Current Mood: blah

W. and the damage done

President Bush inherited a peaceful, prosperous America. As he exits, Salon consults experts in seven fields to try to assess the devastation.

Current Mood: determined

Glenn Greenwald: Salon.Com: Orin Kerr and the responsibility of elites for the last eight years

[...] Over the last eight years (at least), we have not only crossed the line of what ought to be within the realm of reasonable, respectful debate, but we have crossed it repeatedly, severely, and with great harm to our political system and huge numbers of people. And one of the prime reasons that happened is because those with the most vocal platforms and with the greatest claims to expertise failed in their responsibility to oppose it passionately and to describe its extremism, and, instead, eagerly served as apologists for it. Those who seek now to depict their tepidness in the face of all of that as some elevated form of enlightened reason are merely illustrating one of the key mechanisms that enabled all of it to happen.

Current Mood: annoyed

The Library of Congress is being sued because it offered a key job as terrorism research analyst to Diane Schroer, then rescinded the offer, even though she was qualified. In Bushed, Keith Olbermann explains the job was taken away because everything Schroer accomplished was before her sex change operation.

Current Mood: aggravated

What just happened? Evidence. A secret that has been judiciously kept for five years just spilled out. All of what follows is new, never reported in any way.:

[...] In the fall of 2003, after the world learned there were no WMD -- as Habbush had foretold -- the White House ordered the CIA to carry out a deception. The mission: create a handwritten letter, dated July, 2001, from Habbush to Saddam saying that Atta trained in Iraq before the attacks and the Saddam was buying yellow cake for Niger with help from a "small team from the al Qaeda organization." [...]

Current Mood: amused and annoyed

"At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols." - Aldous Huxley

Current Mood: angry

Glenn Greenwald:

A top U.S. Government scientist, suspected of the anthrax attacks, commits suicide. ABC News knows who is responsible for false reports blaming those attacks on Iraq, but refuses to say.

Current Mood: bored

House Committee Considers the "I" Word

[...] Addressing his remarks to Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich, the author of articles of impeachment against President Bush and Vice President Cheney that provoked Friday's hearing, Pence said, "I just believe the gentleman from Ohio is wrong."

Kucinich, who is not a member of the Judiciary Committee, stood his ground, arguing when he addressed the committee that a failure to impeach would not merely let Bush off the hook but signal to future presidents that they, too, may reject the rule of law and refuse to cooperate with Congress.

Several members of the committee were, if anything, more passionate in their remarks than Kucinich.

Georgia Democrat Hank Johnson told his colleagues that if they failed to act and President Bush authorized an illegal attack on Iran, they might look back on their dismissal on the neglect of their duty to check and balance an errant executive as a deadly mistake. [...]

Current Mood: angry

From the ACLU:

This sounds so outrageous, it seems like a joke or something out of "The Onion."

Attorney General Michael Mukasey is demanding that Congress issue a new declaration of war so that anyone that this president or the next one declares to be an "enemy combatant" can be held indefinitely without a trial.

The new declaration of war would make the entire globe — including the United States itself — a “battlefield” where the president decides who will be locked up forever.

With only five weeks left in the Congressional schedule and only six months left in the Bush presidency, Mukasey’s ridiculous power grab should be laughed out of town. But given this Congress’ track record, the Mukasey proposal is no laughing matter. Especially because it also includes a cover-up of the Bush administration’s systemic torture and abuse of detainees.

We can’t take for granted that Congress will reject this outrageous proposal. We have to meet it with an immediate wall of protest that says to Congress: “Don’t you dare.”

I just told my members of Congress to reject the dangerous Bush/Mukasey plan. You can do the same thing here:

http://action.aclu.org/mukasey

Current Mood: amused

I love San Francisco.

San Francisco voters will be asked to decide whether to name a city sewage plant in honor of President Bush, after a satiric measure qualified for the November ballot Thursday.

Current Mood: amused

( Click for animated cartoon )

read more | digg cartoon

Current Mood: annoyed

Beware Bush's preemptive strike on torture

[...] don't be surprised if some time before Inauguration Day 2009, President George W. Bush issues a blanket presidential pardon to ensure that those who organized and implemented brutal interrogation techniques such as "waterboarding" (a terrifying simulated drowning) are never hauled before the courts. A pardon would prevent future administrations from ever prosecuting those responsible for torture and other mistreatment at Guantánamo Bay and secret CIA detention facilities elsewhere overseas. [...]

Current Mood: amused

( Click for video )

With thanks to Jonathan Stein of MoJoBlog here.

digg video

Current Mood: bouncy

An Ohio Democratic lawmaker and former presidential candidate has presented articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush to Congress. Thirty-five articles were presented by Kucinich to the House of Representatives late Monday evening, airing live on CSPAN...

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Current Mood: impressed

Charles Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi lays out his case.

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I'll admit, I find no flaw in his logic.

Current Mood: contemplative

Here's a Nazi reference for Bush:

During the Nuremberg trials, Nazi Herman Goering said, "The people can be brought to the bidding of their leaders, that is very easy... All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing their country to danger. It works the same in any country..."

Current Mood: bitchy

Olbermann did another of his famous "Special Comments" last evening, this one on President Bush giving up golf to honor our military dead and their families. Read about it here (and follow the link there to view it.)

Current Mood: cranky

The other day, as I was musing aloud about notion that George Bush is the worst president in U.S. history, an acquaintance interrupted, “What’s been so bad?” I stammered for a moment, unable to get my mind around such a large question. by Guy Reel

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Current Mood: indescribable

You go for it, Helen!

The White House said it does not torture, but recent reports show that key admin officials planned the use of torture in the White House. Helen Thomas asks for answers at WH press briefing. [...]

Current Mood: angry

Demand Accountability for Top-Down Torture

Friday night, in a national television interview on ABC News, President Bush directly admitted what we have suspected all along: The White House was deeply and intimately involved in decisions about the CIA’s use of torture. ( Excerpt. Click headline for full story. )

Current Mood: amused

You have got to hear this ringtone.

This call may be illegally wiretapped by the Bush administration. That's my administration.