I already addressed REAL-ID’s tragic and horrendous screw-up — now Bruce Schneier brings our attention to another failed security system: US-VISIT. It’s cost us $15B plus great annoyance for foreign travellers coming into the state or American visitors to Brazil. If Bush wants to cut underperforming and disappointing programs, like he said in the State of the Union Address, how about cutting that one?

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House Aims to Limit Members, Now Lobbyists - Yahoo! News

Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Ark., testifying to the Rules Committee, said the rules changes did not go far enough. He argued that lawmakers-turned-lobbyists should also have to stand in security lines like other visitors to the Capitol, lose their member dining room privileges and give up their parking places. A lobbyist, he said, should be treated the same as any other citizen who comes to Washington to petition his or her member of Congress.

You’ve sold your soul out to special interests completely…NO PARKING SPOT FOR YOU!

C’mon, people. There’s a real, broken piece of the system here. Banning them from the gym, or from the dining room, or taking away their parking space isn’t going to address the fundamentally broken issue of there being basically no accountability at the federal level.

I do like the idea of removing retirement benefits for lawmarkers convicted of felonies. That’s at least a start.

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Alright, time for you to jump in: I’m looking for recommendations for political RSS feeds. I would particularly like to find blogs for current and ex Representatives and Senators (like Bernie Sanders and Joe Scarborough over at Huffington Post), but I’m also very keenly interested in blogs written by people who haven’t drunk a particular political party’s Kool-Aid, as well as fact-based commentary (as if FactCheck.org had an RSS feed or Electoral-Vote.com was still alive). Partisan blogs (a la Daily Kos and Captain’s Quarters) make up the end of my list, but I’d like to see them, too.

Take advantage of the new no-registration format and plug your favorite pundit or news source — I’m fishing for something new and interesting to read and meta-blog.

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BLINDED BY DEMOCRACY - Yahoo! News

Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice’s frank words after the gigantic Hamas electoral victory in Gaza last weekend should be engraved in bronze in a prominently displayed plaque in the lobby of the State Department.

No, I take that back. Identical plaques should be hung in the lobby of the Pentagon, over the secretary of Defense’s desk, at the entrance to the Oval Office in the White House and in the vice president’s office.

In her own words, the plaques would read: “I’ve asked why nobody saw it coming. It does say something about us not having a good enough pulse.” Then it would be signed “Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who for some inexplicable reason did not foresee the Hamas victory in 2006.”

Bush and his administration — Hell, the entire crowd over at PNAC — need to take a careful lesson about getting what you ask for. Democracy means that the majority gets what they want, and powerful minorities get votes. (Note that I said “powerful minorities”, which explains why the Democrats can’t seem to have any power in our Democracy.)

The problem with this wonderful democracy-spreading plan is when your majority (and/or your powerful minorities) are opposed to concepts like equality and diplomacy.

This is what the CATO Institute was getting into with their shocking admission that half-assed Democracies are more dangerous than their dictatorial counterparts, and it’s part of the reason why Bush (correctly) talked in opposition to “nation building” in the 2000 election.

You can’t build a democracy — you can’t force people to take ownership of their government. You need to foster democracy, which is done through fair trade, education, infrastructure, and the creation of a middle class.

Trying to starve people, slapping sanctions on them, and removing the very supports on which a capitailst/democratic infrastructure can be built is really counter-productive to the goals of peace and democracy…but we’re about to do it again with Iran.

Edit: This is the impetus behind one of the “Big Lies” that Arianna Huffington asks the President not to say at tonight’s SotU Address.

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For the record, this is an interactive blog. Although I can’t read comments left at syndicators/aggregators (like Technorati or LiveJournal), I encourage people to register here and join the conversation if there’s something which has gotten your goat, something you want to see backed up, or just another view point you think I would benefit from hearing.

Active posters (like TheHawk and BHurt-AW) can get upgraded to having posting rights, if they care to do so. Such people are also encouraged to suggest new categories for the site.

As a fun and exciting experiment, I’ve decided to pull off the log-in requirement for posting. I still encourage logging in, but for lazy people out there, it’s no longer required. If I get the crap kicked out of the site due to spam or anonymous posting, I’ll turn the log-in requirement back on — until then, go to town.

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