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Last fall, after the deal was announced, the State Department said that it had tried to dissuade Hunt Oil from signing the contract with Kurdish regional authorities but that the company had proceeded "regardless of our advice." Although Hunt Oil's chief executive has been a major fundraiser for President Bush, the president said he knew nothing about the deal.

Yesterday, however, Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, released documents and e-mails showing that for nearly four months, State and Commerce department officials knew about Hunt Oil's negotiations and had told company officials that there were no objections. In one note, a Commerce Department official even wished them "a fruitful visit to Kurdistan" and invited them to contact him "in case you need any support."

That guidance contradicted the administration's public posture. The Bush administration made an Iraqi national petroleum law, which has still not been adopted, a top priority last year in the hope it would more tightly bind the country's regions together and open the way for international oil companies to invest in much larger oil fields south of Iraq's Kurdish region. The State Department said, and continues to assert, that it opposes any contract with a regional Iraqi authority in the absence of a national petroleum law.

Although this isn't the same contract that Schaffer was involved in, it was in the same period of time and in the same place, and all of these contracts are now the subject of this growing dispute between the Kurdish Regional government and the Iraqi federal government. Most experts regard the settling of the issue of Iraq's oil development and revenue as critical to the country's stability, a key condition for eventual American success and widthdrawal.

Obviously, the first question for Schaffer is whether or not he was similarly "discouraged" by the State Department from pursuing local oil contracts in Iraq without laws in place nationally yet to accomodate them. Then, somebody should ask him how this deal he negotiated with the Kurds squares with official American policy of wanting a national oil development strategy for a unified Iraq.

In fact, a whole slew of questions along the same rather distressing line present themselves, for Schaffer especially given the displeasure voters seem to have these days for the words "oil company" or "Iraq war." Imagine the reaction to putting them together, say, "Bob Schaffer cared more about his oil company than he did about winning the Iraq war."

The fight to halt H.R. 6304 and Obama's change of heart are an important test of whether or not netroots has real political power on issues.  This issue of revising FISA to comply with the wishes of Mr. Bush and the long struggle to force a Democratic Congress to halt such legislative bills that would grant blanket retroactive immunity to telecom companies, toss out the Fourth Amendment, and the rule of law will be replaced by the rule of men which the internet powered grassroots outcry forced the hand of the Democrats.

As we now know that Speaker Pelosi's realpolitik which forced through a humilating defeat to all Americans and to the Constitution was based on the political calculus of elections.  In Pelosi and other House Democratic leaders own sentiments:

Stonewalling the Administration and letting the surveillance powers expire could have cost the Democrats swing seats they won in 2006 as well as new ones they have a chance to steal from Republicans this November. "For any Republican-leaning district this would have been a huge issue," says a top Pelosi aide, who estimates that as many as 10 competitive races could have been affected by it. . . .

Pelosi's centrist compromise doesn't just help House Democrats in the fall. It also gives the party's presumptive nominee for President, Barack Obama, a chance to move to the center on national security. "Given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay," Obama said in a statement Friday. "So I support the compromise."

Glenn Greenwald states succinctly:

The only objective of Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer is to have a 50-seat majority rather than a 35-seat majority, and if enabling the Bush administration's lawbreaking and demolishing core constitutional protections can assist somewhat with that goal, then that it what they will do. That's what they are saying all but explicitly here.

Now is the time to take action when your Representatives and Senators are home.  John Amato, Crooksandliars.com, writes:

You spoke and we listened. You donated intensely and we are taking action. We’ve run ads and now we’re hitting the phones. Blue America has just launched an interactive tool that will allow you to call your Senator and demand accountability on FISA.

Blue America Whip Count Call Tool.

Christy Hardin Smith, Firedoglake.com, writes: 

This first tool allows you to directly contact Senators to tell them to stand up for the rule of law and vote in favor of the Dodd-Feingold-Leahy amendment.  (That's S.A.5064 to H.R. 6304 which will come up for a vote on July 8th, 2008.)  Not only will this tool help you phone your Senators -- including connecting your call -- but it also gives us the ability to track positions on FISA given your input on what you ascertain during your conversations.

We do not have the luxury of time.  The vote will come up on July 8th. 

Now I've written about Obama's run to the center on HR6304.  As many netizens know that Obama's reasoning is deeply flawed on why he would support such a bill that was, in part, written by the telecom companies themselves. 

What is heartening is that the Obama group, "Senator Obama - Please Vote NO on Telecom Immunity – Get FISA Right," is now the largest Obama network group with over 10,000 members.

mcjoan, Dailykos.com, writes:

This effort shows two things: the always-expanding power of the Internet for organizing. We knew at the outset what a powerful tool the tubes were going to present, but the new iterations that people create on a daily basis is fantastic (and another reason for the Net Neutrality fight to be rejoined full force when we have our new president and Congress).

It also shows that you can fully support Barack Obama and still disagree with him on issues. That being a supporter, particularly a netroots supporter, doesn't mean setting aside your own beliefs and principles. We're not supposed to just shut up when we disagree--if we do, we're setting a very bad precedent for our role in a potential Obama presidency. I keep going back to the Louis Brandeis quote:

The most important political office is that of private citizen.
-Louis D. Brandeis

You can support a candidate and fulfill your political office of a private citizen at the same time. A huge number of Barack Obama's supporters on his site are doing just that.

The wiki-hub for more action items.

On the local front there will be an action at Obama's Denver HQ early next week.  Check back for further information.  If you want to join send me an email (therebis@yahoo.com).

For Second Amendment advocates there are no limits to where you can carry a concealed weapon.  Thus, you have these organizations and individuals who are scared to death of "the terrorist threat" yet argue that Mr. Bush has the right to take away their Fourth Amendment right but simultaneously argue that they have their Second Amendment right to carry a gun anywhere they want to.  To wit, from AP (via MSNBC.com):

ATLANTA - The nation's busiest airport dueled with gun rights advocates Tuesday over whether a new Georgia state law allows visitors to carry firearms at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

This is legal absurdity:

John Monroe, an attorney for the gun rights backers who filed the lawsuit, argued the Atlanta airport qualifies as public transportation. There are also restaurants in the terminal, which Monroe said should be accessible to gun-toting visitors under the new law.

I would say that with the recent Supreme Court ruling to overturn the D.C. law that requires trigger locks on guns to have a subtle effect on subsequent rulings.  These kinds of safe guards on hand guns that will not be allowed because it infringes on the Second Amendment could be extended to the lawsuit filed by hand gun rights advocates in the Atlanta case just filed.

When will this fatal fetish with guns and America?  This delusion with guns, freedom, and feeling that you are "independent" of government interference is deadly and laughable since the most vociferous advocates are firmly embedded in the conservative movement.  So there is a suspension of disbelief with respect to how much government can intrude on your privacy (meaning that they support the Bush administration's "War on Terror"'s surveillence programs on Americans) and on having a hand gun to "protect" yourself.

What will it be...freedom to carry hand guns or letting big government into your private life in the name of "fighting terror"?

For those folks questioning the need for the COGCC's new proposed protections for our mountains, rivers, communities and wildlife, read no further.

Those two spills occurred about two to three weeks after one man went to the hospital after drinking his cabin’s spring water, which was allegedly contaminated by a release from area drilling operations.

One of the discharges reportedly caused water contaminated by oil and gas waste to emanate from several springs in the area of Cascade Canyon, northwest of Parachute, and to flow into nearby tributaries, according to state records.

A sheen was visible on water discharging from the spring, according to the NOAVs

There are two action items to help Senator Obama remember his ringing words

We are not a nation that wiretaps without warrants.

If you are a member of Barackobama.com then join this group.

If you don't want to become a member of Barackobama.com then sign this petition.

Let me say that I'm not shocked that Senator Obama advisors would tell him that once the nomination is "sewn up" then it is time to shift to "the center".  However, I question that strategy because what exactly is "the center" of the political spectrum? 

Polling by Pew has shown a consistent shift of people who self identify with a political party to skew towards the Democratic Party label.  PEW published this on March 20, 2008:

In 5,566 interviews with registered voters conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press during the first two months of 2008, 36% identify themselves as Democrats, and just 27% as Republicans.

Rasmussen Reports show that Democrats are more trusted on all ten issues that are polled.  From their report, June 21, 2008:

This month, voters trust Democrats more than Republicans on all ten key issues tracked by Rasmussen Reports. The two parties are almost even on two issues, taxes and national security.

Robert Reich wrote in 2001 about "the center": 

The political "center" is imaginary, and its recent elevation as a desirable place for politicians to inhabit is dangerously misleading. What's more, the politician who seeks to move there is abdicating any semblance of political leadership...

One cannot lead from the center because most voters are already there, and it is no great accomplishment to lead people to where they already are. That's much more like pandering. In this sense, moving to the center implies a politics responsive to the immediate and unreflective desires of constituents, especially those most likely to vote. That's familiar politics to the legions of Washington strategists and pollsters who make their livings charting and responding to such desires. But it's hardly how politics should be practiced in a deliberative democracy.

If the Wall Street Journal is applauding the move to "the political center" then is are the most recent choices that Senator Obama is making the one which will empower people who believe that change for the liberal and progressive movement which America stands: his support for HR 6304 (to amend FISA and allow unlimited spying on Americans just on the word of a man) and his condemnation of the recent Supreme Court ruling to deny extending the death penalty to adults who rape children.

I will point to a Buzzflash.com editorial from January 29, 2006 which points out that change means just that change.  It is not "running to the center" but:

America is always a country that has prided itself on evolving, growing, changing. How could there be a permanent center anyway?

That's the purpose of democracy. Through great public debate we develop governmental policy for the common good of the nation -- and it morphs over time.

To abandon that principle to a myth is a cowardly thing to do.

Colorado voters prefer Democratic Sen. Barack Obama over Republican Sen. John McCain for president by a five-point margin, a lead also found in three other swing states in a new poll released today. . .

[T]he poll also showed Democrat Mark Udall leading over Republican Bob Schaffer in the Senate race by a 10-point margin, with 12 percent of voters undecided.

I have read the statement by Senator Obama on the FISA which is patent nonsense.  It is a capitulation to the Bush/Cheney/Pelosi/Hoyer view that the Constitution is a throw away document in the face of "national security".

Now is the time for his millions of followers to show that it is them who must lead Senator Obama.  He, in this moment, is not a leader but a follower of a mindset that refuses to believe in the Constitution in the face of danger.

Too many times have we come up short in meeting the strict standards of the Constitution in the our nation's history with regard to national crisis.  However, I will point out that this nation has been able to overcome the temporary set backs because we knew that a crisis was short lived.  What is different now is that Mr. Bush and his active enablers in the Democratic Party leadership is to fundamentally alter what the laws are and how the "rule of law" is now dependent on who is in charge of the executive branch.  

This kind of mindset is regal in heritage and certainly anti-Constitutional in it's very nature to place the individual above the law.

As Glenn Greenwald has written many times HR 6304 is rotten to it's core on the fact that it discards the Fourth Amendment while providing blanket  retroactive immunity to telecom companies that spied on you at the behest of Mr. Bush's word (and for profit).

As I wrote last week it is time to tell Senator Obama that his view from August 1st of '07 is the legitimate view:  The FISA court works.  There is no need for warrantless wiretapping.

I support Obama but this is the first major test of his willingness stand in opposition or to support the conventional Democratic leadership view per Pelosi/Hoyer/Reid of-

In other words, Democrats achieved a "significant victory" because -- by giving Republicans everything they demanded -- Republicans are no longer able to criticize Democrats on this issue. What a shrewd strategy: "if we comply with all their demands, then they can't criticize us for anything." That's the Democratic Party's plan for winning, according to Hoyer.

We, the people, who have given money and time for his campaign now need to teach the Senator from Illinois that his words to spark a movement of "change" means that he cannot become an impediment to change.  Because this kind of "change" meaning H.R. 6304 and his vouching for the bill is not in the interest of building a movement to change this nation from the disasterous conservative policies of the last twenty years.

When he incorporates Republican talking points on H.R.6304 (e.g., external threats trump criminal acts) then we should know that he is on the wrong track and needs a forceful reminder that a movement of change from the grassroots means that he is not indespensable to the long term goals of a new progressive movement in this country as he knows full well. 

Obama- 

Then:

We are not a nation that wiretaps without warrants.

Now:

So I support the compromise . . . .

Clear, first-hand whistleblower documentary evidence [states]…that for year on end every e-mail, every text message, and every phone call carried over the massive fiber-optic links of sixteen separate companies routed through AT&T’s Internet hub in San Francisco—hundreds of millions of private, domestic communications—have been…copied in their entirety by AT&T and knowingly diverted wholesale by means of multiple “splitters” into a secret room controlled exclusively by the NSA.

This is what the truth of "warrantless wiretaps" means.  Not just a handful of messages but every phone, text, and email sent from you to another person period.

So, Senator Obama it is time for you to take a stand.  We, the people, who you motivated into this movement for "change" will roll over you if you don't listen because whoever you are listening to now on H.R. 6304 is wrong.

Your colleague, Senator Chris Dodd, is correct.  You need to study his speech carefully (h/t to Christy Hardin Smith):

...And if I have needed any reminder of that fact, simply look to all those who have joined this fight – my colleagues and the many, many Americans who have given me strength for this fight. Strength that comes from the passion and eloquence of citizens who don’t have to be involved, but choose to be nonetheless.

They see what I see in this debate – that by short-circuiting the judicial process we are sending a dangerous signal to future generations. They see us establishing a precedent that Congress can—and will—provide immunity to potential law breakers, if they are “important” enough....

Mr. President, unwarranted domestic spying didn’t happen in a panic or short-term emergency, not for a week, or a month, or even a year. If it had, I might not be here today.

But that isn’t the case. What we now know is that spying by this Administration went on, relentlessly, for more than five years....

But that isn’t the case either, Mr. President. Indeed, I am here today because with offense after another after another, I believe it is long past time to say: “enough.”

I am here today because of a pattern—a pattern of abuse against civil liberties and the rule of law. Against the Constitution—of which we are custodians, temporary though that status may be....

So, why are we here? Because, Mr. President – it is alleged that giant telecom corporations worked with our government to compile Americans’ private, domestic communications records into a database of enormous scale and scope.

Secretly and without a warrant, those corporations are alleged to have spied on their own customers – American customers.

Perhaps, Senator Obama, you should study this carefully and reconsider your rash rush to support H.R.6304, by your colleague Senator Feingold states:

But Mr. President, this immunity provision doesn’t just allow telephone companies off the hook for breaking the law. It also will make it that much harder to get to the core issue that I’ve been raising since December 2005, which is that the President ran an illegal program and should be held accountable. When these lawsuits are dismissed, we will be that much further away from an independent judicial review of this program...

On top of all this, we are considering granting immunity when more than 70 members of the Senate still – still – have not been briefed on the President’s wiretapping program. The majority of this body still does not even know what we are being asked to grant immunity for.

ACT NOW to persuade Senator Obama:

Call 866-675-2008 option 6 to speak to someone.

866-675-2008 option 6

If you want to defend the Constitution and give a good kick to the Democratic Party leadership then I would check out Christy Hardin Smith's Firedoglake's post: FISA: Anyone Up for a Bit of Action? 

The one consistent thing I've noticed about the FISA issue is this: people are disgusted by insincerity. More than anything, they want a way to channel that frustration into an action that could make a difference.

For some reason, elected folks inside the Beltway don't seem to understand this. They have miscalculated on how many people in America are paying attention to civil liberties concerns these days. And it is our job to make certain that they learn just how badly they have misjudged this....

From the People Who Brought Us
Judith Miller & George Bush

Former New York New York Times reporter, Judith Miller, who wrongly
claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and her president.
(Images left, right)

The New York Times "Covers" the Susan Lindauer Hearing

Michael Collins
"Scoop" Independent News
Washington, DC

The New York Times disgraced itself and betrayed the citizens of the United States when it repeatedly headlined misleading stories by reporter Judith Miller that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The paper issued a meandering apology well after the 2003invasion prompted by the inaccurate reporting of Miller, the self-styled "Miss Run Amok" reporter, and others. But it was too little and too late to correct the damage. And it seems the Times is still running amok at the expense of what's in the public interest.