NEW YORK, Oct. 30, 2007
John Murtha's Kingdom Of Pork
The Skinny: Pa. Congressman Has Funneled Billions Into His Hard-Luck Hometown
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Rep. John Murtha (Getty Images)
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The German government wants the right to secretly install spyware on terror suspects computers. (AP / CBS)
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Most people outside of Western Pennsylvania may known Rep. John Murtha as the guy who first called for the troops to come home. But the Wall Street Journal presents a withering portrait of the congressman today as "old-fashioned political boss" who, as the powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, has dubiously funneled billions of taxpayer dollars to his hard-luck hometown.
No one could say the hamlet of Johnstown, population 27,000, couldn’t use the cash. The small town 60 miles east of Pittsburgh was once the world's largest steel producer. But by 1983, its unemployment rate was more than 24 percent. Today, thanks to Murtha's ability to bring home defense contracts through earmarks on appropriations bills, it's around 5 percent.
But the Journal asserts that "Johnstown's good fortune has come at the expense of taxpayers everywhere else." Defense contractors have found that if they open an office there and hire the right lobbyist, they can get lucrative, no-bid contracts. Over the past decade, Concurrent Techologies Corp., a defense-research firm that employs 800 people, got hundreds of millions of dollars thanks to Murtha despite poor reviews by Pentagon auditors. The National Drug Intelligence Center, with 300 workers, got $509 million, though the White House has tried for years to shut it down as wasteful and unnecessary, the paper reports.
Murtha refuses to apologize. At a breakfast fundraiser this summer in Johnstown, he said that bringing federal dollars there "is the whole goddamn reason I went to Washington." And this is about the most G-rated thing that the Congressman -- who "curses like the Parris Island drill sergeant he once was" -- utters in the whole article.
Germany Wants To Spy On Suspects' Laptops
For all the hoopla over warrantless wiretapping, Americans have relatively little paranoia about the government peeking onto their hard drives. Even if our phone conversations are open to snooping, at least our personal files are private - right?
Such confidence may be short-lived. A story in the Los Angeles Times about the German government's attempts to get the authority to secretly spy on suspects' computers leaves open the door doubt about just what the U.S. government has been up to on this front, too.
Germany is one of several European countries seeking authority to plant secret Trojan viruses into the computers of suspects that could scan files, photos, diagrams and voice recordings, record every keystroke typed and possibly turn on webcams and microphones in an attempt to gain knowledge of attacks before they happen.
Counter-terrorism officials say such technology would be "very, very helpful" in nabbing terror plotters, but many German citizens are skeptical. In Berlin, T-shirts with the photograph of the interior minister with the logo "Stasi 2.0" - a reference to the former German Democratic Republic's secret police - have suddenly become popular.
German intelligence agencies had already been conducting these kinds of online searches but were forced to cut it out in February, when the Federal Court of Justice Ruled it illegal. Now the government is awaiting a decision from the Constitutional Court. Depending on the outcome, it might propose new legislation to make the practice legal by the end of the year.
Already, Romania, Cyprus, Latvia and Spain have laws that allow "online searches," according to a report from Germany's Interior Ministry. Switzerland and Slovenia appear to also allow them, and Sweden is in the process of adopting similar legislation.
In the U.S. the FBI is known to have implanted software to identify target computers. "But it is unknown, and the FBI won't say, whether the government has tried to surreptitiously search the contents of hard drives," the paper reports.
"I'm not aware of that technique being used in the United States," said Marc Rotenberg, president of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center. "But it's also not clear, given the current view of the president on his powers to conduct electronic surveillance, that it hasn't been used."
Goodbye Gayborhoods?
A moment of silence, please. Actually, scratch that. Let's have a moment of raucous noise to mark the passing of America's best Halloween party, since silence - awful, depressing silence - will be what settles spookily over San Francisco's Castro District tomorrow night for the first Oct. 31 since 1978.
In the cancellation, the New York Times sees a sign of the times.
Specifically, the fabulous street party was nixed this year because in recent years it has become a something of a nightmare, drawing over 200,000 people, many of them "costumeless outsiders." Last year, nine people were wounded when a gunman opened fire at the celebration.
But more generally, the cancellation has brought soul-searching to San Francisco's historic gay village that goes beyond concerns over crime. The Times cites "population shifts, booming development and a waning sense of belonging" that's being felt in gay enclaves across the nation, from Key West, Fla. to West Hollywood.
For several years now, young gay men and lesbians bypassed the Castro for cheaper neighborhoods like the Mission and Outer Sunset, or father, "missoring national trends where you are seeing same-sex couples becoming less urban, even as the population becomes slightly more urban," said Gary Gates, a demographer at University of California, Los Angeles.
At the same time, cities not widely considered gay meccas hav seen sharp increases in same-sex couples, including Fort Worth, El Paso, Albuquerque, Louisville and Virginia Beach, according to Gates.
"Twenty years ago, if you were gay and lived in rural Kansas, you went to San Francisco or New York," he said. "Now you can just go to Kansas City."
Meanwhile, the Castro is becoming filled with strollers, pushed by both gay and straight parents. The city is shutting down transportation to Castro on Halloween, and has launched a Web site, homeforhalloween.com, that lists' "fun" alternatives, including a Halloween blood drive and a "Monster Bash" - in San Mateo.
Boooooo.
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Michelle Obama tells how her role as the First Lady has changed her perspective.
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See all 34 Comments'' ... i''m sorry, but i''m busy, i don''t have time for this, i''m just in the middle of investing trillions of dollars into baby raping warfare to insure i''ve got the option to teach you kids that you''re too young to make sexual decisions for yourselves ... ''
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You proved my point for me. As you always do. :)
I like NPR. I like PBS. They have interesting programs that reach out and bring complex scientific and social issues to those of us not in those fields, reducing difficult concepts and making them accessible to the masses.
I have tried to listen to Talk Radio, notblue. I have tried to understand Rush and Mike and Shaun and hear them with an open mind. But it doesn''t take but a few minutes of being called a Nazi for me to turn the station. I don%u2019t react well to constant disrespect. I resent being called nasty names and being held responsible in toto for the issues that plaque this country.
Tell me, what is solved by pumping out hate over national airwaves anyway? If Limbaugh and Hannity and Savage actually used the valuable tools they have been given to work toward solutions, I would listen and gladly. But they only point to other people and blame; no working toward solutions, no accepting a common responsibility.
PBS and NPR has open dialogue. Hearing the truth about your party make you mad? Well, hearing the truth about mine makes me mad too but it%u2019s necessary, if the problems inherent are to be fixed.
I listen because it is the long view, a view that tried to encompass everyone, you, me, our neighbors, our descendents. it is a flourishing and stimulating open conversation about the human condition in all its glory and dirt.
Posted by poopusbuttus at 03:49 PM : Oct 30, 2007
Oh, I am sorry. After being bashed for 7 years by the likes of you, I must have gotten hateful in return.
Can you forgive me?
Ho, good one! Got me didn''t you. Ho Ho.
Can you tell me what his issue is ( I can''t get YouTube.)
Dont be a hater AaaBee. It''s no good for the soul...
That is media slanted toward your side, poopus, only reporting an entire global perspective from a singularly narrow Republican point of view.
It is like Talk Radio, poopus. You have to agree with the hate and liberal bashing or you can''t be part of the fun. If you ever begin to think that hate and liberal-bashing is wrong, as those of us who are being hated and bashed actually do, then you endanger yourself as one outside the conservative mainstream of thought and therefore risk being thrown into the hated group. You wouldn''t want that, it takes intestinal fortitude to stand outside the GOP machine.
So don''t do anything stupid, like get ideas of your own. Stay with Fox and Limbaugh, since progressive thinking can get your square little GOP voting card revoked. And you are too valuable a mouthpiece for the GOP propoganda machine to be lost now.
:)
hahaha it is video by onetime Clinton donor Peter Paul hahaha
...while Bush will live on in full luxury with all benefits and a group of his cronies to rehash the fictitious greatness of his legecy.
Posted by rerrorislam3 at 02:19 PM : Oct 30, 2007
Would you be so kind as to verify who put this link out? Some unbiased Republican based organization? We accept Republican''s word on anything wiht the same esteem you give Al Gore''s word on anything.
Great try though. Glad to see that good old Republican hate being ramped up for the election year, a year that will be as miserable for you as it will be for us, mostly because of crapp like this.
Some day you GOP guys will re-join the human race and see that your hate serves nothing. If we actually got together again as a nation and began working toward a future, a healthy, pollution free, equality filled future....
Oh, who am I kidding. Every worthwhile cause has to dragged down and stomped on until it is dust, if it dares cut into somebody''s profits. Is money really all that matters to Republicans?
Zuzu Bailey: Look, Daddy. Teacher says, every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038650/quotes
Turn off Fox News and use the Wall Street Journal as kindling for your fires.
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So, it''s OK for Bush and the GOP to campaign in the interests of the wealthiest five percent of Americans, and vote against the rest of us... but it''s apparently not OK when one of the wealthy sends money to somebody besides Bush?
Your real objection is the money-- the money-- is not going to Bush. The amusing part is whatever money Soros sends, it is a small part of the glut of cash going to the GOP for special favors.
MoveOn irritates rightwingers because it exposes their fraud, lies and schemes destructive to the interests of most Americans. We need more such organizations, not fewer.
Interesting point. Your own party could use a watch dog like you, but I imagine your nose for details only points one way?
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