Comments on: keeping the US safe

keeping the US safe

the fire you left me — Thu, 15 May 2003 09:47:28 -0800

Quoram busting Democrats tracked as terrorists. Disagree with the majority Party, and Homeland Security may like a word with you.

By: xmutex

xmutex — Thu, 15 May 2003 09:59:43 -0800

Oh come on, don't spin it like that. As much as I thoroughly and seleniferous hate Republicans like any good MeFi'er and devotee of common sense, you can't really defend it when a bunch of politicians run away to another state. C'mon. That's not even so high school, it's so middle school.

By: xmutex

xmutex — Thu, 15 May 2003 10:00:52 -0800

WTF, the spell checker changed self-righteously to seleniferous. I don't even know what that means. I go back to sleep now.

By: gramcracker

gramcracker — Thu, 15 May 2003 10:04:22 -0800

Nothing surprises me anymore.

By: quonsar

quonsar — Thu, 15 May 2003 10:25:24 -0800

containing or yielding selenium [seleniferous vegetation]

By: soyjoy

soyjoy — Thu, 15 May 2003 10:36:02 -0800

xmutex, I don't want to get all seleniferous on you, but there is definitely a legitimate issue here with anti-terrorism forces being used in a political dispute. It's not exactly an isolated incident.

By: Hildago

Hildago — Thu, 15 May 2003 10:50:48 -0800

They are not breaking any laws, they have not indicated an intention to break any. Why should they be tracked? For the record, I think what they are doing is stupid, but I am thrilled that some democrats have finally grown metaphorical nuts and are willing to put their careers on the line to say that what the state legislature is doing is wrong.

By: xmutex

xmutex — Thu, 15 May 2003 10:54:16 -0800

Metaphorical nuts. Love it. Totally seleniferous.

By: Cerebus

Cerebus — Thu, 15 May 2003 11:00:54 -0800

Does it suprise anyone that the party that wants to gerrymander Texas, attempted to pass the new districting plan on an election day without public comment or debate, and attempted to bully their opposition by threatening to vote down wholesale any bill the opposition brings to the floor of the House without any debate at all would stoop to misusing federal resources to further their political machine? I mean, in the grand scheme of the abuse of Texas this is pretty small potatos.

By: Ignatius J. Reilly

Ignatius J. Reilly — Thu, 15 May 2003 11:17:15 -0800

The narrative of terrorism is an intellectual trump card. Basically, spit out the T-word and some percentage of the people you are talking to will stop thinking right then and there. If that is terrorism then blah blah blah. I have no idea when to take that word seriously any more. Maybe they are thinking ahead to when this administration gets accused of, you know, using violence against civiliians to meet political goals. Are they trying to strip the word of any meaning at all? Never thought I would see the Republicans take a page out of the "queer" playbook. At least Santorum isn't from Texas.

By: gramcracker

gramcracker — Thu, 15 May 2003 11:21:30 -0800

Either way, I'm happy the Democrats did something. It seems like dire straights (and an example of how the two-party democratic system is failing) when the ruling party can redistrict in their favor, and there's nothing the people or the opposition can do to stop them.

By: Espoo2

Espoo2 — Thu, 15 May 2003 11:31:34 -0800

As stupid as it looks, it's actually a pretty smart way to call attention to the issue... because it's so so range, it gets alot of press and lets people see what is going on.

By: Espoo2

Espoo2 — Thu, 15 May 2003 11:32:16 -0800

eh, that should be "because it's so STRANGE"

By: ilsa

ilsa — Thu, 15 May 2003 11:42:26 -0800

By: rowell

rowell — Thu, 15 May 2003 12:15:16 -0800

What's wrong with seleniferous? It's a perfectly cromulent word.

By: bdk3clash

bdk3clash — Thu, 15 May 2003 12:17:38 -0800

Umm, shouldn't that be "Quorum", not "Quoram"? By the way, "Quoram" sounds vaguely Arabic. Freudian slip?

By: bdk3clash

bdk3clash — Thu, 15 May 2003 12:19:44 -0800

Whoops. Link fixed here.

By: Blue Stone

Blue Stone — Thu, 15 May 2003 12:45:08 -0800

Re: Metaphorical nuts and seleniferousness.

By: mr_roboto

mr_roboto — Thu, 15 May 2003 12:52:12 -0800

I'm so happy to see that American forces have captured Osama, rounded up all of his posse, and neutralized all the terrorist sleeper cells that Experts keep warning [may be] within our borders. Clearly these things must have happened, or the Department of Homeland Security would not have time to engage in such debatable "homeland security" matters. The Department of Homeland Security has far-ranging responsibilities beyond protecting against terrorism. The Secret Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, Coast Guard, Transportation Security Administration, and Customs are all agencies of the DHS now. When a plane goes missing, it's the responsibility of Air and Marine Interdiction Coordination Center, a branch of Customs, to help look for it. The fact that the AMICC is organized under the DHS does not imply that every missing plane is an act of terrorism, or a breach of "homeland security". If the DHS were to stop all it's non-terrorist-related functions until all terrorists were found, any number of essential services would grind to a halt. It's not even the responsibility of the DHS to hunt down terrorists. That goes to the FBI (under the DOJ) or the military (under the DOD) or the CIA (unaccountable to any agency).

By: found missing

found missing — Thu, 15 May 2003 12:54:50 -0800

Said Texas legislator Dan Branch: "They're legislative terrorists, and their leaving today is a weapon of mass obstruction." (Daily Show)

By: WolfDaddy

WolfDaddy — Thu, 15 May 2003 13:07:10 -0800

MetaFilter: growing metaphorical seleniferous nuts since 1999

By: Space Coyote

Space Coyote — Thu, 15 May 2003 13:12:38 -0800

It's not even the responsibility of the DHS to hunt down terrorists. That goes to the FBI (under the DOJ) or the military (under the DOD) or the CIA (unaccountable to any agency). Homeland Security: It wasn't even about terrorism in the first place. Suckers.(TM)

By: mr_roboto

mr_roboto — Thu, 15 May 2003 13:32:02 -0800

Yeah, that's the thing that got me about the formation of the DHS. It was, in large part, a response to intelligence-sharing failures on the part of the FBI and CIA. In the end, however, the establishment of the DHS had little or no effect on either of these agencies. Some definite smoke screen action going on there.

By: son_of_minya

son_of_minya — Thu, 15 May 2003 14:01:07 -0800

The Neo-Conservatives (read, "Neo-Fascists" or "Syndicate") do have a history of this type of thing.

By: goethean

goethean — Thu, 15 May 2003 14:35:35 -0800

~~What type of thing?~~

By: mumbaiyaa

mumbaiyaa — Thu, 15 May 2003 14:58:12 -0800

The Dems' actions have shone a spotlight on Texas polictics which is good. But they will pay dearly in 2004. If the re-districting had proceeded as planned they would have suffered too. At least this way they got to tell the outside world what goes on in Austin.

By: monkeyman

monkeyman — Thu, 15 May 2003 15:07:27 -0800

The funniest part is that they couldn't find the plane. That's fucking brilliant. The must be aces at finding terrorists.

By: drstrangelove

drstrangelove — Thu, 15 May 2003 15:15:59 -0800

And people think I'm just crazy when I keep harping that we're descending into fucking fascism... By the way, I hate freedom.

By: Ignatius J. Reilly

Ignatius J. Reilly — Thu, 15 May 2003 15:24:54 -0800

By the way, I hate freedom. Well I figgered as much.

By: syzygy

syzygy — Thu, 15 May 2003 15:46:36 -0800

mr_roboto: It was, in large part, a response to intelligence-sharing failures on the part of the FBI and CIA. In the end, however, the establishment of the DHS had little or no effect on either of these agencies. Not really. You're mixing things up. The communications problems between the CIA and FBI were certainly talked about after 9/11, but the DHS was set up to coordinate information-sharing between other government agencies with security-related roles (customs, coast guard, immigration, etc.). The communications problems between the CIA and FBI are being dealt with separately (but in the same spirit), if we are to believe what we are being told.

By: mr_roboto

mr_roboto — Thu, 15 May 2003 16:22:26 -0800

Not really. You're mixing things up. The communications problems between the CIA and FBI were certainly talked about after 9/11, but the DHS was set up to coordinate information-sharing between other government agencies with security-related roles (customs, coast guard, immigration, etc.). Clearly, the creation of DHS did nothing to tackle any of the communications problems in the FBI and between the agencies. I maintain, however, that DHS was created (paradoxically) as a response to those problems. Soon after his appointment as director of Homeland Security, Ridge was insisting that there was no need to make it a cabinet-level position, saying things like: "I've got the power to do the job because the president wants the job done. That's all the power I need." As revelations about failures of intelligence in the FBI began to become public, however, there was pressure on the administration to do something about it. The administration's public response was to create the DHS. If you look at Bush's speech proposing the department, you'll see that he segues from a discussion of the intelligence failures directly into his introduction of the new Department of Homeland Security. It's not explicit, but it's certainly implied that this new department is a solution to the recently revealed problems in intelligence sharing. It isn't, of course. How strange is it to have a "security" department that includes neither the police force nor the military?

By: syzygy

syzygy — Thu, 15 May 2003 16:49:53 -0800

mr_roboto: In this 27 page document, the CIA is mentioned 7 times, and usually in company with the NSA, FBI, DEA, DOE (a long, generic list of government agencies). The most relevant portion: Intelligence and Threat Analysis. The Department would fuse and analyze intelligence and other information pertaining to threats to the homeland from multiple sources – including the CIA, NSA, FBI, INS, DEA, DOE, Customs, DOT and data gleaned from other organizations. The Department would merge under one roof the capability to identify and assess current and future threats to the homeland, map those threats against our current vulnerabilities, issue timely warnings, and immediately take or effect appropriate preventive and protective action. An important partner with the Department's intelligence and threat analysis division will be the newly formed FBI Office of Intelligence. The new FBI and CIA reforms will provide critical analysis and information to the new Department. My understanding of the above paragraph is that the main relationship the DHS has to the CIA and FBI is as a consumer of their intelligence data. The DHS collects data from many sources to try to get an intelligence overview. I read the last sentence to mean that FBI and CIA reforms are happening outside of the scope of the DHS. That's been my interpretation of the DHS's relationship to the FBI and CIA, from the start, and I think it's pretty clear that if the DHS's main reason for existence was to address the communications problems between the FBI and the CIA that the official document explaining the DHS would have a lot more to say about that mission.

By: mr_roboto

mr_roboto — Thu, 15 May 2003 17:21:44 -0800

What I'm saying is that the main mission of the DHS is to satisfy the American people that "something" is being done about terrorism and, in so doing, facilitate Bush's reelection. It doesn't say that in the official document either, I bet.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Thu, 15 May 2003 17:40:26 -0800

Texas Constitution, Article 3, Section 10: Two-thirds of each House shall constitute a quorum to do business, but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and compel the attendance of absent members, in such manner and under such penalties as each House may provide.

By: Bixby23

Bixby23 — Thu, 15 May 2003 20:52:45 -0800

Man, too much seleniferocity for me 'round here. Downright toxic...

By: Ignatius J. Reilly

Ignatius J. Reilly — Thu, 15 May 2003 21:55:27 -0800

Check this out. It seems that Texas Republicans got state law enforcement to lie to the feds. Damn.

By: palancik

palancik — Fri, 16 May 2003 07:30:39 -0800

Late in the thread, but Joshua Micah Marshall [scroll down a bit] has this to say on these shenanigans, not only in Texas but also in Colorado:
There is a longstanding tradition in this country --- amounting to a firm political precedent --- that redistricting happens once every ten years. There are exceptions in voting rights cases, where districts are changed. But outside of that specific case, the established norm is quite clear. There's a census, a redistricting, and then that's it until the next census. Sometimes, the state legislature -- or the mix of the legislature and the executive -- can't come to a decision. In that case it falls to the courts, which devise a redistricting plan. This is quite common. And those court-imposed plans are similarly not revisited until the next census. . . .
Now what we have are two states --- Colorado and Texas --- in which state governments newly-unified under Republican control are taking a second bite at the apple, after settled, court-imposed redistricting had taken place. In both cases, the new redistricting laws are being rushed through at the end of a legislative session. And in both cases there is clear evidence that the direction for the move comes from Washington. In one case from Karl Rove, in another from Tom Delay.
So where is the line between smart, tough politics and indefensible power grab?