment protection in the mail when they’re in possession of it, and both the sender and receiver have Fourth Amendment rights in the contents of the mail when the postal service or private mail carrier is holding the mail on their mutual behalf.

I should be clear that there are exceptions to these rules.  For example, if a person sends a letter in what the Postal Service used to call “Fourth Class” mail — that is, mail that the Postal Service reserves the right to open — then it is not protected by the Fourth Amendment.  See, e.g.,   Also, the Fourth Amendment protection only applies to the contents of the communication, not the outside.   But the basic approach has governed postal mail privacy for a long time.

The new question is, how do to these principles apply to new communications technologies like e-mail and text messages?   Unlike physical letters and packages, e-mails and text messages are just data.  Communications technologies use digital networks that generate copies of the communications in the course of delivery.  Those copies often stick around on servers when a copy of the communication reaches its destination.  The Stored Communications Act provides statutory privacy protection to those communications stored on third-party servers, see 18 U.S.C. 2703.  But does the Fourth Amendment protect those copies of communications as well?  Right now the precedents are extremely sparse.

II. Rehberg v. Paulk

Enter Rehberg v. Paulk, decided by the Eleventh Circuit last week in an opinion by Judge Hull joined by Judges Carnes and Anderson.  The case is kind of complicated, but here’s the relevant part. State investigators suspected Rehberg of a crime, and they allegedly used a state subpoena to obtain the contents of Rehberg’s e-mail from his Internet service provider, Exact Advertising. The complaint suggests that the government obtained both incoming and outgoing e-mails stored with Rehberg’s ISP; according to the complaint, investigators “obtained Mr. Rehberg’s personal e-mails that were sent and received from his personal computer.”

The charges against Rehberg were later dismissed, and Rehberg filed a lawsuit that claimed among other things that obtaining his e-mail with only a subpoena violated his Fourth Amendment rights. The defendants moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6).

The district court denied the motion to dismiss without really analyzing the Fourth Amendment claim, but the Eleventh Circuit ruled that obtaining Rehberg’s e-mails with a subpoena did not violate the Fourth Amendment because e-mail, once delivered, is not protected by the Fourth Amendment:

The subpoenas covered information Rehberg had provided voluntarily to third parties and for which Rehberg did not have a legitimate expectation of privacy. Thus, the subpoenas did not violate Rehberg’s Fourth Amendment rights to be free of unreasonable search and seizure.

In order for Fourth Amendment protections to apply, the person invoking the protection must have an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the place searched or item seized. The Supreme Court “consistently has held that a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties.” Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 743–44, 99 S.Ct. 2577, 2582, 61 L.Ed.2d 220 (1979). “[T]he Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the obtaining of information revealed to a third party and conveyed by him to Government authorities, even if the information is revealed on the assumption that it will be used only for a limited purpose and the confidence placed in the third party will not be betrayed.” United States v. Miller, 425 U.S. 435, 443, 96 S.Ct. 1619, 1624, 48 L.Ed.2d 71 (1976).
. . .

A person also loses a reasonable expectation of privacy in emails, at least after the email is sent to and received by a third party. See Guest v. Leis, 255 F.3d 325, 333 (6th Cir.2001) (An individual sending an email loses “a legitimate expectation of privacy in an e-mail that had already reached its recipient”); United States v. Lifshitz, 369 F.3d 173, 190 (2d Cir.2004) (An individual may not “enjoy [ ] an expectation of privacy in transmissions over the Internet or e-mail that have already arrived at the recipient”); see also United States v. Perrine, 518 F.3d 1196, 1204-05 (10th Cir.2008) (“Every federal court to address this issue has held that subscriber information provided to an internet provider is not protected by the Fourth Amendment’s privacy expectation”) (collecting cases).

Rehberg’s voluntary delivery of emails to third parties constituted a voluntary relinquishment of the right to privacy in that information. Rehberg does not allege [the police] illegally searched his home computer for emails, but alleges [the police] subpoenaed the emails directly from the third-party Internet service provider to which Rehberg transmitted the messages. Lacking a valid expectation of privacy in that email information, Rehberg fails to state a Fourth Amendment violation for the subpoenas for his Internet records.

III. Why the Eleventh Circuit is Wrong

I think the Eleventh Circuit’s analysis is wrong. To see why, let’s start by considering Rehberg’s outgoing e-mails, which seem to be the focus of the Eleventh Circuit’s opinion. It is true that when information is disclosed to a third party, the Fourth Amendment no longer protects the information disclosed. That’s the teaching of Miller and Smith (and, for what it’s worth, and I think those teahcings are correct). But when many copies of information are made, you have to treat different copies differently. As a result, the fact that one copy of the communication has been received does not mean that all copies lose Fourth Amendment protection. As I explained in 2008:

Fourth Amendment rights are contextual. Data, whether in the form of numbers (like telephone numbers here) or text (in the case of a diary), does not have a preordained level of Fourth Amendment protection in the abstract. If you store your diary at home under your bed, you have Fourth Amendment rights in your diary because you have stored in it your home. If you go into the park and leave your diary out in the open, you lose Fourth Amendment rights in what you have left open because you have left it open. The Fourth Amendment rights derive from the steps that the government must go through to retrieve the information in context, not the essential nature of the data itself.

This means that you need to look at the government’s access to that particular copy of data, not just any copy of data. For a real-world example, imagine you write a letter and photocopy it before you put it in the mail. You file the copy in your closet and send the original. During the course of delivery, the original is protected by the Fourth Amendment; when it arrives, you lose Fourth Amendment protection. But the fact that you lose Fourth Amendment protection in the original does not mean that the Government can break into your house and read the copy you made. Conversely, the fact that the recipient of the mail does not have Fourth Amendment rights in the copy does not mean that the government can break into the recipient’s house to read the original.

For these reasons, the court should have analyzed access to the e-mails stored with the ISP based on whether there was a reasonable expectation of privacy in that remotely stored copy accessed, independently of delivery of another copy. Given that we’re only at the 12(b)(6) stage, and we don’t yet know all the facts, I don’t think we have any basis to conclude that Rehberg did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the e-mails obtained.

The conceptual error in Rehberg is in treating Fourth Amendment rights in the copy stored at the ISP as if it were the same as the Fourth Amendment rights in the copy that was delivered. I don’t think it works that way. The rules of Fourth Amendment protection are particular to each copy: The fact that one copy loses protection does not mean that the other copy loses protection. Indeed, just think about how differently the Fourth Amendment would apply to the postal network and e-mail under the 11th Circuit’s approach. In the postal mail setting, the government could never access postal mail without a warrant. The mail would be protected by the sender’s rights pre-sending; both the sender’s and the recipient’s rights in the course of delivery; and by the recipient’s rights post-delivery. In contrast, there would be much less Fourth Amendment protection in the e-mail setting. Because e-mail usually takes only a few seconds to deliver, the government could just go to the ISP of the person sending the e-mail and take all of their outgoing e-mails right off the server. Real-time wiretapping would be regulated, but the government would have pretty free access to stored contents.

Further, the complaint appears to allege that the government obtained both outgoing e-mails and incoming e-mails. Even if you believe that the sender’s reasonable expectation of privacy disappears as soon as a copy of the e-mail is delivered, presumably that delivery would not eliminate the recipient’s reasonable expectation of privacy. Recall how this works in the physical letter context: The sender’s rights extinguish when the letter arrives, but the recipient’s do not. Even if you accept the Eleventh Circuit’s argument, it would seem to apply only to e-mail in Rehberg’s outbox, not the e-mail in his inbox.

IV. Some Final Thoughts

Three final thoughts. First, I think it would be a different case, or at least a potentially different case, if the government had obtained the e-mails from the ISPs of people Rehberg had been e-mailing. It’s possible to argue that Rehberg does not have any Fourth Amendment rights in the copies stored on the recipient’s servers: That issue requires answering a somewhat tricky issue of when e-mail is “delivered” for Fourth Amendment purposes, eliminating the sender’s reasonable expectation of privacy. (That issue is actually raised by the DOJ amicus brief in City of Ontario v. Quon; I’ll be blogging about that soon.)

Second, there’s a legitimate argument that the Fourth Amendment does not apply at all to contents, delivered or undelivered, based on a pure application of the third-party doctrine. I don’t read the Eleventh Circuit as trying to make that argument, but I disagree with that position in this forthcoming article.

Finally, my argument does not mean that Rehberg should have necessarily prevailed on his Fourth Amendment claim. The Stored Communications Act expressly allows some contents of communications to be compelled with a subpoena. See 18 U.S.C. 2703(b). Although I think that provision is generally unconstitutional, for reasons cited above, whether that is “clearly established” is of course another matter. Given that the officers have a qualified immunity defense, the officers may be entitled to qualified immunity even if using a subpoena to compel the contents of e-mail violated the Fourth Amendment.

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Photoshop: Leo Alberti

The hearing is just underway. I’ll blog the shell game. Stay tuned for updates…

3:13pm Eastern. Democrat Rep./House Budget Cmte Chairman John Pratt opens up the hearing. Says they will be there until midnight to finish the mark-up or “turn into pumpkins.” If only…

He admits the shell game: Whatever they end up with today will look “far different” from the final product. The “final text of the reconciliation bill” is not before us.

Yup, that’s for the backroom deals.

Pratt touting the student loan nationalization wrap-around.

3:19pm Eastern. GOP Rep. Paul Ryan refutes “reconcilation is common” canard.

“This is an extraordinary and unprecendented abuse of the reconciliation process.” More: “NEVER been used to seize 1/6 of the U.S. economy.”

“The only bipartisanship in this procedure is in the opposition to it…never before has process been so grossly exploited.”

Ryan blasts Pelosi statement that “We have to pass the bill to let Americans see what’s in it.”

“This is the vaunted transparency that the president promised? Arrogance…is breathtaking. This is not a simple fixer bill, either.”

“We are here because of one man, Scott Brown. You can’t pass this bill the right way, so you’re passing it the Washington way.”

“We are not governing here today, we are greasing the skids…”

“This legislation is not about health care, it’s about ideology.” About moving to European-style, government-run system.

“This charade — both today’s blind mark-up and the charade of the last year — are so dispiriting” because we agree on need for real reform…It didn’t have to be this way and it doesn’t have to stay this way.

“This abuse of the process, this abuse of the constitution…are not worthy of your support.”

Excellent, impassioned, logical, reality-based statement from GOP Rep. Ryan. More, please.

3:31pm Eastern. Committee casts 21-16 vote – reported to the House without recommendation. Two Democrats voted no — FL Dem. Rep Allen Boyd (also voted against student loan nationalization plan) and Texas Dem. Rep. Chet Edwards.

The panel is moving on to debating motions to instruct.

Uh-oh. Philip Klein notes that Arkansas Democrat Rep. Marion Berry, “who supported Stupak and is on the Hill’s list of likely nos, voted for the reconciliation bill in budget committee.”

3:57pm Eastern. GOP Rep. Connie Mack’s motion limiting powers of government comparative research committee fails, 14-23.

GOP Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart: This bill is a “wet, smelly dog” that the American people don’t want.

4:23pm Eastern. GOP Rep. Cynthia Lummis: “We can’t afford entitlements we already have, let alone a trillion-dollar new one.” Blasts past Republican failures to rein in entitlements, urges colleagues not to make the problem even worse.

6:07pm Eastern. Every Democrat has an anecdote. Republicans need to answer every one of their stories with a socialized medicine horror story.

Also: Dems are now coopting the “if it’s good enough for you, why don’t members of Congress live under it” refrain. They’ve turned the message on its head. Bizarro world.

Three must-read items following up on themes and stories I’ve been covering for you since day one of the reign of corruptocrat AG Eric Holder at Obama’s DOJ:

In August 2009, I reported on the ACLU’s spying project: Operation CIA Paparazzi and hit again on the story here.

The Washington Times reports today that the DOJ and CIA are at war over a probe of the ACLU’s blabbermouth program unmasking the CIA interrogators and secretly photographing them in their homes — pics which they shared with their jihadi suspect clients.

The CIA and Justice Department are fighting over a secret investigation into a controversial program by legal supporters of Islamist terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay that involved photographing CIA interrogators and showing the pictures to prisoners, an effort CIA officials say threatens the officers’ lives.

The dispute prompted a meeting Tuesday at CIA headquarters between U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald and senior CIA counterintelligence officials. It is the latest battle between the agency and the department over detainees and interrogations of terrorists.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. angered many CIA officials and Republicans in Congress by reopening an investigation last August into whether CIA interrogators acted illegally in questioning senior al Qaeda detainees.

According to U.S. officials familiar with the issue, the current dispute involves Justice Department officials who support an effort led by the American Civil Liberties Union to provide legal aid to military lawyers for the Guantanamo inmates. CIA counterintelligence officials oppose the effort and say giving terrorists photographs of interrogators has exposed CIA personnel and their families to possible terrorist attacks.

As part of the disagreement, a senior Justice Department national security official removed himself from the counterintelligence probe last week after opposing CIA security worries.

Donald Vieira, a former Democratic counsel on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence who in September became chief of staff at the Justice Department’s National Security Division, recused himself from the counterintelligence investigation into the recent discovery of photographs of CIA interrogators in the possession of defense lawyers at the prison in Cuba.

John Adamses, my foot.

On a related front, Debra Burlingame and Thomas Joscelyn have an explosive piece in the WSJ on Gitmo’s Indefensible Lawyers (background on the national security stone wall here.) Make sure you read the whole thing.

It will make this piece all the more snort-worthy: “AG Holder: DOJ ‘On The Right Path’ Toward Open Government.”

Photoshop: Mr Right

Cue The Police: Don’t stand so, don’t stand so, don’t stand so close to me…

Representative John Boccieri, Democrat of Ohio, whose vote on major health care legislation could be crucial to the outcome, will not be attending President Obama’s health care rally on Monday in Strongsville, Ohio, not far from Mr. Boccieri’s own district, a spokeswoman said.

Mr. Boccieri is focusing instead on a major infrastructure announcement this morning at Akron-Canton Airport, where the chief of the Federal Aviation Administration, Randy Babbitt, delivered a $16.6 million check for a runway extension and improvement project.

Mr. Boccieri has said the runway project would create up to 60 jobs and lift the local economy. The runway work is part of a 10-year, $110 million capital improvement plan at the airport that began in 2008.

In recent days, Mr. Boccieri has indicated that he is undecided on the current version of the health care legislation. In November, he was one of 39 Democrats who voted against the House bill.

Via the NYT.

The time for talk is over. The time to kill the bill, stop the constitution-butchering slaughter house, and start over is now.

***

Protesters are lining the streets in Strongsville — making their voices heard:

Opponents of President Barack Obama’s health care proposals turned out early to protest outside a suburban Cleveland recreation center he plans to visit.

Protesters stretched for several blocks leading to the president’s this afternoon speaking location in Strongsville.

They waved to passing vehicles and held signs including “Don’t stick me with your Obamacare” and “Kill the bill.”

Here’s video:

Apparently, someone fainted again at Obama’s rally (flashback here and here). The pricetag and corrupted process behind this monstrosity should make anyone feel ill.

***

Feel the ghost of Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinksy:

She was a fresh force in politics, a former TV journalist who won election to Congress in 1992 from a district outside Philadelphia that Republicans had held since 1916. Promising to oppose new tax hikes and fight to hold down federal spending, Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky came to Congress on the back of President Clinton’s coattails.

Then she became the margin of victory for Clinton’s 1993 budget, which actually eliminated the deficit for the first time in decades by raising federal taxes on the middle class. She knew she was committing political suicide but felt it was the right thing to do. As she cast her vote, Republicans salivated at the opportunity to defeat her — filling the chamber with shouts of, “Goodbye Marjorie.” She was defeated in the next election.

Now, as Democrats try to corral the needed votes to push President Obama’s healthcare reform package across the finish line, conservatives have made no secret that they plan to use the same playbook to defeat moderates in usually Republican districts who vote for the bill. Already, Americans for Responsible Health Care — a 527 campaign group funded by a single wealthy individual, the same one that backed Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown in his upset victory in January — is running radio ads in seven states — Arizona, Indiana, Nevada, Ohio, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia — warning members of Congress who already voted for the bill once not to do it again.

You can always count on some kind of anti-American screed from the likes of Matt Damon:

And his latest has been thrown in the dumpster with all the rest of the anti-American Iraqi war movies:

“Green Zone” is the last drama set to be released by a major studio related to the Iraq war, and Hollywood is undoubtedly grateful for it after the picture, directed by Paul Greengrass and starring Matt Damon, opened to just $14.5 million domestically and $9.7 million overseas.

It’s the latest in a string of flops that include “Body of Lies,” “The Kingdom” and “Stop-Loss.” Even “The Hurt Locker,” while not a major disappointment given its low budget, is the lowest- grossing best picture Oscar winner in recent history.

Recognizing that worrisome history, Universal Pictures focused its marketing on Damon and Greengrass’ popular collaboration on “The Bourne Supremacy” and “The Bourne Ultimatum,” but was apparently unable to sell the movie based on its action elements.

“This picture has done better than most of today’s modern war stories,” said Nikki Rocco, Universal’s domestic distribution president. “But we were hoping for better.”
Universal and its financing partner, Relativity Media, spent about $100 million to produce “Green Zone” and tens of millions more to market the picture, meaning it will be a major money loser.

The conspiracy loving lefties will love the movie, you can count on that, but the blatant attempts in rewriting history does not go unnoticed:

It’s one thing to make a fantasy film laced with snarky jibes at the United States and its military. It’s of another order entirely for an American studio (Universal, a unit of GE) to perpetrate, during an ongoing war, such vicious anti-American lies disguised as cheap entertainment.

“Green Zone” tells US troops that all of their efforts have been based on a deliberate deception. Worse, it blames the insurgency that has killed so many of our fighting men and women on US treachery.

Movies like “In the Valley of Elah,” “Rendition” and “Redacted” have shown US forces doing nasty things — but none went anywhere near as far as this picture in suggesting original sin corrupted the entire Iraq war and that American officials are more blameworthy than the insurgents for the most violent years.

“Green Zone” isn’t cinema. It’s slander. It will go down in history as one of the most egregiously anti-American movies ever released by a major studio.

Released and on it’s way to utter failure.

I did not weigh in on the controversy about Andrew Sullivan and Anti-Semitism, simply because it was wrong to brand the guy a Jew-hater. I do believe, however, that he is either suffering from dementia, or bias, or he is just plain stupid.  How else could he get so many facts wrong.

Last month it was the City of Hebron. When Israel put the Cave of the Patriarch on the Heritage Site list,  Sullivan objected because of the horrible 1994 incident where one lone demented Israeli went to the Cave and began shooting, killing 29 Arab worshipers. He called a massacre (and it was). If Sullivan wanted to use History to rationalize why Jews should keep their hands off of the Cave of the Patriarch, then he should half told the full story of Hebron, especially the massacre of Jews in 1929. After all the city was predominantly Jewish from biblical times till that  horrible Sabbath Day 81 years ago.

Yesterday Sullivan posted an article which, unlike the Hebron piece did not ignore history, this article lied about History:
 One thing apposite to the current attempt to force Palestinians out of parts of East Jerusalem and give their homes to extremist Israelis, celebrating the mass murder of Muslims at prayer, and to build Jewish settlements there as rapidly as possible, is that Jerusalem was 84 percent Arab in 1946 and well within Palestinian authority under the partition plan the Palestinian Arabs rejected. It is undoubtedly true that Palestinian and wider Arab refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist has been a huge part of this problem - arguably the central reason for this conflict. But it remains true to my mind that the current Israeli government needs an attitude adjustment, and soon.First of all even in the article Sullivan is citing, the "celebration" Sullivan is talking about was done by a few sick individuals.  At the time he said,
No, this is not representative of all Israeli opinion, as massive Israeli demonstrations against this latest provocation reveal,  Israel never has, and never will "celebrate" the death of others. What Golda Meir said to Anwar Sadat is still the feeling of most Israelis.
"I can forgive you for killing my boys, but I can never forgive you for making our boys kill yours."  Sullivan's remarks are just part of his continued effort to de-legitimize the Jewish state.

Sullivan says Jerusalem was 84% Arab in 1946, that line belies the truth. The Chart below details the population of Israel from 1844-1948.



Source: Manashe Harrel, "The Jewish Presence in Jerusalem through the Ages" in Sinai and Oestericcher, eds., Jerusalem, John Day, 1974.

Jews were the majority of the Jerusalem Population from 1844 through the establishment of the State Of Israel.

Maybe Sullivan was confused when he used that 84% number.  Maybe he was looking at at a doctor's report detailing his IQ score, or maybe he was just lying.  As he does in his next charge that the UN Partition plan established Jerusalem as a Palestinian Arab city. 

UN General Assembly Resolution 181 [which divided Palestine into Jewish and Arab Countries] declared Jerusalem to be a corpus separatum - a separate body, to be run under an international UN administration. The area to be run in this way included all of Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Beit Sahour, to encompass the Christian holy sites. Jordan took over half the city during the 1948 for Israel's Independence, and it has been Israel's united capital since 1967.
 
So once again, Andrew Sullivan is wrong when it comes to basic history. I don't know what it is with the man, he is either suffering from some sort of dementia, is he biased, or just plain stupid.  Its a question I cannot answer for you, but whatever his problem its time for the Atlantic to take away his computer until his malady is figured out. He is embarrassing the proud tradition of the Magazine.

Is Andrew Sullivan: Suffering From Dementia Biased Against Israel Misinformed Just Plain Stupid





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The suicide watch continues. Thirty-two House Democrats are in tougher reelection races than they were when the lower chamber passed healthcare reform last fall. . . . Seventeen Democrats who were not on the radar screen of campaign handicappers in November are now in competitive races, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. Meanwhile, the races of 15 Democrats have become tighter, increasing the chances the GOP could win them. Of the 32 Democrats, 25 voted in favor of the House healthcare bill on Nov. 7, 2009.

Two things occurred to me on this March 15, the Ides of March.

Wouldn't it be great if our Politicians believed as Brutus did in this speech from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar ?
Remember March, the ides of March remember: Did not great Julius bleed for justice' sake?
What villain touch'd his body, that did stab,
And not for justice What, shall one of us That struck the foremost man of all this world, But for supporting robbers, shall we now Contaminate our fingers with base bribes, And sell the mighty space of our large honours For so much trash as may be grasped thus?I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon, Than such a Roman.Point two is,  If Barack Obama was President back then, would he send out David Axelrod to blame Caesar's murder on Israeli aggression.Please email me at yidwithlid@aol.com to be put onto my mailing list. Feel free to reproduce any article but please link back to http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com