George's torture program (but don't tell anybody)

nothing really new here... going all the way back to ricardo sanchez' appearance in front of the senate armed services committee (where he perjured himself, by the way), it's been crystal clear that torture IS the policy of the united states and that it has been authorized from the executive office of the president...

"The administration has been almost pathological in trying to find ways to keep these people [14 accused terrorists currently being held at Guantánamo Bay] from ever seeing a real judge or a real lawyer," John Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, told the Associated Press, "and the reasons are obvious."

[...]

"It seems likely now that the president may have not only known about the torture program, but may have ordered it," Turley told the AP. "That would be truly otherwordly, where the United States could be accused of running a torture program."

of COURSE, he knew about it... of COURSE, he ordered it...

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Claims of "unintentional" Patriot Act abuses "are not credible"

an aclu news release via raw story...

"Claims that the FBI’s reported Patriot Act abuses were the “unintentional” result of outmoded computer systems and human error are not credible, the American Civil Liberties Union said today, citing evidence that agents contracted with phone companies to obtain customer records and later sought to cover up the illegal requests," the ACLU press release stated.

According to the ACLU, "The report also shows that the FBI is issuing hundreds of thousands more National Security Letters than ever imagined, and that tracking of the NSLs is sloppy, resulting in thousands of innocent Americans being entered into databases that are shared with numerous U.S. agencies and foreign governments."

anybody who buys the "unintentional" horseshit is working with a couple of bricks shy of a load...

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The Bush administration has “absolutely been the worst thing that’s happened" to the military

good thing you're retired, paul... still, i'd keep an eye out for any skulduggery with your pension...

“We are in the midst of recovering right now from a constitutional crisis where you had the executive trump the other branches of government,” [Retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who was in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004,] said. “Thank god” Congress changed hands in November, he said, giving us “a chance to unsort and figure out how to get out from under this.”

Eaton lamented that so many service members believe that conservatives “are good for the military.” “That is rarely the case. And we have got to get a message through to every soldier, every family member, every friend of soldier,” that the Bush administration and its allies in Congress have “absolutely been the worst thing that’s happened to the United States Army and the United States Marine Corps.”

ok, good words... brave words, in fact... but... we are FAR from recovering... VERY FAR... the constitutional crisis is as present and as threatening as it was before the elections, possibly more so...

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McCain: I'm "an American hero"

don't break your arm patting yourself on the back...

McCain said he's "an American hero" who did important work in the wake of 9/11.

"I think you should judge people by their record," said McCain, who trails former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani in polls. "I am conservative across the board and I will match my record with anybody in America much less anybody who is running."

that dog won't hunt, john... rudy's bad enough, but you're worse...

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Reasons to not ignore Ann Coulter

last week i begged for a respite from the ceaseless barrage of posts on the evil, extremist, bigoted cyborg, ann coulter...

no more about ann coulter... the amount of bandwidth that woman has sucked up in the last 24 hours is unconscionable... we complain over the media's obsession with anna nicole and then we go and do the same thing with someone who, in her own twisted way, is equally unworthy of any attention, much less the time spent blogging...

jamison foser at media matters smacks me down, and quite rightly...

All of which brings us to the first of two reasons why it is actually important that we don't ignore Ann Coulter.

If Coulter's seething hatred was hers alone, she might best be ignored. But that ugly and unthinking hatred isn't unique to Coulter.

Instead, Coulter's anger and venom are illustrative of the modern conservative movement. Her vitriol is embraced and rewarded by right-wing audiences far and wide. Her intellectual and rhetorical peers -- Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck, among others -- are, like Coulter, anything but "marginalized." They unleash vicious tirades against gays, women, minorities, and liberals -- and are paid handsomely for it. And they are paid not only in cash, but in respect: Vice President Dick Cheney, for example, sometimes seems to be auditioning to be Limbaugh's co-host, while President Bush opens the Oval Office to the likes of Neal Boortz and Sean Hannity.

[...]

But the most interesting -- and important -- thing about Coulter's hate speech isn't that it is representative the of attitudes of her ideological fellow travelers.

It is the similarity between what Ann Coulter was trying to do by calling John Edwards a "faggot" and what countless "respectable" members of the "MSM" do every day.

Coulter's comments, of course, weren't about convincing people that John Edwards is gay. They were about trying to strip him of his masculinity, to feminize him -- and in doing so take advantage of the cultural stereotypes that equate strength with men and weakness with women to portray Edwards as "wussy" (her word).

[...]

But the most interesting -- and important -- thing about Coulter's hate speech isn't that it is representative the of attitudes of her ideological fellow travelers.

It is the similarity between what Ann Coulter was trying to do by calling John Edwards a "faggot" and what countless "respectable" members of the "MSM" do every day.

Coulter's comments, of course, weren't about convincing people that John Edwards is gay. They were about trying to strip him of his masculinity, to feminize him -- and in doing so take advantage of the cultural stereotypes that equate strength with men and weakness with women to portray Edwards as "wussy" (her word).

excellent points, all... even so, i refuse to devote my limited resources of time and energy to paying attention to such bile... i may chuckle and shake my head from time to time... i may occasionally have to supress a gag reflex, but those creatures of the underworld will just have to figure out how to go on without me...

(thanks to atrios...)

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I'm astounded he's responding at all

he must be feeling a little pressure, don't you think...?

Bush, at a news conference after meeting with Uruguay's president, said he was briefed last week on the report from the Justice Department's internal watchdog that disclosed the FBI's transgressions involving a subpoena known as national security letters.

"My question is, `What are you going to do solve the problem and how fast can you get it solved?'" the president said.

He expressed confidence in FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. "Those problems will be addressed as quickly as possible," Bush said.

oh, golly, george... just exactly HOW are these problems going to be addressed...? YOU are the one that created the very set of circumstances that allowed this to happen... YOU are the one, you big, fat liar, who put your signature on this signing statement (below)... YOU are the one who opened this pandora's box, and NOW you say you want to "solve the problem...?" george, i don't know how to break this to you, but you ARE the problem...

When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying [...]

"The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information . . . "

"solving" this problem, to me, means only one thing, george... you gotta go...

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Chávez rally in Buenos Aires: "Gringo, go home!"

...

Argentina and Venezuela

i thought briefly about going, but, like i said before, political rallies with tens of thousands of people, even if they ARE anti-bush, don't hold much interest for me...

Argentina provided the microphone, the stadium and thousands of fired-up spectators in the mood to hear some thunderous, fist-pumping, anti-American sloganeering. Venezuela's Hugo Chávez took care of the rest.

As President Bush visited Brazil and Uruguay on Friday as part of a six-day tour of Latin America, Chávez tried to steal his thunder by staging an anti-Bush rally in a soccer stadium filled with Venezuelan flags, Che Guevara banners and signs saying: "Bush Get Out!"

particularly when some guy is going to SPEAK for two hours...

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Reality check: "The only way our form of democracy works is to realize that the President wants to be King"

steve clemons hits on the hard-core reality behind the founders' wisdom in establishing the balance of powers...

The only way our form of democracy works is to realize that the President wants to be King, that Members of Congress want to be re-elected and derive power from keeping the King in check, and that the Judiciary has ultimate authority in most cases to resolve disputes between branches of government and contending political interests. The aspirant King and the wannabe rulers in the Congress both have input into the membership of the Judiciary.

[...]

We should also expect that the Patriot Act would be misused, misapplied, and distorted beyond the intention Congress and the White House had for it.

glenn greenwald elaborates...

When a country is ruled by an individual who repeatedly and openly arrogates unto himself the power to violate the law, and specifically proclaims that he is under no obligation to account to Congress or anyone else concerning the exercise of radical new surveillance powers such as NSLs [National Security Letters], it should come as absolutely no surprise that agencies under his control freely break the law. The culture of lawlessness which the President has deliberately and continuously embraced virtually ensures, by design, that any Congressional limits on the use of executive power will be violated.

i posted on this yesterday, and i'll simply repeat what i said then...

there is no way to overstate how grave is our constitutional crisis... unless and until george and his criminal gang are removed, yadda, yadda, ad nauseam...

and deliver us from evil, amen...

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Starting a beautiful weekend with dark headlines

it's a cool, fresh, breezy, late-summer early morning here in buenos aires with those brilliant blue skies and intense sunshine that, for me, are the city's hallmark... i wish the headlines measured up...

Gonzales, Mueller admit FBI broke law

The nation's top two law enforcement officials acknowledged Friday the
FBI broke the law to secretly pry out personal information about Americans. They apologized and vowed to prevent further illegal intrusions.

Pentagon struggles to find fresh troops

Faced with a military buildup in Iraq that could drag into next year,
Pentagon officials are trying to identify enough units to keep up to 20 brigade combat teams in Iraq. A brigade usually has about 3,500 troops.

The likely result will be extending the deployments of brigades scheduled to come home at the end of the summer, and sending others earlier than scheduled.

Afghanistan's 'Hard Mission' Slips Away

A Canadian parliamentary panel has taken an unvarnished look at the war in Afghanistan and concluded that it is a "hard mission" that is slipping out of control. The legislators fault heavy-handed U.S. tactics for alienating the population and an inadequate NATO commitment to pacify the country.

Is the Bush surge already failing?

The president just gave a rosy assessment of his plan, but insurgents have adapted and Iraqis continue to be slaughtered.

Killing U.S. Troops Slowly

Some Bush administration officials have expressed shock at the mistreatment of Iraq War veterans at Walter Reed and other medical centers. But this scandal has many antecedents, including the neglect shown to many veterans who served in Vietnam and in the first U.S. war with Iraq.

and then there's the low comedy of dear leader...

Bush deflects Chavez's verbal attacks

President Bush refuses to be goaded into a war of words with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who is answering the president's five-country trek through Latin America with taunts of "Gringo go home."

Bush is trying to spread a message of U.S. compassion for the region and ignore Chavez, who blames U.S.-style capitalism for poverty and inequality in Latin America.

"U.S. compassion for the region..." now THAT'S a hoot... remember, george, all the people you are trying to get to swallow that lie watched how "compassionately" you handled katrina, how "compassionately" you are treating iraqis, the "compassionate" care that detainees are receiving in your custody, and the "compassionate" health care returning veterans experience under your leadership... like us, they know that the words that pass your lips do so minus any semblance of the truth...

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Thank god, I can sleep tonight

Tom DeLay Isn't Joining CNN

Tom DeLay is not joining CNN, a network spokesperson tells TVNewser.

i simply cannot put into words how much better i feel...

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DeLay on CNN...??!?!?

my god, and right after nearly needing a heimlich from the zell miller story... why, for shit's sake, are they doing this...?

Tom DeLay is becoming a commentator for CNN, according to John Fund. In today’s WSJ Political Diary, he writes: ‘Despite his antipathy toward liberals, Mr. DeLay joked that he’s happy to work with them. He told me he is about to sign on with CNN as a commentator. “I may be their only conservative on air, but someone has to do it.”

remind me to NEVER, EVER tune in to cnn when tommy boy's mug is polluting the screen...

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Multitasking again, but, oh my lord, I almost needed a Heimlich...

this is definitely NOT the thing to be reading while enjoying oregano-spiced garlic bread, anchovy and blue cheese salad, with a shot of ouzo on the side...

Zell Miller, the former Democratic Senator from Georgia who backed President George W. Bush in 2004 and spoke at the Republican National Convention, recently told an anti-abortion gathering that the "killing" of unborn babies was the cause of many of America's woes, including its military, social security, and immigration problems.

"How could this great land of plenty produce too few people in the last 30 years?" Miller asked. "Here is the brutal truth that no one dares to mention: We’re too few because too many of our babies have been killed."

Miller claimed that 45 million babies have been 'killed' since the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade in 1973.

"If those 45 million children had lived, today they would be defending our country, they would be filling our jobs, they would be paying into Social Security," he asserted.

i was eating, reading, and trying to guffaw at the same time, not the best combination for keeping your airway clear of foreign items... let this be a warning to all you other multitaskers out there...

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Remember the LAST time Bush visited Latin America?

yep, that's right... it was the summit of the americas, right here in argentina, back in november 2005... they didn't like him back then either...



Mass protests at the
Summit of the Americas
in Mar del Plata



Protestors display the famous image
of Che Guevara who was born in
Rosario, Argentina

tomorrow's the big rally with hugo chávez, nestor kirchner, and evo morales here in buenos aires... oughta be interesting...

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Exorcising Bush

(thanks to raw story...)

i have to exorcise my mind after even THINKING about the man...




Guatemala flag

Mayan priests will purify a sacred archaeological site to eliminate "bad spirits" after President Bush visits next week, an official with close ties to the group said Thursday.

"That a person like (Bush), with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture," Juan Tiney, the director of a Mayan nongovernmental organization with close ties to Mayan religious and political leaders, said Thursday.

Bush's seven-day tour of Latin America includes a stopover beginning late Sunday in Guatemala. On Monday morning he is scheduled to visit the archaeological site Iximche on the high western plateau in a region of the Central American country populated mostly by Mayans.

Tiney said the "spirit guides of the Mayan community" decided it would be necessary to cleanse the sacred site of "bad spirits" after Bush's visit so that their ancestors could rest in peace. He also said the rites _ which entail chanting and burning incense, herbs and candles _ would prepare the site for the third summit of Latin American Indians March 26-30.

one site i have always wanted to visit is copán in honduras... for some reason, i feel a strong attraction to that place... the closest i have been is the honduran city of san pedro sula...



Copán Temple of Inscriptions

The Pre-Columbian city now known as Copán is a locale in extreme western Honduras, in the Copán Department, near to the Guatemalan border. It is the site of a major Maya kingdom of the Classic era.

The kingdom, anciently named Xukpi (Corner-Bundle), flourished from the 5th century AD to the early 9th century, with antecedents going back to at least the 2nd century AD. Its name is an apparent reference to the fact that it was situated at the far southern and eastern end of Maya territory. The nearby modern village of Copán Ruinas itself may have anciently been known as Oxwitik.

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The constitutional crisis our mainstream political and media elite have collectively decided to ignore

i'm fully excerpting atrios' greenwald snippets...

greenwald's full article is up over at salon...

The Bush administration has created vast and permanent data bases to collect and store evidence revealing the private activities of millions of American citizens. When the FBI obtains information essentially in secret -- with no judicial oversight -- that information is stored in those data bases. This is all being done by the executive branch with no safeguards and no oversight, and the little oversight that Congress has required has been defiantly and publicly brushed aside by the President, who sees legal requirements as nothing more than suggestions or options which he will recognize only if he chooses to. That is the constitutional crisis that we have endured under virtually the entire Bush presidency -- the crisis which, for the most part, our mainstream political and media elite have collectively decided not to acknowledge.

The story here is not merely that the FBI is breaking the law and abusing these powers. That has long been predicted and, to some degree, even documented. The story is that the FBI is ignoring the very legal obligations which George Bush vowed were not obligations at all, but mere suggestions to be accepted only if he willed it. It is yet another vivid example proving that the President's ideology of lawlessness exists not merely in theory, but as the governing doctrine under which the executive branch has acted, time and again and as deliberately as possible, in violation of whatever laws it deems inconvenient.

there is no way to overstate how grave is our constitutional crisis... unless and until george and his criminal gang are removed, yadda, yadda, ad nauseam...

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Subverting the independence and objectivity of federal prosecutors is just fine

this is the kind of country our wise media pundits of the totalitarian right are working their asses off to create...

Politicians should be allowed to call federal prosecutors and question them about ongoing cases, says Weekly Standard co-founder Fred Barnes.

Referring to phone calls made by Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) to US Attorney David Iglesias prior to his firing, Barnes told host Brit Hume on Fox News Special Report, "I don't think there's anything wrong with these phone calls that were made."

They called Iglesias "and asked if what was an indictment of a former Democratic official was going to happen before election day," he continues. "Well now, that seems perfectly okay to me, if they do that."

The fact that Iglesias was fired shortly after the phone calls in question is not brought up by anyone on the Fox News panel.

but, wait, it gets worse...

Fellow panelist Mara Liasson of NPR later concedes, "Ethics experts down the line say that elected officials are not supposed to inquire about ongoing cases."

"Why?" exclaims Barnes in reply. "That's nonsense! Total nonsense!"

to avoid even the whiff of partisan pressure, members of congress and those in the various agencies of the executive branch who are not officially involved in a case, should keep their bloody noses out... why would you even want to risk the APPEARANCE of coercion...?

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"A cottage industry of patriotic truth tellers"

ray mcgovern, posting on consortium news, offers up a perspective that trashing joseph wilson and outing valerie plame was the act of a desperate man who could not allow the cia to gain credibility by negating his prize rationale for pushing the illegal iraq war...

Cheney clearly felt that something had to be done - anything. It seems a mark of desperation that this is the best they could come up with. They may have concluded that launching a hardknuckle campaign against Wilson might at least deter others from becoming patriotic truth tellers of the kind Joseph Wilson has modeled so well.

Initially, this tactic succeeded. More recently a cottage industry of patriotic truth tellers has taken shape, and (surprise, surprise!) even some among the mainstream media have given them ink and air time.

the truth is still trickling out... each day, there's a little bit more... i am patiently waiting for the floodgates to open...

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Oh, how painful it is to so fully agree

would that this wasn't true...

norman lear at huffpo...

We lefties, we Democrat/Liberal/Progressives, do not yet get it. With all that is going on, unbelievably, the shit has yet to be scared out of us. We have not yet accepted that our way of life is seriously threatened -- and that we have a country to save. We are mired in what will "they" think? They've succeeded in making us feel weak where we're strong and doubters simply because we apply reason.

It will take the left to right this ship of state. That won't happen until we lefties get it. We get it, and fiercely, unapologetically, declare ourselves, to save our country and our asses.

i've been banging this drum so loud and so long, i'm starting to annoy myself... ah, well... the subject is simply too incredibly important to not make a big noise about...

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"If I were Libby, I'd be a wee bit pissed right now"

yeah, i'd be pissed too...

hunter writes in daily kos...

[W]hile Libby was spending his last night before being rebirthed now as convicted felon, the President who Libby worked for and supported was dining on sausage and quail wings in Karl Rove's own home. And Karl Rove, despite now having been proven to have had a primary role in outing an agent as retaliation against her husband, despite the fact that all parties now know he did it, remains quite comfortably in the White House. Cheney's man is, barring appeal, going to prison; Bush's man is sending out doggie bags to the bored press corps outside his house.

If I were Libby, I'd be a wee bit pissed right now. I guess I just don't have what it takes to be a fall guy.

and how interesting that, immediately after the libby verdict, karl starts appearing in the media once again (here and here)...

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25% of FBI national security cases contained errors but none DELIBERATE

really...?

A Justice Department investigation has found pervasive errors in the FBI's use of its power to secretly demand telephone, e-mail and financial records in national security cases, officials with access to the report said yesterday.

The inspector general's audit found 22 possible breaches of internal FBI and Justice Department regulations -- some of which were potential violations of law -- in a sampling of 293 "national security letters." The letters were used by the FBI to obtain the personal records of U.S. residents or visitors between 2003 and 2005. The FBI identified 26 potential violations in other cases.

Officials said they could not be sure of the scope of the violations but suggested they could be more widespread, though not deliberate. In nearly a quarter of the case files Inspector General Glenn A. Fine reviewed, he found previously unreported potential violations.

hmmmm... a quarter of the case files reviewed had errors... some were potential law violations... they could be more widespread... how very interesting...

for review purposes...

[National security letters] enable an FBI field office to compel the release of private information without the authority of a grand jury or judge. The USA Patriot Act, enacted after the 2001 attacks, eliminated the requirement that the FBI show "specific and articulable" reasons to believe that the records it demands belong to a foreign intelligence agent or terrorist.

That law, and Bush administration guidelines for its use, transformed national security letters by permitting clandestine scrutiny of U.S. residents and visitors who are not alleged to be terrorists or spies.

nothing to see here, folks, move right along...

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Won't you be my neighbor?

yeah, like ANYBODY should believe ANYTHING he says...

as i said in the previous post from last night, i don't think bush has a tiny clue about how much he's hated in this part of the world, and, i can tell you, it's a sentiment shared across the spectrum, from taxi drivers to bankers... people follow the news here, and, to a large extent, are more aware of world goings-on than most people in the u.s., and they don't fool easily...

Trying to blunt Chavez's challenge, Bush seems to have taken a page from the outspoken Venezuelan populist. He suddenly is seeking to remake himself as a social reformer committed to alleviating poverty and inequality in the region.

"It's nothing more than to say we want to be your friends," Bush told RCN TV of Colombia, where he visits on Sunday. "My trip is a chance to tell the people ... that the United States cares deeply about the human condition."

Amid rising anti-U.S. sentiment, few Latin Americans are likely to buy such a transformation.

"social reformer" is the most ill-fitting label anyone could apply to a man who, along with his criminal administration, has spent the last 6+ years systematically destroying any implied or explicit social contract between the u.s. government and its citizens... anybody who buys this pantsload should be make to stand in the corner and wear a dunce cap... besides, a u.s. president trying to sound like mr. rogers - "we want to be your friends" - is just plain ridiculous...

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Welcome to Brazil, George!

this is going to be repeated all over latin america... i'll have something up after the chavez rally here in buenos aires tomorrow evening...

Riot police fired tear gas at protesters and beat them with batons in Sao Paulo after more than 6,000 people held a largely peaceful march, sending hundreds of demonstrators fleeing and ducking into businesses to avoid the gas.

Authorities did not immediately report any injuries, but Brazilian media said at least six people were hurt after marching two miles through the financial heart of South America's largest city just hours before Bush was scheduled to arrive.

Police and anti-Bush protesters also clashed in Colombia, where Bush is scheduled to visit on Sunday as part of his five-nation tour of Latin America.

bush has no idea how much he's hated down here...

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"A much larger and wide-ranging problem at the Department of Justice"

this is very good... keep the investigations coming... we need to show just how criminal the bush administration is...

Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. and Subcommittee Chairwoman Linda Sánchez sent a letter to the Department of Justice demanding additional information about the ongoing U.S. Attorney scandal. Conyers and Sánchez asked for documents and interviews with Department officials to further their investigation into the issue.

"This week's hearing provided an important first look into what may be a much larger and wide-ranging problem at the Department of Justice and in the Administration as a whole," Conyers said. "Politics has no place in our federal justice system and if that, in fact, has been the case; and, if the Administration has been untruthful in their statements that these individuals were fired for performance reasons, we will find out."

"The testimony we heard this week at a hearing on the case of the fired U.S. Attorneys raised serious concerns about who is making the decision to fire these prosecutors, and why they're doing it," said Chairwoman Sánchez. "We need to cut through the multiple and contradictory reasons we've heard up to now and get to the truth."

here's the part i REALLY like... "...and in the Administration as a whole..." you go, john...

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Waxman takes Fitz up on his offer

fitz dropped a little hint after the reading of the libby verdict...

[A] reporter asked whether or not the prosecution would turn over sealed files from the grand jury investigation to a Congressional investigation. Fitzgerald gave a measured answer.

"If Congress does something or not, we are not going to predict that," he said. "We will do what's appropriate."

waxman was obviously paying attention cuz he didn't waste any time...

"Congress has a responsibility to examine the policy and accountability questions that your investigation has raised. As a result of your investigation, you have a singular understanding of the facts and their implications that bear directly on the issues before Congress," Waxman wrote.

He then asked Fitzgerald to meet with him and Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), the ranking minority member of the committee, to "discuss the possibility of testifying before the Committee and other means by which you can inform the Committee about your views and the insights you obtained during the course of your investigation."

maybe this is when we get to find out about "sealed vs. sealed...?"

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Nancy puts the cards on the table

you go, girl...

"I say to my colleagues never confine your best work, your hopes, your dreams, the aspiration of the American people to what will be signed by George W. Bush because that is too limiting a factor," the Speaker said this morning in a press conference.

as atrios would say, "more like this..."

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Oh, lord... Rove crawled out from under his rock...

just when you thought it was safe, eh...?

via tpm muckraker...

Look, by law and by Constitution (sic), these attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president and traditionally are given a four year term. And Clinton, when he came in, replaced all 93 U.S. attorneys. When we came in, we ultimately replace most all 93 U.S. attorneys – there are some still left from the Clinton era in place. We have appointed a total of I think128 U.S. attorneys -- that is to say the original 93, plus replaced some, some have served 4 years, some served less, most have served more. Clinton did 123. I mean, this is normal and ordinary.

[...]

But this is the right of any president to appoint people to these offices. They serve at the pleasure of the president. And my view this is… unfortunately a very big attempt by some in the Congress to make a political stink about it. And the question is did they have the same reaction if they were in Congress in the 90’s, or did they have the same reaction if they were in the 80’s. Because every president comes in, appoints United States attorneys and then makes changes over the course of their time.

sounds pretty damn reasonable, doesn't it...? tpm muckraker commenter and attorney pf responds...

Taking things sequentially in his statement, the notion that "U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president" is true, but irrelevant in this context. Congress is not investigation whether the President has the legal authority to fire these USAs -- it is investigating what factors the President permits to influence his judgment. It is one thing to say "I am legally entitled to do X;" it is quite another to expect that you can do X for nefarious reasons and expect to go unchallenged in the political arena by a coordinate branch of government. Given the supine nature of Congress over the past six years, though, I can understand why Rove believed "because the President says so" is a reasonable excuse.

Rove's reliance on "the president can do it" to try to shut down debate, is specious for another reason. The President, for example, has unfettered rights to pardon people. If President Bush started selling pardons, under Rove's logic, Congress would have no right or reason to investigate what the President had done. Many Republicans certainly took a different tack with respect to investigating President Clinton's perhaps-poorly-considered pardon of Marc Rich.

Second, Clinton's firing of 93 U.S. Attorneys was far less insidious than what happened here. Clinton's decision was generally applicable to all U.S. Attorneys -- you were hired by a different administration and I will replace you without regard to the status of any of your ongoing investigations. No one was spared, and thus no single U.S. Attorneys conduct was at issue. Here, however, Bush has not created a rule of general applicability (i.e., at the beginning of his second term seeking resignation of all U.S. Attorneys). Rather, his administration has apparently systematically chosen to replace U.S. Attorneys who were not malleable enough with respect to particular investigations of individuals or entities allied with the Republican party. There is simply no comparison between these two acts.

i could have easily gone for the rest of my life without hearing another story about karl... oh, well...

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< Duh >

uh... yeah...

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s claim that these prosecutors were fired for poor performance was always difficult to believe. Now it’s impossible.

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What will it take for the WaPo to stop cheerleading for Bush?

i sure as hell don't know...

from today's wapo op-ed...

• [W]e'd caution once again against writing his administration off entirely.

• Mr. Bush can adjust course when forced.

• Nor has the administration taken to its bunker and stopped trying.

• [T]he administration seems to be shaping a policy that combines pressure with diplomacy in a way that at least has potential.

• Mr. Bush understands the needed elements...

• [T]the domestic and international success of immigration reform could be a tonic -- maybe even a legacy.

i'll grant you... any other president in history would probably have resigned by now, but is the fact that this one hasn't a mark of principle and dogged determination, or an unwillingness or outright inability to see just how badly he's screwed the pooch...?

bush is leaving d.c. for brazil this evening for a 5-nation latin american tour... he will be arriving in uruguay when a massive "anti-imperialist" rally will be held right across the river here in buenos aires, with presidents hugo chávez of venezuela, nestor kirchner of argentina, and evo morales of bolivia in attendance... will bush understand that HE is one of the principal reasons why that rally will be so huge...? no, of course not...

bush granted an interview at the white house the other day with reporters from all five countries he will be visiting... in his comments, which i read in the argentine paper clarin this morning, he mentioned "social justice" five times... i have been following bush for 6+ years and that is the FIRST time i can recall him EVER mentioning "social justice..." you can bet that the good citizens of latin america don't recall him ever saying it either... does he really think he's fooling anybody...?



Preparations at Estadio Ferro in Buenos Aires for the anti-Bush, anti-imperialist rally tomorrow night

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Harry Belafonte: "...no previous regime tried to subvert the Constitution"

amy goodman captures the fire that still burns in his 80-year old heart...

"The essential difference between then and now is that no previous regime tried to subvert the Constitution. They may have done illegal acts. They may have gone outside the law to do these, but they did them clandestinely. No one stepped to the table as arrogantly as George W. Bush and his friends have done and said, 'We legally want to suspend the rights of citizens, the right to surveil, the right to read your mail, the right to arrest you without charge.'"

he's right, of course... that IS the essential difference between a richard nixon and a george bush... the united states has performed many evil and covert acts over many years, but never in such an in-your-face way as the bush administration, and certainly never with a citizenry so willing to let it happen...

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Cheney is an enemy of the United States

there is a relatively small group that has done an unbelievable amount of damage to the core structure of our country... some of them, like dick cheney, are very visible and well-known... likewise, karl rove, alberto gonzales, and, even though he is now gone, donald rumsfeld (although i think gates has picked up right where rummy left off)... less visible are the hard-core members of the white house staff, people like stephen hadley and david addington, and there are undoubtedly others i am either forgetting or am unaware of... then there are the extremely influential neocons, both inside and outside the government - feith, wolfowitz, kristol, norquist, cohen, armitage, bolton, and their ilk...

"Cheney has become the administration's enemy within, the man whose single-minded pursuit of ideological goals, creaking political instincts, and love of secrecy produced an independent operation that has done more harm than good," Michael Duffy writes in the forthcoming edition of Time.

it is THESE people, along with cheney, who are the real "enemies within..." they are not just enemies of the administration... if there's to be a purge, and let's fervently hope and pray that there will be, THESE are the ones that have to go... until then, blabbing about darth's waning influence is just that - blab...

NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell noted that while the White House maintains "that the vice president remains the president's most trusted counsel," many are now questioning how badly Cheney's image has been damaged.

like i said... it's just blab...

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Is Eugene Volokh a blogger? Is Howie Kurtz a journalist?

Jailed Man Is A Videographer And a Blogger but Is He a Journalist?

kurtz, along with the government, obviously has some difficulty grasping the idea of citizen-centered journalism...

[Josh Wolf, a 24-year-old blogger,] was a student at San Francisco State who worked part time as an outreach staffer at a community college television station. He started a blog and occasionally sold videotape to news organizations.

"I would define a journalist as someone who brings news to the public," says Garbus, a noted First Amendment lawyer handling the case on a pro bono basis. "It's a definition that might cause journalists some discomfort because it opens up the gates."

But U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan says in a court filing that Wolf's resistance "is apparently fueled by his anointment as a journalistic martyr" and that he needs "to come to grips with the fact that he was simply a person with a video camera who happened to record some public events."

perhaps their difficulty stems from this...

Wolf's case has attracted far less attention because he is not affiliated with any news outlet.

it's also very interesting that one of the sources kurtz contacted is himself a blogger with a fairly far-right reputation [see The Volokh Conspiracy and PajamasMedia], a fact which kurtz conveniently fails to mention...

"It's one thing to say journalists must respect promises of confidentiality they made to their sources," says Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California at Los Angeles. "It would be quite another to say journalists have a right to refuse to testify even about non-confidential sources. When something is videotaped in a public place, it's hard to see even an implied agreement of confidentiality."

but, after all, volokh IS on the faculty of UCLA while wolf was only a staffer at a community college...

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More on CIA "black sites"

so, the rest of it is coming out... i was wondering when we would hear more...

The CIA operated an interrogation and short-term detention facility for suspected terrorists within a Polish intelligence training school with the explicit approval of British and US authorities, according to British and Polish intelligence officials familiar with the arrangements.

Intelligence officials identify the site as a component of a Polish intelligence training school outside the northern Polish village of Stare Kiejkuty. While previously suspected, the facility has never been conclusively identified as being part of the CIA's secret rendition and detention program.

[...]

Authorities singled out a remote and infrequently used airfield in the Northern Polish town of Szymany for transit flights; a near-by Polish intelligence training school at Stare Kiejkuty would be used as an eventual detention-interrogation center for temporary detention and short-term interrogations.

i might as well pat myself on the back...i posted on this shortly after christmas...



Szymany airport, Poland

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Robert Parry surveys the Libby case

in an excellent overview, consortium news' robert parry captures the essence of the cheney and rove-driven, bush administration approach to wielding power...

If the panorama [of the Libby case] could be viewed all at once, the American people would see an administration that, in summer 2003, felt it could pretty much do whatever it wanted to anyone. Bush's inner circle validated every cliche about the arrogance of power, particularly the old saying about absolute power corrupting absolutely.

[...]

Dirtying up one’s opponents was the name of the game, just like during political campaigns. “Controversialize” your enemies so the public won’t take them seriously. Turn them into laughingstocks. Make them look self-interested and maybe crazy.

that pretty much says it, doesn't it...? 6+ years of an out-of-control presidential administration, bent on reshaping the united states into their own personal fiefdom...

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McCain's candidacy: "Things are sinking fast..."

john, rudy, mitt, sam, maybe chuck... nobody looks very good over there right now...

[A] guru to the conservative movement, says [that] ... "One of the top aides to the Republican leadership told me that McCain has lost so much support, he's simply beside himself. He's wringing his hands. Things are sinking fast—in two or three weeks, we'll know if there is any recovery."

and with hillary, barack, john, joe, and maybe wes, things on this side ain't lookin' that much better...

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Oooooooo...! Scotty grows a pair...?

do ya suppose not worrying about being exposed to rovian rage has given the former chief white house spokesman liar some new courage...?

Former Press Secretary Scott McClellan says that the White House should be more forthcoming now about the CIA leak case that has resulted in the conviction of former Cheney Chief of Staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Editor & Publisher reports.

McClellan, appearing on CNN's 'Larry King Live' Tuesday night, said "I would advise the White House to find a way to get out there and talk about it and answer some of the questions."

The president's former chief spokesperson said it will be "interesting to see" if the Bush administration can "sustain its refusal to say anything through the appeal process," writes E&P.

i can actually muster up some sympathy for scotty... if the man has any shred of human decency and/or the slightest respect for the truth, it had to be hell standing up there day after day lying for your bosses... ('course, nobody had a gun to his head telling him he HAD to take that job or stay on as long as he did...)

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The missing crust

fascinating...

Welsh scientists are investigating a startling discovery in the Atlantic Ocean: Part of the Earth's mantle cover is missing.

Cardiff University scientists discovered an area extending thousands of square miles in the middle of the Atlantic in which the Earth's mantle -- the deep interior of the Earth, normally covered by crust many miles thick -- is exposed on the sea floor, nearly 10,000 feet below the surface.

Marine geologist Chris MacLeod of the university's School of Earth, Ocean and Planetary Sciences said: "This discovery is like an open wound on the surface of the Earth. Was the crust never there? Was it once there but then torn away on huge geological faults? If so, then how and why?"

you can also follow the progress of the scientific investigation here...

In March-April 2007, a team of scientists from Durham University, Cardiff University and NOCS will board the RRS James Cook to visit this special area of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which is called the Fifteen-Twenty Fracture Zone (FTFZ for short - the map on the [below] shows where this is located).

Image of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. You can see how the ridge is broken up into segments by fractures running roughly perpendicular to the ridge axis. The red dot shows the area where the team on board the ship will be working. Bathymetric image courtesy GEBCO.

cool...

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Is there more? What about "sealed vs. sealed"? Will Libby flip?

[Fitzgerald] said that there were no regrets about prosecuting the charges, and he described the trial as necessary because Libby told lies in the course of an important investigation.

"We could not walk away from that, it is inconceivable any prosecutor could walk away from that," he said.

He later added, "We cannot tolerate perjury...if you don't tell the truth, we cannot make the judicial system work."

no, we can't tolerate it... and, no, we shouldn't ever be forced to have to deal with perjury committed by the officials to whom we have delegated our trust...

so, is there more to come...?

"I do not expect to file any further charges, the investigation was inactive prior to the trial," the Chicago-based federal attorney who led the prosecution said. "We're all going back to our day jobs."

However, Fitzgerald did concede "If new information comes to light, of course we'll do that."

what about "sealed vs. sealed...?"

Another reporter asked whether or not the prosecution would turn over sealed files from the grand jury investigation to a Congressional investigation. Fitzgerald gave a measured answer.

"If Congress does something or not, we are not going to predict that," he said. "We will do what's appropriate."

will fitz try to get libby to flip...?

A reporter prompted Fitzgerald on whether he would scale down his recommendations for a sentence if Libby were to offer more information to the prosecution that wasn't previously known.

"They can contact us," Fitzgerald responded of Libby and his attorneys.

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Those attacking the judicial system have the tables turned

and, when it comes time to try george, dick, and the others, our judicial system will afford them all the rights and guarantees afforded to scooter libby, regardless of how hard they tried to pervert them in the name of the bogus "war on terror..."

It [the Scooter Libby verdict] was another reminder of how precious the American judicial system is, at a time when it is under serious attack from the same administration Mr. Libby served. That administration is systematically denying the right of counsel, the right to evidence and even the right to be tried to scores of prisoners who may have committed no crimes at all.

the nyt goes on to make the main point of their op-ed...

[T]he Libby trial ... is some of the clearest evidence yet that this administration did not get duped by faulty intelligence; at the very least, it cherry-picked and hyped intelligence to justify the war.

i knew we were being lied to since late 2002... did i have hard evidence...? no... did i have ANY evidence...? no, nor could i have... but, i KNEW... in my gut, i knew...

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"...death by 1,000 cuts for Cheney"

statements like this are so unbelievably disingenuous... as a major governmental actor since god knows when, cheney has been a busy little machiavellian monster showing nary a discernible redeeming trace of humanity... if anything or anyone is responsible for diminishing his "stature," it's dick cheney and his criminal ways...

“The trial has been death by 1,000 cuts for Cheney,” said Scott Reed, a Republican strategist. “It’s hurt him inside the administration. It’s hurt him with the Congress, and it’s hurt his stature around the world because it has shown a lot of the inner workings of the White House. It peeled the bark right off the way they operate.”

the "way they operate," as many of us have long thought, has little to do with governing and everything to do with power and money...

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"If you're looking at legacy..."

but, if you're looking at accountability...? if you're looking at ethics...? if you're looking at criminal offense...?

"This has been a huge cloud over the White House," said Ed Rogers, a Republican lobbyist close to the Bush team. "It caused a lot of intellectual, emotional and political energy to be expended when it should have been expended on the agenda. They're never going to fully recover from this. If you're looking at legacy, this episode gets prominently mentioned in every recap of the Bush administration, much like Iran-contra and Monica Lewinsky."

what the libby case revealed as much or more than anything else, was how much "intellectual, emotional and political energy" was expended on trying to smear your critics to protect yourselves from having the lies you told from being exposed...

of course, leave it to cheney's vicious she-wolf, mary matalin, to put things in their proper context, namely, that the clinton administration was worse...

"Scooter didn't do anything," said former Cheney counselor Mary Matalin. "And his personal record and service are impeccable. How do you make sense of a system where a security principal [former Clinton national security adviser Samuel R. Berger] admits to stuffing classified docs in his pants and says, 'I'm sorry,' and a guy who is rebutting a demonstrable partisan liar is going through this madness?"

i just love the way she characterizes joseph wilson as a "demonstrable partisan liar" and the act of smearing him and outing his covert CIA operative wife as mere "rebuttal..."

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John Aravosis: "It's a done deal, Libby is getting pardoned."

i hope he's wrong...

It's a done deal, Libby is getting pardoned. Hell, I'd be surprised if he doesn't get a medal. No one, no one, no one is ever held responsible for anything in this administration, and if George Bush has to put the final nail in the coffin of his political legacy by pardoning Libby, trust me, he will. It's a tale of lawlessness. Of an adminstration that thinks it's holier than thou. Holier than the laws of this great country, holier than the courts, the Congress, the Constitution. Nothing gets in the way of a zealot, and Scooter Libby is just the latest zealot in a long line of Republicans in the Bush White House and Congress who simply don't believe in the rules that govern our country, our society, and our world.

And they're finally getting caught. Scooter will most certainly be pardoned, but nothing will wipe away the taint the next two years will leave on the Republican party for a long, long while.

but he's certainly right about this - "...no one is ever held responsible for anything in this administration..."

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Quick! Gimme a hanky!

i'm chokin' up...

White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino told AP that Bush had watched the verdict on television in the Oval Office. "Perino said the president respected the jury's verdict but 'was saddened for Scooter Libby and his family,'" according to AP.

< sniff, sniff >

Vice President Dick Cheney released a statement which expressed disappointment that his former aide was found guilty on four out of five charges.

[...]

"I am saddened for Scooter and his family. As I have said before, Scooter has served our nation tirelessly and with great distinction through many years of public service."

oh, man... < wipes eyes > i'm just a sucker for sad stories...

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Chuck Hagel uses the "I" word

"spoken by a conservative republican from a safe senate seat in a reddish state..."

"The president says, 'I don't care.' He's not accountable anymore," Hagel says, measuring his words by the syllable and his syllables almost by the letter. "He's not accountable anymore, which isn't totally true. You can impeach him, and before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment. I don't know. It depends how this goes."

The conversation beaches itself for a moment on that word -- impeachment -- spoken by a conservative Republican from a safe Senate seat in a reddish state. It's barely even whispered among the serious set in Washington, and it rings like a gong in the middle of the sentence, even though it flowed quite naturally out of the conversation he was having about how everybody had abandoned their responsibility to the country, and now there was a war going bad because of it.

"Congress abdicated its oversight responsibility," he says. "The press abdicated its responsibility, and the American people abdicated their responsibilities. Terror was on the minds of everyone, and nobody questioned anything, quite frankly."

yes, even i am tired of hearing myself say this, but, it matters not to me HOW we get rid of the criminals in the white house(and, following today's libby verdict, we certainly have more of a basis to call them criminals), we just need to do it, sooner rather than later...

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The Libby verdict [UPDATE] - it's FITZMAS!

watching cnni... 10 minutes to go...

[UPDATE]

here we go...

count 1, obstruction of justice - GUILTY

count 2, false statement - GUILTY

count 3, false statement - NOT GUILTY

count 4, perjury - GUILTY

count 5, perjury - GUILTY

count 1 alone is worth 10 years...

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What the media wants us to want

[T]he media today imparts what it wants readers and viewers to want - most often in order to maximize profit.

i would go quite a bit further... the media today imparts what the super-rich, power elites tell it that they want readers and viewers to want...

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Of COURSE he denies everything

deny EVERYTHING, admit NOTHING...

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is defending the dismissal of eight U.S. Attorneys and denying that he has a political role in the purge, The Wall Street Journal is reporting.

Facing criticism over the firings, Gonzales deemed them appropriate "but said the Justice Department handled the situation poorly," Evan Perez writes for the Journal.

"We could have rolled out the decisions more smoothly," Gonzales told Perez in an interview, in which the Attorney General also "rejected accusations from Democrats and other critics that the prosecutors were fired for failing to follow" the White House's political agenda.

"To think we made these changes to retaliate or because they didn't carry out certain prosecutions?" Gonzales said, according to Perez. "That did not occur here. I stand by the decision to make the changes."

seriously, what do you expect him to say...? "yeah, we canned their asses cuz we really need people in there who will kiss serious butt, and when george, dick, karl, or i say 'jump,' they ask "how high...?' besides, when we're outta office, we'd just as soon not have a bunch of diligent prosecutors out there maybe lookin' to make our lives miserable..."

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Bush's excellent (Latin American) adventure

bubble boy's going to visit five whole countries...

...

Brazil and Colombia

...

Guatemala and Mexico



Uruguay

let's see what's he's going to find...

brazil...

President Lula da Silva of Brazil made a point of visiting Venezuela for his first foreign trip after being re-elected last October. There he presided over the dedication of a $1.2 billion bridge over the Orinoco river, financed by the Brazilian government, while he lavished praise on Chavez and gave the popular Venezuelan president an added boost in his own re-election campaign.

colombia...

Colombia is in the midst of a huge national scandal over the responsibility of government officials for mass murder and assassinations of political opponents. More trade unionists are killed in Colombia each year than in the rest of the world combined.

guatemala...

Guatemala is another right-wing ally with a terrible human rights record: two weeks ago three Central American parlimentarians were murdered by a Guatemalan police death squad.

mexico...

Mexico, where the agenda is sure to include immigration, a constant source of tension in relations between the two neighbors.

uruguay...

Dr. [Tabare] Vázquez’s government includes former Tupamaro guerrillas; the guerrilla group kidnapped and killed an American official in Montevideo in 1970.

colombia, mexico, guatemala...

All three governments have been linked to narco-trafficking, but President Bush will likely praise them for their co-operation in the war on drugs.

the region...

For twenty-five years our government has pushed a series of reforms throughout the region: tighter fiscal and monetary policies, more independent central banks, indiscriminate opening to international trade and investment, privatization of public enterprises, and the abandonment of economic development strategies and industrial policies. The Bush team thinks that these reforms, known as "neoliberalism" in Latin America, were just the right formula to stimulate economic growth.

But in fact Latin America's economic growth over the last 25 years has been a disaster -- the worst long-term growth failure in more than a hundred years. From 1980-2000 GDP per person grew by only 9 percent, and another 4 percent for 2000-2005.

and...

“[T]here is a sense that things are not going well for the U.S. in the region,” said Peter Hakim, president of Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based policy research and advocacy group. “There has probably never been so much anti-Americanism and so little confidence in U.S. leadership since the cold war.”

i don't suppose it would make much difference to george w. bush that his trip might 1) actually inflame anti-u.s. sentiment in latin america, 2) subtract another point or two from his standing in the polls as he, don quixote-like, trots off to tilt at more windmills while ignoring the desperate state of his own country (virtually all of which has come about thanks to him), and 3) only serve to throw the spotlight on hugo chávez...

While Mr. Bush is in Uruguay on Friday and Saturday, Mr. Chávez plans to be leading anti-Bush demonstrations just across the River Plate in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he has cultivated an increasingly friendly relationship with that country’s Peronist president, Néstor Kirchner.

i'm almost tempted to go see mr. chávez myself as long as he's going to be in the neighborhood altho' i hate crowds at outdoor political rallies... they make me nervous...

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I don't have the stomach to read beyond this

maybe i'll go back and look at the rest of it later...

Democrats Alter Plan To Restrict Iraq War

Senior House Democrats, seeking to placate members of their party from Republican-leaning districts, are pushing a plan that would place restrictions on President Bush's ability to wage the war in Iraq but would allow him to waive them if he publicly justifies his position.

the headline alone gave me the jitters, but when i got to "allow him to waive them if he publicly justifies his position," i just wanted to sit down and cry...

[UPDATE]

ok, i went back and read it, and it was even worse than i thought...

The new plan would demand that Bush certify that combat troops meet the military's own standards of readiness, which are routinely ignored. The president could then waive such certifications if doing so is in "the national interest."

waivers for the "military's own standards of readiness..."??? so, while they're discussing letting george send unready troops over, here's this morning's OTHER headline...

9 U.S. Soldiers killed in Iraq bombing

Nine U.S. soldiers died in two separate incidents north of Baghdad, the military said Tuesday.

Six soldiers were killed when a bomb exploded near their vehicles during a combat operation Monday in Salahuddin province, the military said in a statement.

Three other soldiers were wounded and transported to an American military hospital for treatment, it said.

In another incident the same day, three more soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in Diyala province, another statement said. One soldier was wounded.

that's 9 - nine - in one day...

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Psychological torture causes as much long-term damage as physical torture

i am not in the least surprised... as someone who endured a considerable amount of mental and emotional abuse while growing up, i can personally attest to this... in many cases, i would add, the long-term damage may actually be worse than that caused by physical abuse...

Psychological torture, including some of the techniques reportedly used on Guantanamo Bay detainees, appears to inflict the same kind of long-term mental damage as physical abuse, a study released Monday said.

Researchers who evaluated the mental health of soldiers and civilians tortured during the 1990s Balkan wars found that victims of psychological abuse were just as likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression as victims of classic physical torture methods.

The researchers also reported that the torture victims rated some techniques such as stress positions, isolation, sleep deprivation and blindfolding as distressing as most physical torture methods.

"Ill treatment during captivity, such as psychological manipulations, humiliating treatment, and forced stress positions, does not seem to be substantially different from physical torture in terms of the severity of mental suffering they cause," the study's authors wrote.

"Thus, these procedures do amount to torture, thereby lending support to their prohibition by international law," they wrote in the journal of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

when something goes wrong in your mind, it's often a lot scarier than when something goes awry with the body... you can't think clearly, you think you're going crazy, you think you're permanently screwed... it ain't pretty...

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Illegal wiretapping, misuse of FISA, silencing whistleblowers by invoking "state secrets"

lukery's been all over this like flies on, well, that stuff that gets in the cracks of your trainers when you aren't paying attention to where you're walking... (see here and here... the following two snips are from raw story...)

Two FBI Whistleblowers Confirm Illegal Wiretapping of Government Officials and Misuse of FISA

State Secrets Privilege Was Used to Cover Up Corruption and Silence Whistleblowers

c'mon... let's have the whole goddam thing break wide open... i'm sick of tippy-toeing around... in this mess alone, there's undoubtedly enough to sink the entire bush administration, so what're we waitin' for...?

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An Assistant US Attorney on the purge (and Bushco in general)

wow...

I strive every day to make sure that the Fourth Amendment rights of even the worst criminals are scrupulously observed, only to learn that the folks I work for view those rights as disposable, inconvenient anachronisms. I operate in a criminal justice system properly designed to maximize due process for even the worst criminals, only to watch the administration kick and scream when forced to provide even the most basic due process rights to suspected terrorists.

And now the purges. So they've slashed U.S. Attorney's budgets, trashed rights we have sworn to uphold, and now, tried to toady-up the ranks of our leadership by firing some of our best and brightest, apparently to make room for wingnut-anointed political hacks. Folks who do stuff like this deserve to get caught.

they not only deserve to get caught, they need to be removed from office, like, immediately... how in god's name have they managed to hold on this long...?

(thanks to talking points memo via talkleft...)

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Clemons and Greenwald on Eliot Cohen's appointment to the State Department

glenn is alarmed...

This continues to be the most astounding, significant, and alarming trend -- as the recognition grows even in Beltway elite media circles that the people who designed and sold the Iraq war to the American public are completely untrustworthy and discredited figures, they are exactly the ones who continue to exert the most influence, by far, on the President, and their influence seems only to be growing ...

... Why should the American people continue to believe in those same people who had so many misjudgments leading up to and executing the war?" They should not, of course. And we know exactly who "those same people" are. Eliot Cohen is not just one of them, but he is one of their leaders. He has been wrong about everything. If he had his way, we would have far more wars than we have already.

steve thinks condi put cohen in there to keep cheney away from her...

I believe that Cohen's appointment is in part an effort to get someone past the Cheney foreign policy wing. Rice does not like to do direct battle with the Vice President and views personnel appointments as a way to inoculate herself and her efforts against sabotage from the Cheney team.

In other words, Cohen has joined Condi's team both to create back-channel communications with Cheney's spear-carriers but also to protect Condi from all-out assault from the Vice President.

ok, all that is well and good... but it's when glenn says this that i start to get flutters in the tummy...

"As they have done many times before, neoconservatives, with Iran in their sights, have installed one of their own at State to block any war-avoiding rapprochement," writes Glenn Greewald for Salon.

[...]

"It is not hyperbole to say that Cohen is as extremist a neoconservative and warmonger as it gets," says Greenwald, who quotes a conservative writer's point that Cohen "was an early supporter of the military intervention in Iraq" and opposed negotiations with Iran and Syria.

Greenwald argues that Cohen is even "far more extremist than just that."

In a November 2001 Wall Street Journal column, says Greenwald, "Cohen criticized the attempts up to that point to name 'The new War' -- all the names chosen were far too limited and unglorious. Rejecting all the possibilities, Cohen insisted that 'a less palatable but more accurate name is World War IV.'"

Greenwald describes Cohen as having become "one of the most militant advocates of expanded regional war in the Middle East" in the years since 9/11.

"The Cohen appointment," he says, "is clearly another instance where neoconservatives place a watchdog in potential trouble spots in the government to ensure that diplomats do not stray by trying to facilitate rapproachments between the U.S. and the countries on the neoconservative War hit list."

so, then my question is, was cohen really condi's choice or was he foisted on her by dick and the other resident forces of darkness...?

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If you make $60K and can't afford health insurance, our system is badly broken

i'm in precisely the same boat, and, were it not for va health care, i would be screwed...

Ms. Readling, a 50-year-old real estate agent, is one of nearly 47 million people in America with no health insurance.

Increasingly, the problem affects middle-class people like Ms. Readling, who said she made about $60,000 last year. As an independent contractor, like many real estate agents, Ms. Readling does not receive health benefits from an employer. She tried to buy a policy in the individual insurance market, but — having had cancer — could not obtain coverage, except at a price exceeding $27,000 a year, which was more than she could pay.

$27K a year... even with cancer, that's exorbitant...

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Iraqi interior ministry linked to torture and bomb attacks

well, when they stand up, we stand down... oh, wait... that was LAST year...

Iraqi special forces backed by coalition troops raided a government intelligence headquarters on Sunday and uncovered evidence of torture and links to bomb attacks, the British military said.

Troops stormed the local headquarters of Iraqi interior ministry's domestic intelligence agency in the southern port city of Basra, and released more than 37 prisoners being held there.

funny how those flower petals we thought they would be strewing in our path in gratitude for being liberated look a lot like ied's...

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HOLY FREAKIN' CRAP!

i had seen excerpts from this wapo article but i hadn't seen the accompanying photo...



The $1B+ new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad

GREAT GOD ALMIGHTY...! any american who isn't embarrassed to death by this obscene display of empire run amok is seriously living on another planet... and, as e. buttler at the barstool chronicles (who tipped me off to this photo) says...

Well, of course wounded vets at Walter Reed have to live with rat shit, mold spores, and who knows how many other manifestations of privatized "care," when the Stalinist freaks they so inexplicably serve operate raj-style embassies, such as this one located in the Halliburton-approved subsidiary otherwise known as Iraq.

a new embassy is a-building in skopje, macedonia, on a hill overlooking the city, next to the 12th century fortress... i can't wait to see what kind of over-the-top monstrosity THAT turns out to be...

and, naturally, the u.s. interests come ahead of any local, historical, cultural, or religious interests...

[The] American plan to construct $50 million United States Embassy on Gradiste hill overlooking capital of Skopje, Macedonia, runs into opposition from many Macedonians, who consider hill as one of most important historical sites in country, as well as home to recently discovered 300-year-old cemetery that may hold as many as 2,000 graves; they want Macedonian government to cancel its deal to sell land to US government and designate area as national heritage spot; it appears unlikely that would happen; US Amb Lawrence Butler denies that proposed building would damage historical remains or artifacts.

that article was dated almost three years ago... the new embassy in skopje is projected to open this year...

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Prisoners working on farms and in call centers. Are immigrant "detainees" next?

ya know, i don't have anything against inmates in correctional institutions being expected to work, but i have major problems with using them to subsidize business... it would seem to me, in my congenitally fevered state, that there would be a huge incentive for business to use MORE inmates in order to reduce the cost of doing business, and for government to incarcerate MORE people to supply the demand...

In a pilot program run by the [Colorado] state Corrections Department, supervised teams of low-risk inmates beginning this month will be available to harvest the swaths of sweet corn, peppers and melons that sweep the southeastern portion of the state.

Under the program, which has drawn criticism from groups concerned about immigrants’ rights and from others seeking changes in the criminal justice system, farmers will pay a fee to the state, and the inmates, who volunteer for the work, will be paid about 60 cents a day, corrections officials said.

what i want to know is what "fee" the farmers will be paying...

A group calling for changes in sentencing, the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, is also uneasy about the program. The group views the inmates’ pay as problematic.

“This feels like the re-invention of the plantation,” said Christie Donner, the group’s executive director. “You have a captive labor force essentially working for their room and board in order to benefit the employer. This isn’t a job training program. It’s an exploitative program.”

But Ari Zavaras, executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, said the merit of a hard day’s work outdoors was invaluable to an inmate.

“They won’t be paid big bucks, but we’re hoping this will help our inmates pick up significant and valuable job skills,” Mr. Zavaras said. “We’re also assisting farmers who, if they don’t get help, are facing an inability to harvest their crops.”

it was back in 2004 that this story appeared...

About a dozen states — Oregon, Arizona, California and Iowa, among others — have call centers in state and federal prisons, underscoring a push to employ inmates in telemarketing jobs that might otherwise go to low-wage countries such as India and the Philippines. Arizona prisoners make business calls, as do inmates in Oklahoma. A call center for the DMV is run out of an all-female prison in Oregon. Other companies are keeping manufacturing jobs in the USA. More than 150 inmates in a Virginia federal prison build car parts for Delco Remy International. Previously, some of those jobs were overseas.

At least 2,000 inmates nationwide work in call centers, and that number is rising as companies seek cheap labor without incurring the wrath of politicians and unions. At the same time, prison populations are ballooning, offering U.S. companies another way to slash costs.

i also would like to know what the call centers are paying...

when those being held in immigrant detention centers start being used in this fashion, the full plan will be revealed in all its ugliness...

Two advocacy groups for refugees said on Wednesday that the Bush administration routinely detained immigrant families in prisonlike housing that separated young children from their parents and sometimes provided inadequate medical care, food and educational opportunities, despite calls from Congress to house such families in “nonpenal, homelike environments.”

ah, the united states... ya gotta love it...

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"Reverse course" on THESE, George, and then we'll talk

the wapo, in traditionally head-in-the-sandup-the-butt fashion, is all flushed with excitement over bush's willingness to "change course..."

Bush Shows New Willingness to Reverse Course

just look at their examples...

• fired Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
  (and installed an equally pandering toady with a better sense for p.r. AFTER the generals threatened to revolt)

• authorized direct talks with North Korea
  (AFTER giving them plenty of time to expand their nuclear arsenal)

• sent more troops to Iraq
  (DESPITE a clear message from the november elections and the vast majority of the american people that they want an end to the war)

• agreed to discuss the contours of a Palestinian state in Middle East peace negotiations
  (AFTER refusing to recognize the palestinian government and starving the palestinian people)

• proposed a tax increase for millions of Americans
  (BUT is still calling for tax cuts to become permanent while CONTINUING to line the pockets of his super-rich cronies)

now, let's quick skip over to the nyt and see what a REAL course change looks like...

• Restore Habeas Corpus

• Stop Illegal Spying

• Ban Torture, Really

• Close the C.I.A. Prisons

• Account for ‘Ghost Prisoners’

• Ban Extraordinary Rendition

• Tighten the Definition of Combatant

• Screen Prisoners Fairly and Effectively

• Ban Tainted Evidence

• Ban Secret Evidence

• Better Define ‘Classified’ Evidence

• Respect the Right to Counsel

oh, and by the way...

• [H]alt the federal government’s race to classify documents to avoid public scrutiny

• [R]everse the grievous harm this administration has done to the Freedom of Information Act

• [C]urtail F.B.I. spying on nonviolent antiwar groups and revisit parts of the Patriot Act that allow this practice

• [A]pologize to a Canadian citizen and a German citizen, both innocent, who were kidnapped and tortured by American agents

• [C]lose the Guantánamo camp

now, THAT'S a list... when i see ANY of those things start to happen, i will take heart... not before...

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Iraq = al Qaeda = Iraq = al Qaeda

juan cole invited dr. david boles to comment on the disturbing trend of equating the iraq insurgency with al qaeda... boles documents the evidence...

• WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Tuesday said she believes al-Qaida spends "every hour of every day" plotting against the United States. (UPI, 2/27)
• KUWAIT CITY, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- Kuwaiti news reports say al-Qaida is preparing to carry out its threat to launch attacks against the country and other Gulf states. (UPI, 2/27)
• WASHINGTON — The U.S. military faces three wars in Iraq simultaneously according to a report which recommends a strategy of targeted U.S. strikes on Al Qaida death squads. (World Tribune, 2/28)
• WASHINGTON — The United States has determined that Iraq deployed far fewer troops than promised for the current offensive against Al Qaida in Baghdad. (World Tribune, 3/2)
• Earlier, the military said coalition forces killed eight militants Thursday in a raid near Baghdad targeting al-Qaida in Iraq. A military statement said the raid took place in the Salman Pak region. (VOA, 3/2)
• Day by day, Iraq's map is being redrawn along Sunni-Shiite lines. Gangs from both sides — including Shiite death squads and al-Qaida inspired Sunni radicals — have waged a nasty war-within-a- war for territory they can call their own. (AP, 3/2)
• The bodies of 14 policemen were found Friday northeast of Baghdad after an al-Qaida-affiliated Sunni group said it abducted members of a government security force in retaliation for the rape of a Sunni woman by members of the Shiite-dominated police. (AP, 3/3)
• In a separate raid in the Taji area on Saturday, nine suspected insurgents were captured, including two believed to be responsible for recruiting and helping foreign militants join the insurgency in Baghdad, the U.S. military said. The suspects were also accused of harboring al-Qaida in Iraq leaders, it said. (AP, 3/3)
• Fallujah police, meanwhile, reportedly arrested three Al-Qaida members, including one suspected of attacking the Saqlawiyah Police Station, KUNA said. (UPI, 3/3)
• Also Friday, Iraqi security forces found the bodies of 14 policemen in Diyala province. An al-Qaida-linked Sunni group said it abducted the men to avenge the alleged rape of a woman last month. (VOA, 3/3)

i'll add this nyt headline from today's edition...

U.S. Airstrikes Hit Qaeda Post in Iraq

boles' comment...

Regardless of what one thinks of the extent of Al-Qaida involvement in Iraq, it seems transparent that the administration and its allies are attempting to shift justification for continuing war in Iraq onto Al- Qaida. This is a dangerous trend that needs to be publicly highlighted.

you have to be a diligent, meticulous analyst of everything the bush administration says or does, and assemble your perspectives from multiple sources to be able to construct the bigger picture of just what the hell they are trying to pull over on you today...

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