Statecraft Informer

Sparxafire!

I’ll be danged if I didn’t lose my car keys about a month ago. It’s not a big deal, I have spares, and have replaced the lost keys… But still, it nags at me. I hate to lose things. So, I know how the Pentagon feels, as they are patting their pockets looking for 190,000 lost AK-47 assault rifles and pistols handed out to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005. Darn! I hate when that happens!

Actually, this is something I’ve been wondering about – all the hardware and lumber and goods and products and hammers and supplies that we pour into that country. Where does it go? Who gets it? What do they do with it? I just always felt it would be futile to even ask… It didn’t occur to me that anyone in our government would bother to keep track. After all, it’s just our tax dollars, or, more accurately, our children’s tax dollars.

But now look! Lo and behold! Someone is trying to keep track of all the stuff, bless their hearts. I forget about the GAO – the Government Accountability Office.

It is not my intention to alarm my loyal Statecraft Informer readership with this. It’s like my car keys… they’re SOMEWHERE. Assault weapons don’t just vanish, they just are in unknown places. Gee. I just hope all the people who now have them are doing the right thing with them, don’t you?

Sparxafire!

I remember now why I disentangle myself from politics. It’s just too frustrating! I reel at the greed and the outright stupidity. I grow faint with despair when your president mangles our language. I fling my head into my hands when Nancy Pelosi basically says, (and I’m paraphrasing) “OK, America, even though you are paying me to do this job, I’m not gonna do it. Impeachment is off the table. Knee deep in high crimes, misdemeanors and lies…. there’s nothing, but nothing you can do or say to make me step up and do my job. Besides, there’s nothing you can do about it anyway. So, shrug.”

My eyes sting with hot tears of frustration when I learn that Bush is determined to “restore” the presidency to the powers it had before Nixon “screwed it up.” Whaaaaa? Setting up the Nixon presidency as some ideal??? Executive privilege, exECutive PRIVilege, dammit! What does that mean, exactly? Here’s my multiple choice test, see if you can get the right answer:

Executive privilege is invoked when:
A. We have broken laws that could send us to jail.
B. We have done things for the good of the country that would scare you to death you if you knew.
C. We have done shameful, greedy, sneaky things that are unlawful.
D. We have done things that are really so complicated, you just wouldn’t understand.
E. We have done things that are really against your best interests and you’d be really upset if you knew.
F. All the above.

So. When they invoke executive privilege, who could possibly respect the notion, and who could possibly think anything but that there are crimes and slimes going on??? Who invented executive privilege and signing statements, anyway??? Certainly not the founding fathers. I’m pretty sure I know the position they would take on these arrogant and royal throne-like notions.

I wish I could just close my eyes and it would all go away.
.

Sparxafire!

Caught me some déja voo today! Remember back to the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-80, when President Jimmy Carter just couldn’t get any action at all? So, on April 24, 1980, “Operation Eagle Claw” was mounted as a daring, surgical military operation to go in and and rescue the 52 hostages? And at the staging area, the helicopters crashed into each other, or suffered mechanical failure, killing eight U.S. servicemen and flubbing the mission completely?

That’s how I feel today, upon hearing that the FBI raid on the offices of U.S. Rep. William Jefferson last year has been declared illegal by an appellate court. Jefferson is the allegedly so corrupt as hell congressman who allegedly SO took a $100,000 bribe from a telecommunications firm, and allegedly hid $90,000 of it in the freezer of his Washington home… allegedly hidden inside boxes of alleged pie crust and alleged veggie burgers. (Although, that’s redundant… all veggie burgers are inherently alleged…)

Apparently, all the evidence found is at risk of being thrown out of court as it was obtained by an illegal search whereby FBI agents of the executive branch confiscated legislative paperwork… which allegedly compromises separation of powers or something.

Statecraft Informer shakes head in awe. Our tax dollars at work! Eptitude, people. If I did my job like federal govt people do theirs, I would most CERTAINLY be in jail! I’m really frightened! Where can I go to see my government function? Maybe the DMV? EEEEEEK!

Sparxafire!

Your statecraft informer is disturbed, as you are, by the tragedy and the implications of the 8-lane bridge failure in Minneapolis. Such a thing rattles everyone… shortly after the initial shock comes the questions about the bridges you and I use. How do we know this won’t happen on your bridge tomorrow? Does this failure signal that all 1967 trussed bridges are going to start snapping like twigs all across the country?

Bridges are really, really hard. Imagine what it takes to build a bridge, especially when the pilings have to be mounted in a river…. Builders learn their lessons the hard way – when a bridge fails. I think we’ve all seen that famous 1940 footage of the newly opened Tacoma Narrows bridge undulating like a kite’s tail in Washington state. Sheesh! What a way to learn about wind shear and open frame design that lets the wind blow through. Frankly, 1940 was not that long ago!

I didn’t look it up, but I’ll bet there are bridges in use in this country today that were built before 1940… Well, heckfire, the Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883, for cryin out loud!

Something we took for granted… something we felt assured was being handled correctly… poof. I don’t like it one bit.

Sparxafire!
Ok. Let’s see if I can get this straight. Gonzales testifies there is “no dissent” over the “no-warrant eavesdropping program,” but there was Dissent-A-Plenty over “other intelligence activities.” And somehow, the people in the meetings who were dissenting against no-warrant eavesdropping will then re-remember… and say, “Oh! That’s right. Eavesdropping, not a problem, but when they suggested that other ________ , we fought like banshees! Outrageous dissent all over the place!

I do not have enough imagination to speculate what might have been the “other intelligence activities” that got everybody’s attention right after they nodded through no-warrant eavesdropping. Shooting Muslims on sight, perhaps? Something to do with killing baby ducks for food? Random poisoning of Arabic water supplies? Oh! Now there’s your indignation… “You can wiretap anybody you want, but we draw the line at baby-duck-and-noodle-casserole! We got cher moral standards ri-cheer, buddy boy. We’re Mur-i-cuns and we respect the rights of baby ducks.

Will I ever know what it was that caused the squabble? Or is that just one more unsolved mystery I’ll take to my grave, like who shot JFK? Or, is Gonzales just, you know, manufacturing his own truth again… in Congress… who just sits there blinking… and whispers about maybe someday, forming a committee to look into the possibility of appointing some folks to write up artickles of impeachment against Gonzales …. but we mustn’t rush into anything.

Congress is nothing if not circumspect… or functioning.