Does Telecom Immunity Herald Fascism?

Dear TQA,

Why are some people suggesting that the telecom immunity bill is tantamount to sanctioning fascism in the United States?

Ann Thompson and Tribbly



Dear AT&T,

Maybe because it's true?

Let's review what fascism is: In the years leading up to World War II, Italy, Spain and Germany linked government and corporate control over populations suddenly hostage to all organized power in their nations.

Now let's review what telecom immunity is: When the Bush Administration said to the telecom companies, "Psst! Let us spy on your customers, OK?", only one company, Qwest, said no, because it clearly wasn't legal.

All the others (AT&T, et al.) handed over your privacy to criminals in high office.

A telecom immunity bill would signal this: If the government asks you to break the law, you're covered on the back end.

In other words, fascism would be codified: if the government wants you to break the law, you should go with loyalty to the executive branch rather than the rule of law.

The president and every other governmental official take an oath to the Constitution. Corporations are bound by the law, just like everyone else is.

Telecom immunity would nullify these oaths and laws, replacing them with loyalty to the President.

Could anything be more disgusting than for George W. Bush's dictatorship and fascism to be rubberstamped by a Democratically controlled Congress?


The Question Authority

The Biggest Spy Story of All Time?

To: The Question Authority

It might not be as easy to say as "eighteen-and-a-half-minute gap," but 203A-WF-210023 might be the new missing link to the worst government crimes of our time.

What is it? Why should I care?

From: Already Cynical Enough



Dear ACE,

The Question Authority wishes he could get his noggin fully 'round this one, but it's almost too bizarre to be true. At the same time, it follows logically from some of the most insane actions of US officials over the last several years.

Sibel Edmonds worked as a Turkish translator for the FBI. She overheard Turkish agents, working on behalf of Pakistan, being helped by US officials, in the proliferation of nuclear weapons. And it was all declared a diplomatic secret.

Just in case this might sound legitimate for even two seconds, let's recall that North Korea got its nukes from Pakistan.

Edmonds went to Congress, to the FBI, to reporters, to anyone who'd listen and investigate. But she was under a gag order, so there were details she couldn't tell. No one who could help did so.

Finally, she just got fed up and put herself in legal jeopardy by telling all.

The Times of London has been the only major outlet to go with the story. But they haven't named names. Larisa Alexandrovna, the scoop maven for RawStory.com, has provided names but not details.

It's like an acrostic puzzle to try to understand what's going on, but the biggest name named is Marc Grossman, a Clinton-holdover Bush Administration official in the State Department till 2005.

The document number you mention, now declared never to have existed by the FBI and perhaps key to the coverup, is covered in this Times story.

And just when you think it can't get any more over the top, there's this paragraph in the Times, highlighted at Alexandrovna's blog, At-Largely:

[A knowledgable anonymous tipster] claims the government official [Marc Grossman] warned a Turkish member of the network that they should not deal with a company called Brewster Jennings because it was a CIA front company investigating the nuclear black market. The official’s warning came two years before Brewster Jennings was publicly outed when one of its staff, Valerie Plame [Wilson], was revealed to be a CIA agent in a case that became a cause célèbre in the US.

Alexandrovna is the reporter who broke the news that Valerie Plame Wilson was working to prevent nuclear proliferation to Iran.

The mind reels.

Did VPW's name get outed not just to intimidate her husband, Amb. Joe Wilson, but as part of a grander plan to thwart peaceful means of making the world safer?

Until we know, please beg your favorite news outlets to cover the story.

TQA

A Romp Through the Periodic Table in Candy Form

Hey Know-It-All,

Glib this one by the short hairs: I like Balance Bars. They've got protein, vitamins, minerals, chocolate, and sugar, which covers all the food groups. Not being a nomadic gatherer, I tend to get behind in my rare-earth elements in the diet. Plus, they taste good.

The problem: I'm not so sure "minerals" in my diet literally mean I should be chowing down on metal grit with a chocolate bar wrapped around it. Chrome? As in, 50s tailpipe? Selenium? Of the "known carcinogen" Seleniums?

They sell 'em, so I figure they're safe. But I still feel like something's wrong.

Tell me the answer, O Question Authority.

Elemental Questioner



Dear EQ,

The Question Authority digs them Balance Bars the most as well, but mostly only raspberry chocolate fudge (except during bursts of polymorphism).

The correct way to eat a Balance Bar is to minimize the grit: chew the yummy goo and soak up the flavor and multivitamin, but when bits o' grit start to collect in the teeth, rinse 'em out.

There's just no mineral source in nature that contains particles large enough to identify as metal, so if those of us stupid enough to consume such dystopian products as Soylent Balance continue to do so, we can at least retain enough of our humanity, for fucksake, to pick out the industrial waste in powdered form that we can feel and taste.

Like today's title says, it's a romp through the periodic table in candy form, which might prove partially digestible, partially suicidal. I hedge my bets, and take comfort in the ultimate pleasure of middle age: long-term effects decline in importance every day!

The Question Authority, 47 and counting

Restore the Republic of Vermont (1775-1791)?

Dear The Question Authority,

Should Vermont secede from the Union?

BP


Dear Beep,

Funny you should ask. Just this past weekend, at the Mountaintop Human Rights Film Festival in Waitsfield, Vermont, a Secession table was circulating petitions to put Vermont Independence on the agenda for various towns' Town Meeting.

(Small towns in Vermont are governed by annual town meetings, not elected representatives. True democracy!)

And here I have to admit something: While I will always say yes to any pollster asking if I favor Vermont's independence, it's truly one of the most ridiculous wastes of time for activists that I can think of.

I told the man behind the table that. I said, "While I love that you're here doing this, the idea is really stupid."

The guy went into his spiel: the states each lose 15% on every tax dollar to bureaucracy alone. The Civil War was an unconstitutional infringement of states' rights to leave the union.

I replied, "You're hoping to win a federal case by arguing the Confederate side of the Civil War in court? You're looking forward to a time when you don't go shopping in Lebanon, New Hampshire because there are two-hour lines at Customs?"

At this, his face dropped. I'd convinced him.

He picked up his cell phone, made a call, and left the building, his petitions still on the table.

Love and kisses,

The Question Authority

(send your questions to The Question Authority at bohemia123@aol.com)

How Do You Get on CNN?

Dear TQA,

How do you get comedy you write at home on CNN?

Curious Comedy Writer


Dear CCW,

Just video yourself performing it and send it to I-Reports, like this fellow here:




..which can also be seen at I-Report on CNN now.

TQA, self-promoting shamelessly

Are Foreign Agents Operating in the US Government?

Dear TQA,

Reading Larisa Alexandrovna about FBI whistlelblower Sibel Edmonds, it seems as if foreign spies infiltrated the highest levels of the US Government.

Could that be true?

Not Fond of Fascism



Dear NFoF,

Yes.

Click here.

TQA

Ask Me Anything (Part Trois)

Dear TQA,

As Obama starts to look like Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. rolled into one, I worry that 2008 will resemble 1968 in too many ways:

If he gets close to the nomination, will someone bump him off?

Sick With Concern


Dear Sicko,

Given that Hillary is poised to be the Hubert H. Humphrey of 2008--the obvious choice no one really wants to vote for because we're sick to death of him/her already--there is great reason for worry. At this stage, hours after Obama's victory in Iowa, the only most likely route to the nomination for Hillary is as the default candidate following an Obama assassination.

Am I being lighthearted about a potential tragedy that would shake the nation and the world?

Yes!

But not because of indifference to Sen. Obama. He's the most hopeful sign in US politics since I've been alive, and I remember well the assassinations of 1968.

But 1968, and the recent fascist takeover of our government by the Cheney/Bush crime syndicate, prove that this country plays at electoral democracy more than it lives it.

The United States is a nation at war, and not with terrorists: we're perpetually at war with ourselves. Take the murder rate in this country and overlay it on any other nation, and that nation would be said to be in a civil war.

So we're at war. The race war. The class war. The war of men against women. The war of junkies on those with cash in their pockets. But mostly a war of the rich against anyone else who seeks significant power.

I hope Obama lives at least till January 20, 2009. I even hope he's inaugurated as President of the United States of America that day.

Not that I think he'd govern very well. I want him to win because the disenfranchised need hope, a rallying cry to find the courage for taking back the power that is theirs for the asking.

If only they can turn down the bad music and TV, put down the tasteless beer, and realize that even the most heinous Karl Roves have no recourse against blowout electoral victories, if only Our Side shows up.

But I also believe the game is rigged, and that violence is the ultimate power shaper in this sick old nation of ours. So if Obama gains any more ground toward the nomination or presidency, I think he'd be crazy to think he's any safer than Benazir Bhutto was.

Benazir Bhutto. Baracko Bama. The names are a little too similar for my comfort.

Live, Barry live, please!

But I wouldn't bet my mortgage on the angels' keeping him safe if the war machine has decided he's its number-one target.

TQA