Do What GWB?

So now we're all complicit in the actions of BushCo?

"Yeah, we water-boarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed," Bush said of the terrorist who master-minded the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. He said that event shaped his presidency and convinced him the nation was in a war against terror.

"I'd do it again to save lives."

I won't inflict the rest of the BS on you, go read it if you want and for a real insight into the Reichwing try the comments.

Considering how unhinged the Right is it might be a problem to try these cretins ... but then herd thinning might be ...

Oh, that's right, the Left is disarmed...

Jay S Bybee Isn't In Jail, Where Is He?

No, he's not in jail, Jay S Bybee is Judge, U. S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Maybe you're wondering how a devout Mormon came to be a Justice on the largest appellate court in the US and a central figure in authorizing torture. You would be forgiven for wondering exactly what version of Christianity a person adheres to that would allow him to write things that sanctioned the psychological torment of pseudo drowning and confinement with an insect they are deathly afraid of or the physical torment of sleep deprivation, slapping, stress positioning to generate muscular pain, or intemperate conditions.

A US Federal Judge proposed that the imposition of pain repeatedly on a helpless human was sanctioned under the law of the US. This puke passes judgement on people in the United States of America. You are supposed to believe that at the last step before the US Supreme Court you will receive something like justice at the hands of someone who OKs interrogation procedures that only stop short of permanent damage. Looking up at that bench you will see the face of a monster.

If you behaved to a fellow human in any of the manners that Jay S Bybee authorized for interrogation you would go to jail for a very long time as a felon. These authorizations were handed down as legal opinion, the sort of thing that is a judge's job. Try real hard to wrap your head around the idea that legal opinions put forward in any case by this guy have any meaning, whatever.

You can find the 18 page pdf. of this mess here. I hope you have a strong tolerance for undiluted evil because you're going to be subjected to page after page of it. One very revealing measure of a society is how it treats the helpless and this is exactly what Bybee addressed in this memo and his measure is criminal. He not only doesn't belong on a bench, he belongs in front of one in irons.

Wanna make any bets?

Pardon My Paranoia, Mr Ex-President

So I guess that some of us who asserted that the BushCo was a 3rd rate dictatorship in the making were just really paranoid left wing loons...well, maybe not; as John Yoo's Authority for Use of Military Force To Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United States makes a bit clearer. (pdf) This thing is a mess, but I'll try to cover at least some of the ground and save you 37 pages of mind numbing cites, redefinitions, and historical revisionism.

They state that the Posse Commitatus Act does not apply because 9/11 changed everything by making internal terrorists a military conflict as opposed to a law enforcement matter. In the same vein it is asserted that the 4th Amendment was inappropriate because of circumstance as well as the military nature of using the military; and further that fruits of such action would be legally admissible as law enforcement. (hmm) Finally they asserted that the 1st Amendment in regard to speech and press was disposable as a function of government necessity in such warfare. Suspension of Habeas Corpus is entirely within the scope of such actions, again at the convenience of the government. The memo assures the reader that the Courts would recognize the natural limits that the President or his agents would hold themselves to and not be troubled by these assertions.

I don't think anyone has argued that the government has no right to defend itself from armed or otherwise forceful attack. In the face of Iranian landing forces sweeping across Atlantic Beach I'm pretty sure military units being deployed would meet Constitutional muster as well as Statutory muster. This memo isn't aimed at such a scenario, it is aimed at 'secret' sorts of activity, the kind of thing that we actually understand to be law enforcement based business. No discussion of the 4th Amendment would be necessary in the event of a terrorist take over of a building or facility, nor would the request by local officials for federal assistance in such an event require the cover of such a memo. Nor would infringements of the 1st Amendment be in question.

If you don't want to go to the trouble of reading the thing most of the cites cover either foreign war or insurrection (particularly the Civil War) and touch on such ongoing conflicts as the American Indian Wars. Yes, the Indian Wars, a situation one would find fraught with legal difficulties to present as a basis for Constitutional behavior and rule of law. I will not even think about presenting the incidents of atrocities and abhorrent behaviors included in such a cover. The other cover used is such ongoing disturbances as the Detroit riots or the Civil Rights backlash disturbances and use of troops to enforce, in their face, law and Court orders.

The especially nasty part of the reasoning used is that outright and obvious war and insurrection are used as justification for military use against targets not in such a condition. Because September 11th happened we are to trust the President and his designees to determine that acts not obviously involving warfare are within his power to call warfare. Understand that a part of this memo is directly related to the inability of an oil company to recoup damages incurred in the Phillipines in WWII, thus the very real spectre of a full fledged military assault and attendant damage is envisioned on private property and with considerable loss.

The memo asserts that the President and designees have the Executive power to declare that a terrorist condition exists, he will determine the facts and actions and the Courts can butt out. The FISA Court is invoked as an authority and then dismissed within a few sentences as immaterial to the discussion of the granting of authority. Please keep in mind in this framework that this President had also assumed the authority to designate American citizens as foreign combatants.

If you were to mix up the order of presentation a bit, and law does do that, you would find that exercise of the 1st Amendment in a manner that the President was willing to call imminent terrorism or active support of it would be sufficient to provoke an air strike on the NY Times leaving the remnants no legal recourse under the 1st, 4th, or 5th. I would suppose that something like an ad referring to Gen Betrayus might qualify taking this out a ways into the weeds, but...

I'll leave it to Constitutional and Legal scholars to dissect this thing but it clearly bears no resemblance to the understanding that more than a handful of Americans have of their relationship with their President. Pardon me if I find it a bit odd that this thing wasn't disavowed until very shortly before the end of BushCo.

Sure, I just bet I want to talk about Truth and Reconciliation Commissions...how about fluorescent jumpsuits and irons?

Yes this is filed under 'Treason', what the hell would you expect?

A Related Newsweek Article

Xe, Pronounced "Z" ?

I'm not sure if Republican, Halliburton, GWB, or Blackwater is the most toxic brand in America right now, but the right wing mercenary group Blackwater found a new moniker according to McClatchy's News & Observer and that is "Z" spelled Xe. Nobody at the company was apparently willing or able to explain exactly what that means other than a "new direct" for the company.

With Iraq refusing to let them continue to operate in their country and Congressional members calling for their firing from US embassy employments and a lawsuit they will now focus on training law enforcement and military groups a company spokesman said.

I'm willing to speculate about that bunch. You might find something rather Orwellian or Sci-fi in a name like "Z". You might wonder if the billion dollars or so paid to right wing Eric Prince not continuing to happen and legal difficulties and a black Democratic President may have caused a meltdown for him. Xe is strange enough even for a bunch as strange as them. Generally a name change is part of a publicity campaign, a new name is a branding that has resonance with the public. This thing resonates all right, but it is a really very discordant sort vibe. You find yourself wondering what secret society meaning lurks in there. I mean, really, you don't suppose this is supposed to be the Xe meaning the colorless, odorless, inert gas xenon, do you? In that case wouldn't it be pronounced "Zee Non"?

It may be hard hearted in a failing economy to wish these people ill, but real serious unemployment by that bunch would please me no end. People like them make me very happy to be well armed, especially when they're allowed to operate in distressed areas like New Orleans. I'm a tad concerned when the US government plows over a billion dollars into a private militia and gives them rein in this country. I don't have a bit of a problem with Americans being armed and even less of a problem with our police being armed, but government sponsored private militias do concern me, particularly when they're hard core right wing nut cakes.

BTW, anybody who thinks full automatic weapons belong in law enforcement's arsenal is crazy. Law enforcement activities always involve civilian arenas and that means that pray and spray is a very bad idea. Aimed fire is hard enough in stress conditions, witness police hit rates, without high volume fire rates thrown into that inaccuracy.

Blackwater, or Xe, is a dangerous entity, proven so by facts on the ground. Letting these maniacs have any governmental money is lunacy and needs to stop - now, not later. If you'd like your cops trained by the same bunch that murdered 17 Iraqis in one fell swoop with military weaponry and are now charged with manslaughter you've got some pretty tolerant standards. I don't.

I'm astonished that any politician that even speaks the words "gun control" isn't on this bunch like flies on poop. If you don't think after seeing the atmosphere promoted by BushCo that there isn't plenty of real nasty stuff lurking inside Z the 10+% who like Cheney will welcome you home.

Bush Legacy And Reality

Frank Rich over at NYT has an article up concerning financial and other high jinks under GWB. The major thrust is the devaluation of ethics that is not only tolerated but the norm, to the extent that new revelations that dwarf previous and historical official malfeasance cause less than a ripple. A short list of Rich's complaints:

to the $117 billion spent (as of mid-2008) on Iraq reconstruction — a sinkhole of corruption, cronyism, incompetence and outright theft

Back in 2003, Powell said, the Defense Department just “kept inventing numbers of Iraqi security forces — the number would jump 20,000 a week!

next to big-ticket administration horrors like Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and the politicized hiring and firing at Alberto Gonzales’s Justice Department, the wreckage of Iraq reconstruction is what Ralph Kramden of “The Honeymooners” would dismiss as “a mere bag of shells.” The $50 billion also pales next to other sums that remain unaccounted for in the Bush era, from the $345 billion in lost tax revenue due to unpoliced offshore corporate tax

had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relationships with oil and gas company representatives

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne spent $235,000 from taxpayers to redo his office bathroom

The tentative and amorphous $800 billion stimulus proposed by Obama last week sounds like a lot, but it’s a drop in the bucket when set against the damage it must help counteract: more than $10 trillion in new debt and new obligations piled up by the Bush administration in eight years,

Yes, it certainly sounds like a mess. You could add to these economic factors no realistic resolution of illegal immigration/illegal hiring, tax policies favoring off shoring manufacturing, tax policies favoring wealth, drug company give-aways...

It is when the beneficiaries of this behavior become obvious that the real stink begins. Take Dick Cheney's former CEO-ship of Halliburton, going into 2000 HAL stock plummeted from $54/share to $17 thanks to asbestos liabilities in companies Cheney acquired for Halliburton. In 2008 the high was $57/share and currently in the face of falling oil prices it stands at $27. If you follow the market philosophies of the Republicans and trace profit as motivation it begins to be reasonable to propose that a war in Iraq was started for the benefit of Halliburton. Tracing oil prices over the last 8 years one would begin to believe that the Iraq war and Iranian "crisis" were instigated for the benefit of the oil industry, Exxon has done quite nicely out of it. Market demands (China, etc) do not track similarly. But mentioning China brings up issues regarding its profiteering under Bush.

It is estimated that of the $350 billion bailout banks planned to use $10 billion for bonuses. Banks that were on the verge of failing are on a bank buying spree and credit is still frozen. As unemployment rates spiral upward the banks that were too big to fail use taxpayer dollars to get bigger. If you stop to think that $10 billion in bonuses was for failure in one year, what does that say about bonuses in the years of reckless behavior before the show hit the wall?

Does anyone wonder where the hundreds of billions per year in Iraq went? You certainly don't think it was primarily wages or bullets. It was the high dollar mechanisms being paid for and those flowed to a handful of military industrial companies and support systems like uber right winger Eric Prince's Blackwater and ... um ... Halliburton.

You have an economy in tatters and two wars and political corruption on an unheard of scale today. For six years people have been pushing back and until the last couple years these people were labeled as traitors and Bush Derangement sufferers. That labeling was not narrowly held by Republican loons, Republican prosecutors were dismissed for not finding prosecutable Democratic vote irregularities by the highest levels of government. Media went along with every Republican trashing of those attempting to restore some kind of reality in government. Media has reported the news as though there were two sides to it, not analysis where it is a matter of opinion, but the stories themselves. Shill organizations like Fox put the least credible left representative they could find up against their experts. The media couldn't find enough combat pictures to suit it as they regurgitated government propaganda and hired government propaganda tools as analysts. The media did not push back until the utter bullshit they spouted was demonstrated as untrue and the public began to rebel in the face of it. The concentration of media ownership and its corporatising under Bush is an unremarked upon phenomenon. It is unremarked because they toe the plutocratic line.

The mental and ethical health of this nation is in crisis. Things that historically would have resulted in revolt are seen as the lesser problems. Thirty years of Republican propaganda taken as common wisdom have driven this mess. People who would blame Bush alone forget that he is simply the embodiment of those policies unrestrained. You can draw a straight line from Reagan to today, Clinton may have put half-hearted brakes on the process, but Bush was enabled not only by Congress, but by the media and the public. Today is the what the Reagan Republican Party is all about. Go ahead and try to find a "left" US government that put us in this state, for all the scare tactics Republicans use.

George Bush certainly is not responsible for the existence of Ronnie Reagan Republican policies, he is responsible for them unbound - no amount of spin will change history's judgement on that score. The question that now remains is whether his enablers will pay. McConnell and Boehner are still in Congress - and in positions of power, Halliburton still exists, the media is still consolidating, and wealth is weathering the storm quite nicely - thank you. And by the way, my left Democrat stance still engenders spit flecked rhetorical spray from the powers that be. Think about it.

Unqualifiedly Wrong And Still Right

There are sufficient quotes from 2002 on by the BushCo regarding WMDs and how we all were gonna die to fill a lot of pages with no more than cites. I'm not gonna do it. They made two cases, Saddam had WMDs and that he was tied to terrorism and somehow September 11. We know that neither happen to be remotely true.

Now today (roughly) the new story is being told, we were going to go to war with Iraq, period, and it was because he might want to do something. All the other stuff was window dressing, it was really about mind reading. He might have wanted to do something.

Saddam Hussein was a blood-thirsty petty tyrant of a third world country and an entire waste of skin. I don't think there's much disagreement on that. As such a person he had done some pretty damn despicable things including using chemical warfare against his own citizens. In the Gulf War we knocked the snot out of his military machinery and sanctions and assorted actions further degraded almost all his capabilities - including taking care of a country. He might have wanted to do something and he had a track record of being a shit-heels.

I may have a bit more public profile than most people and I've made it pretty clear that I'm well armed, competent with arms, and real damn dissatisfied with our government and plutocracy. Now given that evidence, somebody from the plutocratic government really ought to wage war on me - I might want to do something. I haven't produced my weapons for destruction and I've haven't renounced violence.

The problem with that scenario is that what I might want to do and what I will do are not congruent. There are some issues that dissuade me from engaging in violence against the plutocratic government. It is pretty easy to make sure I don't change my mind by doing away with me, but there is fall-out for that behavior as well.

Here's the difficulty for the revisionists, whatever Hussein might or might not have desired, one thing is pretty sure and that is that suicide was out of the question. Years back these would have been the 'nuke Russia and China because they might want to hurt us' school. Somehow the MAD strategy won out and nobody tossed nukes around. You see nothing in my analysis that says the USSR or China are nice guys or that they didn't wish us harm. Those places were run by rat-bastards with nasty histories and a desire to harm us. They did so with all the little pokes and jabs and surrogates possible that were short of suicidal. Saddam paid 'insurance' to suicide bombers, waged war on Iran (with our help) and Kuwait, and gassed his people and said mean things about us.

BushCo rats are running off the ship and trying to sell Iraq as the right thing done for the right reasons. They have their futures and George II's "legacy" to protect and their personal responsibility for the deaths of over 4000 American troops, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and the looting of the treasury to try to duck. If anyone is surprised by their attempts they have paid no attention for a very very long time. You can include the entire Republican message in this critique, what they have said and done do not match the message or supposed results in the least, it is an entire fabric of lies.

There isn't the least doubt that it was in the national interest to keep a sharp eye on Saddam's Iraq and to improve the levels of human intelligence because he was a piece of garbage. You don't need to follow the BushCo reasoning very far to see some cataclysmic results internationally or domestically. The tools they've brought forward since 9/11/2001 have had bad results already, buying into them as a nation and continuing on that path cannot have good results. These people need to be called out as the liars and revisionists they are, repeatedly and loudly.

Commissions? We Don't Need No Steenking Commissions,

It has been reported in numerous places that Democrats would like to institute something resembling the 9/11 Commission to investigate torture by the Bush Administration. Newsweek's Michael Isikoff reports that:

"At a minimum, the American people have to be able to see and judge what happened," said one senior adviser, who asked not to be identified talking about policy matters. The commission would be empowered to order the U.S. intelligence agencies to open their files for review and question senior officials who approved "waterboarding" and other controversial practices.

Obama aides are wary of taking any steps that would smack of political retribution. That's one reason they are reluctant to see high-profile investigations by the Democratic-controlled Congress or to greenlight a broad Justice inquiry (absent specific new evidence of wrongdoing). "If there was any effort to have war-crimes prosecutions of the Bush administration, you'd instantly destroy whatever hopes you have of bipartisanship," said Robert Litt, a former Justice criminal division chief during the Clinton administration. A new commission, on the other hand, could emulate the bipartisan tone set by Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton in investigating the 9/11 attacks.

There is, somehow, the idea that the rule of law is disposable where Bush & Co are concerned. A commission is a very good way to look very busy and bury something so that it is never acted upon. If there is an idea that some commission's findings would prevent torture with new recommendation a hole immediately appears in the logic. It is entirely unnecessary to find ways to prevent torture, it is already illegal and waterboarding has been a war crime for a very long time - as a specific example. What exactly are the needed steps a commission would find? To make illegal what is already illegal? If illegality was insufficient to prevent torture, perhaps the conviction of a few criminals would get the idea across.

What ever you may think of GW Bush's intellect, he does have a few effective lawyers working for him. Being lawyers, the technical aspects of law are what counts. You might like to consider this from the Wall Street Journal:

The White House isn't inclined to grant sweeping pardons for former administration officials involved in harsh interrogations and detentions of terror suspects, according to people familiar with the situation.
Some Republicans have been pushing for President George W. Bush to grant pre-emptive clemency to officials who fear being investigated by Democratic critics. White House officials have countered that such pardons are unnecessary, these people say. The officials point to Justice Department legal opinions that supported the administration's methods of detaining and interrogating terror suspects.

If you want to read through all the so-called reasoning behind this, knock yourselves out. Illegal is illegal no matter how many memos you write, they have no force of law. Bush can't acknowledge the illegality by issuing pardons but more to the point is that lack of being pardoned.

It is a point of law that we hold to pretty darn firmly that the accused cannot be forced to testify against himself. Those directly involved don't have any reason to talk and if Congress were to compel them to, the Ollie North mess is the outcome. At these levels you have to have some direct testimony, the actual criminal torturing scum are those who ordered it. This doesn't involve the usual criminal action of some Spec 4 soldier, it involves bureaucrats experienced in isolating themselves from fallout. You need documents and you need the testimony of direct participants, people with every reason to not cooperate.

Once GWB has made it clear that criminal penalties have not been taken off the table, the only alternative is for Congress or DOJ to start taking them off the table to get that "Commission" testimony. GWB avoids pardoning and puts the onus on the Democrats. This leaves the incoming administration with some rather uncomfortable options. They can take the actual dissuasion for torturing - its illegality - off the table or they can get involved in messy and difficult prosecutions that will be labeled by the usual suspects as partisan foul play.

If you're willing to sit on or promote such a Commission, here's the deal, you ought to have to spend a week getting the treatments. If you have in mind the concept that political considerations trump the existing laws, you should get to experience the previous trumping of existing laws. There is exactly no need whatever for a Commission to exist until after a DOJ prosecution of those involved. You do not promote avoidance of behavior by OKing it. If you propose to keep future administrations from playing at torture then there has to be a cost for doing so. Otherwise they will simply look at history and note the outcome for the Bush Torturers and figure, "hell, why not?" Law is a deterrent if it is perceived as functioning and applied, it is not some moral guide post - if that were the case no jails would be built, everybody's morals would keep them from acting up.

Don't hold your breath; the political class is reluctant to kick its own around and particularly to jail them. It seems that having administrations investigate and prosecute the malfeasance of previous ones exposes them to the same when they become previous. There also is a little matter of Congressional votes in regard to this issue and a few others. Can't have people held responsible, now can we?



***Update***
Kari Chisholm, founder of Blue Oregon and Mandate Media, from comments:

What about a South African -style Truth and Reconciliation Commission?

Basically, the idea is that if you testify completely, answering all questions truthfully, then you're immune from both criminal prosecution and civil lawsuits.

I do think that one key here is the civil liability issue. The DOJ may wind up uninterested in prosecuting people, but they won't be immune from losing their house.

Seems to me that as much as we'd like people to go to prison, it can be more valuable to turn them into pariahs and render the verdict of history.

And then, we can change the law to ensure that Presidents are never again able to issue executive orders to undermine basic human rights and American principles against wiretapping, torture, and the rest of the atrocities.

11/26/2008 05:10:00 PM

The verdict from history is safe, convictions in hand it is even safer. What is it that is proposed to be fixed? This is extraordinarily simple, it is against the law. This is not a question, there may be some mechanics of charging whom with what that gets a little sticky - GW Bush is up to his pie hole in it - but it is simply against the law and has been against the law for a damn long time. The fix for those who would ignore the law is for the law to not ignore them. This is an entirely political bullshit proposition to avoid the nastiness of prosecuting goddamn Republicans. If those pricks want to operate within the laws of a somewhat civilized nation called the US then playing bipartisan is just fine, but outside tha line your ass is the law's.

No, it will not happen. It will not happen because this country is in such a damn mess that Democrats will fall all over themselves to keep from kicking their teeth in. Somehow, if the President does it, it is not illegal. The idea being to avoid truly messy transitions and specious charges being brought at regime changes. The thing about it is that this is egregious, it is not specious, it is not politically motivated, it is and has been against the law and people have been jailed for long periods to doing it. There is exactly one way for people to get over the idea that "I'm from the government," grants carte blanche and that is for not to. Go ahead and try this shit as a private citizen and see what happens. There it is, exactly.

Bush Bank Cronyism?

So Mr Taxpayer, you've now coughed up $750 Billion or a $Trillion or some bigger number to "shore up" banks so they can lend money. You do remember that justification for the socialization of loss after the privatization of profit through governmental, um, lackadaisicalness? It probably isn't unreasonable to expect some of that money in a strapped organization to go to salaries - it's pretty tough to run a company without employees.

Well.... it gets a bit dicier from there. A whole lot of that money is going to get used for (oh for god's sake) bonuses. A BONUS? What the hell for? Turning a bank into worthless paper? In a rational world a bonus has something to do with performance, in this case the bonus should be a negative number. "I've worked really hard buying up a bunch of worthless paper so give me..." Are you kidding me? Since it's the taxpayers money it just doesn't count how it is given to whom?

Shareholders won't lose their dividends thanks to Uncle Sammy. Your job can tank but the shareholders in these broken companies get dividends? A dividend is excess profits sent to shareholders not a damn gift. So where are the profits? Their shares didn't evaporate like Enron's, but they also get a dividend? Oh, I forgot - this is the Republican Washington DC, wealth will be served.

This one might make you lose your mind and want to smack a banker. You've got a grip on something? The banks are using your tax dollars to buy other banks. You've got it, these failed institutions are using bail out money to buy themselves a bigger share of the market they screwed up. They're too big to be allowed to fail so YOUR money bails them out...nope...your money buys them a bigger share. Buying a bank is no more than a paper shuffle as far as lending goes, the name changes money doesn't get leant. Plutocrats get to become bigger plutocrats on the taxpayer dollar.

What? Do I seem pissed off? Oh no not at all. I skid from one edge of disaster to the next on a weekly basis and watch people go over that edge and these pricks are buying more banks on the basis of their failure? In what universe do you fail upwards in such a fashion? Do any of you believe for one second that these are not the Republicans who've brayed for years and decades about personal responsibility? Do you now understand the concept of that responsibility stopping at the middle class? Once you have a big enough share of the wealth you're exempt from such a concept because...well because you made good choices. ahahahahahahaha - loser...

I'm not exactly sure how to go about expressing dissatisfication with this situation. Every one of the people involved in these swindles deserves the beating of their lives...or hell...three people's lives but that'll just mean a jail sentence even if it felt good. Honestly, I'm...I'm...perplexed... Right now trying to get the attention of an elected official in this election season is probably a waste of time. There is November 5th on the other hand. I have no intention of taking this crap laying down and if you do...

The Hunting Of The Snark - Gitmo

“I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.” - Lewis Clark and Court of Appeals DC Circuit may make you wonder what the heck.

With some derision for the Bush administration’s arguments, a three-judge panel said the government contended that its accusations against the detainee should be accepted as true because they had been repeated in at least three secret documents. -NYT

“This comes perilously close to suggesting that whatever the government says must be treated as true,” said the panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit."

All this about Huzaifa Parhat, a member of the ethnic Uighur Muslim minority in western China, who has been held in Gitmo for more than six years for being an enemy combatant. “Those bare facts,” the decision said, “cannot sustain the determination that Parhat is an enemy combatant.”

The DC Circuit finds BushCo to be Alice in Wonderland? This blog and my previous communications with people regarding this bunch has consistently been that just because they say so doesn't mean it is so. This man has been held for six years in nasty circumstances, longer than many manslaughter convicts on the basis of "I told you." Does any thinking person not have a problem with that?

I have no idea if this person is a nice guy or a nasty bad man and quite evidently neither did the military. On a scale of potential damage I'd put George II above this guy. The point is whatever a human being is like happens to be irrelevant unless you have some kind of proof. Just in case it has missed your notice we United States citizens were under this same "law." Where is January 20th, 2009?

Regarding Telecom Immunity

I've been thinking about the issue of telecom immunity and I'm less sold on the idea that it is a really big deal. There is this piece, the President of the United States told managers that what he wanted was legal and important (or that he would cover them). The important piece of this reasoning is that it was not their independent decision arrived at for their interests, it was solicited or instigated by a law enforcement arm of the US government.

The upshot of civil lawsuits would be losses to the telecoms and depending on the damages and punitive judgements the losses could be significant. Those losses are not suffered by some single individual or some in isolation, the damage spreads through the company, stockholders, employees and finally customers. One thing that must be understood about businesses is that they do not suffer alone, increased costs result in added charges or less service or combinations of this. A business has two choices, survive or not, and because there are few places to go for recovery of costs, those few places will pay.

What I do not like about this is the message it sends that responsibility is abrogated to government for legality of behavior by companies. Companies are expected to follow the law, they are expected to know the applicable laws concerning their business. There is almost no chance that a competent lawyer in telecommunications would have assumed that wiretaps without warrants were legal. Something in the ordinary expectation of behavior went south and the government was involved. This exception to behavior is dangerous. It is absolutely the business of the individual to resist abrogation of rights and power by government but whether it is or should be a legal responsibility may be quite questionable.

There is little impetus for these companies to engage in this behavior on their own. I am not particularly worried about them. I don't like what they've done and it is dangerous and I am ashamed of our country for this, but I also don't know that it merits their serious harm.

What I find really troubling are the actions taken by BushCo. The trampling of civil liberties by this crew in the name of security are horrific and must carry a cost. There is little chance that orange jumpsuits and manacles are in their future, but they must be made to pay in a coin that discourages such behavior in the future. In all probability the only payment available is political. If that is the case the behavior must be exposed and denigrated and made politically impossible. The conditions of the world will not become suddenly paradisaical in the future, it will continue to be a dangerous and confusing place. There will continue to be threats and uncertainties that encourage the loss of civil liberty for perceived security, this tendency must be resisted.

I suppose that I am somewhat disappointed that Obama changed his stance on telecom immunity, more by the fact of the change without clear rationals than the effect. What I do want to hear is a clear denunciation of the behaviors of BushCo and its exposure. I want this crap stopped in its tracks and rolled back. I want this dangerous.

Boumediene V. Bush & McCain's Dishonor

One of the great things to happen at knife point, or perhaps sword point, was John's acquiescence to the nobles in 1215 that there were limits to power, the Magna Carta delineated these which included Habeas Corpus, literally Latin for "you have the body." It is a petition to a court to have it shown that one is held lawfully or be released.

George II and his lackey Republican Congress twice removed the right to Habeas Corpus from those he or the Dept of Defence declared to be enemy combatants. The Constitution clearly states that the right to Habeas Corpus shall be suspended only in the event of invasion or rebellion, neither of which seems to have occurred. The Supreme Court decided in Boumediene V Bush that the detainees in Guantanamo had the right to question their detention in US Courts. Oddly enough, that stalwart of justice and principled opponent of George, John McCain had this to say, "The Supreme Court yesterday rendered a decision which I think is one of the worst decisions in the history of this country," and echoed Robert's dissent that states the courts will be flooded with appeals. You understand that John McCain believes that the upholding of an eight hundred year old right extracted by force of arms from a petty tyrant King is the worst in history. It is an unforeseeable consequence of imprisoning and holding people for over six years might create a flood?

The right to be brought to trial is essential to governance by law, there is no law if there is no guarantee to a hearing in court, there is only tyranny. Law devolves into the exercise of physical force to imprison without the ability to challenge it, it makes the only recourse to "law-enforcement" forceful resistance, once in custody all options disappear. Understand that the word of a President is not sufficient to outweigh your inherent right to life and liberty, there is either law or there is anarchy.

John McCain has now shown his mind to have rotted from close association with the wannabe kinglet George II and he should be shunned. As an officer and gentleman he swore an oath to protect and uphold the Constitution, he has abrogated all respect due his uniform and his service. Any impulse to politeness toward him I may have felt is now gone. He is now no more than a freak of the Republican nature, better that SAM had killed him over N Vietnam when he may still have had some honor.

Maliki Dislikes Bush Plan

Oddly enough PM Nouri al Maliki doesn't think much of GeorgeII's plan to occupy 58 bases in his country, take control of their air space and immunize contractors and US troops from Iraqi prosecution. McClatchy reports that he dislikes it sufficiently to threaten to ask foreign troop to leave when their UN mandate expires at the end of the year. The US has moved on from that first draft to one that would allow Iraqis to prosecute private contractors who violate Iraqi law and to turn over to Iraq those Iraqis held by US forces. Plan 'B' may be replaced by plan 'C' and etc. as negotiations continue. All this messing about in Iraq while George refuses the US Congress any say what-so-ever.

It seems the Iraqis see a bit more to this than an agreement aimed at their security. I cannot imagine why they might have doubts about US intentions, considering how the US got into Iraq in the first place.

Muqtada al Sadr seems to be winding himself and his followers up to some increased violence. The 10 month cease fire has been marked by Iraqi troop movements against his followers and his response it talk about the creation of a force authorized to only attack the invaders - us. Maybe we can count on John McCain to hope his way out of this mess, though I'd rather not...

Bush, Knesset, Ignorance, Stupidity

LA radio host Rick James gets taken down for stupid ignorance by Chris Matthews much to John Cole's amusement over at Balloon Juice and his many Commenters. I engaged in the same amusement as James wailed, "Appeasement!" over and over without knowing what Neville Chamberlain actually did to earn the appellation appeaser. Talking to Hitler wasn't Chamberlain's sin, giving him "Sudetenland" Czechoslovakia isn't quite the same thing as talking. All this amusement was in regard to the televised statements George II made to the Knesset on the 60th anniversery of Ireal's founding.

George once again set up his strawmen,

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.
We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said in remarks to the
Israeli Knesset. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American Senator
declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

I don't know who it is that is notable that has proposed negotiating with terrorists, unless maybe he's referring to Jimmy Carter talking to Hammas in the West Bank. Since Carter has no authority beyond his standing as an ex-President that couldn't be called negotiating and Obama has already stated repeatedly that terrorists are excuded.

Now what I found really offensive was George II deciding to use a foreign government as a political sounding board for Presidential campaigning. What I found rather astonishing was the standing ovation given after this piece of garbage was uttered. I would have expected that group of people to have a passing acquaintance with World War II history.

Now America is one of the most conservative of the industrialized democracies and when its conservatives get involved in history, it tends to be for the sake of convenience rather than facts. They continuously get caught out at it and just keep on at it. I don't suppose that anyone would like to argue that Israel is more liberal than the US? Well, the Knesset sure seemed to love this piece of inaccuracy and strawman argument. That sure increases my appreciation of Israel's special standing with the US. It is nice to know that they won't leave us holding the bag as the only people led by ignorance and stupidity.

Does anyone honestly believe that the mess in Israel and Palestine is the entire fault of one side? I have found that killing, terrorism, oppression, and general violence seems to take two to play when it involves nations. I propose that in that part of the world there is plenty of stupidity and intolerance to go around, and here's our President egging it on. Damn, does the idiocy have no end? Where is January 20, 2009 and what's holding it up?

Warfare Is What It Is

Recent news reports, McClatchy, about a Sadr City strike damaging a hospital and ambulances have created a stir. As many as 5 rockets were fired into a house apparently used by militants for attacks on US troops "yards" from the hospital. Civilian casualties are up for the month, as are US troop casualties. This fighting is occurring in a crowded slum of 2.5 million people.

When civilians or clearly civilian installations are damaged in attacks people begin to complain. There is a natural disinclination amongst Americans to participate in indiscriminate slaughter. Here is where reality and wishful thinking collide, bullets and explosives do not discriminate, once loosed they hit where they were pointed. That baby has no target discriminator on him; age, sex, and participation are not disqualifiers from death and injury. It is the nature of things that go bang to knock the snot out of anything nearby, it is inevitable, and it is a characteristic which is both feared and utilized by the targets of those things.

Back in 2003 there was a huge ground swell of approval as "Shock and Awe" proceeded and we were informed that only militarily significant targets were exploding on our TV screens. Some of us bought into that idea, smart bombs was the mantra. The idea was clearly as stupid as the bombs were smart. The explosives, for the most part, reached their intended targets and those targets were in a populated area, civilians got blown up or devastated by flying debris. Everyone with half a brain knew that, but the pictures were ever so 'cool' and covered by a willing media analysis. C'mon, you saw the size of the fireballs and you knew it was in Bhagdad...

We live in an age of video and video games and our perceptions are skewed by this. We can see things with our own eyes and discount them because an 'expert' says something. We see the video image the bomb sees as it goes into its target and accept that as the reality. Reality happens after the video transmitter is exploded by the payload, that is what you do not see. Video games and TV sanitize the war experience while letting us think we are a part of the experience. The sounds, smells, and actual results are hidden away. The contents of a human body are spread everywhere, all the contents, and they are cooked. That body may have been a Saddam General or a kid walking home from a visit, you have no idea - you neither saw him nor the results. Our news organizations were roundly criticized at the time by other media, particularly Al Jazeera, for not showing civilian casualties. Whether that outlet's numbers were accurate or not is beside the question, they existed and you didn't see them.

There are issues of decency that our media adheres to, it is hypocritical in the extreme, but flatly Americans will not look at the results of a large explosion on a human body and not complain. The children, after all, might be watching and besides, we have some standards... We have illusion and garbage - not standards. That impressive fireball sent out from it a concussion wave of air and flying objects, the objects buildings are constructed of, moving at thousands of feet per second followed by heat. Anything in the path of that suffered damage, damage you do not want to think about. That shock wave compresses the human body, forcing what is inside, out. Buildings are constructed of very unfriendly to human beings objects when they are moving at hundreds of miles per hour- try to imagine a sheet of glass, masonry, steel, and wooden splinters impacting humans. Right behind it was heat, more than you use to sear that steak you were eating. You cheered, "Wow, look at that!" and saw none of it.

Warfare is a bloody inhumane exercise and you've been insulated from that fact. There are veterans who know, they say little. If you fault them, you are a fool. To speak to the horrid realities of warfare is to relive them and they have already served you. It is not their job to educate you about the obvious that you ignore. Guns are not magical, they put a small projectile in the air at thousands of feet per second, far beyond the speed of sound, and the target is hit well before the sound of firing reaches it. The effect of that bullet depends on its caliber, speed, and what it strikes, it may inflict a fraction of an inch hole through a body or it may strike bone, shattering it and virtually exploding the surrounding flesh. Military rounds are considered humane, use of destructive bullets is banned. Humane.

Dying or severely shocked humans lose control of their bodily functions, urine and feces are released and possible uncontrolled vomiting. Mix all this together with blood and seared flesh and you have truly unattractive visual and olfactory experience, auditory stimulus may not be particularly nice - either. Warfare is the business of blowing things up and grievously harming human beings, it ain't pretty and it ain't a game. We are doing it to "them" and they are doing it to "us" and the mechanisms of the doing are immaterial. A car bomb and a smart bomb in a populated are have exactly the same outcomes and ends. The end is to make it fearfully inappropriate to continue a course of action. Terrorism. The presence of or lack of a uniform does not make this less true.

Civilians are particularly vulnerable in this kind of urban warfare, shelter involves the very sorts of places where people live and work and go to hospital. People at risk of being shot or blown up seek shelter. If there is an expectation that one side or the other will try to avoid civilian casualties the civilians become objects of shelter and because neither side wishes to lose, the civilians become disposable pawns in the effort to achieve checkmate. In today's world, uniforms are camouflage, it is important to have them different enough to avoid fratricide, but the end object is be a poor target. Civilian clothing for fighters works in the same way, though with unfortunate results for civilians, regardless bullets will fly in high numbers. Military weapons deliberately allow for high rates of fire, a lot of lead in the air makes those difficult targets more likely to be hit and less likely to hit back. Anything in the way is going to suffer.

If you are going to start a military conflict it is wise to know what it is that you propose to do. You are going to engage in one of the least humane and civilized of all behaviors and do it on a grand scale. You are going to destroy a lot of things you would ordinarily find commendable and harm lots of people you would ordinarily find laudable. Warfare is neither glorious nor is it, as our President seems to think, an adventure; it is flatly destruction and slaughter. If you do not approach it with, at the very least, sadness and regret you forfeit the title of reasoning being.

I refuse to play. I opposed this war from before the first bomb and I oppose it now. I oppose war on general terms and I fiercely oppose its glorification. I regret and resent the use of our power to harm others. What I will not do is condemn the soldiers on the ground for the inevitable results of our leadership's decision to engage in this behavior. Our troops are engaged in a street brawl and everybody knew or certainly should have known that this was going to be the outcome. The fact that we have criminally irresponsible people leading this nation is the fault of the voters not the soldiers, we both have jobs to do and it is about time we voters do ours.

Mission Accomplished, Oh Cripes A New Spin

AP reports on the Fifth Anniversary Of Mission Accomplished and now we know that the White House had nothing to do with the banner. Nope, Dana Perino states unequivocally that it wasn't about Iraq.

Bush, in October 2003, disavowed any connection with the "Mission Accomplished" message. He said the White House had nothing to do with the banner; a spokesman later said the ship's crew asked for the sign and the White House staff had it made by a private vendor.

Dana wants us to know that it was all a misunderstanding,

"President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said `mission accomplished' for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission,"

This would be why he stood underneath the banner all dressed up with nowhere to go and said,

"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended," Bush said at the time. "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001, and still goes on.

Once George II began to look really stupid for declaring victory well before any such thing occurred we began to find out that like WMDs there were moving goal posts.

After shifting explanations, the White House eventually said the "Mission Accomplished" phrase referred to the carrier's crew completing its 10-month mission, not the military completing its mission in Iraq.

In comparison to how reality played out I really wish the Faux Fighter Pilot had gotten it right. It has been a long sad bloody slog since he was so spectacularly wrong. Some people forgive him his stupidity and still cheer him on, I do not. I don't forgive the WMDs and smoking mushroom cloud guns and the blood and horror of his mistakes. I have no belief in heaven and hell, but it would seem just if he could look forward to an eternity of a Dantesque Inferno involving sand and camel spiders and screams. I'm pretty sure we all have ideas about who should be keeping him company, it would involve more than a just a couple of people.

Many years ago I looked at the scorched psyche of the military and the public following the close of the Vietnam War and I thought, at least, at the very least the one good thing to come out of this is that we won't do it again. No, not until just in time for me to be old enough to provide the neocons with a son for cannon fodder instead of myself and my friends. I don't know if the tears in my eyes are sadness or rage or both but I do know that there is no excuse for me having to have them again. No excuse, President George Walker Bush can go right straight to hell and I'll gladly whip up the apocalyptic horses that drag him naked and screaming on his way.

*****

I suffered the derision of you so called "patriots" when I called bullshit before the first bomb fell and I'm clean out of sense of humor about it, so if you don't like plain speaking on the issue, STFU.

Obama Would Investigate White House

In an interview with Will Bunch at Philly.com Barack Obama said he would investigate the previous administration if there was evidence of criminal behavior. It was a cautious answer, noting that he would not want his actions to be symptomatic of a political witch hunt.

So this is an area where I would want to exercise judgment -- I would want to find out directly from my Attorney General -- having pursued, having looked at what's out there right now -- are there possibilities of genuine crimes as opposed to really bad policies. And I think it's important-- one of the things we've got to figure out in our political culture generally is distinguishing between really dumb policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal activity.

I am quoting lightly, the article is Bunch's and I have no desire to step on his work. This quote is pulled from the middle of a longer quote with much more content. I encourage you to go there for the entire article.

Obviously my strong concerns for the Bill of Rights and other protections within the Constitution generate some enthusiasm for this outlook. While I am sure that some of the laws passed by the Republican Congress leave a fair amount of wiggle room for the thugs of this administration, there has been quite a bit of wiggling going on. I have little doubt there is dirt laying around. Some have proposed that George II would pardon everybody - including himself - there is a problem with that idea. Self-serving pardons are considered void.

What I found of particular interest was the comments section - it made me really thankful for my comments section participants. There were essentially three points of view, the obvious one being those in favor of the idea and two either against or scoffing at it ever happening. The negative view seemed to break down into two camps: whatever was done for security was justified and the nothing bad ever happened - it's a librul plot against St George. I found the scoffers most interesting: a segment that held that nothing would ever be done to the powerful and the Obama is a liar segment. These are two distinctly different groups, one holding that the nature of power is such that it just won't happen and one which puts the lack of likelihood on Obama in particular. The latter were or seemed to be Hillary people.

Of the anti-camp all I can manage is puzzlement, were the laws violated ones involving say dealing pot they'd be falling all over themselves to hang the bastards (OK, I suppose blowjobs are included) but sainted George II is somehow too good to be pursued (and by extension any of his cronies). Any suggestion that they wouldn't want it done to their children is turned on its head as hate of Americans - somehow the evil left is suggesting it should be done to Americans . The others seem not to have any awareness of the news world beyond the fact that libruls are questioning some imaginary events. I am not talking about a question of whether there is question of legal cover, these things simply never happened. Here's the rub, this group was apparently able to read the article and type comments so they are literate.

I completely understand the sentiment that says nothing bad will happen to the wielders of power, I haven't exactly noticed it being prevalent in our society, either. It is not that I find such malfeasance inevitable, it is mostly the strength of character and will required is rare in such circles. The constant struggle to get votes and financing and pass legislation involves a lot of compromising and it assuredly gets pretty easy to have flexibility slide into spinelessness and weathervane ethics. You will please note that I am not using this brush to tar wide swathes of elected officials, such is not my assertion. Wealth and power confer huge advantages on people in conflict with the legal system.

The Obama deniers I have a bit more trouble with and I'm lukewarm on the guy. I have found no evidence that he is particularly ethically or morally challenged and yet there is an assumption that everything the man says is a lie. I'd be the last to assert that any politician doesn't exaggerate some or put the very best light on something questionable, but this requires a nearly pathological liar. How exactly Hillary and Bill getting caught out on absolute prevarications transfers to Obama I'm not sure. Evidently one's opponent must be Satan for being the opponent. This crap is going to cause real trouble in the General election - what strikes me is that it is so...Republican.

Bush The Sadist

In order to preserve his kingly right to torture any peasant he pleases, George II today vetoed legislation specifically banning waterboarding. This should end all debate over whether they only did it because its illegality was debatable. It is now beyond argument that in order to satisfy their Faux 24 movie magic sadism they will keep internationally abhorred torture methods on the table. If you do not understand the guilty sexual pleasure obtained from misusing another human, you're not alone. It is classified as sexual deviancy of an obsessive nature and in many quarters, incurable. Its forerunners are the torture and maiming of creatures and a typical symptom is verbally abusive domination, typified by humiliating nicknames for intimates. It is truly sick when practiced on the unwilling, victims. Alcoholism and drug addiction are frequent accompanying disorders.

There is no longer any reason to wonder if our government asserts the right to torture you, Bush says they have it and will use it at his direction, and the Attorney General. People, including Americans, have spent considerable time in jail for waterboarding. It is criminal in most of the world, including places you wouldn't want to visit. I want you to note the vote was 222-199 in the House and 51-45 in the Senate. You do understand the implications of those numbers, this means that the Senate Republicans voted as a near block as did the House Republicans to allow this cretin to torture. You need to read Here's the Enemy, Democrats if you wonder how I feel about the Republican Party and their crap. If forced to be physically dangerous I would be a very nasty foe and hurt you very badly with little or no guilt, but I find this absolutely stomach turning. I feel an immense guilt to call myself an American in the face of this official American policy. It is no wonder these filth object to Michelle Obama not always being proud of her country, they place no limits on our behavior. George II's words leave no doubt, it is not simply waterboarding he wants on the table, he wants no limits. This is a truly sick individual who heads a Party of similar minded pukes. George, I promise not to travel to any place you are and you stay the hell away from me because I'll spit in your goddam face if I'm ever that close to you. I didn't think anybody could ever get my blood hotter than RMN and I'm astonished by how wrong I was. goddam damn damn damn...arghhhh

More King George II

The Constitution sets out certain responsibilities in government, and one of those is that the Senate ratifies treaties. Well it thought it did up until GeorgeII set them straight. He does exactly as he pleases in regard to Iraq because he's got the Authorization to Use Force. This is sort of like the CiC position, he can do as he damn well pleases because we're at war. Let's ask some of those Senators who voted for that piece of unmitigated junk if they're real happy right now. Hillary is, this was a negotiating tool, she says so.

WaPo notes:

The Bush administration yesterday advanced a new argument for why it does not require congressional approval to strike a long-term security agreement with Iraq, stating that Congress had already endorsed such an initiative through its 2002 resolution authorizing the use of force against Saddam Hussein.

The 2002 measure, along with the congressional resolution passed one week after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks authorizing military action "to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States," permits indefinite combat operations in Iraq, according to a statement by the State Department's Bureau of Legislative Affairs.

Congress has the nerve to act surprised. They've let this bunch of incompetent crooks get away with this same behavior for 7 years and at this late date they expect something else? It's really hard to believe that it is going to be 11 months until we're rid of this cretin and his cohorts and patience is the only recourse.

Senate Leads the Way, Wiretapping

When the Framers wrote the Constitution and laid out the terms of office for the Congressional bodies they had some ideas of the consequences. They invisioned a House with short tems that was responsive to the immediate concerns of the voters and innovative in outlook. The Senate, on the other hand, with its six year terms was to be the deliberative and reflective body, the conservators of Constitutional law and source of stability. This was stood on its head this week.

The President, George II, was on the air this morning stating that the "Senate leads the way" on wiretapping and immunity and that it is critical pass this bill before it expires. There are two pieces of nonsense involved in this statement and the reporter's deferential treatment of his statements. The first is that the expiration involves no change in the underlying FISA law which allows up to 72 hours of emergency wiretapping preceding a warrant granted by a Secret Court whose level of resistance to such activities is suspect at the least. The second piece is his stated willingness to veto any bill lacking immunity for the telecoms, an extremely odd view to hold in the face of his fear mongering. The supposed financial well being of some telecoms who cooperated with the government, note that Qwest and a couple others did not, and broke long established law and privacy policies trumps the fear he's peddling. Money is more important than your "security." The President even offered to delay his African visit, he might not go on a vacation, might not if the House gets moving.

The head of BushCo claims the experts in his security apparatus all agree this is critical, a claim that was met with silent assent from reporters. There is serious evidence that what the White House and telecoms got up to was not anything like a targeted terrorist list being listened in on, rather a blanket listening program, simply sweeping up everything. This bunch that is supposed to be taken seriously on an extaordinarily sensitive issue concerning the Bill of Rights is the same group of people who authorized torture and secret prisons by the US. There are a few other balls they managed to drop while "protecting" us, Iraq WMDs, 9/11, Iran bomb research, in fact virtually every piece of fear they've touted. I'm disinclined to trust my liberties to torturers and data manipulators (um, that would be liars).

The Republicans just walked out of the House in protest of the Democrats not scrambling on the Senate version of the wiretap bill. The House had already passed a version lacking immunity. John Beohner (R-OH) is claiming a Democratic stunt, "their hands slapped away" from taking "resonsible" action. We're "at risk" and the House Republicans "will be here" until this bill is passed. Anybody know of a more partisan pol than John Boehner? Mr "Obstruct All Costs" Boehner, whose publicly leaked agenda is to block all Democratic actions, is accusing Democrats of playing politics? Less than 1/4 of our Senators give a rat's patoot about your civil liberties and commercial complicity in their violation, a whole 21 of them aren't craven traitors to their oaths to the Constitution. For some obscure reason Republicans, the supposed upholders of small limited government, have become the tools of authoritarian usurpation. In case you've missed it, their version of conservatism involves leaving the putocrats open season on the wealth of the nation and one that stomps on any behavior they find "immoral." If the NRA hadn't traded its political influence for right wing crap they'd be after our 2nd Amendment rights as hard as they're after the rest. (Republicans just walked back into the House - got their 15 minutes of camera time) Since the House has already passed a bill lacking immunity will they have the nerve to stick to their guns? With the Senate rolling over it doesn't look good, a storm of protest might...

Let's look at a couple realities regarding immunity, the BushCo claims future cooperation would be endangered by current lawsuits. What is for sure endangered is obvious violation of the law by private enities acting on the government's behest. If certain arms of the government made false representations to the telecoms there are plenty of fiscally beholden legislators to allow them suits against the goverment. If no such representations were made, if no one told the telecoms what they were getting up to was legal, they deserve to be handed their heads. This immunity process is not about protecting the telecoms, it is about protecting BushCo. Telecoms will fight tooth and nail to protect their wealth in court and if there is responsibility to be shifted on George II's regime they'll toss it overboard in a hearbeat. There may be some folks looking at actual prison time for federal felonies, that could conceiveably include the kinglet.

At some point Americans are going to have to either get along with the idea that liberty is a risky business or just give it up. BushCo is not the first to make grabs on our Rights, but they may be the most egregious offenders. I am pretty certain Americans only take this kind of thing seriously when it involves their pet Rights and by the time it does, they'll just roll over. Some won't, but they'll just be labeled loons and be ignored by lemming majority. The saving grace in this assesment is that the American Revolution was started by a cadre of loons.

Ashcroft Defends Bush, and the Indefensible

"The president of the United States has been among the most respectful of all leaders ever engaged in the responsibility of fighting for freedom,'' Ashcroft said, and has been "most respectful in terms of respecting the civil liberties and rights of individuals while engaged in the important task of fighting for freedom."

This is John Ashcroft's version of George II facing the evil dragon with his gleaming silver sword egraved with crosses and the logo "For God and GOP," told to the Missouri Republicans attending the party's statewide Lincoln Days festivities this weekend. You surely don' think he tried to palm this hooha off on reasonable people. If he comes off sounding like a complete ninny in this little report don't blame The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, honestly they played it straight. There is just so much there, well, not there with John Ashcroft, that goofiness is almost guaranteed.

John makes the point that W Wilson and FDR during WWI and WWII engaged in wiretapping and George II has been soooooo restrained. Well, he does fail to mention little nitpicking details like Declarations of War, stuff like that. He does fail to mention that he's been humping for immunity for corporations that violated the law, a law so lax that the government is allowed to violate Constitutional restrictions for 72 hours before asking for a warrant from a Secret Court. Try to wrap your head around this, there is a Secret Court available only to the Government, not for us citizen yokels, only the very special class of government citizens. George II isn't to blame for the existance of this abomination, he's to blame for not being able to stay within those ludicrous bounds.

Bush "respects liberty so profoundly that he has protected it and has safeguarded civil liberties more than any other president in wartime that I know of,'' Ashcroft said.

I am surprised that John Ashcroft keeps managing to live up to he reputation for stupidity, you would think that bar was set a little high for anyone with even a modicum of success in politics. I realize that he couldn't beat a dead man in an election and that he's the guy who publicly hung a drape over Justice, but you'd think...

If you were to try really hard to shut your eyes and scream, "Nyah, nyah, nyah," with your fingers in your ears, you still might catch on to a couple things. Habeas Corpus is entirely dependent on the "kinglets" whim, he says laws regarding the sanctity of your communications are subject to his whim, he says restrictions on torture are subject to his whim, he says the Secret Police (FBI) can break into your home and snoop to find evidence to support a warrant, he says a lot of things that would have gotten him hung not too long after the Constituion was signed. If you think the signers' heads wouldn't have exploded if this crap were explained to them, you've been reading toilet paper instead of history. Confounded George III was run out of the Colonies for considerably less at a hugely larger cost in treasure and life.