Court Nixes Feds Request to Keep NSA Phone Records Longer Than Five Years

Federal judge Reggie Walton

In a story that slipped under the radar during SXSW, the Ukraine crisis, and the Malaysian Airlines plane disaster, a federal judge ruled that the NSA could not keep phone records longer than five years. According to an article in theverge.com, the judge in charge of NSA oversight asserted that privacy protections trumped the government's contention that five years just wasn't enough time to hold gathered data for evidentiary purposes.

The ruling jurist, Reggie Walton, is a George W. Bush appointee. The judge has tended to see the merits of protecting individual privacy versus sweeping, secret government encroachment of it.

Harvard Expert Asserts Iraq-Afghan Wars Will Be Most Expensive in US History

Former President George W. Bush
(photo: Fox News)

Remember "Mission Accomplished"? In what seems a lifetime ago, then-President George W. Bush landed a plane onto an aircraft carrier and made his now infamous declaration about the Iraq conflict. The mission turned out to be a disaster. It also became something of a financial albatross for the United States.

The weight of that dead bird was recently estimated by a Harvard University public policy professor. Her cost estimate of the Iraq conflict, combined with Afghanistan military operations, ranges from four trillion to six trillion dollars when all is said and done. Her findings were reported in an article in today's Los Angeles Times.

Other estimates are "merely" two trillion dollars, with $262 billion "in interest on the resulting debt." Whatever one's opinion of America's military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, the notion that the conflicts could be paid without raising revenue for them was absurd and deeply dishonest. Conservatives, who believed a tax cut could be managed during a major military conflict, should take a hard look in the mirror for foisting such a damaging fiction on the public during the Bush-Cheney era. To this day, the right-wing remains in profound denial over the Iraq-Afghanistan wars and the cancerous corruption they spawned. Their mission, far from accomplished, seems as nearly bankrupt as our nation really and truly is. That's a shame.

George W. Bush's Dog "Barney" -- RIP

Barney and Bush
(photo: LA Times)

No, it's not a joke. The 43rd President of the United States' pooch, Barney, died this week. The former Commander-in-Chief released the news in a statement to the media, as reported in today's Washington Post.

The press release offers a sense of Bush's occasionally playful sense of humor. He noted how the dog regarded reporters in ways similar to how canines typically size up postal employees. Bush, with tongue in cheek, noted in his statement how Barney "never discussed politics." The former American supremo also provided a photo of the dog.

The image happens to show Bush's painting of Barney. Believe it or not, W. is learning how to paint. I had to read the story three times to confirm I wasn't dreaming.

Voting Stories

Sample ballot from Palm Beach County, FL
from the 2000 presidential election

With the first Obama-Romney debate scheduled for tomorrow evening, I thought about some of my experiences involving voting.

When I was a young boy, I lived in a small central New York town. Small town elections are goofy affairs, in that voters actually know the candidates and understand how short a shadow their reputation casts. That reality didn't stop my parents from exercising their franchise. Mom and Dad voted in a wooden building within walking distance of our house. What made my parents' voting memorable is that they claimed the election officials openly wore partisan Republican political badges. I have every reason now to believe my folks. At the time, I thought voter fraud was something that took place far away, in corrupt Chicago or the Kingfish's Louisiana.

I don't remember the first time I voted. It just wasn't as memorable as, say, taking my road test for a driver's license. However, I have cast my ballot in nearly every November election. The exception was the time I lived in Italy. The Italians have a novel way of conducting elections: everyone returns to where they were born and votes there. It's no joke. The trains are filled with people going to their birthplace, like so many salmon swimming upstream to spawn. Italian elections are about as honest as those held in rural Texas or The Wire's Baltimore.

The only time I felt genuinely apprehensive about voting was in 2004. George W. Bush, who had gained the presidency without winning a plurality of the national vote, was running for re-election. The feeling in '04 was that the fix was in for W. My wife and I cast absentee ballots, went to Canada for Election Day, and watched the Bush v. Kerry results from across the border. It was a creepy, depressing experience, soon magnified by the revelations about Abu Ghraib, the extent of domestic spying, and the pervasive sense of trickle-down corruption.

I don't know how this year's presidential election will turn out. I just hope my vote doesn't get counted for Pat Buchanan.