top secret? not in this administration

Stories you may have missed this week if you were out scouting on where best to place your deer caribou stand.

Item 1. Former Attorney General Albert Gonalez took classified documents home in violation of the law, especially troubling if you consider that as Attorney General, Mr. Gonzales should have had the highest regard for the rule of law. Oh wait. This is the administration that brought us John Ashcroft, warrantless wiretaps, and torture.

ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: September 2, 2008
New York Times

The Justice Department inspector general, who investigated Mr. Gonzales’s handling of the documents, said he kept classified material at his home and in an office safe in violation of security procedures. The inspector general referred the matter to the national security division of the Justice Department for possible criminal action, but officials there declined to prosecute Mr. Gonzales.

Mr. Gonzales’s mishandling of the classified documents adds a new embarrassment to the long list of problems that tainted his tenure as attorney general. He resigned one year ago, after two and a half years in the job, in the face of growing criticism from lawmakers over his role in the N.S.A. wiretapping program and in the dismissals of nine United States attorneys.

The office of Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said in its report that Mr. Gonzales had mishandled 18 documents that were considered S.C.I. classification, or sensitive compartmentalized information, a security category for documents considered more tightly controlled than top secret.

The most sensitive material among the documents was Mr. Gonzales’s handwritten account of an emergency meeting at the White House on March 10, 2004, regarding the N.S.A. wiretapping program.

Item 2. Alaskan Govenor Sarah Palin referred to American troops fighting in Iraq were on a "task that is from God". Geez. Funny, isn't that what the enemy also says?

GENE JOHNSON
Published: September 3, 2008
The Associated Press
In an address last June, the Republican vice presidential candidate also urged ministry students to pray for a plan to build a $30 billion natural gas pipeline in the state, calling it "God's will."

Palin asked the students to pray for the troops in Iraq, and noted that her eldest son, Track, was expected to be deployed there.

"Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God," she said. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God's plan."

Item 3. Jack Abramoff was sentenced to 4 years on federal criminal charges of fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials. Mr. Abramoff is already serving a 6-year term in Florida for fraud.

NEIL A. LEWIS
Published: September 4, 2008
New York Times
Beginning with the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, Mr. Abramoff sat at the center of a lobbying conglomerate that bilked Indian tribes of tens of millions of dollars and then used much of that bundle to win favor with members of Congress. He provided members and their aides with gifts, the most infamous of which was a lavish golf outing to Scotland.

In asking for the reduction of his prison term, the government had cited his cooperation with investigators, which prosecutors said was, “wholly or partially credited for convictions of a Member of Congress, five high-level legislative branch officials, one high-level executive branch official and two other mid to low-level public officials.”

more law-breaking from the administration that doesn't care

Alberto Gonzales (remember him? the former Attorney General, the person who is supposed to have the highest regard for the law of the land) and his aides repeatedly broke the law by testing prospective judges with how they stood on “god, guns + gays.”

The activist judges the Republicans so love to discount are exactly what they want in office. As long as they love god and guns and hate gays.

The July 28th edition of the NYTimes reports on a technique developed by Justice Department attorney Monica Goodling called “The Thorough Process of Investigation” whereby the names of candidates for Federal court positions were jointly googled along with words such as abortion, homosexual, Florida recount, or guns.

In forwarding a résumé in 2006 from a lawyer who was working for the Federalist Society, Ms. Goodling sent an e-mail message to the head of the Office of Legal Counsel, Steven Bradbury, saying: “Am attaching a résumé for a young, conservative female lawyer.” Ms. Goodling interviewed the woman and wrote in her notes such phrases as “pro-God in public life,” and “pro-marriage, anti-civil union.” The woman was eventually hired as a career prosecutor.

Bush is going to busy with the pardons in his last days in office.

drilling for air

"Public service is honorable and noble..." Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, letter of resignation, August, 27th, 2007.

To this we agree.

Hearing pundits recite some of Mr. Gonalez's life history during the evening drive time, and then cracking open the online version of the NYTimes, I was reminded again of how just disparate America can be. A reading last week of The Great Deluge - a history of one week that surrounded Hurricane Katrina - now 2 years past may have also keyed me to the vastness of the American experience. The Great Deluge is full of personal stories about how people respond to a massive crisis in their lives. Some people rise up, swim to safety, and bring others to the shore. Others fall down, drown, and take others under in the process. I suspect that it's never that simple, the swim or drown part and that most folks do a little of both, but there are some who seem to be able to intuitively help others through the really tough times. The names of people (and there were many) who rose up and became heroes are not those being bandied about as the next U.S. Attorney General. H.S. Secretary Michael Chertioff may have passed the bar, but he failed the Hurricane Test.

On Sunday there was an article in the NY Times about the social life that surrounds pools in Las Vegas and how much buy-in is required to be A-playa. Doesn't matter if the the dollar is falling, or your home value is plumetting, or if your dog trainer is going to jail, ante-up for the private poolside cabanana (as much as $15,000 per day) and the eye candy and bottle service are complimentary. Feels good, don't it?

Well aparently not enough for some Silicon valley millionaires (net worth 3.5 million) who feel middle class when compared to their other Silicon valley muli-millionaires. The horror, the horror of the middle class.

Tell that to the more than half a million people who live in 1,5000 colonias scattered along the U.S.-Mexico border (more than 90 percent are in Texas). These properties were sold to migrant farm families under the auspices of the "American Dream". However, unscrupulous developers viewed the American Dream differently than you or I. Since the lands were outside city boundaries, they were never properly platted and developers never saw to it to provide the basic human services that should be part of any home ownership. Running water, no. Electricity, no. Adequate plumbing and proper sanitation, no. Roads. Schools. No. No. Proper legal title to the land. No.

But's it not all negative. Rampant infectious diseases, yes. Lack of access to adequate health care, yes. Flooding, yes. Over-crowded living conditions, yes. Povery. High unemployment. Lack of educational opportunities. Yes. Yes. And yes.

Most residents of colonias are legal U.S. Citizens.

More@:

The Forgotten America, a 2000 documentary by Hector Galán.
http://catalog.galaninc.com/site/cart/?PHPSESSID=affb2ab091a61379d8d50355b25ed3a9

If you want to see how people who live in a colonias view themselves check out photos taken by 8th and 9th graders who live in them.
http://www.pbs.org/klru/forgottenamericans/inside.htm

A Home in Colinas, NY Times multimedia.

Photo: Apologies to Damon Winter, NY Times.