I read the news today, oh boy

What's a Pentecost? If you have to ask you can't afford it:

'Noah's Ark' found atop Mount Ararat in Turkey, evangelical group claims

Oh, so now carbon dating is acceptable science!?
********************
What's an 'illegal immigrant' cost? FactCheck does the math:

Cost of Illegal Immigrants

******************
Do you know anything about Iran?

Can You Pass The Iran Quiz

**********************

Laura Bush blames car and ’small’ stop sign for alleged ex-boyfriend’s death

I bet Tell Laura I Love Her were the last words on his lips ... not!

Somebody's Watching Me

Spies that don't like US:

Inspector general cites 'egregious breakdown' in FBI oversight

FBI agents for years sought sensitive records from telephone companies through e-mails, sticky notes, sneak peeks and other "startling" methods that violated electronic privacy law and federal policy, according to a Justice Department inspector general report released Wednesday.

The study details how the FBI between 2002 and 2006 sent more than 700 demands for telephone toll information by citing often nonexistent emergencies and using sometimes misleading language. The practice of sending faulty "exigent" letters to three telecommunications providers became so commonplace that one FBI agent described it to investigators as "like having an ATM in your living room."
[...]
At times, what the inspector general called an "egregious breakdown" extended to misstatements to the special Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court about how sensitive information had been obtained by federal law enforcement, the report said.
[...]
As part of a leak investigation, the FBI used exigent letters to improperly obtain toll phone call information from Washington Post reporter Ellen Nakashima and New York Times reporters Jane Perlez and Raymond Bonner, all working in Jakarta, Indonesia, about six years ago. The letter was not followed up with a subpoena and it did not secure the approval of the attorney general, which is required when seeking reporters' phone records under Justice Department policy, the inspector general report said.

At the very least every agent that lied to a Federal Court should go to prison for perjury. And everyone involved should be fired.

It ain't gonna happen, but it should.





Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

When I'm Calling Yoo

Yoo's Lawyers Warn of Flood of Political Suits

A ruling that allowed a prisoner to sue former Bush administration attorney John Yoo for devising the legal theories that justified his alleged torture threatens to "open the floodgates to politically motivated lawsuits" against government officials, Yoo's lawyers say.
[...]
Yoo, a UC Berkeley law professor, was a Justice Department lawyer from 2001 to 2003 and wrote a series of memos on interrogation, detention and presidential powers.

The best known was a 2002 document that said that rough treatment of captives amounted to torture only if it caused the same level of pain as "organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death." The memo also said the president may have the power to authorize torture of enemy combatants.

Another Yoo memo said that U.S. military forces could use any means necessary to seize and hold terror suspects in the United States.

The article didn't go quite far enough about Yoo's position. Yoo held that Americans can be arrested & tortured by our government.

Personally? I think justice would be served if Yoo should be abducted, tortured and confess to his crimes against the Constitution ... or maybe just disbarred and lose his tenure.

Extra Special bonus points!

More declassified documents reveal FBI warnings about interrogation tactics

You have to figure that if the FBI sez 'OMG! You can't do that!' you've really crossed the line.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Breaking the Law, Breaking the Law

Apparently Italy knows a war crime when they see it:

Italy Convicts 23 Americans for C.I.A. Renditions

In a landmark ruling, an Italian judge on Wednesday convicted a base chief for the Central Intelligence Agency and 22 other Americans, almost all C.I.A. operatives, of kidnapping a Muslim cleric from the streets of Milan in 2003.
[...]
In June, Il Giornale, a newspaper owned by the brother of Mr. Berlusconi, published an interview that it said it had conducted via Skype with Mr. Lady, the former C.I.A. base chief in Milan, whose whereabouts are unknown. In the interview, he said of Abu Omar’s abduction: “Of course it was an illegal operation. But that’s our job. We’re at war against terrorism.”
[...]
Both Mr. Castelli and Mr. Lady have retired from the C.I.A., according to former agency officials.

Most of the top C.I.A. officers said to have planned the Abu Omar rendition have left the agency, with the exception of Stephen R. Kappes, who at the time was the assistant director of the C.I.A.’s clandestine branch.

He is now the C.I.A.’s second ranking official.

But wait, there's more:

EXCLUSIVE: Convicted CIA Spy Says "We Broke the Law"

Sabrina deSousa Says U.S. "Betrayed" Her and Others Found Guilty in Kidnapping of Muslim Cleric in Italy

One of the 23 Americans convicted today by an Italian court says the United States "broke the law" in the CIA kidnapping of a Muslim cleric Abu Omar in Milan in 2003.

"And we are paying for the mistakes right now, whoever authorized and approved this," said former CIA officer Sabrina deSousa in an interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC's World News with Charles Gibson.

DeSousa says the U.S. "abandoned and betrayed" her and the others who were put on trial for the kidnapping. She was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison.
[...]
"Everything I did was approved back in Washington," she said.
[...]
Representative Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), a member of the House Intelligence Committee told ABC News that the trial was a disaster for CIA officers like DeSousa on the frontline.

"I think these people have been put out there. They've been hung out to dry. They're taking the fall potentially for a decision that was made by their superiors in our agencies. It's the wrong place to go."
[...]
"He was the wrong guy," said Baer. "It was not worth putting the reputation of the United Sates on the line going after somebody like this."

Ah yes, The Nuremberg Defense, 'we vas only following orders.'
It didn't work then and it shouldn't work now.

Yo Pete, you're right in one way, the decision was made in WH & CIA Headquarters, but that just means they should all stand trial for war crimes. As I recall the Nuremberg Trials, the minions got jail time. The puppet masters got death.

They broke US, Italian and International laws. They did it willingly. and they knew at the time they were breaking the laws.

In US criminal courts I believe that's called premeditation.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Marching, Marching to Shibboleth

Rumsfeld's Biblical Message-Laden Intelligence Briefs

ABC News' Jennifer Parker reports: Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld prepared top-secret military intelligence briefs for former President George W. Bush with cover sheets featuring triumphant images from the Iraq war with "Crusades-like" Bible messages, according to an exclusive report in the latest June issue of GQ magazine.

Two things really bother me about the above article.

The first, of course, is that Rummy had to make biblical comic books to get Li'l Bush to read the briefings. We didn't know quite the extent of the delusional state of the WH, but we knew they thought it was a Crusade, they said so, and we knew Bush wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but jumpin' Jehoshaphat!

The second is that ABC News did nothing but comment & quote on others' reporting! I'm pretty sure that's what I do. Of course I don't have a Washington Bureau and I work a different job to make a living.

Wow, time for another blogger ethics panel!

The 'link' to GQ by ABC was in the form of a PDF of GQ's article. Maybe I'm being unfair, maybe GQ and ABC are owned by the same corp. Maybe they paid GQ a lot of money to source GQ's article. It doesn't matter, ABC has the ability and resources to have done their own work.

How odd in this time of newspaper's complaining about why they need to be more consolidated and get an anti-trust exemption that they, and TV, get scooped by a magazine.
*********************
Speaking of the unspeakable Rummy:

Rumsfeld's Renegade Unit Blamed for Afghan Deaths
Special Forces group implicated in three incidents that claimed the lives of hundreds of innocent civilians

MarSOC was set up by former defence secretary despite opposition from within the Marine Corps

[...]
Troops from the US Marines Corps' Special Operations Command, or MarSOC, were responsible for calling in air strikes in Bala Boluk, in Farah, last week - believed to have killed more than 140 men, women and children - as well as two other incidents in 2007 and 2008. News of MarSOC's involvement in the three incidents comes just days after a Special Forces expert, Lieutenant-General Stanley McChrystal, was named to take over as the top commander of US and Nato troops in Afghanistan.

Obama, you're doing it wrong! WTF is it that happens to people when they get inside the twilight zone DC Beltway? (please notice another distinction between the Dems and Repubs, even when our folks win, we still castigate them for breaking their promises. It's called not marching in lockstep and living in a reality based world.)
******************
Wow, either Rummy's tentacles were everywhere or the Bush apologists are really polishing that turd! From the above GQ article, now quoted by the Times-Picayune we bring you Katrina and the Waves!

GQ report blames Rumsfeld for military delay after Katrina
by The Times-Picayune

A report on the GQ magazine Web site is quoting unnamed former Bush administration official as blaming former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for many failures, including a delay in military assistance in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

The report says "in speaking with the former Bush officials, it becomes evident that Rumsfeld impaired administration performance on a host of matters extending well beyond Iraq to impact America's relations with other nations, the safety of our troops, and the response to Hurricane Katrina.

Yeees, of course Bush had nothing to do with it! He didn't know! He even complained he didn't know. It's not like he was in charge or anything.

Once again, maybe I'm being unfair. After all, the TV News and the newspapers are just reporting what a magazine said. (Notice how all the news outlets are distancing themselves from GQ by saying "A report on the GQ magazine", like they can't, umm, you know, like call their own sources or develop sources?)

At least GQ had some facts and document photos for their article.

I guess what I'm saying, after meandering around the point, is that TV and print news have the resources to find out whether the 'anonymous officials' are telling the truth. And get those folks on record. Don't just quote another source that you haven't confirmed and that they gave anonymity to, don't do the Drudge work.

I don't usually do journalism, I just do commentary on news articles. But sheesh, even I double check the stories I comment on!

According to their standards I could say 'GoatF**ker Today just reported you swallow anything! Headlines at 11.'



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on the back of each one

Obama consulted widely on memos

White House senior adviser David Axelrod says President Barack Obama spent about a month pondering whether to release Bush-era memos about CIA interrogation techniques, and considered it “a weighty decision.”
[...]
A former top official in the administration of President George W. Bush called the publication of the memos “unbelievable.”

“It's damaging because these are techniques that work, and by Obama's action today, we are telling the terrorists what they are,” the official said. “We have laid it all out for our enemies. This is totally unnecessary. … Publicizing the techniques does grave damage to our national security by ensuring they can never be used again — even in a ticking-time- bomb scenario where thousands or even millions of American lives are at stake."

I'll ignore the standard Politico method of giving anonymity to anyone who asks for it, (it's been covered), and go straight to the heart.

Those 'techniques' the Bush official was unwilling to lay claim to? Yeah, that would be torture, illegal by moral, US & International laws. And the 1st thing President Obama did in office was to outlaw those methods.

Now back to Bushworld "It's damaging because these are techniques that work, and by Obama's action today, we are telling the terrorists what they are" - actually the torture methods have been proven not to work. They weren't designed to elicit information, they were designed to elicit false confessions.

And, point of fact, the methods have already been published, (raise your hand if you've heard of 'waterboarding?'), just not the memos that authorized the torture. And what Obama was signifying to the world was that we have begun to climb out of the immoral & illegal abyss that 8 years of Bush & Co sunk us in.

More from the NYT:

Interrogation Memos Detail Harsh Tactics by the CIA.

[...]
Together, the four memos give an extraordinarily detailed account of the C.I.A.'s methods and the Justice Department's long struggle, in the face of graphic descriptions of brutal tactics, to square them with international and domestic law. Passages describing forced nudity, the slamming of detainees into walls, prolonged sleep deprivation and the dousing of detainees with water as cold as 41 degrees alternate with elaborate legal arguments concerning the international Convention Against Torture.
[...]
In the memos, the Justice Department authors emphasized precautions the C.I.A. proposed to take, including monitoring by medical personnel, and the urgency of getting information to stop terrorist attacks. They recounted the C.I.A.'s assertions of the effectiveness of the techniques but noted that interrogators could not always tell a prisoner who was withholding information from one who had no more information to offer.

The memos include what in effect are lengthy excerpts from the agency's interrogation manual, laying out with precision how each method was to be used. Waterboarding, for example, involved strapping a prisoner to a gurney inclined at an angle of "10 to 15 degrees" and pouring water over a cloth covering his nose and mouth "from a height of approximately 6 to 18 inches" for no more than 40 seconds at a time.

But a footnote to a 2005 memo made it clear that the rules were not always followed. Waterboarding was used "with far greater frequency than initially indicated" and with "large volumes of water" rather than the small quantities in the rules, one memo says, citing a 2004 report by the C.I.A.'s inspector general.

Further:

2 Suspects Waterboarded 266 Times

C.I.A. interrogators used waterboarding, the near-drowning technique that top Obama administration officials have described as illegal torture, 266 times on two key prisoners from Al Qaeda, far more than had been previously reported.
[...]
A former C.I.A. officer, John Kiriakou, told ABC News and other news media organizations in 2007 that Abu Zubaydah had undergone waterboarding for only 35 seconds before agreeing to tell everything he knew.

The 2005 memo also says that the C.I.A. used waterboarding 183 times in March 2003 against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Wow, either waterboarding doesn't work or these guys really like their job!

p.s. John McCain, that flaming liberal, says:

"It's unacceptable," McCain said, adding:

One is too much. Waterboarding is torture, period. I can ensure you that once enough physical pain is inflicted on someone, they will tell that interrogator whatever they think they want to hear. And most importantly, it serves as a great propaganda tool for those who recruit people to fight against us.

p.p.s. Digby says it better than I can.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

It's not me, it's Yoo

Post-9/11 Memos Show More Bush-Era Legal Errors

The number of major legal errors committed by Bush administration lawyers during the formulation of its early counterterrorism policies was far greater than previously known, according to internal Bush administration documents released for the first time by the Justice Department yesterday.
[...]
In one of the newly disclosed opinions, Justice Department appointee John Yoo argued that constitutional provisions ensuring free speech and barring warrantless searches could be disregarded by the president in wartime, allowing troops to storm a building if they suspected terrorists might be inside. In another, the department asserted that detainees could be transferred to countries known to commit human rights abuses so long as U.S. officials did not intentionally seek their torture.
[...]
Yoo's previously secret 37-page memo asserting that the president could authorize a broad use of military force to combat terrorist activities inside the United States was completed six weeks after the terrorist attacks. In it, Yoo said any terrorists in the United States could be treated like an invading army, justifying warrantless searches and the subordination of free speech and press rights if needed to "wage war successfully."

"Post-9/11 Memos Show More Bush-Era Legal Errors", errors!? ERRORS!? These aren't 'errors', they're direct assaults on the US Constitution and constitute war crimes!

John Yoo is unrepentant. Yoo shouldn't be allowed to teach law, practice law, or remain free. He should get a fair trial here, with all the safeguards the Constitution affords, and then tried internationally with all the protections the ICC affords.

You can read the memos for yourself:

Office of Legal Counsel Memoranda

* Memorandum Regarding Status of Certain OLC Opinions Issued in the Aftermath of the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 (01-15-2009)
* Memorandum Regarding Constitutionality of Amending Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to Change the "Purpose" Standard for Searches (09-25-2001)
* Memorandum Regarding Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities within the United States (10-23-2001)
* Memorandum Regarding Authority of the President to Suspend Certain Provisions of the ABM Treaty (11-15-2001)
* Memorandum Regarding the President's Power as Commander in Chief to Transfer Captured Terrorists to the Control and Custody of Foreign Nations (03-13-2002)
* Memorandum Regarding Swift Justice Authorization Act (04-08-2002)
* Memorandum Regarding Determination of Enemy Belligerency and Military Detention (06-08-2002)
* Memorandum Regarding Applicability of 18 U.S.C. § 4001(a) to Military Detention of United States Citizens (06-27-2002)
* Memorandum Regarding October 23, 2001 OLC Opinion Addressing the Domestic Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities (10-06-2008)

What is listed above is a blueprint for a dictatorship. And all of the Constitution, everything we fought for to establish our shining beacon, was eliminated by a 2nd rate lawyer, acting on behalf of a 3rd deciderer, by secret memos that 2/3rds of our government of 'checks and balances' had no input on. (Kids' version here.)

I'll close with President Obama's AG's statement:

Attorney General Eric Holder "There is no reason we cannot wage an effective fight against those who have sworn to harm us while we respect our most honored constitutional traditions. We can never put the welfare of the American people at risk but we can also never choose actions that we know will weaken the legal and moral fiber of our nation."

Yep, what he said.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

(graphic by Dancin' Dave)

Quotes of the Day

"He'd rather pay a prostitute than pay auto workers."

[Morgan Johnson, president of the United Auto Workers local representing General Motors workers in Shreveport, said] "I don't know what Sen. Vitter has against GM or the United Auto Workers or the entire domestic auto industry; whatever it is, whatever he thinks we've done, it's time for him to forgive us, just like Sen. Vitter has asked the citizens of Louisiana to forgive him," said Johnson, president of Local 2166. Otherwise, Johnson said of Vitter, it would appear, "He'd rather pay a prostitute than pay auto workers."

"It may just prove that when I have a lot of morphine in my system, I make the right decisions"

Ashcroft was confronted with a question about a March 2004 incident, in which the former AG was visited by his would-be successor as he lay sedated in a hospital bed.

Ashcroft was asked by Gonzales to re-authorize a controversial domestic spying program, over the objections of Ashcroft's deputy, James Comey. He refused to reverse the Justice Department's decision, sparking a power struggle which saw the White House re-authorize its own program without the approval of the Justice Department.

"So, I think the system worked. And I'm glad that it did. It may not prove a whole lot about a lot of things. It may just prove that when I have a lot of morphine in my system, I make the right decisions."

In honor of John Ashcroft, who still thinks illegal detention & torture are OK, but bare breasts are bad, I declare War!




Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Listen, They're Playing my Song

Musicians Don’t Want Tunes Used for Torture

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - Blaring from a speaker behind a metal grate in his tiny cell in Iraq, the blistering rock from Nine Inch Nails hit Prisoner No. 200343 like a sonic bludgeon.

The auditory assault went on for days, then weeks, then months at the U.S. military detention center in Iraq. Twenty hours a day. AC/DC. Queen. Pantera. The prisoner, military contractor Donald Vance of Chicago, told The Associated Press he was soon suicidal.

The tactic has been common in the U.S. war on terror, with forces systematically using loud music on hundreds of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, then the U.S. military commander in Iraq, authorized it on Sept. 14, 2003, "to create fear, disorient ... and prolong capture shock."

Now the detainees aren't the only ones complaining. Musicians are banding together to demand the U.S. military stop using their songs as weapons.
[...]
According to an FBI memo, one interrogator at Guantanamo Bay bragged he needed only four days to "break" someone by alternating 16 hours of music and lights with four hours of silence and darkness.
[...]
Vance, in a telephone interview from Chicago, said the tactic can make innocent men go mad. According to a lawsuit he has filed, his jailers said he was being held because his employer was suspected of selling weapons to terrorists and insurgents. The U.S. military confirms Vance was jailed but won't elaborate because of the lawsuit.

There might be a temptation to make jokes about being subjected to loud music being a form of torture, but it isn't funny, and it is torture.

And there might be a temptation in some folks less evolved to OK torture for them foreign brownish folks, but as noted above, our government also tortures white, christain, veteran, FBI informant, Americans.

More here:

Former U.S. Detainee in Iraq Recalls Torment

and here:

A different kind of hell for one American in Iraq FBI informant imprisoned and treated like an insurgent for 97 days

When Bush said "we don't torture"? He lied.

And his enablers continue to lie over and over.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Money for Nothing

From the same folks that brought you the 1989 S&L collapse, please welcome the 2008 team!

Fed Defies Transparency Aim in Refusal to Disclose

The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system.
[...]
``We need oversight,'' Paulson told lawmakers. ``We need protection. We need transparency. I want it. We all want it.''

And that's just the money Congress voted for.

But wait, there's more!

Fed's Role in Crisis Is Giant, if Opaque

[...]
Largely outside public view, however, the Federal Reserve is lending far more than that amount -- $893 billion, roughly the equivalent of the annual economic output of Mexico -- to help a wide range of institutions weather the economic storm.

As of last week, the Fed's loans included $507 billion to banks, $50 billion to investment firms, $70 billion for money market mutual funds, and $266 billion to companies that use a form of short-term debt called commercial paper. It is considering a new program that would make billions more available to prop up consumer lending: auto loans, credit cards and the like.

And if you act now you'll receive:

U.S. Pledges Top $7.7 Trillion to Ease Frozen Credit

The U.S. government is prepared to provide more than $7.76 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers after guaranteeing $306 billion of Citigroup Inc. debt yesterday. The pledges, amounting to half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, are intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized up 15 months ago.

When Congress approved the TARP on Oct. 3, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson acknowledged the need for transparency and oversight. Now, as regulators commit far more money while refusing to disclose loan recipients or reveal the collateral they are taking in return, some Congress members are calling for the Fed to be reined in.

“Whether it’s lending or spending, it’s tax dollars that are going out the window and we end up holding collateral we don’t know anything about,” said Congressman Scott Garrett, a New Jersey Republican who serves on the House Financial Services Committee. “The time has come that we consider what sort of limitations we should be placing on the Fed so that authority returns to elected officials as opposed to appointed ones.”

And then there's this:

Banking Regulator Played Advocate Over Enforcer
Agency Let Lenders Grow Out of Control, Then Fail

When Countrywide Financial felt pressured by federal agencies charged with overseeing it, executives at the giant mortgage lender simply switched regulators in the spring of 2007.

The benefits were clear: Countrywide's new regulator, the Office of Thrift Supervision, promised more flexible oversight of issues related to the bank's mortgage lending. For OTS, which depends on fees paid by banks it regulates and competes with other regulators to land the largest financial firms, Countrywide was a lucrative catch.

But OTS was not an effective regulator. This year, the government has seized three of the largest institutions regulated by OTS, including IndyMac Bancorp, Washington Mutual -- the largest bank in U.S. history to go bust -- and on Friday evening, Downey Savings and Loan Association. The total assets of the OTS thrifts to fail this year: $355.7 billion. Three others were forced to sell to avoid failure, including Countrywide.
[...]
Senior executives at Countrywide who participated in the meetings said OTS pitched itself as a more natural, less antagonistic regulator than OCC and that Mozilo preferred that. Government officials outside OTS who were familiar with the negotiations provided a similar description.

"The general attitude was they were going to be more lenient," one Countrywide executive said. For example, he said other regulators, specifically OCC and the Federal Reserve, were very demanding that large banks not allow loan officers to participate in the selection of property appraisers. "But the OTS sold themselves on having a more liberal interpretation of it," the executive said.

Winning Countrywide was important for OTS, which is funded by assessments on the roughly 750 banks it regulates, with the largest firms paying much of the freight.

But of course no one could have; predicted/foreseen/anticipated 9/11, New Orleans' levys, Iraq quagmire, financial disaster ... except all the experts in those areas that weren't drinking the Bush koolaid (and us DFHs.)

I know this post has been long, especially if you followed and read the links, so I'll leave you with a joke I saw in comments here:

"A parody on how the bailout works: A man wanted to buy a donkey, so he went to a farmer and asked him to sell him one. The farmer agreed to sell the man a donkey for $100 but told the man he would have to come back tomorrow to pick it up.

The man returned the next day to retrieve his donkey only to be told by the farmer that the donkey had died overnight. OK, said the man, just give me back my $100 and we're good. I can't do that, said the farmer, I spent the money last night.

No problem, said the man, I know how to fix this situation. So the man started a raffle for the donkey, not telling anyone that the donkey was already dead. He sold 500 tickets at $2 each, for a total of $1000.

Confused, the farmer asked the man, 'Didn't anyone complain about the donkey already being dead?' 'Only the guy that won the raffle and I simply gave him his $2 back and he was happy', said the man."

Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

A Study in Contrasts

Via ThinkProgress

DeLay On Obama: ‘I Tagged Him As A Marxist Months Ago’

Invoking William Ayers and Rev. Jeremiah Wright on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews today, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay declared that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is a “radical” and a “Marxist.” Matthews asked DeLay if he was comfortable with the McCain campaign using phrases like, “socialist, communist, Anti-American.” “Absolutely,” DeLay responded.
[...]
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) claimed over the weekend that Obama’s policy proposals would transform the country into “totalitarian dictatorship.”

Hmmm, what would a “totalitarian dictatorship” look like?

Would it look like this?

Bush Declares Exceptions to Sections of Two Bills He Signed Into Law

President Bush asserted on Tuesday that he had the executive power to bypass several parts of two bills: a military authorization act and a measure giving inspectors general greater independence from White House control.

Mr. Bush signed the two measures into law. But he then issued a so-called signing statement in which he instructed the executive branch to view parts of each as unconstitutional constraints on presidential power.

In the authorization bill, Mr. Bush challenged four sections. One forbid the money from being used “to exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq”
[...]
In the other bill, he raised concerns about two sections that strengthen legal One section gives the inspectors general a right to counsels who report directly to them. But Mr. Bush wrote in his signing statement that such lawyers would be bound to follow the legal interpretations of the politically appointed counsels at each agency.
[...]
Mr. Bush has used the signing statements to assert a right to bypass more than 1,100 sections of laws. By comparison, all previous presidents combined challenged about 600 sections of bills.

What do you call a leader of a country ignores the will of the people and their elected representatives? Gosh, it's right on the tip of my tongue ...



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Push it, push it real good

Acorn pushes back, hugs McCain

The beleaguered Democratic-leaning community group Acorn sends over this photograph: John McCain, in March of 2006, sitting beside Florida Rep. Kendrick Meek at an event Acorn co-sponsored in Florida.
[...]
Bertha Lewis, Acorn's chief organizer, said in a statement that came with the photo, “It has deeply saddened us to see Senator McCain abandon his historic support for ACORN and our efforts to support the goals of low-income Americans."

In addition to their many good works in the community, ACORN also hires poor people to register poor people to vote. They don't register Republicans or Democrats, they register poor people. To vote. That seems an admirable goal to me.

Despite what you've heard or read, there is no voter fraud, but there is some, out of the 1.3 million new registrations by ACORN, some voter registration fraud.

Typically this is flagged by ACORN before they're turned into the election boards. Why are they turned into the election boards? Because that's the law, all registrations must be turned in. That's so that groups that register voters can't pick and choose which ones to turn in.

Much more here.

So, that's one RNC meme disposed of. On to the next:

Bill Ayers is a terrorist and Obama hangs out with him!!! I'll let Republicans for Obama answer this one:

William Ayers: Funded by Republicans

In 1995, Bill Ayers was part of a team that helped create the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an education reform project that worked with half of Chicago's public schools. Barack Obama, then working as an attorney and law school professor, was elected chairman of the eight-member board of the CAC. The board included individuals of diverse political backgrounds, including Ray Romero, the President of Ameritech; Stanley Ikenberry, the former President of the University of Illinois; and Republican Arnold Weber, who had served in the Nixon White House.

In their best efforts to portray Barack as out of the mainstream, some on the right have tried characterizing the Chicago Annenberg Challenge as a dangerous fringe organization. What they do not discuss is the fact that the CAC was funded by a foundation belonging to Walter Annenberg, the billionaire Republican philanthropist who served as Richard M. Nixon's ambassador to the U.K. Annenberg and his wife, Leonore, gave the CAC $50 million in the 90's.

But Walter and Leonore weren't just giving money to educational foundations started by William Ayers. They were also giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Republican National Committee and various other Republican groups, as well as to a whole host of Republican candidates, including the following:

* George W. Bush $4000
* Mitt Romney $5000
* Strom Thurmond $1000
* Fred Thompson $500
* Rick Santorum $3000
[...]
Here's the icing on the cake: [...] the McCain campaign put out a press release bragging about the fact that Leonore Annenberg has endorsed him for president.

Well, that's the number 2 meme dispatched with.

Onto the last bastion of McCain & Republicans trying to avoid guilt for our current economic crisis.

Over and over we hear these craven, lying bastards claim that the economic meltdown is, and get this, Clinton's fault! Oh, and those nasty Dems who forced all those good hearted banks to lend money to those inner-city poor people, (wink, wink, nudge, nudge), and that's what made the crisis.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present for your viewing pleasure the facts:

Private sector loans, not Fannie or Freddie, triggered crisis

[...]
Federal housing data reveal that the charges aren't true, and that the private sector, not the government or government-backed companies, was behind the soaring subprime lending at the core of the crisis.

Subprime lending offered high-cost loans to the weakest borrowers during the housing boom that lasted from 2001 to 2007. Subprime lending was at its height from 2004 to 2006.

Federal Reserve Board data show that:

* More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.

* Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.

* Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics.

Now we all know that facts have a liberal bias, so don't expect any of the hardcore 25 percenters to accept these facts, but if you have to discuss these things with them, maybe innocent bystanders who aren't drinking the Kool-Aid will decide to find out the truth of these matters for themselves.

And that's all I ask. Don't take my word for it, look it up and decide for yourselves.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Money, its a gas. Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.

Why the rush to bailout failures?

Let's do some numbers:

A $1.8 Trillion Bailout: Where the Money's Going

Following are details of actions, proposals and amounts:

—Up to $700 billion to buy assets from struggling institutions. The plan is aimed at sopping up residential and commercial mortgages from financial institutions but gives Treasury broad latitude.

—Up to $50 billion from the Great Depression-era Exchange Stabilization Fund to guarantee principal in money market mutual funds to provide the same confidence that consumers have in federally insured bank deposits.

—The Fed committed to make unspecified discount window loans to financial institutions to finance the purchase of assets from money market funds to aid redemptions.

—At least $10 billion in Treasury direct purchases of mortgage-backed securities in September. In doubling the program on Friday, the Treasury said it may purchase even more in the months ahead.

—Up to $144 billion in additional MBS purchases by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.The Treasury announced they would increase purchases up to the newly expanded investment portfolio limits of $850 billion each. On July 30, the Fannie portfolio stood at $758.1 billion with Freddie's at $798.2 billion.

—$85 billion loan for AIG, which would give the Federal government a 79.9 percent stake and avoid a bankruptcy filing for the embattled insurer.

—At least $87 billion in repayments to JPMorgan Chase for providing financing to underpin trades with units of bankrupt investment bank Lehman Brothers. Paulson said over the weekend he was adamant that public funds not be used to rescue the firm.

—$200 billion for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Treasury will inject up to $100 billion into each institution by purchasing preferred stock to shore up their capital as needed.

—$300 billion for the Federal Housing Administration to refinance failing mortgage into new, reduced-principal loans with a federal guarantee, passed as part of a broad housing rescue bill.

—$4 billion in grants to local communities to help them buy and repair homes abandoned due to mortgage foreclosures.

—$29 billion in financing for JPMorgan Chase's government-brokered buyout of Bear Stearns in March. The Fed agreed to take $30 billion in questionable Bear assets as collateral, making JPMorgan liable for the first $1 billion in losses, while agreeing to shoulder any further losses.

—At least $200 billion of currently outstanding loans to banks issued through the Fed's Term Auction Facility, which was recently expanded to allow for longer loans of 84 days alongside the previous 28-day credits.

1.8 TRILLION dollars! That's a one and an eight trailed by a parade of zeros, (loan) floats, (lax) standard bearers and hot air gas bags.
But what do the numbers really mean? Here's an excellent synopsis via AMERICAblog:

What is $500 billion? What's a trillion?

A reader asked what any of the bailout numbers represent in the real world. We know $500 billion, $700 billion or now the new Paulson plan of $1.8 trillion is a lot, but put this in terms that everyone can understand. A few examples for 2007:

* Microsoft generated $51 billion in revenue.
* Citi, who has been hit hard in the credit crisis, saw $159 billion.
* Walmart's 2007 total revenue was $388 billion.
* ExxonMobil generated $404 billion.

Those are the numbers for some of the largest businesses in the US. For the US budget, here are a few examples from Bush's budget in 2007:

* Veterans' benefits at $73 billion
* Education was $90 billion
* Interest on US debt was $244 billion
* Medicare $395 billion
* Defense was $548 billion
* Social Security was $586

In total, the 2007 federal budget was a total of $2.8 trillion.

Here's a slide show of what 700 BILLION dollars buys:What Does $700 Billion Actually Buy?

And John McCain is shocked, shocked I tell you, that John McCain's campaign advisers and transition team are filled with lobbyists for the banking industry ... oops sorry, John McCain is outraged that American taxpayers would bailout these failing companies ... until he was outraged that American taxpayers wouldn't bailout these failed companies, and then he's ... what!?

"We cannot have the taxpayers bail out AIG or anybody else."
[...]
"We've got to get a more coordinated and a much more stringent oversight regime,"
[...]
"Government can play a very, very appropriate role in the oversight."

But wait, there's more!

Republican Sen. John McCain said he would suspend campaigning to help tackle a $700 billion bailout proposal

Well sure, if by 'suspend campaign' you mean going on talk shows, having your surrogates on every media outlet bragging about how you 'suspended' campaigning and continuing to raise funds and run campaign commercials:

McCain to do round of network interviews tonight

John McCain will appear on all three network newscasts tonight, a top aide said.

McCain is at the White House meeting with President Bush, Barack Obama and congressional leaders now and will tape interviews with NBC, ABC and CBS after the West Wing session.

McCain also appeared in a taped interview last night with Katie Couric on CBS.

We can debate about whether the 700 BILLION Dollar bailout is a good idea, but what is not debatable is the fact that the house and senate, republicans and democrats and the actual congressional committees involved had worked out a plan they could agree on ... until McCain sang "Here I am to save the day!" and derailed the whole process, about which he knows nothing and isn't on any relevant committees:

House GOP Aides: McCain ‘Not Familiar With The Details’ Of The Financial Bailout

BTW, that's the Senator John McCain who has been absent on more votes than any other senator.

His posturing to suddenly seem 'presidential' doesn't seem to be working, even with all the outside help he's being given:

Maliki Suggests Bush Pushed To Extend U.S. Presence In Iraq To Help McCain

Actually, the final date was really the end of 2010 and the period between the end of 2010 and the end of 2011 was for withdrawing the remaining troops from all of Iraq, but they asked for a change [in date] due to political circumstances related to the [U.S] domestic situation so it will not be said to the end of 2010 followed by one year for withdrawal but the end of 2011 as a final date.

We've learned over the last 7 years that there is no low that a rethuglican who wants to gain or keep office will stoop to.

Congrats to John McSame for lowering himself to a new low.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

The Bush Doctrine Formula; Jus ad bellum

Bush Secret Order To Send Special Forces Into Pakistan

A secret order issued by George Bush giving US special forces carte blanche to mount counter-terrorist operations inside Pakistani territory raised fears last night that escalating conflict was spreading from Afghanistan to Pakistan and could ignite a region-wide war.
[...]
Following Bush's decision, US navy Seals commandos, backed by attack helicopters, launched a ground raid into Pakistan last week which the US claimed killed about two dozen insurgents. Pakistani officials condemned the raid as illegal and said most of the dead were civilians.
[...]
The move is regarded as unprecedented in terms of sending troops into a friendly, allied country.

This latest invasion, against a country that Bush has said:

- July, 2008 "Pakistan is a strong ally and a vibrant democracy."

- July 2008 Pakistan has been a strong partner in the fight against violent extremism

-September 2006 This President is a strong defender of freedom and the people of Pakistan, and I appreciate your leadership.

The Bush Doctrine specifically delineated the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan as 'preemptive war' when they stated that

"Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent."

Let me be clear: Analysts differed on several important aspects of these programs and those debates were spelled out in the estimate. They never said there was an imminent threat.

Bush would have done well not to make that distinction, since it is the difference between a just war and "Due to the speculative nature of preventive war, in which the adversary may or may not be a future threat, preventive war is considered an act of aggression in international law"

If there is not an 'imminent threat' it is a "Preventive war", which is illegal.

And now Bush has taken his doctrine to a whole new level by attacking what he has said is a sovereign, democratically elected, ally in the war on terror.

Preemptive war v. Preventive war.
This is not just semantics, it is the definition of the difference between a international war crime of aggression and defending your country against an imminent threat.



(h/t to The Vidiot for the inspiration for this post.)



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

What, My Lai!?

When I first saw this on August 22nd I thought the US & NATO were probably lying:

Coalition forces said 30 militants had been killed in an air strike in Shindand district in the early hours of yesterday and no further air strikes had been launched.

Air strikes were called between 1am and 2am after Afghan and coalition soldiers were ambushed while on a patrol targeting a known Taliban commander in Herat, the US military said.

"Insurgents engaged the soldiers from multiple points . . . using small-arms and [rocket-propelled grenades]," it said.

But Afghans and the UN said

Afghan officials said Thursday that a deadly U.S.-led special forces raid on a remote western village last week was based on misleading information provided by a rival clan.

It was the latest twist in a tangled debate over what happened. U.N. officials say the raid killed up to 90 civilians, most of them children.

The Pentagon pushed back:

Pentagon disputes reports of 90 Afghan civilians killed in US airstrike

A Pentagon inquiry has found that a controversial US airstrike in Afghanistan resulted in only five civilians deaths, not the 90 deaths reported by Afghan and UN officials.

And what 'investigation' did those Pentagonal folks do? They relied on Ollie North, embedded with the troops as a journalist for Faux Noose, for corroboration of their fiction. (Yes, that's the oliver north, international drug dealer, arms trader to Iran and traitor to the US Constitution.)

For awhile it was a he said/she said with the US gov't playing the role of 'I didn't hit her and if I did she had it coming' and the Afghan civilians and the UN saying "92 were killed, including as many as 60 children."

And now we have camera phone stills and video of the aftermath of this massacre:

Harrowing video film backs Afghan villagers' claims of carnage caused by US troops

As the doctor walks between rows of bodies, people lift funeral shrouds to reveal the faces of children and babies, some with severe head injuries.

Women are heard wailing in the background. “Oh God, this is just a child,” shouts one villager. Another cries: “My mother, my mother.”

The grainy video eight-minute footage, seen exclusively by The Times, is the most compelling evidence to emerge of what may be the biggest loss of civilian life during the Afghanistan war.

These are the images that have forced the Pentagon into a rare U-turn. Until yesterday the US military had insisted that only seven civilians were killed in Nawabad on the night of August 21.
[...]
The villagers’ accounts have been supported by separate investigations conducted by the UN, by Afghanistan’s leading human rights organisation and by an Afghan government delegation. Two Afghan army officers involved in the operation have been dismissed.

The Pentagon’s original investigation concluded last week that US forces used close air support after coming under heavy fire during a mission to seize a Taleban commander named Mullah Sadiq. They allege that he died in the operation.

The US military said that its findings were corroborated by an independent journalist embedded with the US force. He was named as the Fox News correspondent Oliver North, who came to prominence in the 1980s Iran-Contra affair, when he was an army colonel.

Sources close to one of the investigations said that a video film was shot by Afghan officials the morning after the attack. It corroborates the doctor’s footage but has not been made public.

In a statement released on Saturday, the commander of Nato forces, General David McKiernan, appeared to back away from previous US accounts. He said: “Following the recent operation in Azizabad, Shindand district, we realise there is a large discrepancy between the number of civilian casualties reported by soldiers and local villagers.

Yeah, it's not lying, it's not a war crime, it just a discrepancy.

A discrepancy that just happens to happen over and over and over.

Maybe it's just me, but I think a discrepancy is when your checkbook is off by a few cents from your bank balance. It's a war crime when you massacre 60 children and 32+ of their elders.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Into the valley of Death, Rode the six five hundred.

500th U.S. service member dies in Afghanistan

[...]
Twenty-two U.S. service members were killed in Afghanistan in August, part of a recent increase in American deaths there. In June, 28 U.S. service members died in Afghanistan -- the United States' highest one-month total in that country.

Including deaths from the United States' coalition partners, 46 service members were killed in August, equaling the coalition total for June. Forty-six is the highest one-month total for coalition forces.

But that's just 'us', what about 'them'?

UN backs Afghan civilian deaths claims

The US-led coalition has acknowledged that five civilians - two women and three children - were killed in the air strikes in Herat.

An Afghan investigation has already found that the strikes killed 90 civilians.

Now the human rights team with the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan says it has found convincing evidence that 90 civilians were killed in the attack, including 60 children.

It shouldn't need repeating, but as I've said before, if you use air strikes in a civilian populated area to kill alleged extremists ... let's just say the cure is worse than the disease.

Here's a math question: How many lives of innocent civilians are worth the life of a 'terrorist?' Follow up: How many 'terrorists' are created from their surviving family members when you kill innocent people?
Your time is up, put down your pencils. (Note to Bushco; next time show work.)

While Americans, and our media, are distracted by the dog & pony donkey & elephant show this is a reminder of the blood that's shed for their bread & circuses.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

You're Out of Touch, Were Out of Time

The fiction:

Bush points to signs that economy is on upswing

The facts:

Study: Bankruptcies soar for senior citizens
Rate falling for those under 55 while many elderly retire with debt
[...]
The older the age group, the worse it got — people 65 and up became more than twice as likely to file during that period, and the filing rate for those 75 and older more than quadrupled.

July incomes drop by largest amount in 3 years

Personal incomes plunged in July while consumer spending slowed significantly as the impact of billions of dollars in government rebate checks began to wane.

The Commerce Department reported Friday that personal incomes fell by 0.7 percent in July, the biggest drop in nearly three years and a far larger decline than the 0.1 percent decrease that analysts had expected.

Fannie, Freddie Slip After Key Gains

When shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dropped sharply yesterday, it marked a sour end to an otherwise unusually upbeat week for the ailing giants of mortgage finance.
[...]
But yesterday Fannie's shares fell 14 percent to close at $6.84 and Freddie's fell 15 percent to $4.51, a reminder that the companies face significant tests in reviving their financial health and restoring investor confidence.

The sell-off came with news that the Bank of China reduced its exposure to Fannie and Freddie's debt by 29 percent over the past two months.

Yep, sounds like an upswing to me![/snark]

On the positive side, rich people got even richer!



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

It doesn't matter who votes that counts.It's who counts the votes

Ohio Voting Machines Contained Programming Error That Dropped Votes

[...]
The problem was identified after complaints from Ohio elections officials following the March primary there, but the logic error that is the root of the problem has been part of the software for 10 years, said Chris Riggall, a spokesman for Premier Election Solutions, formerly known as Diebold.

Well, if Diebold say it's true it must be true.

But wait, if you call now there's more!

Sarasota told of new voting machine glitch

Sarasota County’s new voting machines have a programming glitch that could cause votes to be lost on Election Day, the company [Diebold] that makes the system says.

So Diebold admitted the problem has been happening for 10 years.

Hmm, Florida, Ohio, what do those states have in common? ... ... ... Oh yeah, I remember, they decided the last 2 elections for the pResident!

And if you act now Bushco will also certify elections in countries we occupy!

Iraqi elections official fears fair vote in jeopardy

Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Drill Here, Drill Now!?

U.S. oil firms seek drilling access, but exports soar

[...]
The White House said it was against requiring U.S. oil products to stay at home.

"Forbidding exports of U.S. petroleum reduces the incentive for domestic suppliers to produce, and could potentially lead to higher prices if U.S. production or refining declined," said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.

The 1.6 million barrels a day in record petroleum exports represented 9 percent of total U.S. refining capacity of 17.6 million barrels a day.

However, with refiners operating at 85 percent of capacity during the January-April period, the shipments represented a much a larger share of total U.S. oil products produced.

The exports were also equal to half the 3.2 million barrels of gasoline, diesel fuel and other petroleum products the United States imported each day over the 4-month period.

Ummm, maybe I'm missing something here but it seems we can reduce our dependency by half on foreign oil by just not exporting ours!?

WTF!?



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Git mo' Justice

So Hamdan, 'worst of the worst', the 'sexiest prosecution' that was ordered just in time for the election cycle, the 1st man to be rushed to trial in Gitmo ... gets 5 months. (Not that Bushco will actually let him go, even if they applauded the 'fair trial.')

In a trial where the prosecution gets to present 'evidence' obtained thru torture, gets to use secret evidence the defense can't see, has a jury of 6 US Military officers, (out of a pool of 13), and only has to have a two thirds majority for a guilty verdict finds Hamdan guilty ... and hands down a 5 month sentence.

[snark]Woo-hoo, the system works![/snark]

Aside from that, this little tidbit regarding the Hamdan verdict stood out to me:

Defense lawyers said that ever since Hamdan was designated in July 2003 to face one of the very first trials, he had been separated from other detainees, in virtual solitary confinement with long periods of no sunshine.

Prosecutors and prison camps officials say there is no such thing as solitary confinement at Guantánamo.

"no such thing as solitary confinement at Guantánamo." WTF!? USA: Guantánamo Bay - New report shows 80% of detainees in solitary confinement



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak