Rain Storm -- an online journal of opinion and culture

Investigating the wrong crime.

Of course, it isn't likely that "Waterboard" Gonzales is going to investigate his pal Dubya, now is it?

Pack of Angry Chihuahuas attack officer in Fremont. Be kind of fun to set them loose in the Office of the Vice President.

The Freeway Blogger now has a daily weblog, too. Go visit Tales of the Freeway Blogger.

More good thoughts to carry you into the long weekend:

Digby (on our image as confused Dems):

A party that is described as fumbling, confused and scared is unlikely to win elections even if they endorse the wholesale round-up of hippies and the nuking of Mecca. People will listen to us if we can first convince them that we know who we are and what we believe in.

I'm of the mind to adopt "give me liberty or give me death" as my personal motto. If I have to kowtow to a bunch of childish Republican panic artists who have deluded themselves into believing that fighting radical Islam requires turning America into a police state, then it's just not worth it.

Roger that. We have nothing to lose but Big Brother.

Go tell it on the mountain. Georgia10 at Daily Kos picked up on this gem about religion and politics from a local in Colorado:

"Feingold, being a Jew, is behaving more Christian than the one who says he is a Christian," said John Gorman of Glenwood Springs, referring to President Bush.

And how long before those red marks on the neck go away? Via Susie, ReddHedd asks:

How long does the Preznit and his merry band of cronies get to grab the Constitution by the throat? Is it endless—or just until the end of this Presidency, and then they’ll re-evaluate depending on who wins election in 2008?

I'm guessing it's until another Democrat gets a blow job. Then there will be some serious ethics hearings and maybe a trial or two. 'Cause then it will be time to restore responsibility to government and dignity to the White House and blah blah blah. Hey, let's have a panel on blogger ethics while we're at it.

Have a better New Year.

Digby:

I would also point out that all this nonsense about how the administration couldn't ask the pansy ass congress to amend the law because they wouldn't appreciate the administration's need for unfettered power, neglects the fact that since January of 2003, the congress has been a rubber stamp herd of invertebrate GOP sheep who would do anything their Dear Leader required when it comes to the GWOT. If they couldn't get that congress to pass this vital change in the FISA law then they need to take it up with Bill Frist and Tom DeLay. (And if the administration didn't think they could get the invertebrate herd of GOP sheep to do something you really have to ask yourself what in Gawd's name they wanted them to do.)

Josh Marshall (on trying to rent office space in NYC for TPM):

In any case, now a couple weeks later I'm nothing like the commercial real estate naif I was then. I'm well-versed in the distinction between rentable and usable square feet. Only a rube wouldn't know that it's standard to include less-than-easily-utilized space such as the walls of the building, stairways you have no access to and sometimes even patches of land in nearby counties when tabulating 'rentable' square feet.

(and on the Abramoff case)

The Washington Post has a lengthy backgrounder on Jack Abramoff on the front page of Thursday's paper. My main criticism of the piece would be that the authors do too little to place Abramoff's ascent into the context of the consolidation of Republican control over K Street and the operation of the DeLay Machine in the House of Representatives. I don't think the one can be properly understood without the other.

And in case you woke up this morning feeling safe knowing that the NSA is listening to everybody say everything, Steve Benen points out that the Department of Homeland Security is more than just a little behind the power curve:

With this in mind, House Democrats released a report yesterday (why this couldn't wait until after the holidays is unclear) highlighting the fact that the Department of Homeland Security has fallen short of fulfilling 33 of the agency's own goals. It's not a pretty picture.

DHS pledged to create a list of chemical plants, bridges, skyscrapers and other potential terrorist targets -- at this point the department is over a year late in delivering. The agency also said it would install monitors to screen for radiation material entering the country at borders, seaports, and airports; create an efficient network to share alerts with state, local and private industry officials; and install surveillance cameras at all high-risk chemical plants. None of this has happened.

And while the lack of progress is disconcerting enough, the reaction from DHS was hardly reassuring.

Responding, Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said the department is prioritizing resources and programs based on "today's greatest threats."

"Rather than looking backward at yesterday's threats, we are building upon what we have already accomplished to meet evolving threats," said Knocke.

I can appreciate the fact that these circumstances are tough to spin, but when an agency is found to have fallen short, repeatedly, of its own goals -- and those goals are crucial to keeping Americans safe -- it's not exactly comforting to hear that DHS will build on what they've "already accomplished."

Have a nice day.

Roy observes:

They have no idea what art is. The closest thing to it in their universe is propaganda, so they assume art is just a species of that. (Sometimes they're accidentally right, of course, but having no aesthetics, they cannot make informed judgements.) Therefore any work of art that contains something they find viscerally objectionable -- in Kurtz' case, acts of love that do not involve one man, one woman, and (it would seem) one or fewer orgasms -- is analyzed and denounced as if it were a piece of legislation or a policy paper.

This reminds me just a little or those fundies who hate science, and then can't figure out why none of their bretheren ever win the Nobel Prize for Science. Deep thinkers, every one.