Think Joe, Sue and the DHS are keeping YOU safe?

Think again...

They can't even secure their own department, never mind you and I.

The Homeland Security Department, the lead U.S. agency for fighting cyber threats, suffered more than 800 hacker break-ins, virus outbreaks and other computer security problems over two years, senior officials acknowledged to Congress.

In one instance, hacker tools for stealing passwords and other files were found on two internal Homeland Security computer systems. The agency's headquarters sought forensic help from the department's own Security Operations Center and the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team it operates with Carnegie Mellon University.

In other cases, computer workstations in the Coast Guard and the Transportation Security Administration were infected with malicious software detected trying to communicate with outsiders; laptops were discovered missing; and agency Web sites suffered break-ins.

The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said such problems undermine the government's efforts to encourage companies and private organizations to improve cyber security.

Given their track record of exceptional oversight of homeland security, where real oversight is the exception, we are sure Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins will start to investigate what is going on. It is their job, ya know?

But the decision by Lieberman, the new chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, to back away from the committee's Katrina probe is already dismaying public-interest groups and others who hoped the Democratic victory in November would lead to more aggressive investigations of one of the White House’s most spectacular foul-ups.

Last year, when he was running for re-election in Connecticut, Lieberman was a vocal critic of the administration’s handling of Katrina. He was especially dismayed by its failure to turn over key records that could have shed light on internal White House deliberations about the hurricane, including those involving President Bush.

Asserting that there were “too many important questions that cannot be answered,” Lieberman and other committee Democrats complained in a statement last year that the panel “did not receive information or documents showing what actually was going on in the White House.”

And Joe supports more of this turning a blind eye to failure when he shows his support for Susan Collins re-election.

Susan Collins and Joe Lieberman have been complete and total failures at providing government oversight. They were -- and are -- the ranking Republican and Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that has done NOTHING to hold the Bush administration accountable for Iraq or Katrina or any other issue really.

Lieberman and Collins had the opportunity to rein Bush in -- and they didn't. They won't. They support Bush. They support his war in Iraq. No wonder Joe Lieberman thinks Collins is a great Senator. She's just like him.

How did we end up with this untenable situation? ctblogger has been keeping tabs on who is to blame:

Hugh Bailey nails it.

Local Democrats must be so proud. James Amann, Bill Finch, Paul Ganim: their hard work is going toward bringing control of the U.S. Senate back to Republicans.

Surprising no one, Sen. Joe Lieberman has announced he will campaign and raise money for his good friend Sen. Susan Collins, of Maine. Collins is a Republican, and if she wins next year, it could go a long way toward putting her party back in control of the Senate.

Elections have consequences. Congress is this year finally holding hearings and trying to get answers from a White House that rules by executive fiat. President Bush will be gone after next year's election, but investigators will be sorting through the wreckage of his presidency for years. Restoring to power a party dedicated to looking the other way is bad for the country.

[...]

Lieberman can argue that he's only repaying Collins' favor to him last year. It's true, she came to Connecticut and did what she could to help her fellow ranking member on the Senate's committee on homeland security. But for Collins, there was no downside. Win or lose, Lieberman or Ned Lamont, the Connecticut senator was going to caucus with the Democrats. Collins' seat, though, is a toss-up, and should she win, it could deal a severe blow to Democrats' chances of holding onto the Senate.

[...]

We'll never know what kind of senator Ned Lamont would have made, but we can be sure he wouldn't have spent time and money campaigning for Republicans. Elections have consequences, and all local Democrats who stuck with Lieberman and turned against their own party should be reminded of what their support has brought them — no oversight, no meaningful investigations from his committee and active support for Republicans. Thanks again, guys.

Don't forget those who stuck with Joe...don't EVER forget.

Tip to T-Party for the heads-up.

Lots of people in the Blogosphere are watching this irrational behaviour, and we will never forget:

When Bill Clinton rushed to Connecticut to try to save Lieberman's doomed bid for renomination, and then followed that up after the reactionary senator was defeated in the Democratic party by going on air with Larry King and equating the Lieberman and Lamont-- "My view is Connecticut is an unmitigated blessing for the Democrats because Lieberman has said if he wins he's going to vote with us to organize the Senate"-- low information voters in Connecticut got the signal that the race was no big deal. Now treacherous Democrats who supported or tacitly supported Lieberman-- Schumer, Reid, Obama, Clinton, Landrieu, Pryor-- have to contend with that treachery themselves. Landrieu has already felt the sting when Lieberman, as head of the committee dealing with Katrina reconstruction sided with the Bush Regime and left her almost certain to be defeated next year.

But helping the GOP defeat Landrieu isn't the only payback Lieberman has for Rove, Bush and Cheney for coming to his rescue in the general election last year. Even beyond voting with Republicans in the Senate over and over, and declaring he would likely endorse a Republican for president-- McCain, as big a warmonger as himself, being his first choice-- he has now started endorsing vulnerable Republican senators for re-election. His only consideration seems to be that they support Bush's Iraq occupation.

And that is why there is absolutely nothing bipartisan about Joe NEOCON Lieberman... Joe has one agenda, and one agenda only. WARMONGERING:

Last year, in the heat of the senate primary, I was talking to an old friend in Iowa and hastily summarized my disgust with Lieberman in one word: warmonger. My friend thought that my choice of words was particularly strong, which gave me pause. Was I being unfair to Lieberman? As is evident in the video above, from this past Sunday, apparently not.

So I ask a question that has already been answered: Is Joe Lieberman really a warmonger? Sadly, yes:

war·mon·ger noun
: one who urges or attempts to stir up war

But the problem here is that in order for Joe to work his warmonger's agenda he has to support candidates, and their policies, that have exhibited the highest levels of incompetence in their judgement and, often, have purposely failed to do their jobs of providing real oversight. Bush and Collins are examples of that unending support that Joe stretches well past what would be considered typically partisan behaviour and well into the realms of gross negligence in regards to providing security to our nation's citizens.

Bombing Iran, Joe? FUCK YOU WARMONGER!

Kicking you and your bush supporters off of the Department of Homeland Security Committee would certainly do more to improve our nation's security than any agenda you offer.