Impeach this sneaky bastard already!

On March 1, 1976, in the the wake of the abuses of COINTELPRO being made public after contentious congressional hearings over domestic spying and assassinations, President Ford created an intelligence oversight board of private citizens with top security clearances to rein in abuses and sniff out illegal spying activities. Ford created the Intelligence Oversight Board to serve as a watchdog over spying agencies by executive order to put off an angry congress enacting more sweeping legislation to curtail the activities of the intelligence communities against American citizens. At the time Ford issued the order he told the Congress "I believe [the changes] will eliminate abuses and questionable activities on the part of the foreign intelligence agencies while at the same time permitting them to get on with their vital work of gathering and assessing information."

Thirty two years later - practically to the day - the current occupant signed a super-double-secret executive order gutting the oversight panel and stripping it of authority.

"It's quite clear that the Bush administration officials who were around in the 1970s are settling old scores now. Here they are even preventing oversight within the executive branch. They have closed the books on the post-Watergate era," said Tim Sparapani, senior legislative counsel to the ACLU.

But Bush downsized the board's mandate to be an aggressive watchdog against such problems in an executive order issued on Feb. 29, the eve of the anniversary of the day Ford's order took effect. The White House said the timing of the new order was "purely coincidental.

"Under the old rules, whenever the oversight board learned of intelligence activity that it believed might be "unlawful or contrary to executive order," it had a duty to notify both the president and the attorney general. But Bush's order deleted the board's authority to refer matters to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation, and the new order said the board should notify the president only if other officials are not already "adequately" addressing the problem. (emphasis added)

Bush's order also terminated the board's authority to oversee each intelligence agency's general counsel and inspector general, and it erased a requirement that each inspector general file a report with the board every three months. Now only the agency directors will decide whether to report any potential lawbreaking to the panel, and they have no schedule for checking in.

Two attorneys who have served as deputy and general counsel to the CIA denounced the order, insisting that the board had been reduced to little more than paper-pushers, and that weakening it undermines the public trust. "An organization like this gives some level of comfort that there is an independent review capability. Changes like this appear to water down an organization that contributes to the public's confidence," said the former general counsel.

But gutting intelligence oversight was just the beginning. That executive order, EO 11905, banned assassinations. Yet Bush drew up a list of suspected al Qaeda operatives to be summarily executed.

It is abundantly clear that the people who are around now who were around during Nixon are all sociopaths. They weren't content to count their blessings, thank their lucky stars and slink away in shame to molest the American people no more. No, they weren't content to be thankful they didn't all go to prison. They came back with an agenda, to settle old scores.

It was a mistake to pardon Nixon - and we can't make the same mistake again. The Republic wouldn't survive a third try by these fascist bastards.

It is imperative that we impeach these bastards, before he takes out the pardon pen and blanket-pardons the whole lot of them.

Justice demands public accountability, not weary resignation.

What's not to get?

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Quote of the Day...

“We’ve become so good at this that Missouri politicians could give seminars to Colombian drug lords on how to launder money,” Missouri State Senator Charlie Shields (R-St. Joseph)


So instead of enforcing the rules on campaign contributions, just chuck 'em? Is that really the message that the state lege is trying to send? That is the net effect of a piece of legislation ramrodded through the state Senate by the wingnut "money equals speech" majority on Wednesday. The legislation, sponsored by Shields, removes limits on political contributions in state and local races. Because, according to Shields, the limits had done little to stanch the flow of money and influence. Instead of operating within the rules, they instead encourage fundraisers and politicians to create ways to sidestep the rules. Never mind that they are sticking a thumb in the eye of the voters, who, in 1994 passed the rules into law by a ballot initiative.

Senator Jeff Smith, Democrat of St. Louis, said the entire Senate should be ashamed. “We are inviting powerful special interests to have even greater sway over the policy process than they already do,” Smith said.

An effort to submit the matter to a vote of the people was shot down on a party-line vote, with 20 Republicans overruling 11 Democrats. Republicans also defeated a proposal to delay the repeal until Jan. 1 to avoid changing the rules in the middle of this year’s campaigns.

Instead, the Senate adopted a clause that would make the repeal take effect as soon as the governor signs it, rather than on Aug. 28, shortly after the primary election and just before the start of the fall campaign.

Senators gave the repeal preliminary approval on a voice vote after nearly five hours of debate. It still must receive final Senate approval before going to the House, where it enjoys significant support.

The legislature previously repealed the limits effective Jan. 1, 2007, but the law was thrown out by the state Supreme Court. During six months of unlimited contributions, Gov. Matt Blunt received as much as $300,000 from one Texas couple. Several senators received as much as $40,000 from a single contributor.

C'mon Missouri! This isn't what you had in mind when you elected these jackals to protect you from the non-existent threats of gay marriage, abortion and drivable roads, is it? Have you seen enough of these assholes yet? Can we get a Democratic majority in at least one chamber come November? These greedy Publican bastards simply can't be trusted.

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Better Democrats, Please

Can we get some real Democrats?

Or at least some who know how this game is played?

You see, we are a nation founded on Liberty, but some among us have a pretty screwed up idea of what constitutes Liberty. Unfortunately the poltroons in need of a refresher course are our elected representation.

If they will not hold this administration accountable, they do not represent me.

If they will not make the obstructionist pricks in the GOP actually filibuster a bill, they do not represent me.

If they think they can govern from the center, they do not represent me.

If they will not uphold the Fourth Amendment, they do not represent me.

If they will not uphold the First Amendment, they do not represent me.

If they will not restore Posse Comitatus, they do not represent me.

If they will not restore the Insurrection Acts of 1807, they do not represent me.

If they will not restore Habeas Corpus, they do not represent me.

If they will not revoke torture as official policy of this administration, they do not represent me.

If they will not vote for common-sense troop protections like the Webb Amendment, they do not represent me.

If they compromise on any part of the Constitution, they do not represent me.

If they do not stand up to the Deserter in Chief, they do not represent me.

If they do not take concrete steps to end the occupation of Iraq, they do not represent me.

If they get on board with a decades-long occupation of Iraq, they do not represent me.

If they do not represent me, I will support primary challenges.

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

I was pissed off at the MoveOn ad, too - but not because it offended me. I was pissed off about it because I knew the frothing fuckwits would get worked up into a lather and draw fortification from it, at just a time when the public was getting there on their own.

But once it was out there, it was the job of the Democrats to defend the First Amendment, and ask pointedly "where was the criticism when Kerry was swift-boated and when Cleland was smeared?"

Instead, they lined up to take turns shredding the first amendment. Here is the thing about the First Amendment - it guarantees FREE speech - it does not guarantee that speech will be tasteful, or that no ones feelings will get hurt. It just means that it is FREE.

It means that I can tell Claire McCaskill that she is a disappointment and a disgrace and I am seriously starting to resent all the time that I spent on her campaign.

Fat lot of good it did me, for the way her votes have fallen.

Every single Democrat who has fallen in line needs a primary challenger. The rot in Washington is to the core in both parties. Democrats who won't stand up now need a primary challenge. If you are a Representative who wants to abdicate your responsibility to impeach this criminal administration, you need a primary challenger. If you are a senator who can not defend the Constitution, you need a primary challenger. If you are a Democrat who does not protest the long-term occupation of Iraq, you need a primary challenger.

The answer here is not to fall into an abject funk - it is to get pissed, and stay pissed, all the way from today through the first Tuesday in November 2008.

And I just did something I have never done before. I made a donation to MoveOn. Because they are standing up for free speech and the First Amendment, and besides that, there is the added benefit that it will agitate the fuck out of the squawking chickenhawks on the right. I want feathers to fill the air.

In closing, I want to remind every Democratic politician that elections have consequences - and so do their votes. They need to keep in the front of their mind that a failure to act upon the consequences we hit the Republicans over the head with in 2006 will lead to more consequences. It's called a stiff primary challenger with netroots fundraising support, bitches.

(hat tip to Pale Rider for his help with this post. The closing paragraph is almost all him.)

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"Return on Success"?

Tell these people and their families, who returned all right, but with your feigned success charged at their expense.

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The Rebranding Effort is Under Way

Let me state my position unequivocally to preempt spin. I am not necessarily anti-war across the board, but I am and have always been anti Iraq war. I am as pro-G.I. as you can possibly be, but I am as opposed to Resident Evil and his 'policies' as is possible as well. He is a warmongering toad, and a danger to the Republic.

But the MBA president sure has a good marketing team. The marketing team is so effective that they have convinced staunch withdrawal advocates that another Friedman is called for.

The most vapid bullshit is being repackaged and sold...and Democrats are lining up to buy it. Hillary has been so fished in that she swallowed the hook.

"We've begun to change tactics in Iraq, and in some areas, particularly in Anbar province, it's working," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Monday.

BZZZTTT!!! Wrong! What is happening in Anbar has nothing - nothing - to do with the so-called Surge™/troop buildup and everything to do with deals being struck with Sunni insurgents that involves massive amounts of firearms and ammo. Consider this for a moment: 170 million mostly 9 mil. rounds for Iraq, and stateside our police forces train with paintballs because there is insufficient ammo. (I have been very vocal about pointing out that the Romney boys and the Bush twits are ducking duty, but Chelsea Clinton isn't in uniform either, and if Mommy is going to be a war-monger on the stump, it's only fair to point that out.)

John Edwards called her on it, too. "Senator Clinton's view that the President's Iraq policy is 'working' is another instance of a Washington politician trying to have it both ways," Edwards campaign manager David Bonior said in a statement. "You cannot be for the President's strategy in Iraq but against the war. The American people deserve straight talk and real answers on Iraq, not double-speak, triangulation, or political positioning."

Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.), an Armed Services Committee member seems to get it. "I don't know of anybody who isn't desperately supportive of the military," she said. "People want to say positive things. But it's difficult to say positive things in this environment and not have some snarky apologist for the White House turn it into some clipped phraseology that looks like support for the president's policies." (emphasis mine)

Congress comes back in two weeks, tanned rested and refreshed, having sold out the Fourth Amendment on their way to the beach. But when they come back, they are in for a surprise, because America will be standing watch, silently scrutinizing from the gallery. And it will just get worse for them from there. We, the People, have had it, and we are taking matters into our own hands. On September 4, we begin to stand watch, and on September 21, we observe the first Iraq Moratorium Day.

Participate, people. Be a worthy descendant to the founders who put it all on the line to give us a Republic that these fools have pissed away.

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We need some new rules

For starters, we need to rename our policy institutes to more accurately reflect the product that comes out of those fever-swamps. They push agendas, reality be damned and critical thinking be suspended.

When agenda-whoring is the major gist, call them what they are – Belief Tanks. And call their "analysts" what they are, too – Agenda Whores.

With September looming, and the true believers having difficulty moving the goalposts to November, the Idiots from Brookings™ are back. Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack take to the op-ed pages of the New York Times today to proclaim that “we are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms.”

O’Hanlon and Pollack bill themselves “as two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq.” They are very quick to point out that they are ‘two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq’ but they fail to mention that they were frothing hawks who poo-pooed those of us who were fucking right before hand. Pollack wrote an entire damned book layuing out “the case for invading Iraq,” and took the case for war to the Cheetos-and-Hot Pockets crowd on Oprah in 2002, where he enthusiastically beat the war drum and pushed the false intelligence about Iraq as justification to war.

O’Hanlon is nearly as odious as Pollack. He has shared Pollack’s zeal for war with Iraq. Prior to the invasion, he predicted a “a rapid and decisive” victory. Now, he is intent on flipping war critics to the “surge supporters” column, and his plans revolve around a long-term occupation.

Now that these pathetic fools who have been wrong around everything are back from another “fact finding” trip to Iraq, they are off on a PR junket touting “stay the course.” This weekend on CNN, the hapless O’Hanlon claimed that the war “is going brilliantly at this point.”

CNN correspondent Arwa Damon refuted his claim in an interview with Tom Foreman: .

FOREMAN: Arwa, is there a sense in Baghdad on the ground that that’s exactly what’s happening?

ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Tom, actually not when you speak to the Iraqi people. In fact, most of those that I’ve spoken to will not really say that they feel that the situation is getting better. Remember, they’re not measuring their own security in terms of numbers of U.S. casualties or numbers of bodies that were found unidentified throughout the entire capital. They are measuring their sense of whether or not things are getting better by the level of comfort with which they can leave their homes. For most Iraqis, they are still just as petrified of falling victim of sectarian violence or any other sort of attack that could take place in the capital today as they were before the surge began.

O’Hanlon breathlessly points to some non-existent metrics to bolster his puffery and support for this failed war:

He is excited about the delivery of “basic services — electricity, fuel, clean water and sanitation — to the people,” and he sings Hosannas to the ‘reliability‘ of Iraqi security forces, and he is simply wide-eyed over “how well the coalition’s new Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams are working.”

Too bad none of these things that have him so tickled are actually, you know, happening the way he says. In reality, residents of Baghdad now get only one or two hours of electricity each day, the Iraqi security forces are deserting in large numbers, and reconstruction has stalled.

Only a died-in-the-wool idiot would look to these never-right morons for advice.

So I guess they find a ready audience in aWol.

[H/T Think Progress & Glenn Greenwald]

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Calm down everyone...Ashcroft is not a moderate!!!

If anyone had told me five years ago that people on the left would be not merely defending John Ashcroft, but pining for the days when he was the Attorney General, I would quite possibly done myself an injury, so raucous would the laughter have been. And as soon as it subsided, I would have initiated the steps to start your involuntary commitment to a secure mental health facility.

So what did he do that is so rare and unique, that has his former political opponents fawning all over him like he was the second coming? He upheld the rule of law and the Constitution when he was the Attorney General.

That we are all gaga at the very notion is a sad commentary indeed on the tenure of the hapless, inept Gonzo.

Pardon me, but I’m supposed to get all atwitter about this? About the fact that the cabinet level appointment constitutionally charged with overseeing the Constitution actually drew the line somewhere short of total Constitutional abrogation?

Is the bar really that low after two years of the feckless and faithless Alberto Gonzales? I am afraid the answer to that query is a resounding “yes.”

Before we enshrine the portrait of John Ashcroft with a square halo on the stationery of the ACLU, let’s remember that Ashcroft oversaw the widest expansion of government power over the lives of ordinary Americans than this country has ever witnessed.

He was a primary force behind the USA Patriot Act, which was used to snoop into the lives and reading habits of ordinary Americans. In the days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 he pushed the INS to use their power to deport foreigners, and he cast the die for the “harsh treatment” of detainees – who had no rights to due process, thanks to Ashcroft.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, John Ashcroft was willing to err on the side of public safety at the expense of the Constitution and diminish our Civil Liberties to a footnote.

Begging John Ashcroft’s forgiveness for all the mean things you said about him is not the appropriate reaction here. The appropriate response is outrage at the perfidy of the Gonzales department of injustice. Outrage that the department has been so sullied by his banality and fecklessness that his predecessor – John Ashcroft!!! – looks like a card-carrying member of the ACLU by contrast…

[Cross-posted from Blue Girl, Red State]

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Reining in a Rogue Elephant

To my (admittedly wonkish) way of thinking, the most exciting RSS feed these days is the one coming from Representative Waxman’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Representative Waxman and the Oversight Committee today (Monday, March 26, 2007) informed both the Republican National Committee and the Chairman of the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign that they are not to destroy any email records they may be in possession of, in light of the evidence that certain high-ranking public officials (*cough* Karl Rove *cough*) have used non-official email servers to conduct the business of the government and avoid scrutiny and transparency in government affairs, and have most likely acted in ways that violate the Presidential Records Act.

One thing is for certain – the mendacity and hubris of this administration is staggering. If their actions were not so consequential for the rest of us, it would almost be funny – but as that is not the case, they are simply appalling on an epic scale.

[Cross-posted from Blue Girl, Red State]

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