<b>’All political violence is committed by the left,’ she says</b>

Ann Coulter is at it again. In a discussion with Fox News Channel’s Geraldo Rivera, the loud-mouthed conservative pundit defended protesters rights to bring guns to events where President Barack Obama is speaking, positing that “all political violence is committed by the left.”

“I believe it is absolutely, malignantly irresponsible to allow armed people, even if the local ordinance permits, anywhere near the President of the United States,” Rivera declared. “I think they are slandering the second amendment to the constitution.”

“All political violence is committed by the left in this country,” Coulter remarked, adding wryly, “So you want these tea parties to be as safe as post offices and public schools, where people aren’t allowed to be armed.”

“So you are saying you do not oppose people carrying guns within range of the President of the United States,” Rivera continued.

“More guns, less crime,” Coulter replied.

“So believe that people should carry long guns with telescopic sights within range of the president of the United States?” Rivera asked. ”I think that’s absolutely insane.”

Coulter said that the portrayal of individuals at tea party protests being close to President Obama was falsely portrayed by the press, adding, “By the way, I’m more likely to be shot than the president.”

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Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s newly installed Supreme Court Justice, has a few words for corporations seeking protection under law.

You’re not people.

During arguments in a recent campaign-finance case — that may upend campaign finance law to allow more spending by corporations — Sotomayor suggested that the core underpinning of protecting corporations’ rights was flawed.

Judges “created corporations as persons, gave birth to corporations as persons,” she said, the Wall Street Journal noted Friday. “There could be an argument made that that was the court’s error to start with…[imbuing] a creature of state law with human characteristics.”

Corporations were first afforded the rights of persons under United States law in the 1800s, allowing them wide protections under federal code. Development of the law mushroomed as corporations — which were originally chartered by and in single states — began to grow larger and cross state lines. Eventually, courts ruled that states didn’t have the right to revoke contracts made by the corporations themselves. They also ruled that states didn’t have the unhindered right to revoke corporate charters.

Corporate personhood emerged from the 1886 Supreme Court Case, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad.

The interpretation of law giving corporations individual rights is salient in the campaign finance debate because corporations with “human rights” under law also have a right to free speech. Those seeking to gut campaign finance regulations use this argument when positing that the ability for firms to spend lavishly on political campaigns is tantamount to their right to free speech.

Sotomayor’s comment, while limited in scope, could mark a shift in judicial thought on the bench. Supreme Court Justice Roberts, installed by President George W. Bush, was seen by critics and fans alike as a strong defender of corporate rights.

“Progressives who think that corporations already have an unduly large influence on policy in the United States have to feel reassured that this was one of [her] first questions,” Douglas Kendall, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, was quoted in the Journal as saying.

On the other side of the fence, the pro-corporate Heritage Foundation said they found Sotomayor’s remark problematic.

“I don’t want to draw too much from one comment,” Todd Gaziano, director of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said. But it “doesn’t give me a lot of confidence that she respects the corporate form and the type of rights that it should be afforded.”

The San Diego sheriff’s office said Wednesday they’d hold a demonstration of a weapon used on insurgents in Iraq that they bought for local law enforcement.

They didn’t.

Instead, the sheriff’s office simply demonstrated its basic amplification capabilities, used, say, for locating lost hikers in canyons. They said the “switch” for its sonic weapons capability — which can purportedly burst individuals’ eardrums — was “disabled.”

The purchase of the so-called “sonic weapon” by the sheriff’s department set off shockwaves after it was reported last week by East County Magazine in California. The weapons, formally known as “long-range acoustic devices,” are used in the Iraq theater as a deterrent against crowds and emit an intolerable noise that can be targeted with extreme accuracy.

“If you accidentally flip that switch and someone is within a 30-foot range, they can have their eardrums burst, bleeding in the inner ear, and it can result in an aneurysm or death,” Examiner.com reporter Kim Dvorac said in a radio interview Wednesday cited by the magazine.

“The officers shown at this town hall meeting…were using this within 30 feet of townhall attendees and other officers,” Dvorac added.

Such devices have been used to repel insurgents in Iraq and to prevent piracy at sea.

“They are also using this over in Iraq and Afghanistan to target terrorists in crowds, to take them out and save people around them,” Dvorac said. “This can be pointed directly at you and it will burst your eardrums, but the person on the right or left will not be harmed by this.”

The reporter asserted that she’d found no evidence supporting the use of the weapons for law enforcement-based crowd control.

Police in the republic of Georgia reportedly used the weapon in a crowd control setting in 2007, sparking claims of police brutality.

“A democratic country could never use them against peaceful demonstrators,” a weapons expert was quoted as saying, noting that they had been used in Iraq.

In a local debate, Sheriff Bill Gore said the devices were purchased “as a crowd dispersal” that was “held in reserve” as “a non-lethal type of device to disperse crowds should there be the need.”

He asserted that the weapons don’t “burst eardrums.” In his demonstration Wednesday, he utilized only the voice amplification component of the weapon, and “said the device has been used to broadcast information in English and Spanish at a sandcastle building event in Imperial Beach and its directional sound capabilities have been used to successfully locate missing people during search and rescue efforts in East County’s canyons and mountains,” East County’s Miriam Raftery wrote. “The LRAD is more effective than a hand-held microphone for broadcasting messages, he added, because it can reach beyond 300 meters.”

“We’ve gotten really little feedback from the public,” Gore added. “I don’t think this thing is controversial.”

A video can be accessed at East County Magazine.

In a move raising eyebrows among civil liberties advocates, the Department of Homeland Security announced Monday that it would give so-called local and state “fusion centers” access to classified military intelligence in Pentagon databases.

Fusion centers are hubs for local law enforcement, the private sector and the intelligence community, and were created in an effort to fight terrorism. There are more than seventy known centers across the United States.

The decision to give fusion centers access to classified intelligence appears to a shift in policy by Homeland Security. In July, Secretary Janet Napolitano “that fusion centers were not intended to have a military presence, and that she was not aware of ones that did,” according to the New York Times.

The centers have been a flashpoint of criticism from civil liberties groups. The American Civil Liberties Union, in particular, has been a vehement critic.

“As fusion centers gain more and more access to Americans’ private information, the information about them being made available to the American public remains woefully inadequate,” Michael Macleod-Ball, Acting Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, said in a statement. “There is a stunning lack of oversight at these fusion centers and, as we’ve seen, these centers are rapidly becoming a breeding ground for overzealous intelligence activities. Opening the door for domestic law enforcement to gain access to classified military intelligence coupled with no guidelines restricting the military’s role in fusion centers is a recipe for disaster.”

In February, the ACLU highlighted a bulletin issued by a West Texas center. The Texas bulletin said it was “imperative for law enforcement officers to report” the activities of lobbying groups, Muslim civil rights organizations and anti-war protest groups in their region.

The model also took fire in April after a Virginia fusion center directive became public, which declared that US universities had become “radicalization node“s for potential terrorist activity — singling out several historically black colleges. The memo also called out “hacktivism” as a potential terrorist threat.

Remarkably, among the fusion center’s critics is the Justice Department itself. A December, 2008 “Privacy Impact Assessment” of the centers issued by the Department listed a number of key privacy weaknesses of the intelligence nexuses.

Among the problems listed were: “Justification for fusion centers; Ambiguous Lines of Authority, Rules, and Oversight; Participation of the Military and the Private Sector; Data Mining; Excessive Secrecy; Inaccurate or Incomplete Information; and Mission Creep.”

Defenders take message to Congress

A Homeland Security proponent, Robert Riegle of the State and Local Program Office, Office of Intelligence and Analysis, defended the centers in testimony to Congress in April, saying they’d experienced numerous law enforcement successes as a result of information sharing.

“Fusion centers are the core means by which we promote Federal, State, local and Tribal information sharing. Today, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice recognize 70 fusion centers, including ones in every state and every major city of the United States,” Riegle said. “Nearly half of these centers have been stood up since 2006 and have grown rapidly in number and effectiveness. Many fusion centers are in their infancy and many infrastructure challenges remain, but the successes that the centers have realized thus far give us good reason for our continued support.”

“Fusion centers are force multipliers,” Riegle added. “They leverage financial resources and the expertise of numerous public safety partners to increase information awareness and help our law enforcement agencies more effectively protect our communities. Thoughtful analysis about risks to our communities supports elected officials and homeland security leaders. This enables states and localities to better utilize limited financial resources to make effective, risk-based decisions about public safety matters and mitigate threats to the homeland.”

The ACLU isn’t so sure.

“Congress must take the necessary steps to ensure that a thorough and rigorous oversight mechanism is in place to ensure that Americans’ most sensitive information is protected,” the ACLU’s legislative director said. “Without proper guidelines, fusion centers will continue to threaten our privacy while doing nothing to improve security.”

Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington was once characterized as a liberal group on a witch hunt to oust then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX).

Not anymore. On Tuesday, the Washington watchdog group released its list of what it called the “most corrupt members of Congress” — and Democrats, who now control both chambers of Congress, comprise the majority.

The group posted the list of their 15 most corrupt members of Congress on a special website, CREWsMostCorrupt.com.

Democrats on the list are Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL), Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL), Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-WV), Rep. John P. Murtha (D-PA), Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-NY), Rep. Laura Richardson (D-CA), Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-IN) and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA).

Republicans on the list include Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL), Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA), Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA), Sen. John Ensign (R-NV), Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Rep. Don Young (R-AK). For what it’s worth, there are more Republicans percentagewise than there are in Congress, but this is probably small consolation to those who voted in a Democratic majority on the heels of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

Sen. Burris, who was appointed to replace President Barack Obama in Illinois, is new to the list. He’s highlighted because of conflicting statements that emerged after he was appointed by besmirched former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Additionally, CREW notes that Burris appears to have misled the public on his legal fees in his defense over his questionable Senate appointment — listing no legal fees for the first half of 2009 even though his campaign had said he’d spent $500,000 on lawyers in April.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), is also on the list. McConnell has taken flak for diverting taxpayer dollars to a former employee’s lobbying group, and for a contract awarded to a defense contractor accused of bribing the Saudi ambassador to the United States.

Democrats earmarks criticized

Jack Murtha, Democrat from Pennsylvania, is now a regular, having made the list in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Murtha’s alleged corruption issues are manifold, CREW says: “his ties to the PMA Group, a now defunct lobbying firm under federal investigation; his ties to Kuchera Industries, a defense contractor under federal investigation; his ties to defense executives and former military personnel convicted of skimming money from government contracts; actions he may have taken to benefit his brother’s lobbying clients; and his chief of staff’s threats to a political opponent. ”

In the nearby state of West Virginia, CREW singles out Rep. Alan Mollohan.

“Over the past ten plus years, Rep. Mollohan has earmarked $369 million in federal grants to his district for 254 separate programs, the group notes. “Between 1997 and 2006, $250 million of that total was directed to five nonprofit organizations that were created by Rep. Mollohan and staffed by his friends.”

Twelve of the fifteen members highlighted by the watchdog group are under scrutiny in some type of investigation.

“Of this year’s list of 15, at least 12 are under investigation: Reps. Ken Calvert, Jerry Lewis, Alan Mollohan, John Murtha, Pete Visclosky and Don Young are under Department of Justice (DOJ) investigations, while Sens. Roland Burris and John Ensign and Reps. Charles Rangel and Laura Richardson are under congressional ethics committee investigations,” CREW noted in their release. “Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. is under investigation by both the DOJ and the Office of Congressional Ethics and Rep. Vern Buchanan is being investigated by the Federal Election Commission.”

CREW’s executive director Melanie Sloan said US issues of economic malaise should put congressional corruption front and center.

“With the economy in a free-fall, unemployment rates at record highs and health care solutions still nowhere in sight, members should be spending their time looking for answers to the nation’s problems, not finding new ways to enrich themselves,” Sloan remarked. “The members of Congress profiled in CREW’s Most Corrupt report have betrayed those who voted them into office. This report holds them accountable for their bad choices.”

Sloan, one of the group’s founders, is a former counsel to House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI).

In striking contrast to comments made this weekend by GOP Sen. Olympia Snowe, Tom Harkin (D-IA), the new chairman of the Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee, declared Sunday that a public option will pass.

“Mark my word — I’m the chairman — it’s going to have a strong public option,” Harkin said at an Iowa fundraiser, adding that it would pass “by Christmas.” Harkin replaced Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) as the committee’s chair upon Kennedy’s passing.

“[It] now falls to me to pick up the torch,” he added. Harkin’s remarks were picked up by the Iowa Independent.

Harkin was speaking at his annual Steak Fry fundraiser in Indianola, Iowa.

The Iowa senator’s comments, however, come at variance with comments made by the Republican “swing vote” on the Senate Finance Committee, which is crafting the Senate health legislation. On Sunday, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) said she’d told President Barack Obama to scrap the public option.

“It’s universally opposed by all Republicans in the Senate, and therefore there’s no way to pass a plan that includes the public option,” Snowe quipped. “So, I think it’s recognizing that, because it is a roadblock to building the kind of consensus that we need. Even [Senate Finance Committee] Chairman [Max] Baucus has indicated, no proposal could be passed in the Senate that includes it. So, it would be best to just move forward.”

Harkin spoke to a cheering, enthusiastic crowd, telling audience members, “This is my kind of town hall,” according to the Independent, and criticizing fellow Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who recently repeated comments made by ex-Alaska Republican Gov. Sarah Palin about so-called “death panels.”

”Shame on anyone who repeats it,” Harkin reportedly said.

The man who helped oversee President George W. Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program now has a new job: a membership on the Public Interest Declassification Board.

Former Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, who led the National Security Agency under President Bush from 1999 to 2005 and the Central Intelligence Agency from 2006 until President Barack Obama’s inauguration, was appointed during the Labor Day recess by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

The news was announced in the Congressional Record Sept. 8 and discovered yesterday by Secrecy News.

Hayden’s appointment may come as a surprise to critics of Bush-era secrecy. The onetime general isn’t known as an advocate of transparency — in fact, Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program was one of the administration’s most guarded secrets. Moreover, he’s been a critic of President Obama’s decision to release CIA and Justice Department memos, particularly those that detailed the agency’s policies on torture.

“If one were searching for an individual to represent the public interest in promoting declassification of government records, the first name that came to mind would probably not be Michael V. Hayden, the former director of the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency,” Secrecy News’ Stephen Aftergood wrote Thursday.

“When the late Senator Daniel P. Moynihan conceived of a Public Interest Declassification Board a decade ago, he would not have imagined that the national security classification system might be employed by a present-day U.S. Administration to help circumvent laws against warrantless surveillance or torture,” Aftergood continued. “And yet here we are.”

McConnell, in an email to the Washington Post, said “The country is fortunate that Gen. Michael Hayden has agreed to serve as a member” and that “his long history of service as an intelligence professional makes him ideally suited for balancing the interests of secrecy and disclosure in protecting our national security.”

Hayden wasn’t simply the administrator of Bush’s wiretapping program: he was a self-proclaimed “leading architect.”

During his confirmation hearing in 2006, Hayden said he was a leading architect of the NSA program monitoring Americans’ phone calls and emails without obtaining court approval, and defended the agency’s collection of communications records on tens of millions of Americans.

The Classification Board, while having no direct jurisdiction, is developing new classification guidelines for the executive branch. Obama National Security Adviser James Jones plans a substantial revision of classification directives, which saw significant dilution under President Bush.

Declassification proponent? Not so much, says the ACLU.

“To this day, the NSA continues to conceal virtually all information about the warrantless wiretapping program,” Jameel Jaffer, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project, has said. “As CIA director, General Hayden claimed that destruction of waterboarding tapes was ‘in line with the law.’ “

Republicans boo, grumble, hold up signs ridiculing President during speech

While an outburst from a South Carolina Republican congressman stole the showing during President Barack Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress Wednesday, other Republican members of Congress repeatedly ridiculed the president during his speech, according to a Thursday morning report.

Dana Milbank, a Washington Post White House correspondent under President George W. Bush, penned a column published Thursday in which he called the Republican response during Obama’s speech “appalling.”

“Wilson was only the most flagrant,” Milbank wrote. “There was booing from House Republicans when the president caricatured a conservative argument by saying they would ‘leave individuals to buy health insurance on their own.’ They hissed when he protested their ’scare tactics.’ They grumbled as they do in Britain’s House of Commons when Obama spoke of the ‘blizzard of charges and countercharges.’”

Added Milbank:

When he asserted that “nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have,” there was scoffing and outright laughter on the GOP side. Rep. Jeb Hensarling (Tex.) shook his head in disbelief. Several Republicans shouted “What plan?” and Rep. Louis Gohmert (Tex.) waved at Obama a handwritten poster he made on a letter-size piece of paper: “WHAT PLAN?” Gohmert then took that down and replaced it with another handmade poster that said “WHAT BILL?”…

But while the majority of both parties’ lawmakers behaved as adults, the insolence by House Republicans stole the show. There was derisive laughter on that side of the chamber when Obama noted that “there remain some significant details to be ironed out.” They applauded as he spoke of “all the misinformation that’s been spread over the past few months.” They laughed again when he said that “many Americans have grown nervous about reform.”

When Obama addressed the charge that he plans “panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens,” someone on the GOP side shouted out “shame!” The president went on: “Such a charge would be laughable if it weren’t so cynical.” “Read the bill!” someone shouted back. Obama mentioned those who accuse him of a government takeover of health care. “It’s true,” someone shouted back.

Towards the end of the speech, the Post reporter writes, the GOP Rep. who shouted “you lie” during Obama’s speech reportedly played with his Blackberry handheld device.

“Wilson twiddled his thumbs, then took his BlackBerry from its holster to consult it yet again,” Milbank adds. “The speech ended, and, as his colleagues applauded, Wilson beat a hasty retreat.”

Munch munch.

The national healthcare fracas has gotten yet crazier. A healthcare opponent in Thousand Oaks, California had his finger bitten off after an argument with a man supporting healthcare reform.

“A witness from the scene says a man was walking through the anti-reform group to get to the pro-reform side when he got into an altercation with the 65-year-old, who opposes health care reform,” a Los Angeles TV station reported.

“The 65-year-old was apparently aggressive and hit the other man, who then retaliated by biting off his attacker’s pinky, according to Karoli from DrumsnWhistles,” the station added.

According to reports, the man then picked up his finger and promptly walked to a nearby hospital for treatment. Neither individual was identified.

The altercation took place outside at a rally sponsored by MoveOn.org.

The news comes just a day after a man was reportedly punched in the face and knocked to the ground by a supporter of the public health insurance option in Miami.

An Associated Press report published Thursday afternoon indicates that the protester had successful surgery on his finger, and was covered by a government health plan.

“A hospital spokeswoman says the man lost half the finger, but doctors reattached it and he was sent home the same night,” the AP reports. “She says he had Medicare.”

In an interview late Tuesday, Bruce Fein, an Associate Deputy Attorney General during President Ronald Reagan’s administration, said the Justice Department should expand a probe into the CIA’s interrogation techniques — including the possibility of targeting former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Likening the probe to those conducted over murders during the civil rights era — where new investigations began even though few facts had been unearthed — Fein said that the new probe was appropriate.

“Well, there may be no new facts but that’s what you could say about a lot of things in the South during the civil rights movement… I’m not trying to suggest they’re identical, but this is not unheard of,” Fein said. “You have a new assessment of what the situation was; the climate is different, and if they’re showing violations of law there’s always the pardon power if there is extenuating circumstances.

“My objection is really [the investigation] is much too narrow,” Fein continued. “It’s a little bit like looking at the burglars of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist without looking into who authorized it, and we did both. Or the case of Felton Miller who got pardons for doing break-ins against the Weathermen Underground when there’s national security here.”

The former Reagan aide added that the probe should extend from “foot soldiers” to the Bush officials at the head of the line.

“I think it’s unfair to saddle only the foot soldiers, so to speak, with this investigative liability and not going to the higher-ups including Mr. Cheney himself,” Fein added. “If there are extenuating circumstances, that’s what the pardon is for. The pardon is above board. The president has to take accountability to it. And plus, it doesn’t undermine the rule of law because the recipient has to accept that the law was violated.”

The following video is from MSNBC’s Hardball, broadcast Sept. 1, 2009.