My New Name For A Blog

What Digby Said:

There was a time when the Village clucked and screeched about "defiling the white house" with an extra marital affair or hosting fund raising coffees. I would say this leaves a far greater stain on that institution than any sexual act could ever do. They did this in your name, Americans.

The vice president, national security advisor and members of the president's cabinet sat around the white house "choreographing" the torture and the president approved it. I have to say that even in my most vivid imaginings about this torture scheme it didn't occur to me that the highest levels of the cabinet were personally involved (except Cheney and Rumsfeld, of course) much less that we would reach a point where the president of the United States would shrug his shoulders and say he approved. I assumed they were all vaguely knowledgeable, some more than others, but that they would have done everything in their power to keep their own fingerprints off of it. But no. It sounds as though they were eagerly involved, they all signed off unanimously and thought nothing of it.

Naturally, the saintly General C. Lukewarm Powell was his usual evasive self when asked about it. (And if I hear one more person say he should be on the Democratic ticket I'm going to have an aneurysm):

Powell said that he didn't have "sufficient memory recall" about the meetings and that he had participated in "many meetings on how to deal with detainees." Powell said, "I'm not aware of anything that we discussed in any of those meetings that was not considered legal."

The Attorney General(!) also present and approving, was concerned that this was being done inside the white house:

Then-Attorney General Ashcroft was troubled by the discussions. He agreed with the general policy decision to allow aggressive tactics and had repeatedly advised that they were legal. But he argued that senior White House advisers should not be involved in the grim details of interrogations, sources said.

According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly."

That's what passes for integrity in the Bush white house.

He's certainly right about history not judging this kindly. Neither would a war crimes tribunal.


Derrick Jensen has a wonderful piece that he does about a time when he was still reluctant to use the word "apocalypse" to describe what's happening to our environment. A friend asked him, "What would it take for you to use that word? Would it take chemicals in the breast milk of every mother on the planet? We're there. Would it take dead zones in the Pacific Ocean? We're there. Would it take the extinction of carrier pigeons who were once so plentiful they darkened the skies? We're there. Would it take polar bears dying because they can't swim far enough to find the increasingly-scarce ice floats? We're there." And on an on.

I wonder what it will take for Americans to break themselves away from American Idol and Dancing With The Stars and America's Next Supermodel and take to the streets demanding consequences for this evil junta. Would it take the death of habeas corpus? We're there. Would it take warrantless domestic spying (almost certainly used on the media and Democrats)? We're there. Would it take lying the country into an illegal and immoral war that drained our economy of so much money that we had to go hat in hand to the Communist Chinese and look the other way while they slaughter Tibetan monks? We're there. Would it take the president of the United States of America shrugging and saying, "Well of course we discussed the sickening, obscene details of how to torture people"? Because, well, because we're there.

And People Wonder Why I Drink

Still processing an awful lot of the information from EschaCon II. I'd list the wonderful people I met, but I'd be sure to leave someone out, due, entirely, to my own Stoli-soaked brain. All of the panels were wonderful and any one of them could easily have been a full-day event. But one that really stands out for me was the lunchtime panel on Creating Constitutional Accountability. The panelists were Scott Horton, Bob Fertik (moderator), Kagro X, and Eric Johnson (Chief of Staff, Rep, Robert Wexler). Their message would have sobered up a six-day drunk on a ten-day bender.

Eric Johnson was an incredibly nice guy and one who's heart is really in the right place. But he said things that just made me want to take a hostage. He kept describing how the Bush junta would break a law, throw the Dems up against the chain link fence at the back of the schoolyard, pants them, make them hand over their lunch money, and then say, "What are you going to do about it, punk? Cry to your mommy?" and then the Dems would solemnly go, "Oh, no Mr. Bully. I'm brave. I'll never go cry to my mommy. Would you like my new baseball glove?" Sweet Lilith on a laptop, am I supposed to be impressed that, after Bush tore up the Constitution, turned it into a paper mache dildo, and fucked the Statue of Liberty in the ass with it, the Dems finally screwed their courage to the sticking point and managed to censure his AG or something? Oooh, censure. I'm sure that scared Bush and Cheney to fucking death. No, I'm not. I'm sure they almost killed themselves laughing, though.

Mr. Johnson took a question from the audience about why Nancy Pelosi took impeachment "off the table." He explained that, before the 2004 election, when the Dems weren't sure that they'd re-take the House, the Republicans said that, if the Dems won, they'd spend all their time impeaching Bush. So Nancy promised not to do that. Great. Way to get played. D'ja ever think that may have been their precise goal, Nancy? And we all know the Dems have done so much other v. effective shit since then. No. It's win/win for the Republicans. Do the Democrats ALWAYS have to let the other side frame the debate?

The straw that broke my back came when, at the end of the panel discussion about just how many laws the Bush junta has broken and how abjectly the Dems have stood by and allowed that to go on and on and on after the Republicans IMPEACHED THE LAST DEM PRESIDENT FOR GETTING A GODDAMN BLOWJOB ABOUT WHICH NO FUCKING SANE PERSON IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE GIVES A FLYING FRAP, Mr. Johnson began to list for us some of the legislation the Dems are introducing that would (except for the fact that the Republicans and the Blue Dog Democrats will never allow it to pass) basically make it illegal for the president to ignore the law.

Dude. Sit down. Take a deep breath. Another one. One more. Good. Ok, now focus. (/Makes two-fingered "points to my eyes/points to your eyes" gesture over and over.) Listen to me. I'm your friend. If the entire problem, as you and your fellow panelists just spent an hour proving, is that Republicans ignore the law at will, passing more laws is -- I'm going to put this gently -- NOT THE FUCKING GODDESS DAMNED ANSWER. It may make the Dems feel better as they basically piss away our Democracy out of abject fear, but it's no more effective than the kid who just gave away his new baseball mitt daydreaming about the day when he turns into Superman and makes that bully really, really, really sorry. This would all be funny if the Republic weren't at stake.

Don't make me turn you into a newt. If I do, you won't get better.

~Waves Hand In Air. "Oh Ms. Pelosi! Ms. Pelosi! I Have An Idea!"

The Democrats never listen to me, but they could, at one fell swoop, eliminate the pernicious meme that they are "weak on national defense" and get rid of George Bush. Today, it's even more clear than it ever was that Bush has been criminally negligent in his management of the war into which he dragged America.

The NYT reports that the Green Zone is, to be honest, about to fall to Shia militia gunmen. That would be "our" Green Zone, the only safe place in Iraq, many years and billions of dollars after Bush declared "Mission Accomplished."

Iraq’s Prime Minister was staring into the abyss today after his operation to crush militia strongholds in Basra stalled, members of his own security forces defected and district after district of his own capital fell to Shia militia gunmen.

With the threat of a civil war looming in the south, Nouri al-Maliki’s police chief in Basra narrowly escaped assassination in the crucial port city, while in Baghdad, the spokesman for the Iraqi side of the US military surge was kidnapped by gunmen and his house burnt to the ground.

Saboteurs also blew up one of Iraq's two main oil pipelines from Basra, cutting at least a third of the exports from the city which provides 80 per cent of government revenue, a clear sign that the militias — who siphon significant sums off the oil smuggling trade — would not stop at mere insurrection.

Much of Basra's problems can be traced back to Britain’s failure to commit the necessary forces
In Baghdad, thick black smoke hung over the city centre tonight and gunfire echoed across the city.

The most secure area of the capital, Karrada, was placed under curfew amid fears the Mahdi Army of Hojetoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr could launch an assault on the residence of Abdelaziz al-Hakim, the head of a powerful rival Shia governing party.

While the Mahdi Army has not officially renounced its six-month ceasefire, which has been a key component in the recent security gains, on the ground its fighters were chasing police and soldiers from their positions across Baghdad.

Rockets from Sadr City slammed into the governmental Green Zone compound in the city centre, killing one person and wounding several more.

Losing a war ought, by itself, to be enough to get a president impeached. You take our troops to war and lose, you're out. It would make presidents think a bit before putting Americans in harm's way. But the Dems wouldn't have to push that "radical" notion. Bush didn't just lose this war; he lost it due, at least in part, to criminally negligent mismanagement. Case in point:

the NY Times reports that: Col. Abbas al-Tamimi, media officer for the 14th Iraqi Army Division operating in the city, said he expected the fighting to escalate. “The gunmen have heavier and more sophisticated weapons than we have,” he said.

As Atrios, asks, "How'd that happen?" Well, here, from the war Bush lost in Afghanistan because he was so hot to invade Iraq, is a pretty good explanation:

Since 2006, when the insurgency in Afghanistan sharply intensified, the Afghan government has been dependent on American logistics and military support in the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

But to arm the Afghan forces that it hopes will lead this fight, the American military has relied since early last year on a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur.

With the award last January of a federal contract worth as much as nearly $300 million, the company, AEY Inc., which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach, became the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan’s army and police forces.

Since then, the company has provided ammunition that is more than 40 years old and in decomposing packaging, according to an examination of the munitions by The New York Times and interviews with American and Afghan officials. Much of the ammunition comes from the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc, including stockpiles that the State Department and NATO have determined to be unreliable and obsolete, and have spent millions of dollars to have destroyed.

In purchasing munitions, the contractor has also worked with middlemen and a shell company on a federal list of entities suspected of illegal arms trafficking.

Moreover, tens of millions of the rifle and machine-gun cartridges were manufactured in China, making their procurement a possible violation of American law. The company’s president, Efraim E. Diveroli, was also secretly recorded in a conversation that suggested corruption in his company’s purchase of more than 100 million aging rounds in Albania, according to audio files of the conversation.

This week, after repeated inquiries about AEY’s performance by The Times, the Army suspended the company from any future federal contracting, citing shipments of Chinese ammunition and claiming that Mr. Diveroli misled the Army by saying the munitions were Hungarian.

Mr. Diveroli, reached by telephone, said he was unaware of the action. The Army planned to notify his company by certified mail on Thursday, according to internal correspondence provided by a military official.

But problems with the ammunition were evident last fall in places like Nawa, Afghanistan, an outpost near the Pakistani border, where an Afghan lieutenant colonel surveyed the rifle cartridges on his police station’s dirty floor. Soon after arriving there, the cardboard boxes had split open and their contents spilled out, revealing ammunition manufactured in China in 1966. More here.

I'm sorry, but it is criminally negligent for this administration to mismanage the war that way. The Constitution says: Section 4

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States,
shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason,
Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

If this administration's conduct of the war doesn't constitute Treason, and I think that it does, it certainly qualifies as a high Crime and/or Misdemeanor. The Dems ought to start impeachment proceedings tomorrow based upon Bush's mismanagement of the war and let the Republicans filibuster or argue that losing and mismanaging a war aren't impeachable offenses (now, who's weak on defense, assholes?) or argue that Bush hasn't mismanaged the war (which would lead to the introduction of so much evidence of his war profiteering, negligence, wrongheadness, etc. that no Republican, anywhere could get re-elected this Fall).

But they never listen to me.

When An Old Northern Shaman Brings You A Message, You Should Read It

/Hat tip to Thinly Veiled

This Will Be A Political Document Or It Will Not Be Released

"'You don't get it.' " He said a senior official told him that "this will be a political document, or it will not be released."

I've blogged before about the Bush junta's efforts to turn the office of the Surgeon General into yet another tentacle of the Republican National Committee. Today's WaPo provides more details concerning the junta's willingness to put health behind politicls.

A surgeon general's report in 2006 that called on Americans to help tackle global health problems has been kept from the public by a Bush political appointee without any background or expertise in medicine or public health, chiefly because the report did not promote the administration's policy accomplishments, according to current and former public health officials.

The report described the link between poverty and poor health, urged the U.S. government to help combat widespread diseases as a key aim of its foreign policy, and called on corporations to help improve health conditions in the countries where they operate. A copy of the report was obtained by The Washington Post.
. . .

The draft report itself, in language linking public health problems with violence and other social ills, says "we cannot overstate . . . that problems in remote parts of the globe can no longer be ignored. Diseases that Americans once read about as affecting people in regions . . . most of us would never visit are now capable of reaching us directly. The hunger, disease, and death resulting from poor food and nutrition create social and political instability . . . and that instability may spread to other nations as people migrate to survive."

In 65 pages, the report charts trends in infectious and chronic disease; reviews efforts to curb AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria; calls for the careful monitoring of public health to safeguard against bioterrorism; and explains the importance of proper nutrition, childhood immunizations and clean air and water, among other topics. Its underlying message is that disease and suffering do not respect political boundaries in an era of globalization and mass population movements.

Honestly, this ought to enrage every single American, regardless of party affiliation. The Mayberry Machiavelli junta completely fails to understand the difference between the government -- which belongs to the American people -- and the Republican Party. The Republican Senators who stand as a bulwark protecting these criminals from impeachment were so upset over Clinton's "politicization" of the White House travel office -- an office far less important to the health and welfare of America's citizens than the office of the Surgeon General -- that they demanded an investigation and held serious hearings. This is a call to them: you must have a little bit of conscience left inside your party-owned hearts. Stand up for America, for a change.

Impeach Bush and Cheney.

My New Name For A Blog

What Sam the Cat Said.

Move Them Out

Found this great idea over at Furious Spinner. Getting a group together and calling your local media to cover it as you all head down to the post office multiplies the effect exponentially.

Seriously, This Should Lead To Impeachment

Sweet Kali on a croissant, yesterday's testimony from former Surgeon General Carmona would, in a rational universe, be enough, all by itself, to impeach George W. Bush. Carmona, Surgeon General during Bush's first term, testified that:

* He was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches. You know, this is the kind of megalomaniacal, stupid-shit, ignorant, petty rule that only the most deranged of emperors puts in place. Carmona needs to be forced to say who ordered him to do that.

* He was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates. Shades of Lurita Doan, Bush's head of the GSA, who asked her employees "How can we support our candidates in the next election?"

* Bush administration officials discouraged him from attending the Special Olympics because, he said, of that charitable organization’s longtime ties to a “prominent family” that he refused to name. I don't know why he's playing so coy; everyone knows that the family is the Kennedys. I want this incident thrown in the face of all the David Broders of the world who whine about how Democrats need to be "more bipartisan." The Bush administration won't even turn off its relentless politicization of everything to help out retarded kids who want to play softball or run races. I want this incident thrown in the face of every talking head on tv who moans about liberals with their "irrational hatred of Bush."

* He attended a meeting of top officials in which the subject of global warming was discussed. The officials concluded that global warming was a liberal cause and dismissed it, he said. He tried to explain the science to them; he was never invited back. Again, I don't ever want to hear again about "reaching across the aisle" on issues of "common concern." The Republicans' only concern was whether an issue was "liberal" or "conservative" -- the fact that the entire Earth might be at risk was irrelevant. You've really got to stop for a minute and let that sink in.

* When stem cells became a focus of debate, Dr. Carmona said he proposed that his office offer guidance “so that we can have, if you will, informed consent.” “I was told to stand down and not speak about it,” he said. “It was removed from my speeches.” Informed decision making? This junta don't' need no informed decision making! Karl Rove decides that a given position will play well with the irrational, batshit insane, fundie base and that's the end of the matter. Meanwhile, American medicine and research lags behind the rest of the world and other countries patent and profit from new medical discoveries. The Republicans don't care. They care about being in power. Period.

* He wanted to address the controversial topic of sexual education. Scientific studies suggest that the most effective approach includes a discussion of contraceptives. “However there was already a policy in place that did not want to hear the science but wanted to preach abstinence only, but I felt that was scientifically incorrect,” he said. See above re: Rove.

* A surgeon general report on global health was never approved because he refused to sprinkle the report with glowing references to the efforts of the Bush administration.

* A surgeon general report concerning health care in prisons has also never been released. “The correctional health care report is pointing out the inadequacies of health care within our correctional health care system,” he said. “It would force the government on a course of action to improve that.” Because the administration does not want to spend more money on prisoners’ health care, the report has been delayed, Dr. Carmona said. “For us, the science was pretty easy,” he said. “These people go back into the community and take diseases with them.” He added, “This is not about the crime. It’s about protecting the public.” Protecting the public is so low on this administration's list of priorities that it's laughable.

Interestingly, Dr. Carmona described himself as politically naive. He's not the only person chosen by this administration who can be described that way. Remember John J. DiIulio Jr., director of the faith-based office, who eventually accused the the Bush White House with being obsessed politics but dismissive of policy, and slammed them as "Mayberry Machiavellis"? David Kuo, who was deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, later charged much the same thing. You get the impression that naivete was what the Bush administration wanted, especially for positions such as Surgeon General. Let's face it, if they were starting from scratch, Republicans would never even have a Surgeon General. Given, however, that they had to fill the position, they filled it with a naive dupe who would follow their instructions to mention the boyking three times on every page and allow them to use him to mislead the American public. Sometimes, even naive dupes insist on trying to do their actual jobs. In that case, they are never invited back to meetings and are let got at the end of the first term. And, here's how the Bush junta thanks them:

Emily Lawrimore, a White House spokeswoman, said the surgeon general “is the leading voice for the health of all Americans.” “It’s disappointing to us,” Ms. Lawrimore said, “if he failed to use this position to the fullest extent in advocating for policies he thought were in the best interests of the nation.” That's cute; isn't it? Dr. Carmona failed to advocate for policies that would help Americans. Shame on him. The denial of reality is positively breathtaking. The man just testified under oath that when he tried, for example, to advocate for sex education that included information on contraceptives, "there was already a policy in place that did not want to hear the science but wanted to preach abstinence only." When he wanted to release a report that would have prevented released prisoners from spreading AIDS to the general public, the report wasn't released because that might have impacted Paris Hilton's tax cuts. When he wanted to release a report on global health, it was trashcanned because he hadn't sufficiently larded it with praise for Republicans.

Someone impeach Bush and Cheney and do it fast.

January 20, 2009 May Be Too Late

From today's EEI newsletter:

Climate Change Forging Unusual Unity in European Community

American Prospect Co-Editor Robert Kuttner, in an op-ed published by the Boston Globe, said the normally fractious politics of the European Union have turned into cooperation on the issue of climate change: "European governments have invested heavily in alternative energy technologies, and induced utilities to rely increasingly on renewable sources. This not only cuts greenhouse emissions, but produces a market for new technologies, making such nations as Spain and Germany export leaders in advanced windmills and solar panels."

The European focus on climate change has sharpened this decade for four key reasons, Kuttner noted: The Stern report on the financial costs of climate change; "the failure of French and Dutch voters in 2005 to ratify the proposed new EU constitution (which) left Europe's leaders struggling to find a common project to restore momentum and unity, and they found that in climate change; the assumption of the rotating EU presidency this year by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a former minister of environment; and the Bush administration's earlier unwillingness to accept climate change science, "where Europe has earned the right to lead and to relish its leadership."
Boston Globe, op-ed , June 25.

Thanks to the Bush junta's hatred of science, Spain and Germany have jumped ahead of us as producers of windmills and solar panels and Europe has seized the lead on issues of global climate change. America has been harmed in so many ways by this junta. We need to get rid of them now.

Treason Is A High Crime. Impeach Bush Now.

Two months before the Iraq war began, President Bush received detailed and comprehensive secret reports warning him that the likely result of an American-led invasion of Iraq would be increased support for Islamic fundamentalism, deep divisions in Iraqi society, high levels of violent internal conflict, and guerrilla warfare aimed at U.S. forces.

Yet in spite of those analyses, President Bush chose to supress those warnings and conceal that information, and instead he went right on conveying to the American people the absurdly Pollyannaish view of highly questionable and obviously biased sources like Ahmed Chalabi, a convicted felon and known swindler.

~from The Assault on Reason by Al Gore

Worse, he went ahead with his vanity war, which had no justification other than Rove's desire to make Bush a "war president." If there was ever a clearer case for impeachment, I'm unaware of it.

Worse Than A Blowjob

From today's WaPo editorial on the Bush junta's illegal spying on Americans:

IT DOESN'T much matter whether President Bush was the one who phoned Attorney General John D. Ashcroft's hospital room before the Wednesday Night Ambush in 2004. It matters enormously, however, whether the president was willing to have his White House aides try to strong-arm the gravely ill attorney general into overruling the Justice Department's legal views. It matters enormously whether the president, once that mission failed, was willing nonetheless to proceed with a program whose legality had been called into question by the Justice Department. That is why Mr. Bush's response to questions about the program yesterday was so inadequate.

"I'm not going to talk about it," Mr. Bush told reporters at a news conference with departing British Prime Minister Tony Blair. "It's a very sensitive program. I will tell you that, one, the program is necessary to protect the American people, and it's still necessary because there's still an enemy that wants to do us harm."

. . .

These are important topics for public discussion, and if anyone doubts that they can safely be discussed in public, they need look no further than Mr. Comey's testimony. Instead of doing so, Mr. Bush wants to short-circuit that discussion by invoking the continuing danger of al-Qaeda.

. . .

The administration, it appears from Mr. Comey's testimony, was willing to go forward, against legal advice, with a program that the Justice Department had concluded did not "honor the civil liberties of our people." Nor is it clear that Congress was adequately informed. The president would like to make this unpleasant controversy disappear behind the national security curtain. That cannot be allowed to happen.

High crimes and misdemeanors. That's what we impeach presidents for in America: high crimes and misdemeanors. I wish a giant fist would pop out of the sky and bash this tinpot torturer in the mouth every time he tries to misuse the deaths of 3,000 people to justify his high crimes and misdemeanors.

(And Godwin can bite me.)

Freeway Blogger Is My Hero

Just click this link. Just do it.

Impeach!

Freeway Blogger's on a roll. What are you doing this weekend?