First Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Kill? Or Should Kill?

Here is another reason to separate church and state. Confusing religion with politics in the west, the way it's done in the Middle East. Must we become like our enemy?
The extremist in the Middle East, and the West want us to think that God wants us to kill evil. Having read the Bible, I know that there is a lot of killing going on in it.
However, I always understood that God reserved the right of the decision as to who lived or died unto God, not men.
I'll defer to a man of faith that I have come to respect, Brother Tim, to clarify. Being a non-believer, I recuse myself from interpreting religious text, however, I don't think the Nazarene would approve of any killing.
From a post at RedState

Tears of Rage…and…I Spit in the Face of the Anti-War American Left
(I really do hope the referenced material below is not true but I fear – and expect - the worst.)

With all the power vested in me as a solitary average-Joe American, I insist that Speaker Pelosi take the earliest opportunity to read the following statement into the Congressional record and then explain exactly how her position regarding continued American involvement in Iraq and the greater War on Terror puts her and her voting base on the right side of human history:

I have no love for Pelosi, but she is clueless about what goes on in Iraq, good or bad. Otherwise, she would follow through with her pre-election promise to end the war.

The following has been passed to us from Iraq by Mr. Michael Yon: At first, he said, they would only target Shia, but over time the new al Qaeda directed attacks against Sunni, and then anyone who thought differently. The official reported that on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy, he said, who was about 11 years old. As LT David Wallach interpreted the man’s words, I saw Wallach go blank and silent. He stopped interpreting for a moment. I asked Wallach, “What did he say?” Wallach said that at these luncheons, the families were sat down to eat. And then their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family.

I agree that this is represents the lowest of the low, if true. However, war crimes are an inevitable outcome of war. This is why war is a bad thing.

Read that again. And again. And again. If you don’t get IT now then, forget your patriotism, I question your humanity.

More…

History reserves a special level of damnation for those members of this supposed religion of peace that do not now step up to do their part to reclaim the name of their faith. This is equally true for any stateside enablers – especially, those in power – who would have us back away from this current confrontation with pure evil and accept anything less than TOTAL VICTORY. (emphasis added)

I suspect the message here is, kill if you are a good Muslim or Christian in order to prevent killing. Victory is the only thing that's important. But I have a question, what is victory in this war? Is it the death of all? Where does the killing end? Should we go on and on like they do in the Middle East for thousands of years?

Anything less only shifts that burden to a later generation. If it comes to that, the eternal shame will belong to the Party of Pelosi and those who put them there in November 2006.
Ntrepid
Proud Member for: 2 years 41 weeks

I find this to be an inevitable outcome of war for the sake of war. We are quickly becoming like the Sunni and Shiite Muslim factions in the Middle East. Killing each other because we always have killed each other. My Muslim friends left the Middle East for the same reason. Like the Pilgrims of old, they just wanted to worship without the persecution. They didn't want to live with all of the killing.
I have a question, if our nation didn't fall for the lies of the NeoCons and didn't invade Iraq, would these war crimes be occurring daily? If Saddam was committing these crimes, would his people revolt if he were still in power?

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Uh-oh. One of the biggest newspapers throws down the gauntlet

mark the headline... mark the newspaper... mark the day...

Editorial
The Road Home

Published: July 8, 2007

It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit.

it's a start... now, let's have another one calling for bush and cheney to resign...

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Toss internet privacy out the window

if you had any illusions about internet privacy, this ought to dispel them...

Federal agents do not need a search warrant to monitor a suspect's computer use and determine the e-mail addresses and Web pages the suspect is contacting, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

[...]

In Friday's ruling, the court said computer users should know that they lose privacy protections with e-mail and Web site addresses when they are communicated to the company whose equipment carries the messages.

well, lessee, other than receiving and sending email and going to various and sundry websites, the reasons i would be on the internet would be...?? hmmmm... assuming by "Web pages" they mean url's and ip addresses, i guess that would pretty much comprise all the internet activity somebody is capable of, huh...? oh, well...

as i've said repeatedly, i've assumed for years that every electronic transaction i conduct on any network not directly controlled by me is subject to sniffing (and further analysis if it contains significant words, phrases, or code strings)... recently, i've come to suspect that part of the purpose for getting us to do everything electronically is precisely so that it CAN be sniffed... there's damn little now that can't be obtained or tracked... once gps chips are part of every vehicle and, once we unknowingly ingest one of those little, nano-sized rfid's, why, our entire lives will be nothing more than an open book to our masters... it's always nice to know that someone cares...

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"No one gets out of Guantánamo by any legal process, because there is none."

pick your amendment... 5th...? 8th...? 14th...?

lou dubose writing in the washington spectator via alternet...

Murat Kurnaz, German born of Turkish parents, could be an expert witness and fact witness for any legislative or judicial procedure that would cast a cold eye on the transgressions of law, the Constitution or the fundamental precepts of human rights perpetrated by George Bush's terror warriors. Pick your amendment. Fifth: one is not compelled to be a witness against oneself, or deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law. Eighth: protection against cruel and unusual punishment. Fourteenth: the state cannot deprive someone of life, liberty or property without due process.

[...]

The legal process by which Kurnaz was freed from Guantánamo was, in a sense, irrelevant. It's not precedent-setting, because there is no effective process that provides detainees access to justice.

[...]

"No one gets out of Guantánamo by any legal process," [Kurnaz' attorney Baher Azmy from Seton Hall Law School in New Jersey] said. "Because there is none."

[...]

Kurnaz was released only because Azmy and his colleague in Germany, Bernhard Docke, took his case to the court of public opinion in Germany. Their skillful use of the media persuaded German chancellor Angela Merkel to prevail on George Bush to release Kurnaz.

after 5 years in guantánamo without being charged, this is how murat kurnaz was finally freed and sent home...

Wearing goggles that shut out all light, a soundproof headset and a mask that covered his mouth so he could not speak, spit or bite, the prisoner arrived at Ramstein Air Force Base in Kaiserslautern, Germany, under the tightest security. ... During the seventeen-hour ride, the prisoner was provided with neither food nor water. Nor was he allowed to stretch his legs or relieve himself.

[...]

He didn't know he'd been returned home to Germany until an American enlisted man removed his goggles and he saw three German policemen standing outside the airplane.

"He was dumped on German soil like some sort of alien," said Bernhard Docke, one of Kurnaz's attorneys, from the north German city of Bremen.

[...]

"They threw my clothes over the fence," Kurnaz said in an interview in his lawyer's office in Bremen. "They told me, get ready to move. I thought to another prison; then I was back in Germany." That the U.S. soldiers continued to curse and humiliate him during the flight from Guantánamo gave him reason to believe he wasn't flying home to freedom. "They treated me the same as always," he said. "Like I was the number one terrorist."

please, god, make the bad men in the white house go away...

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More on the Marc Rich pardon vis a vis the Libby commutation

in a post earlier today, stop defending clinton, i was probably not as clear as i might have been about my criticism of bill clinton... let me say right off the bat, in no way whatsoever am i qualified to comment on the legalities or the process followed by bill clinton in his pardon of marc rich, nor, by the same token, am i qualified to comment on those same aspects of george bush's commutation of scooter libby's sentence... but i CAN comment on something else, something i believe is more important...

forget about the legalities, forget about executive powers of clemency, and forget about the validity of the charges - in the case of rich, or the conviction - in the case of libby... there is something more fundamental that no one is addressing... more than any other elected or appointed public official, the president of the united states should be expected to avoid even the APPEARANCE of impropriety... i don't want to hear reasons, i don't want to be subjected to finely-honed legal arguments... clinton's pardon of rich and bush's commutation of libby's sentence both reek of impropriety, and, therefore, they had no business doing either...

jeralyn, in her ususal cogent, lawyerly way, does a careful, point-by-point comparison of the two situations, but neglects to mention that BOTH presidents INVITED the uproar that followed their decisions... BOTH clinton AND bush made decisions that, given their connections with the two individuals in question, shouldn't have even been considered, and that, to me, is the entire issue in a nutshell... if it's going to be perceived as a compromise of your ethics, why would you want to do it in the first place...? i think we've got a pretty good idea why george let libby off the hook, but clinton was no less heedless of the fallout from his pardon of rich...

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Three billion liters of untreated waste every single day

Daniel Pepper
A young girl pushes her raft along New Delhi's polluted Yamuna river.
She and a handful of others trawl the river for loose change tossed in
for good luck.

into one river from one city...

Fully three billion liters of waste are pumped into Delhi's Yamuna River each day.

[...]

80 percent of urban waste in India ends up in the country's rivers, and unchecked urban growth across the country combined with poor government oversight means the problem is only getting worse.

[...]

Much of the river pollution problem in India comes from untreated sewage. Samples taken recently from the Ganges River near Varanasi show that levels of fecal coliform, a dangerous bacterium that comes from untreated sewage, were some 3,000 percent higher than what is considered safe for bathing.

another unbelievably polluted river, the riachuelo, runs along the southeastern edge of buenos aires... i've walked along its banks, holding my nose the whole time...

The [Riachuelo] receives a significant quantity of industrial waste from the numerous factories along it, especially the leather processing facilities, which makes the Riachuelo one of the three most polluted rivers in the world. Among the most dangerous contaminants are heavy metals and sewers' water from all the saturated layers of the basin.

Junked ships line the banks of the Riachuelo in Buenos Aires

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NOW we see that they were lying: a blinding glimpse of the obvious

it's a good thing rosa brooks is directing her comments to traditional media outlets and not including the blogosphere and non-traditional news sources...

Like freed hostages who gradually cease to identify with their captors, mainstream media outlets seem to have been seized by a new spirit of liberation in their coverage of the Bush administration. Lately, we've seen a rash of astonished, outraged stories and editorials relating to the administration's recently discovered malfeasance.

[...]

The new media message is righteous and clear: Administration officials tricked us — all of us! They assured us that everything they did was legal … necessary … for our own good … but now we see that they were lying!

Well, yeah. So what else is new?

[...]

Bush and Cheney valued power and expedience, nothing more — and much of the time, they didn't even bother to cover their tracks when they bypassed long-standing laws and regulations. Similarly, when it came to compliance with our laws and constitutional traditions, they hardly even pretended to give a hoot.

So why did it take us so long to notice?

[...]

It's hard not to conclude that collectively, we were all too cowardly, slothful or puffed up with our own self-importance to ask the right questions and stand up for principle. The administration didn't trick us; we tricked ourselves.

Someday, the Bush era may come to seem like a bad dream, a shameful, inexplicable interlude in American history. We're right to be outraged by Bush and Cheney, but we should also save a bit of outrage for when we look in the mirror.

yeah, well, rosa, the media STILL aren't taking nearly the forceful stance they should be taking in light of the illegal outrages perpetrated on the citizens of the united states and half of the rest of the world by the criminal occupants of the white house... as supposed keepers of the flame of truth, journalists should insure that these outrages are on display on the front pages of newspapers, as lead stories on local, network and cable news, and front and center on every news website, daily, across the country... citizens and media alike can't afford a minute's rest until that cabal is removed from office...

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Tuesday, August 3, 2032

i stumbled across this today, thanks to cup o'joe via avedon via atrios...


Click on image for full-size version (PDF)

Text of the President’s speech before a joint session of Congress

Tuesday, August 3, 2032

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, honored guests, my fellow Americans.

Thirty-one years ago, this nation stood alone among its neighbors. With unmatched military might, a flourishing economy, and moral authority respected around the world, we stood at the precipice of great times, our futures limited only by our imaginations. Now, we emerge from the ruin of a great war, the gravest military defeat we have ever suffered. How has this come to pass? How could we, in such a short time, have fallen so low?

The fault is our own. In our pride and arrogance, we failed to learn the lessons of history. We believed we were unique, that what happened to other nations would not happen to us, because we believed that God smiled upon us. We were wrong.

We destroyed our military might in a futile attempt to conquer a region of land we had no right to: squandering the lives of our soldiers by exploiting their sense of patriotism and their devotion and loyalty to their country, and destroying the future for millions of people whose only crime was having been born on land we wanted for our own purposes.

We destroyed our financial security by stealing from the poor and giving to the rich: squandering money that could have benefitted all Americans, rich and poor, in the name of a false ideology and the idolization of wealth and power above all else.

We destroyed the notion that we lived by the rule of law by showing how easily a powerful few could circumvent it, falsely promising security in exchange for their unearned trust and false assurances that they were acting in evryone’s best interests.

We destroyed our national security and squandered the goodwill we had taken decades to build up among our neighbors by arrogantly proclaiming that we had the right to do whatever we wished because we had the might to back it up.

We destroyed our claim of moral authority as, in the name of democracy and freedom, we took away the freedom and democracy of others. We showed the world that we were capable of atrocities as great as the ones that were perpetrated by other on us, proving that in the end we were no different from the tyrants we were trying to liberate them from.

We have destroyed ourselves and squandered our future, and we are chastened. We have failed to live up to the ideals our nation was founded on, we have failed to keep the Republic we were given. We have failed those who came before us, we have failed ourselves, we have failed our children, and jeopardized the very survival of the world, all in the name of greed and hubris. We stand now humbled before the people of the world.

But in the midst of our failure lies great hope, for only in failure can we learn, and become greater than what we were.

We have failed to learn the lessons of history, but we now can plainly see that no single nation, no matter how great its military might, or how noble its purpose, is worthy of empire. No nation has the right to rule over its neighbors, or to war on them because they covet their land or their resources, or to force its culture upon them, or to take away their inalienable right of self-determination.

We have failed to learn the lessons of history, but we now know without a shadow of a doubt that love of money and love of power is the root of all evil, for in the name of money and power we have committed great evil.

We should never forget these lessons. For even as I speak, and as we wait to learn what we will be expected to do to heal the wounds caused by our actions, there are those among us who have failed to understand what has occurred here, and will wish for us to one day return to the ruinous path we have followed. Shun them, for they have no vision. Shun them, for they are morally bankrupt. The evidence of their wrongdoing, and the evil of their vision and the wasteland that that vision has created is clearly before us. We must reject once and for all those who seek power for power’s sake.

Even as I speak, there are those of us who would prefer to forget what we have done, to pretend that this had never happened and that we can turn back the clock to a simpler time. But we should never let them forget it. We cannot turn back the clock, we cannot go back to where we were before. A new day is dawning and if we are to break the cycle of history we must not deny history: we must admit to ourselves the sins and crimes of the past so as to learn and grow.

So let us remember this day so that we will no longer listen to the voices of hate. Let us remember this day so that we will no longer heed those who tell us that one race of people, or one culture, or one method of belief, is inferior and should be destroyed. Let us remember this day as the day we finally recognize that all are created equal, that we are all brothers and sisters sharing the wondrous gift of Earth. And let us remember how fragile this vessel is and care for it as we care for one another.

Let us now ensure that those who have suffered and died did not do so in vain. And as we were magnanimous to the Axis powers in the aftermath of the Second World War, we now ask the nations of the world to be magnanimous to us. For they too have bourne the burden of empire and failed as we have. Let us now work to renew our faith in ourselves and in our institutions, and to work together as neighbors to build a better America and a better world in a spirit of peace and goodwill. And if we commit ourselves to rebuilding our nation, I believe that we will find that the task before us is not so hard as it appears.

Let us not be afraid. Let us face the future with great hope, a hope born of folly but grown into wisdom.

joe was ruminating today, obviously, which sparked a visit to his own archives to unearth the future fiction piece above, something i pray for, but am not sure i will live to see... joe's ruminations included this, a sad reflection of my own state of mind...

What Are We Gonna Do About It?

One of the reasons the posts have pretty much stopped here is the increasing futility of reading the news, seeing what's been going on, and not being able to do anything about it. The Bush family and their pals are nothing more than a criminal enterprise, and this has been very clear and obvious for a long, long time.

that's the question, for sure...

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Cheney's lies

robert greenwald's brave new films has another hit on their hands...

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F*** me...? Oh, no...! F*** YOU...!

speaking of the daily show...

another episode of "You Don't Know Dick..."

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Stop defending Clinton

.
Scooter Libby.......................Marc Rich

the virtually unquestioned article of faith in most of the liberal/progressive blogosphere goes like this...

Bush = bad; Clinton = good

it really should be more like this...

Bush = evil; Clinton = bad

the latest tortured response to yet another of the r's whiney, "well, clinton did it TOO," b.s. revolving around clinton's pardon of marc rich and 210 others in his last 9 weeks in office, is a case in point... today's progress report takes on tony snow, arguably a more adept purveyor of lies than scotty mcclellan, who, in a usa today op-ed, tries to justify bush's making a mockery of the entire american justice system... snow 1) minimizes the egregiousness of bush's action by noting the president's plenary constitutional powers (another subliminal plug for the unitary executive), and 2) makes the usual comparison with bill clinton... snow argues that since bush was acting in accordance with his executive powers, and that there was little investigation of clinton's pardons, why should bush be taking heat for commuting libby's sentence... the progress report rebuts by pointing out that "federal prosecutors concluded 'it wasn't appropriate to bring charges' in [Clinton's] case"...

dems, liberals and progressives need to stop defending bill clinton... just because he's a democrat, working overtime to make him look good doesn't add one whit to democratic credibility... it would be a LOT more honest to point out that clinton was acting within the same corrupt system that's still in place, and certainly held up his end by keeping it going for his eight years in office... the LAST myth we need to foster is that everything is going to be different when a democratic president takes office on 20 january 2009...

also, let's keep some of the facts on marc rich out in the open... while rich didn't obstruct an investigation into the outing of a cia agent and, on top of that, lie about it, rich isn't exactly a candidate for sainthood either...

marc rich...

In 1983, Rich and partner Pincus Green were indicted by U.S. Attorney and future mayor of New York City Rudolph Giuliani, on charges of tax evasion and illegal trading with Iran. Both of them fled to Switzerland before a court appearance, and they remained on the FBI's Most Wanted List for many years.

On January 20, 2001, hours before leaving office, President Bill Clinton granted Rich a presidential pardon. Since Rich's former wife and mother of his three children, socialite Denise Rich, had made large donations to the Democratic Party and the Clinton Library during Clinton's time in office, Clinton's critics alleged that Rich's pardon had been bought. Rich had also made substantial donations to Israeli charitable foundations. Clinton explained his decision by noting that similar situations were settled in civil, not criminal court, and cited clemency pleas from Israeli government officials, including Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Federal Prosecutor Mary Jo White was appointed to investigate. She stepped down before the investigation was finished and was replaced by James Comey. Though Comey was critical of Clinton's pardons, he could not find any grounds on which to indict him.

During hearings after Rich's pardon, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who had represented Rich from 1985 until the spring of 2000, denied that Rich had violated the tax laws, but criticized him for trading with Iran at a time when that country was holding U.S. hostages. In his letter to the New York Times, Bill Clinton explained why he pardoned Rich, noting that U.S. tax professors Bernard Wolfman of Harvard Law School and Martin Ginsburg of Georgetown University Law Center concluded that no crime was committed, and that the companies' tax reporting position was reasonable. [New York Times, February 18, 2001][2]. In the same letter Clinton listed Libby as one of three "distinguished Republican lawyers" who supported Rich's pardon.

what we really need to face as a country is that we've got rot sprinkled liberally (pardon the very bad pun) throughout our government... it's become almost impossible to separate out the wheat from the chaff, but it's obvious as hell that there's enough power in congressional leadership to keep the status quo going for a very long time, and that's not even mentioning the horror that is the bush administration and their puppet makeover that is now our supreme court...

thanks to the daily show, here's a photo of the bed all these people sleep in...

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Too scared to even bring your camera out on mission for fear it will get fouled up by all the dust/sand/water?

something for that soldier in the family... don't let your favorite troop miss a minute of the action... surprise and delight him or her with a gun camera...



see the review here...

you can't make this stuff up...

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E.J. Dionne on Libby: "Getting mad and staying mad"

he makes all the same points that have been made since bush's outrageous decision to commute libby's sentence and draws some of the same conclusions...

[I]s it possible to avoid concluding that this was a one-time-only action rooted not in law but in politics and favoritism for an aide who loyally misled the prosecution in a case that implicated top figures of Bush's own administration?

uh... < scratches chin > no...

As Michael Abramowitz reported in Tuesday's Post: "For the first time in his presidency, Bush commuted a sentence without running requests through lawyers at the Justice Department, White House officials said. He also did not ask the chief prosecutor in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, for his input, as routinely happens in cases routed through the Justice Department's pardon attorney." Again: This was a one-time-only ticket for one guy.

[...]

[B]y keeping Libby free, Bush can conveniently postpone a full pardon until after the 2008 election. In the meantime, Libby has no incentive to tell prosecutors anything new about what happened in this case. As liberal blogs have noted [e.g. Daily Kos, here], since he was not pardoned outright, he can use the pending appeal of his conviction to avoid testifying before Congress.

not being one to peruse conservative blogs, dionne points out something that i find a trifle surprising, if not a wee bit encouraging...

"I'm not convinced that the administration should have intervened at all," [Ed Morrissey, a staunch conservative who runs the influential Captain's Quarters blog], wrote. "The sentence fit within the sentencing guidelines championed by Republicans for years as a bulwark against soft-on-crime federal judges, even if it was on the long end of the guidelines by some interpretations. The underlying crimes go to the heart of the rule of law, and those who commit perjury and obstruction should go to prison."

dionne concludes by asking the same question i've been asking just about every other day as some new bush administration outrage is uncovered...

This commutation is an ... outrage because it involves the administration taking steps to slip accountability for its own actions. Are we just going to let this one go by?

well...? are we...?

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The sound of trees

i just stumbled across this and was fascinated...

The flowing background sound may seem like water or rain, but it is actually the sound of tree branches. A flat microphone was applied to the trunks of various species to produce the audio track.

is that cool or what...?

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I don't believe Doolittle, Domenici, Lugar, any of them

oh, yeah, they're running away from bush... oh, yeah, they're calling for a change in iraq policy... oh, yeah, they want u.s. troops "off the front lines as soon as possible..."

Rep. John Doolittle, a consevative California congressman, today joined others in his party rapidly deserting the president on the Iraq war.

[...]

He said U.S. troops should be pulled back from the front lines "as soon as possible" and the fighting turned over to Iraqi forces.

[...]

Earlier today, Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) also called for a change in course in U.S. military strategy in Iraq — without waiting for the September report on the "surge." He joined other Republican senators as Richard Lugar who have recently broken with the White House on this issue.

note that he said "off the front lines," not "out of the country..."

talk is cheap... i'm with harry reid... put up or shut up... i don't believe that george, no matter how many repubs speak out against iraq, has the slightest intention of pulling out... we are in iraq forever... if there is a pulldown, it will be cosmetic only and simply to paper over dissent within the party... let's face it, if the number of troops added since the escalation began were pulled out tomorrow, we'd just be back where we were late last year, but the media would be falling all over itself reporting on the so-called withdrawal, and the repubs would be congratulating themselves for standing up to the president... what a gigantic crock of steaming bullshit...

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It's hotter than snot in the high desert!

yep... it's HOT...!



and for the fahrenheit-impaired...



but, as they say, it's a DRY HEAT...! (notice the relative humidity...!)

btw, did i mention it's HOT...?

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$250K is more than a lot of people make in a year? No shit!

media matters is commenting on an out-and-out falsehood spouted by neal boortz, claiming that bill clinton was indicted and convicted for the same crime as scooter libby... but what caught my eye was THIS...

NEAL BOORTZ: ... Scooter Libby was sentenced to pay a $250,000 fine. That's a quarter of a million dollars, that's more than a lot of people make in a year.

$250K IS ONE FRIGGIN' HELL OF A LOT MORE THAN A LOT OF PEOPLE MAKE IN A YEAR...! whatever bubble boortz lives in, the man has clearly lost touch with any semblance of reality (although i realize that's not unusual for our far-right, wingnut fringe)... there's a lot of individuals and families out there who would die to earn $50K a year...

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The North American Future 2025 Project and The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America

brought to you by the governments of canada, mexico, and the united states, and your good friends at the center for strategic and international studies...

the executive summary [PDF]...



the project...



the u.s. government portion of the project is called The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America and has its own website... the key players in the u.s. effort - michael chertoff, condolleeza rice, and carlos gutierrez - are listed in this org chart [PDF]... (click on image for full-size version...)



just take a few moments to absorb what's being proposed... then sit back and wait for september which is when the final report will be presented to congress...

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"I don't know what you mean by 'equal justice under the law.' "

huh...? 'scuse me...? would you mind running that by me again...?

From this afternoon's White House press briefing:

Q Scott, is Scooter Libby getting more than equal justice under the law? Is he getting special treatment?

MR. STANZEL: Well, I guess I don't know what you mean by "equal justice under the law." But this is a unique case, there's no doubt about that.

oh, it's unique, all right... unique in its complete and total disregard for our justice system and our proclaimed adherence to the rule of law, both of which bushco pays such lip service to both here and around the world...

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Turkmenistan deja vu AND it has ENORMOUS GAS FIELDS!

there i was, innocently skimming through my nyt emailed headlines, when suddenly, a familiar name¹ ... hark² , i said to myself, what is THIS...? turkmenistan...?

Seeking the Persona of New Turkmen Leader

the article's headline triggered the association... i hurriedly went to my blogpost archives, and, sure enough, there it was...

How do journalists get to the REAL truth?

why, yes, indeed, i HAD posted on turkmenistan, and only a week and a half ago too... (no smart remarks about short-term memory loss, please...) it was all about ken silverstein's undercover exposé of washington lobbyists in harper's magazine where he posed as the representative for a group of turkmenistan investors.. (while a journalistic coup, it nonetheless ignited a small brushfire of ethical criticism, see here)... under his assumed persona, silverstein met with two p.r. agencies, seeking to contract their services for improving the image of turkmenistan, a country silverstein and many others characterize as "slightly less Stalinist" than north korea... part of what each agency proposed in response was to conduct an intensive p.r. campaign to improve turkmenistan's image with both congress and the public, in part by strategically placing favorable news items in major media outlets... well, stick me in a dress and call me shirley if the nyt article doesn't come across as just that kind of placement...

Since a rigged election in February, the new president [Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov] (whose name is pronounced gur-BAHN-goo-lee bair-dee-mukh-ha-MAY-doff) has assumed a job extraordinary in both its oddness and its possibilities. He has succeeded the megalomaniac who called himself Turkmenbashi, the Leader of All Turkmens.

With this post, Mr. Berdymukhammedov sits atop a personality cult so pervasive that even in death the identity of the president is inseparable from that of the country.

But he has inherited more than golden statues and unchecked dominion over a frightened population. He holds the keys to enormous gas fields and state coffers, and has lines of eager suitors from China, Russia, Turkey, Iran, Israel, the European Union and the United States.

He has promised reform, and there are signs of change, including a slight easing of the government’s iron grip over the populace.

question... is this news or is it a p.r. placement...? i lean toward news mainly because the article does go on to state the following...

• Turkmenistan is governed in part by fear, a place where uttering the president’s name in public can cause people to flinch, whisper and hush.

• Diplomats describe [Saparmurat Niyazov, the dictator who had ruled since the Soviet Union’s collapse, and Berdymukhammedov's predecessor] with words diplomats do not typically use: madman, sadist, freak, thief.

• [Niyazov] assembled a government that was opaque and impenetrable. Six months after his death, no one pretends to be able to peer in.

• [O]ne European diplomat, describing interactions with Turkmen officials ... “They are afraid to talk in all meetings, because everything is bugged as far as they know.”

it's up to us to decide - truth or spin, real or memorex... but, don't forget, TURKMENISTAN HAS ENORMOUS GAS FIELDS...!

1. hark
Pronunciation: 'härk
Function: intransitive verb
Etymology: Middle English herkien; akin to Old High German hOrechen to listen, Old English hIeran to hear
: to pay close attention

2. dé·jà vu
Pronunciation: "dA-"zhä-'vü, -'v[ue]
Function: noun
Etymology: French, adjective, literally, already seen
1 a : the illusion of remembering scenes and events when experienced for the first time b : a feeling that one has seen or heard something before
2 : something overly or unpleasantly familiar

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It ain't al-Qaeda, people, it's pissed-off Muslims like Bilal Abdullah

from today's la times...

British suspect's beliefs drove him

Bilal Abdullah was an angry militant Islamist long before he became a doctor in Britain or a chief suspect in last week's attempted car bombings in London and Glasgow, according to acquaintances.

The Iraqi doctor spoke fluent English, studied for his British medical exams in Cambridge and worked part time at a local Staples office supply store, according to a friend from those days in 2004 and 2005.

Abdullah also praised former Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab Zarqawi, and kept his group's videos showing beheadings and assaults. He cheered the killing of U.S. and British troops, and wanted to see a strict Islamic government in Iraq, as well as Islamic dominance around the world.

the next time you hear bush use al-qaeda in every other sentence of a speech, keep the following in mind...

British security officials say no direct links to Al Qaeda have yet been found, and terrorism experts are skeptical that there is one. Abdel Bari Atwan, author of "The Secret History of Al Qaeda," noted in an interview Wednesday that Al Qaeda operations in London, Bali and Madrid all were deadly accurate, whereas last week's attacks were rudimentary and unsuccessful.

"Al Qaeda in Iraq is very experienced. They manufacture car bombs every day. They know how to detonate bombs, where to park them, how to select targets," said Atwan, who is editor of the London-based Al Quds al Arabi newspaper.

this is what bushco doesn't want us talking about... there's a ton of pissed-off muslims out there and the more we keep trying to kick their collective asses, the more pissed-off they're gonna be, and the more of those now in the peaceful mainstream are going to start feeling the same way... bush and his buddy, tony, succeeded in making the war on terrorism into a war on al-qaeda, a war which they then conflated with islam...

just as an interesting speculation, what if terrorists, instead of being defined as radical islamists working for al-qaeda, were defined as radical christians who believe in acting out their beliefs by bombing (or attempting to bomb) abortion clinics, and murdering physicians who perform abortions...? what if all christianity got lumped in with those people...? every day, more and more christians would become radicalized and feel it necessary to take strong steps to protect their cherished beliefs... let's face it, if you become convinced that powerful forces are out to obliterate the fundamental principles you live by, along with your very identity as a person, anger and rage is not an irrational response...

we don't have to look very hard to find other examples of religions and cultures that became radicalized under threat of extinction: the protestant-catholic conflict in northern ireland, the christian-muslim bloodbaths in the balkans, the basque-spanish situation in spain, and, of course, israel and palestine, are some of the most recent, and recorded history is littered with others... when people feel their beliefs and entire way of life are under attack, they get angry and fight back... it's bad enough that the u.s. wants to control all the world's energy resources and feels justified using military power to get them, it's vastly much worse when that agenda gets wrapped in religious ideology and painted as a global struggle of christianity vs. islam...

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"Pissing on your leg and telling you it's raining"

kagro x...

[F]ollowing George W. Bush's pardon (let's be honest) of Scooter Libby, a Republican's admonition to let anything play out in court ought to be regarded as worth exactly squat.

So long as George W. Bush wields the pardon pen, there are no courts. And any Republican who tells you otherwise is pissing on your leg and telling you it's raining.

the ramifications of bush's commutation of libby's sentence are so huge, i'm still attempting to digest them... i've obviously still got a lot more digestin' to do...

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Throw the bums out!

if you never do another thing to help your country the rest of your life, do this...



(thanks to the unknown candidate...)

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McClatchy tells less than HALF the Iraq oil law story

i've posted numerous times on the iraq oil law (over 10 times, at least, some of the major ones being here, here, here, and here, among others)... the key points that AREN'T getting reported in the so-called "news" outlets in the u.s. are these, compiled from both the uk independent and the inter press news service agency...

[The production sharing agreements - PSAs] envisioned by the Iraqi petrochemical law contained extremely favorable provisions for the oil companies, in which they would be entitled to 70 percent of profits until development expenses were amortized and 20 percent afterwards. This would have guaranteed them at least twice the typical profit margin over the long run and many times that figure during the initial years.

There are other elements in the law (and the possible PSA contracts) that have also roused resistance inside Iraq. Among the most controversial:

* Insofar as PSAs or their legal equivalent were enacted, Iraq would lose control over what levels of oil the country produced with the potential to substantially weaken the grip of OPEC on the oil market.

* The law would allow the oil companies to fully repatriate all profits from oil sales, almost insuring that the proceeds would not be reinvested in the Iraqi economy.

* The Iraqi government would not have control over oil company operations inside Iraq. Any disputes would be referred instead to pro-industry international arbitration panels.

* No contracts would be public documents.

* Contacting companies would not be obliged to hire Iraqi workers, and could pursue the current policy of employing American technicians and South Asian manual laborers.

Several African countries with vast mineral riches have been subjected to these sorts of conditions, with large multinational companies extracting both minerals and profits while returning only a tiny fraction of the proceeds to the local population. As the resources are taken out of the ground and the country, the local population actually becomes poorer, while the potential for future prosperity is drained.

i've developed some respect for mcclatchy over the past few months as being one of the few u.s. news outlets that's taking the risk to put out the truth... so, why the hell am i reading a story like this...?

Leading Sunnis in Iraq's parliament continued on Wednesday to snub a set of U.S.-supported oil laws many see as key to ending sectarian killing.

The laws would regulate Iraq's oil industry and govern how to distribute oil revenues. The Bush administration contends passage of an equitable oil-sharing law would draw Sunnis into the Shiite-led government and help heal the nation's deep religious rift.

U.S. lawmakers also see the oil provisions as a gauge that measures the effectiveness of President Bush's surge strategy. An influx of 28,500 troops has brought total force strength to 150,000.

[...]

Iraqis of all political and sectarian stripes have concerns about any provision that would call for sharing oil revenues with foreign oil companies.

Ministers from parliament's Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front have boycotted voting for the bills. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Tuesday predicted that parliament would begin debating the legislation. But on Wednesday an official for the group said no draft should be considered until the Sunnis return to session.

ok, mcclatchy, WHY ARE THEY SO DAMN CONCERNED...? HUH...? could it be about some of the things the independent and inter press service reported...? COULD IT...? yeah... i thought so... SO WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU MENTION THEM...?

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Hunter waxes eloquent on the Libby deal

and, believe me, nobody, and i mean NOBODY, can wax eloquent like hunter...

a teaser...

When seeking clemency for a criminal obstruction of justice, it is always considered a stroke of luck to have committed the obstruction on behalf of individuals with the power to grant such clemency.

read it all...

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4th of July last year, a trip down the "Take It Personally" memory lane

from july 4, 2006...



The real meaning of the Declaration of Independence

this 4th of july, let us remember that our country and its principles are not synonomous with our government...

In celebration of the Fourth of July there will be many speeches about the young people who "died for their country." But those who gave their lives did not, as they were led to believe, die for their country; they died for their government. The distinction between country and government is at the heart of the Declaration of Independence, which will be referred to again and again on July 4, but without attention to its meaning.

The Declaration of Independence is the fundamental document of democracy. It says governments are artificial creations, established by the people, "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," and charged by the people to ensure the equal right of all to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Furthermore, as the Declaration says, "whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it." It is the country that is primary--the people, the ideals of the sanctity of human life and the promotion of liberty.

[...]

Should we not begin to redefine patriotism? We need to expand it beyond that narrow nationalism that has caused so much death and suffering. If national boundaries should not be obstacles to trade-- some call it "globalization"--should they also not be obstacles to compassion and generosity? Should we not begin to consider all children, everywhere, as our own? In that case, war, which in our time is always an assault on children, would be unacceptable as a solution to the problems of the world. Human ingenuity would have to search for other ways.

Howard Zinn is a veteran of World War II and author of the bestselling book, A People's History of the United States. The following essay is an excerpt from Zinn's forthcoming book, A Power Governments Cannot Suppress.

glenn greenwald makes the same case...

How Would a Patriot Act? is one man’s story of being galvanized into action to defend America’s founding principles, and a reasoned argument for what must be done. Greenwald’s penetrating words should inspire a nation to defend the Constitution from a president who secretly bestowed upon himself the powers of a monarch. If we are to remain a constitutional republic, Greenwald writes, we cannot abide radical theories of executive power, which are transforming the very core of our national character, and moving us from democracy toward despotism. This is not hyperbole. This is the crisis all Americans—liberals and conservatives--now face.

yes, it IS a crisis, an urgent one, and the sooner that fact dawns on the american people, the sooner we will be able to move back to our founding principles...

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Now that Libby's a done deal, how about some answers to THESE questions, George?

froomkin...

* Does the president approve of Libby's conduct?

* On whose behalf did Libby act?

* Did the White House make any sort of a deal with Libby or his defense team?

* What did Bush know and when did he know it?

* When did he find out that Karl Rove and Libby had both leaked Plame's identity? Before or after he vowed that any leakers would be fired? Did anyone lie to him about their role? Why didn't he fire them?

* How does the conduct of his aides comport with Bush's vow to restore ethics to the White House? How does the commutation?

* What factors did the president take into account in deciding to commute the sentence?

* What does the president consider an appropriate punishment for perjury and obstruction of justice?

* What was Cheney's role in the commutation?

take your time, george... don't rush... it IS, after all, the 4th of july, the day we celebrate the constitutional principles on which the united states was founded, and you no doubt would like to take some time to observe the day... otoh, do you suppose you could have some answers ready, say, by friday evening...? we know the tradition of the friday evening news dump, and, being a holiday week and all, maybe there won't be so many people crawling all over them then... whaddaya say...?

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Bush and Cheney must resign

keith olbermann, as usual, doesn't mince words... the pressure is building...



(thanks to crooks and liars... click here...)

i've been calling for bush and cheney and the entire cabinet to resign since i sat in front of my television set in buenos aires, in tears, watching the katrina disaster unfold... i never thought they would last this long, but, now it's time... they need to go...

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The previous post is even more important in light of THIS!

i'm tellin' ya, BURY THEM IN EMAILS... OVERLOAD THEIR INBOXES... TELL 'EM HOW YOU REALLY FEEL ABOUT HAVING CRIMINALS RUNNING THIS COUNTRY...

Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. announced that he will be holding a full committee hearing next week titled, "The Use and Misuse of Presidential Clemency Power for Executive Branch Officials." The hearing will be held next Wednesday, July 11, at 10:15 am in the committee’s hearing room, 2141 Rayburn House Office Building.

"In light of yesterday’s announcement by the President that he was commuting the prison sentence for Scooter Libby, it is imperative that Congress look into presidential authority to grant clemency, and how such power may be abused," Conyers said. "Taken to its extreme, the use of such authority could completely circumvent the law enforcement process and prevent credible efforts to investigate wrongdoing in the executive branch."

MAKE THIS THE TIPPING POINT...! I THINK WE CAN DO IT...! THE TIME IS NOW...!

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They've GOTTA GO! NOW!

meteor blades at daily kos has compiled this helpful list of the members of the house judiciary committee, their phone numbers, and email addresses... contact them and tell them that it's time to get rid of this gang of criminals... don't procrastinate, DO IT...!

Chairman John Conyers, Michigan, 14th (202) 225-5126 Contact him here.
Howard Berman California, 28th (202) 225-4695 Contact him here
Rick Boucher Virginia, 9th (202) 225-3861 Contact him here
Jerrold Nadler New York, 8th Contact him here
Robert C. Scott Virginia, 3rd (202) 225-8351 Contact him here
Melvin L. Watt North Carolina, 12th (202) 225-1510 Contact him here
Zoe Lofgren California, 16th (202) 225-3072 Contact her here
Sheila Jackson Lee Texas, 18th (202) 225-3816 Contact her here
William D. Delahunt Massachusetts, 10th (202) 225-3111 Contact him here
Robert Wexler Florida, 19th (202) 225-3001 Contact him here
Linda T. Sánchez California, 39th (202) 225-6676 Contact her here
Steve T. Cohen Tennessee, 9th (202) 225-3265 Contact him here
Hank Johnson Georgia, 4th (202) 225-1605 Contact him here
Luis Gutierrez Illinois, 4th (202) 225-8203 Contact him here
Brad Sherman California, 27 (202) 225-5911 Contact him here
Anthony D. Weiner New York, 9th (202) 225-6616 Contact him here
Adam B. Schiff California, 29th (202) 225-4176 Contact him here
Artur Davis Alabama , 7th (202) 225-2665 Contact him here
Debbie Wasserman Schultz Florida, 20th 202-225-7931 Contact her here
Tammy Baldwin Wisconsin, 2nd (202) 225-2906 Contact her here

Rep. Ellison and Rep. Waters have already signed on to HR 333, the bill to impeach Cheney, but you can send them some love.

Keith Ellison Minnesota, 5th (612) 522-1212 Contact him here
Maxine Waters California, 35th (202) 225-2201 Contact her here.

i don't know about you folks, but i have goddam for sure HAD IT...! i am SO-O-O-O-OOO past the boiling point, i can't even think straight... flood their offices with email and phone calls... don't just do it once, do it multiple times, 4-5-6 times a day, whatever time you can devote... THE BUSH GANG HAS GOT TO GO...!

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Libby's Future

Almost every President has used pardons to take care of their own. Once in a while, they even pardon somebody who deserves it, although I can't site an example. I expect Little Georgy to be no different, but he will probably need to shatter the previous record for number of pardons used. Dick's list alone must be enormous. I think the commutation is just an interim step, a little KY before the big screw.

Bush Won't Rule Out Full Libby Pardon
By MATT APUZZO
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Tuesday left open the possibility of an eventual pardon for former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. "As to the future, I rule nothing in and nothing out," the president said a day after commuting Libby's 2 1/2-year prison term in the CIA leak case.
[...]

You can read the rest at the A.P. site.
This whole situation is disgusting.

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"We have been witnessing the wholesale destruction of our Constitution"

in keeping with the title of the previous post, this is hardly news, but it's one of those things that is so critically important, that if we didn't call attention to it every single day and keep it in the forefront of our minds, we would not be doing our job as citizens...

We have been witnessing the wholesale destruction of our Constitution, and our elected representatives possess neither the guts nor the decency nor the common sense to do a damn thing about it!

Contact your representatives and demand that they support House Resolution 333 right now -- it calls for the impeachment of Vice Felon-in-Chief Cheney. Then demand the impeachment of Abu Gonzales. Then demand the impeachment of the worst president in US history. Demand that they subpoena Libby and make him tell them everything he knows -- and if he refuses, demand that they hold him in inherent contempt of Congress.

It's time to break out the damn powder already. I don't give a damn what Speaker Pelosi says; with all due respect it's always worth it to defend the Constitution, whether or not you can succeed. And if our reps won't defend the Constitution, we're going to replace them with reps who will.

keeping banging the drum... it's all we can do until the time comes to take to the streets...

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This is not news

that the "decider" lives in a bubble by choice, not by necessity, is hardly the stuff for a page one headline... yeah, it sounds dramatic, and it panders to bush by fostering the notion that the burden of executive responsibility is heavy, but it also fails to point out that making decisions solely on the basis of discussions with those who have been carefully placed to shield you from reality has been the hallmark of the bush administration...

A Decision Made Largely Alone

By Michael Abramowitz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 3, 2007; Page A01

President Bush limited his deliberations over commuting the prison term of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to a few close aides, opting not to consult with the Justice Department and rebuffing efforts by friends to lobby on Libby's behalf, administration officials and people close to Bush said yesterday.

the MUCH more interesting story would have been just exactly who WERE the "few close aides" and exactly WHEN was the decision made, which undoubtedly HAD to be well before the appeal board decision was announced... how otherwise to explain the fully prepared speech conveniently at hand...

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"America is not nearly as much fun if you aren't rich"

no comment necessary...

juan cole...

Libby was the Small Fish
Bush really Commuted the Sentences of Rove and Cheney

[...]

Basically, in Bushworld, high government officials are above the law, including all international law and most domestic. America is not nearly as much fun if you aren't rich.

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The UK terror threat: "Hopeless" "Incompetent" "Ludicrous" "Laughable"

via casey, tpm offers us this view of a former scotland yard detective on the hysteria promulgated by our esteemed media, ever vigilant in their efforts to get us to pee our pants in abject fear...



if you want to pee your pants, please, be my guest... i prefer to wait until i'm old, incontinent, and wearing depends...

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In Japan, when government officials say or do something stupid, they quit

for those of us in the u.s., it's a stunning display of how to accept accountability for one's words and actions, something we've not seen in this country for many years...

Japan [Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma] resigned on Tuesday over remarks that appeared to accept the 1945 atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, attempting to quell the latest furor plaguing the ruling camp ahead of an election this month.

[...]

Kyuma had apologized several times and Abe had tried to dampen criticism by reprimanding the 66-year-old minister, who said on Saturday the atomic bombings just days before Japan's surrender in World War Two "could not be helped".

and, if that wasn't astounding enough, there's this...

"It is natural he should resign. The heavy responsibility of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has many problem cabinet ministers, remains for appointing him," Yukio Hatoyama, a senior leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, told reporters.

"natural...?" it's the prime minister's "problem" for "appointing him...?" holy crap...! what a concept...! i'm emailing this to gonzo immediately...

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CREW and the SPLC: two outstanding groups who work tirelessly behind the scenes

citizens for responsibility and ethics in washington and the southern poverty law center are two groups that, day after day, and year after year, work behind the scenes to investigate and report on what's REALLY going on...

crew...

Since 2003, CREW has closely monitored government ethics, bringing egregious conduct to light and holding public officials accountable for their misconduct. On our website you’ll find exhaustively investigated reports on corruption prepared by our research staff, high-impact lawsuits filed by our legal team, as well as the latest national ethics news.

splc...

Throughout its history, SPLC has worked to make the nation's Constitutional ideals a reality. The SPLC legal department fights all forms of discrimination and works to protect society's most vulnerable members, handling innovative cases that few lawyers are willing to take. Over three decades, it has achieved significant legal victories, including landmark Supreme Court decisions and crushing jury verdicts against hate groups.

i suggest checking out both the following items...

first, crew's comprehensive report [PDF] on the bush administration's ceaseless efforts to accrue unfettered power...



and, second, the splc report on active u.s. hate groups which includes an interactive map showing types of groups and their location by state... (note: the top three states in numbers of hate groups are florida (49), south carolina (45), and georgia (44), and, according to the splc study, hawaii, north dakota, south dakota, and rhode island have none...)

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A reminder of why Scooter's sentence was not "excessive"

thanks to the liberal doomsayer, who offers us this reminder of just exactly what was behind scooter libby's conviction and why bush's decision yesterday is such a blatant mis-use of presidential power...

(note: the good stuff starts at 4:55...)

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The usual suspects weigh in with totally predictable opinions on Libby

there was a knock on my door late last evening... it was my daughter-in-law's mom coming to tell me in shocked tones that bush had commuted libby's sentence... not the most excitable of people and not, by any stretch, a news or politics junkie, she had been watching local news on a san francisco station and evidently the news announcers there were reporting bush's decision in thinly veiled outrage (not inappropriately, imho)... anyway, she was unusually agitated, which, i suspect, is a good thing... maybe it's starting to sink in to those among us who are not as news and politics-obsessed that we have a situation in this country that is seriously out of control...

from today's wapo editorialist...

The WaPo argues that President Bush's decision to commute Scooter Libby's entire prison sentence "sends the wrong message about the seriousness" of his offense. "We agree that a pardon would have been inappropriate and that the prison sentence of 30 months was excessive," the editors write. "But reducing the sentence to no prison time at all, as Mr. Bush did -- to probation and a large fine -- is not defensible" ... under the headline "Soft on Crime," the NYT argues that President Bush's decision underscores "the way this president is tough on crime when it's committed by common folk." The editors write that when the president was explaining his decision, he "did not sound like a leader making tough decisions about justice. He sounded like a man worried about what a former loyalist might say when actually staring into a prison cell" ... the Wall Street Journal, on the other hand, argues that the president didn't go far enough. By "failing to issue a full pardon," the editors write, "Mr. Bush is evading responsibility for the role his Administration played in letting the Plame affair build into fiasco and, ultimately, this personal tragedy" ... NYT columnist David Brooks argues that Bush's decision to commute Libby's sentence was "exactly right." "It punishes him for his perjury, but not for the phantasmagorical political farce that grew to surround him. It takes away his career, but not his family."

i'd summarize some of the more ridiculous and heavily spun verbiage for you, but you can do that for yourselves in 10-second eyeballing of the above...

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So, NOW the WaPo regrets supporting Alito and Roberts

WTF...?!?!?! what exactly did they THINK was going to happen when these two right-wing nutjobs began to make their views felt via supreme court decisions...? did they really believe all that nonsense about appointing "NON-ACTIVIST," "STRICT CONSTRUCTIONIST" judges...? what the hell is the matter with these people...? they were appointed PRECISELY because they WOULD be activist, acting swiftly and decisively to roll back years of judicial progress, and, in effect, overturning previous court decisions...

from today's wapo editorialist roundup...

WaPo ... labels the Supreme Court's most recent term "unsurprising and disappointing," and suggests that the editors regret supporting the nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Court. "Most disappointing," they write, "are several actions by the new justices that seem inconsistent with what we, in supporting their confirmation, had hoped would be a respect for precedent and a modest conception of the judicial role." They add: "These were not the decisions of a restrained court committed to cautious, incremental change."

from the op-ed, a chronicle of the dive into the right side of the pool...

• [T]his term made clear that one set of four conservative umpires sees one strike zone; one set of four more-liberal justices sees another; and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy mostly, but not invariably, calls pitches the same way as the conservatives.

• "It is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much," Justice Stephen G. Breyer said in announcing his dissent in the school desegregation case.

• [I]n the partial-birth abortion case, ... the new conservative majority essentially overruled a decision of seven years earlier and for the first time allowed an abortion restriction with no exception for maternal health.

• [In] the school case, ... the court reached out to take a pair of cases and then limited how local school systems could try to maintain integrated schools.

• The court junked a 96-year-old antitrust precedent and dramatically curtailed a three-year-old campaign finance ruling.

the wapo's conclusion...?

These were not the decisions of a restrained court committed to cautious, incremental change.

well, my dear friends at the washington post, YOU threw your weight behind the appointment of these bastards, and it's YOU that's been supporting the bastard and his criminal cronies who nominated them... when are YOU going to wake up, smell the coffee, and start working with the rest of us to throw those white house bastards OUT...? unfortunately, we're now stuck with the scotus bastards...

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Now, for a little good news......

Israel scraps plan for massive new bridge to Mughrabi Gate

In a dramatic about-face, controversial plans to construct a major new bridge to the Mughrabi Gate adjacent to Jerusalem's Western Wall directly through an archeological garden abutting the Temple Mount have been nixed amid concern about possible damage to artifacts, officials said Monday.

The decision to abort the massive bridge, whose construction had been deeply contested by leading Israeli archeologists, effectively means that a salvage excavation under way in the area, which has drawn the wrath of Islamic officials and led to low-level Arab violence in the region earlier this year, will be coming to a close shortly, the officials said.

[...]

Other alternatives, including a modest bridge along the original route, are now being considered.

It's about time. This has been a considerable burr under the 'saddle of peace' that everyone says they want.

[...]

An obvious solution to the dispute - which was clear from the start but was previously rejected by the Antiquities Authority - would be to build a new bridge on the same route as the old one. Some officials had rejected this proposal as they wanted to separate the flow of visitors to the Temple Mount from those to the Western Wall, officials said.

The archeological tempest over the planned bridge was subsequently overshadowed by violent protests by Islamic officials over the salvage excavation near the Temple Mount that the planned construction prompted.

The dig, which began in February, touched off Arab violence in Jerusalem following assertions by Islamic leaders that the work, which is taking place dozens of meters outside the Temple Mount, could damage the mosque inside the ancient compound. Israeli law requires such an archeological excavation in advance of any construction in the Holy Land.

Israel desperately needs to understand that the Arab Muslims also have a stake and history in the Temple Mount. True peace can only come with mutual understanding and co-existence.

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Just a thought

somewhere, there's a tipping point for the bush administration... in my gut, i think bush's commutation of libby's sentence today may be it... i'm not capable of providing an extended rationale, but i have learned to trust my gut... in any case, we'll see, won't we...?

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"Enormous privileges that are not available to ordinary criminal convicts"

again, pathetic...

CNN's legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said that "This is a complete departure from the usual procedure. Scooter Libby is getting a very special brand of justice. He is getting enormous privileges that are not available to ordinary criminal convicts."

and this is because scooter libby is a member of the elite, someone who's done the bidding of the elites, and done it well and without complaint... but, more than that, he doesn't put his pants on one leg at a time, and, even more importantly, his shit don't stink like the rest of us here in the peasant class... the proper rewards have to be given to members of the royal court...

(thanks to joe at americablog who also has the cnn video clip...)

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Oh, no...! Our "rule of law" president insists on having the last word on Scooter.

pathetic...

President Bush spared former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby from a 2 1/2-year prison term on Monday, issuing an order that commutes his sentence.

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It's a slow news day, and the 4th is just around the corner

so, how about watching something just a trifle bizarre...

Death on Two Legs - The Bush Legacy



you'll note i said "bizarre," but i didn't say it wasn't TRUE...!

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"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total."

representative barbara jordan, speaking during the house judiciary committee hearing on the impeachment of richard nixon, july 25, 1974...

“Earlier today, we heard the beginning of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States, ‘We, the people.’ It is a very eloquent beginning. But when the document was completed on the seventeenth of September 1787 I was not included in that ‘We, the people.’ I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation and court decision, I have finally been included in ‘We, the people.’

“My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total. I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.... [As was said at] the North Carolina ratification convention: ‘No one need be afraid that officers who commit oppression will pass with immunity.’”

barbara jordan is quoted by ray mcgovern, writing in consortium news, about the absolute necessity of moving forward with impeachment proceedings against dick cheney, and using the one unassailable, publicly admitted crime, the use of warrantless domestic wiretapping in direct violation of fisa, as the grounds...

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Is that the sound of an iron door closing behind Scooter that I hear?

the appeals panel evidently sees things the same way that reggie and fitz do...

happy 4th of july, scooter...

"In an order handed down Monday, a three judge panel wrote Libby 'has not shown that the appeal raises a substantial question' that regular appeals court will consider when its next term begins in September."

The Federal Bureau of Prisons has not set a date for Libby to report to jail. CNN added that Libby could still seek relief from the Supreme Court.

now we get to see if george is going to cave to the elites who fear the same fate and grant him a pardon...

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THIS is what tolerance for bigotry, violence, and hate produces

maybe, just maybe, america is beginning to extricate itself from the fetid morass of hate, prejudice, and advocacy for violence that such devout christians as james dobson and tony perkins have, tellingly, never explicitly renounced, and that such extremist, far-right mouthpieces as malkin and coulter have all but openly endorsed... tragically, for some, like matthew shephard and david ritcheson, it comes too late...

two and one-half months ago, david ritcheson testified before a house of representatives committee considering hate crimes legislation...

It was shortly after arriving at this private residence that a minor disagreement between me and the attackers turned into the pretext for what I believe was a premeditated hate crime. This was a moment that would change my life forever. After I was surprisingly sucker punched and knocked out, I was dragged into the back yard for an attack that would last for over an hour. Two individuals, one an admitted racist skinhead, attempted to carve a swastika on my chest. Today I still bear that scar on my chest like a scarlet letter. After they stripped me naked, I was burned with cigarettes and savagely kicked by this skinhead’s steel toed army boots. After burning me in the center of the forehead, the skinhead attacker was heard saying that now I looked like an Indian with the red dot on my forehead. Moreover, the witnesses to the attack recalled the two attackers calling me a "wetback" and a ‘spic" as they continued to beat me as I lay unconscious. Once the attack came to an end, I was dragged to the rear of the back yard and left for dead. Reportedly, I lay unconscious in the back yard of this private residence for the next 8-9 hours.

yesterday, he took his own life...

A Spring teen who survived a brutal beating with a pipe last year apparently jumped to his death from a Cozumel-bound cruise ship on Sunday.

we are all human beings, living on the same planet, trying to find our way... can we please stop this...? NOW...?

(thanks to mariachi mama at daily kos...)

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Argentine president's wife to campaign to replace him in office

everyone in argentina has been predicting that argentina president nestor kirchner's wife, cristina fernandez de kirchner, would announce a run for argentina's presidency in the coming october presidential elections... well, i see in today's news that it's official, and that she will begin her campaign on july 19... if any of this sounds familiar, it should...


Nestor and Cristina


Bill and Hillary

the difference is that bill would never approve a picture of him standing behind hillary...

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"Either extraordinary self-confidence or out of touch with reality. I can't tell you which."

as his long-time friends and allies jump ship, and as everything he has worked for appears doomed, george w. bush, certainly not out of intellectual curiosity and almost certainly out of inner desperation, is calling in historians and scholars hoping to find justification if not vindication...

Burdened by an unrelenting war, challenged by an opposition Congress, defeated just last week on immigration, his last major domestic priority, Bush remains largely locked inside the fortress of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in the seventh year of a presidency turned sour. He still travels, making speeches to friendly audiences and attending summit meetings, such as this weekend's Kennebunkport talks with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. But he rarely goes out to dinner, and he no longer plays golf, except occasionally chipping at Camp David, where, as at his Texas ranch, he can find refuge.

"I don't know how he copes with it," said Donald Burnham Ensenat, a friend for 43 years who just stepped down as State Department protocol officer. Rep. K. Michael Conaway (R-Tex.), another longtime friend who once worked for Bush, said he looks worn down. "It's a marked difference in his physical appearance," Conaway said. "It's an incredibly heavy load. When you ask men and women to take risks, to send them into war knowing they might not come home, that's got to be an incredible burden to have on your shoulders."

[...]

And yet Bush does not come across like a man lamenting his plight. In public and in private, according to intimates, he exhibits an inexorable upbeat energy that defies the political storms. ... He still acts as if he were master of the universe, even if the rest of Washington no longer sees him that way.

"You don't get any feeling of somebody crouching down in the bunker," said Irwin M. Stelzer, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute who was part of one group of scholars who met with Bush. "This is either extraordinary self-confidence or out of touch with reality. I can't tell you which."

can i venture a guess...? it may not be until he either leaves office or is thrown out, but, eventually, inevitably, reality will come crashing down on george w. bush, and, as a human being with compassion for my fellow human beings, i can't imagine the pain of the mental and emotional turmoil that he will experience... certainly one of the most painful realizations will be how his personal weaknesses have been used and manipulated, and how he has been only a totemic prop, the sock puppet carefully groomed and placed to carry out the agenda of those who really call the shots... it will be a terrible denouement, but, nevertheless, a completely appropriate one for a man, endowed like all his fellow men, with the gift of free will and the power to choose...

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A new blog from Juan Cole and a few colleagues

it's called Informed Comment Global Affairs and promises to be every bit as informative and insightful as professor cole's Informed Comment blog... (for link to rss feed, click here...)

here's one of the first posts, a youtube video clip on a story you wouldn't expect to see from afghanistan...

Kandahar Amusement Park



bless 'em... a little time with the kids at an amusement park probably makes a world of difference in the daily routine of never knowing what's coming next...

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"House to house searches seem like the logical next step"

read this comment about the london terrorist threat and then tell me where you think i got it...

[W]hy isn't the army going house to house looking for people building bombs in the UK and the US, or is that just something we have our boys doing half way around the world. Lets get these animals. I think it would be prudent to kick some doors in and check things out before this type of behavior gets to be a nuisance. House to house searches seem like the logical next step. No sense collecting all of this intelligence and spending all this money if we are not going to kick in some doors right here in our backyard.

i'll check back later, post the link and the source, and see if anybody was successful in tracking it town... (hint: it's not a blog...)

[UPDATE]

well, reading the comments so far, nobody's nailed it... the comment was posted on the abc news site, the blotter, under a story entitled, Sleeper Terror Cell on the Loose in the U.K.... considerably more disturbing to me than sleeper terror cells are people who believe that beginning house-to-house searches in the u.s. and the uk are called for in our efforts to deal with domestic terrorism threats... somehow, i would actually feel better had the comment come from a malkin or a coulter rather than just an average joe or josephine commenter... at least we can keep an eye on those two... this character might just be standing in front of you in the supermarket checkout line...

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