A Spork in the Drawer

Send Karl Rove To Jail

The latest from Brave New Films:

You can sign the petition here.

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Interesting

Expect this to disappear down the memory hole:

Stephen Payne, who claims to have raised more than $1m for the president’s Republican party in recent years, said he would arrange meetings with Dick Cheney, the vice-president, Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, and other senior officials in return for a payment of $250,000 (£126,000) towards the library in Texas.

Payne, who has accompanied Bush and Cheney on several foreign trips, also said he would try to secure a meeting with the president himself.

[...]

Asked by an undercover reporter who the politician would be able to meet for that price, Payne said: “Cheney’s possible, definitely the national security adviser [Stephen Hadley], definitely either Dr Rice or . . . I think a meeting with Dr Rice or the deputy secretary [John Negroponte] is possible . . .

What's more, the whole proposed transaction is on video (which can be seen at the link).

[insert 'imagine if a democrat had done this' comment]

The fish rots from the head first.

[Via Majikthise.]

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FISA

The Senate voted for cloture on the making-illegal-things-legal FISA bill yesterday by a vote of 80-15. The fifteen heroes:

Biden (D-DE)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Dodd (D-CT)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Harkin (D-IA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schumer (D-NY)
Wyden (D-OR)

Senator and presumptive Democratic nominee for president Barack Obama skipped the vote but said:

The bill has changed. So I don't think the security threats have changed, I think the security threats are similar. My view on FISA has always been that the issue of the phone companies per se is not one that overrides the security interests of the American people. (Video at link.)

Which leads to this:

'nuff said.

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"Policy Mistakes"

In a column about the Senate Armed Services Committee report which demonstrated that orders to use torture - excuse me, harsh interrogation techniques - on suspected terrorists came from the top the LATimes' Tim Rutten writes:

As the Washington Post reported Tuesday, however, documents and e-mails collected by investigators for the Armed Services Committee show that officials working for then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld began their research into waterboarding, stress positions, sensory deprivation and other practices as far back as July 2002, months before military commanders began asking for permission.

Rutten seems to be fairly appalled by the actions of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Yoo, and Addington - he doesn't mention George, however - even going so far as to say, "The fact that these guys seem to have defined executive branch power as the ability to hold people in secret and torture them pushes the creepy quotient into areas that probably require psychoanalytic credentials."

But then Rutten concludes:

Part of the hysteria over all this that you see in places like the Wall Street Journal editorial pages stems from an anxiety that congressional inquiries, like that of Levin's committee, will lead to indictments and possibly even war crimes trials for officials who participated in the administration's deliberations over torture and the treatment of prisoners.

It's true that there are a handful of European rights activists and people on the lacy left fringe of American politics who would dearly like to see such trials, but actually pursuing them would be a profound -- even tragic -- mistake. Our political system works as smoothly as it does, in part, because we've never criminalized differences over policy. Since Andrew Jackson's time, our electoral victors celebrate by throwing the losers out of work -- not into jail cells.

So after condemning a policy of torture - and Rutten could have written about so many more illegal acts committed by the administration (illegal spying, destruction of evidence, violations of the Espionage Act...the list goes on) his preferred punishment for these criminals is...comfortable retirement.

No doubt the Kool Kidz of our benighted punditocracy are all nodding their oversized heads in agreement. Should President Obama and his Attorney General John Edwards - let's say - investigate and prosecute these crimes Rutten and his pals would unleash a firestorm of condemnation which would cripple the new administration.

And then, some years in the future, when another president repeats and even expands on these crimes the Ruttens of the country will shake their heads sadly then seek to dismiss concerns.

Unless, of course, another president is caught getting a blow-job. That sort of thing threatens our whole Constitutional system.

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Thievery Is In Her Blood

For the second time Cindy McCain is caught stealing a recipe, this time from Hershey's.

I suppose that's better than stealing Percocet and Vicodin but still.

Imagine the uproar if Michelle Obama or any other Democratic had such sticky fingers.

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Regrets

George assesses his own rhetoric:

"I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric," Bush told the Times as he flew across the Atlantic on Air Force One.

The phrases he used to win support for the war such as "bring 'em on" and "dead or alive" he said, "indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace."

Or how about, "Fuck Saddam. We’re taking him out.” Gosh, and now he regrets using such bellicose language. I'm sure the 4,000+ dead Americans, 600,000+ dead and 3,000,000+ displaced Iraqis are shrugging and saying, "Hey, it happens. don't beat yourself up."

But then there's always lying:

"One of the untold stories of Iraq is that we explored the diplomacy a lot," he said. "We all wanted to solve this 'disclose, disarm, or face serious consequences' in a diplomatic fashion. After all, I went to the United Nations security council."

Sorry, George, that legacy your so worried about is already set and statements like this won't change reality.

Finally, George denies that he's lame duck:

"There's plenty of energy on the democracy agenda, the freedom agenda, right now," he said.

This can't be considered as anything but a sick joke.

222 days.

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Rat Leaves Ship

Discovers that water is wet.

When the most servile of Bush toadies turns the end in truly nigh.

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Dripping With Irony

Happy Law Day, USA!

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, in accordance with Public Law 87-20, as amended, do hereby proclaim May 1, 2008, as Law Day, U.S.A. I call upon all the people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies and activities. I also call upon Government officials to display the flag of the United States in support of this national observance.

To compound the irony:

On Law Day, U.S.A., our Nation celebrates our belief in the equality of each person before God and renews our commitment to strive to bring America ever closer to its founding ideals.

I thought we had a belief in the equality of each person before the law. Apparently it's all about some deity. Who knew?

Nearly 800 years ago, the Magna Carta placed the authority of government under the rule of law[.]

Would this be the same Magna Carta from which we derived Habeas Corpus? You know, the right that we no longer have? That Magna Carta? Or is there another one of which I'm unaware?

[Via TPM.]

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Proud To Be An American

Aside from starting wars we have another exemplary talent:

The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.

Indeed, the United States leads the world in producing prisoners, a reflection of a relatively recent and now entirely distinctive American approach to crime and punishment. Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.

Criminologists and legal scholars in other industrialized nations say they are mystified and appalled by the number and length of American prison sentences.

Once upon a time the US had a prison system admired and studied around the world. Today?

“Far from serving as a model for the world, contemporary America is viewed with horror,” James Q. Whitman, a specialist in comparative law at Yale, wrote last year in Social Research. “Certainly there are no European governments sending delegations to learn from us about how to manage prisons.”

One reason, of course, is that we're a very violent society - violent crimes are quadruple that of Western Europe. But another reason is that we chuck people in prison for even relatively minor offenses:

People who commit nonviolent crimes in the rest of the world are less likely to receive prison time and certainly less likely to receive long sentences. The United States is, for instance, the only advanced country that incarcerates people for minor property crimes like passing bad checks, Mr. Whitman wrote.

And, it should go without saying, we have the War on Drugs™ about which which one critic says, "The U.S. pursues the war on drugs with an ignorant fanaticism."

So what is it that leads to especially punitive and long prison sentences? One idea:

Mr. Whitman, who has studied Tocqueville’s work on American penitentiaries, was asked what accounted for America’s booming prison population.

“Unfortunately, a lot of the answer is democracy — just what Tocqueville was talking about,” he said. “We have a highly politicized criminal justice system.”

Left unsaid is that if judicial punishment is subject to the whims of popular opinion it ceases to be justice and becomes merely revenge - the opposite of justice.

And another point left unsaid: Profit. With the rise of privatized prisons any reduction in inmates necessarily means a reduction in corporate profits. This being the United States we simply can't have that, can we? So it's only good business sense to lock people up.

It's the American Way.

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Natural Born Killers

Future fun:

The Army and Marine Corps are allowing convicted felons to serve in increasing numbers, newly released Department of Defense statistics show.

Recruits were allowed to enlist after having been convicted of crimes including assault, burglary, drug possession and making terrorist threats.

And just think a few years down the road when some of these fellas, newly taught in the ways of war, try to reenter civilian life.

He said the Army never issues waivers for some types of offenses, including sexual violence, alcoholism and drug trafficking.

That's good to know.

And if the pool of "qualified" criminals isn't big enough there's always an old favorite:

The Army has accelerated its policy of involuntary extensions of duty to bolster its troop levels, despite Defense Secretary Robert Gates' order last year to limit it, Pentagon records show.

Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) is unhappy about this and proposes a solution:

Shays said the nation needs a bigger Army. In the meantime, he urges the Pentagon to press more personnel from the Air Force and Navy into Army jobs.

When that doesn't produce a satisfactory result no doubt Shays will call for the deployment of the Coast Guard, Merchant Marine, and Cub Scouts.

Or perhaps he could get behind some plan to extricate the troops as quickly and as orderly as possible.

Nah.

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Condiliar

New from Robert Greenwald:

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"Not Taken Up"

Poor, poor Alberto abu Ghraib Guantanamo Gonzales:

Alberto R. Gonzales, like many others recently unemployed, has discovered how difficult it can be to find a new job. Mr. Gonzales, the former attorney general, who was forced to resign last year, has been unable to interest law firms in adding his name to their roster, Washington lawyers and his associates said in recent interviews.

He has, through friends, put out inquiries, they said, and has not found any takers. What makes Mr. Gonzales’s case extraordinary is that former attorneys general, the government’s chief lawyer, are typically highly sought.

[...]

“Maybe the passage of time will provide some opportunity for him,” said one Washington lawyer who was aware of an inquiry to his firm from a Gonzales associate. “I wouldn’t say ‘rebuffed,’ ” said the lawyer, who asked his name not be used because the situation being described was uncomfortable for Mr. Gonzales. “I would say ‘not taken up.’ ”

Perhaps his next job will be making license plates whilst wearing prison stripes.

A boy can dream, can't he?

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The Wit And Wisdom Of Dick Cheney

After more than five years (and counting) and the deaths of more than 4,000 (and counting) American troops and hundreds of thousands (and counting) Iraqis just who does Dick feel sorry for?

The president carries the biggest burden, obviously[.]

So?

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The Dog Ate The Computer Drives

A likely story:

Older White House computer hard drives have been destroyed, the White House disclosed to a federal court Friday in a controversy over millions of possibly missing e-mails from 2003 to 2005.

[...]

"When workstations are at the end of their lifecycle and retired ... the hard drives are generally sent offsite to another government entity for physical destruction," the White House said in a sworn declaration filed with U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola.

How convenient.

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Remember Scooter?

Convicted criminal and "Loyal Dicky" Irving Lewis Scooter Libby disbarred.

No doubt a presidential pardon this December will make it all better.

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Schadenfreude II

They've become so used to thievery that they're now stealing from themselves. I speak, of course, of the Republicans:

In the tiny world of people who keep the books for Washington's multitude of political committees, Christopher J. Ward was considered the Republican "gold standard," in the words of a former co-worker -- one of the few people with so much expertise in election law that everyone wanted Ward's services.

The quiet workaholic is listed as treasurer for 83 GOP fundraising committees over the past eight years, according to Federal Election Commission records. In the past five years alone, he oversaw the accounting for committees that raised more than $400 million, $368 million of it at the National Republican Congressional Committee, according to a Washington Post review of those records.

But in late January, Ward, 39, was dismissed as the NRCC announced that it had found financial "irregularities" that "may include fraud." The FBI is investigating what appears to be "a significant amount of money" missing from the House Republican fundraising arm, according to a law enforcement official.

Shockingly, one Republican actually says something intelligent:

"The House Republican brand is so bad right now that if it were a dog food, they'd take it off the shelf," said retiring Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (Va.), who chaired the NRCC for four years earlier this decade.

That leads me to suggest a new motto for the Republican Party: "The Made-in-China of American Politics."

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Never At Fault

So former Assistant Secretary of Defense Doug Feith, a/k/a "The Stupidest Fucking Guy on the Planet", has written a book about his tenure at the Pentagon.

Shocking revelation: The mess in Iraq is everybody's fault but his own.

As I said, shocking!

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Fun But Meaningless News

Stay out of Vermont, George and Dick:

Voters in two Vermont towns on Tuesday approved a measure that would instruct police to arrest President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for "crimes against our Constitution," local media reported.

The nonbinding, symbolic measure, passed in Brattleboro and Marlboro in a state known for taking liberal positions on national issues, instructs town police to "extradite them to other authorities that may reasonably contend to prosecute them."

It would be nice if someday before too long the Administration was held responsible for their crime but, hey, you know it's never going to happen.

Helluva country we live in.

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Another Day...

...another Republican criminal:

Republican Rep. Rick Renzi has been indicted for extortion, wire fraud, money laundering and other charges related to a land deal in Arizona.

But wait, there's more! Via Laura Rozen, Renzi has a mysterious background:

For a national political figure who served on the powerful House Intelligence Committee, Renzi's background is, as described by Wikipedia, "unclear."

[...]

Exactly what Renzi did for the next two decades is blurry. He has said he worked overseas for the Defense Department, but research turned up no information on which agency, where he was assigned or what duties he had.

Gee, do ya think Renzi might have been/might be a spook?

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The Fourth Branch Strikes Again

An unaccountable power unto himself:

Vice President Cheney signed on to a brief filed by a majority of Congress yesterday that urged the Supreme Court to uphold a ruling that the District of Columbia's handgun ban is unconstitutional, breaking with his own administration's official position.

[...]

In order to make his dramatic break with the administration, Cheney invoked his rarely used status as part of Congress, joining the brief as "President of the United States Senate, Richard B. Cheney." It is a position he has used at times to make the point that he is sometimes part of the legislative branch and sometimes part of the executive.

So now Defib Dick's megalomania has reached the point that he's working against the administration. He's publicly castrated George.

At 12:01pm (EST), 20 January, 2009, President Obama or President Clinton should announce that he/she has seized the passports of George and Dick and are opening wide-ranging investigations into their actions for the previous eight years.

It won't happen but a boy can dream, can't he?

[Via Think Progress.]

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On Learning From Experience

Or not:

"The President has made the right decisions for the right reasons and he always reflected the values of the American people," Cheney declared, "Would I support those same decisions today? You're damn right I would."

The crowd was adoring. There was a standing ovation as Cheney entered, and a woman shouting: "We Love You!" Attendees clamored for a good "Cheney shot," with one young conservative pumping his fist after catching an unobstructed wide lens take of the Vice President on his camera.

Here's an exclusive picture of Cheney addressing the CPAC rally:

Another nugget of wisdom from Dick:

"The freedoms we enjoy, the rights we exercise, all the privileges we have in this country - none of them can be taken for granted."

Do you detect a not-so-subtle threat in there?

[Via Think Progress.]

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ADDED: They're flippin' delusional:

Bush spoke to a boisterous crowd shortly after 7 a.m. EST. The ballroom erupted in cheers when someone shouted "Are there conservatives in the house?" When the president walked on stage, they clapped and chanted "Four more years! Four more years!" They cheered his comments on tax relief, the military buildup in Iraq, the Reagan years and his opposition to abortion. They booed when Bush said his critics want to expand the size and scope of the federal government.

Talk about a cult of personality.

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You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Nothing surprises anymore:

Paul D. Wolfowitz, who resigned as World Bank chief after serving as second-in-command at the Pentagon, has returned to the Bush administration, albeit in an advisory role. From a short news release put out this afternoon:

The Department of State is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Paul Wolfowitz as the Chairman of the Secretary of State’s International Security Advisory Board.

Here's the kicker:

Preceding Mr. Wolfowitz was former Senator Fred Thompson, who resigned as chairman in the summer to run for president. But his successor wasn’t appointed until two days after his campaign crashed and burned on Tuesday.

Uh, isn't Fred of Hollywood looking for work now? And he's slightly less criminal than the Notorious Comb Licker™.

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Harsh Justice

Chomp:

The man, whose name has not been released, was allegedly burglarizing a vehicle in the parking lot of the Miccosukee Resort and Convention Center on Thursday. He ran when police arrived at the scene, said Dexter Lehtinen, one of the tribe's police legal advisors.

Tribal police divers searched for the man that night, then again Friday morning and afternoon. During the third dive, the body was recovered. It bore alligator teeth marks on the upper torso.

The Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner Department said the cause of death was an alligator attack.

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Let Me Be Blunt

All Republicans are criminals and/or hypocrites:

[Fred] Thompson selected the businessman, Philip Martin, to raise seed money for his White House bid. Martin is one of four campaign co-chairmen and the head of a group called the "first day founders." Campaign aides jokingly began to refer to Martin, who has been friends with Thompson since the early 1990s, as the head of "Thompson's Airforce."

Thompson's frequent flights aboard Martin's twin-engine Cessna 560 Citation have saved him more than $100,000, because until the law changed in September, campaign-finance rules allowed presidential candidates to reimburse private jet owners for just a fraction of the true cost of flights.

Martin entered a plea of guilty to the sale of 11 pounds of marijuana in 1979; the court withheld judgment pending completion of his probation. He was charged in 1983 with violating his probation and with multiple counts of felony bookmaking, cocaine trafficking and conspiracy. He pleaded no contest to the cocaine-trafficking and conspiracy charges, which stemmed from a plan to sell $30,000 worth of the drug, and was continued on probation.

Now for the funny part:

Karen Hanretty, Thompson's deputy communications director, said yesterday that "Senator Thompson was unaware of the information until this afternoon. Phil Martin has been a friend of the senator since the mid-1990s and remains so today." Thompson communications director Todd Harris added that Martin was not subjected to the campaign's standard vetting process because "he's a longtime friend."

Sure, Fred, sure.

The party of integrity and morality, my ass.

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The Pictures Say It All

He Who Must Not Be Questioned with a convicted criminal and alleged Iranian spy:

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Lather. Rinse. Repeat

The White House is refusing to turn over more that 600 pages of documents related to the investigation of convicted briber Jack Abramoff. Henry Waxman is upset at this.

A Sternly Worded Letter™ is sure to follow.

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International Fugitive

Retired Field Marshal von Rumsfeld:

Former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld fled France today fearing arrest over charges of "ordering and authorizing" torture of detainees at both the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the U.S. military's detainment facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, unconfirmed reports coming from Paris suggest.

[...]

"Rumsfeld must be feeling how Saddam Hussein felt when U.S. forces were hunting him down," activist Tanguy Richard said. "He may never end up being hanged like his old friend, but he must learn that in the civilized world, war crime doesn't pay."

International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) along with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), and the French League for Human Rights (LDH) filed the complaint on Thursday after learning that Rumsfeld was scheduled to visit Paris.

Is this a known known, an known unknown, or a unknown unknown?

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The Hell?

By now we're all familiar - too familiar - with the "Nigerian e-mail scam" spam and its variants.

Well, hold on to your hats 'cuz it has turned weird:

Ms. Wegman was a victim of the Nigerian Puppy Scam, which has been crossing the country for more than a year. Much of the fraud is transpiring on the Internet -- e-mails sent directly to consumers or puppy ads posted on legitimate Web sites. Some of the scammers are buying classified ads in newspapers, including the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

What's next? A Nigerian Emu Scam?

Extra points for creativity, though.

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Bush To Kids: Drop Dead

If vetoing the SCHIP bill was such an important statement of principal then why did George do it in secret?

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Yep

John Dean:

And how does Bush compare with the Republicans seeking to succeed him? "If a Rudy Giuliani were to be elected," Dean said, "he would go even farther than Cheney and Bush in their worst moments."

[...]

I asked Dean to imagine the moment when Bush leaves office on Jan. 20, 2009, presumably to be replaced by a Democrat, presumably Hillary -- will it then be possible to say "our long national nightmare is over"? Dean replied with one word: "Yes."

He quickly added, "I do feel strongly that the Republicans have so abused the law and embedded so many people within the system, within the executive branch, that's it's going to take a couple of terms of Democratic presidents before you have people there who are representing the American people."

I too have been saying for a while now that a Rudy! presidency would make us wish for the sanity of BushCheney.

Hell of a country we live in.

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Flashback

Two years ago today:

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Maniac

DeFib Dick is still pushing the idea that he's his own branch of the government.

We are ruled by very bad people.

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We All Know How This Is Going To Work Out

Sara Taylor and Harriet "Love Letters" Miers subpoenaed:

Subpoenas are being issued to two former White House officials, the first to be subpoenaed in the fired U.S. attorneys investigation.

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday issued a subpoena to Sara Taylor, former White House political director. About the same time, it was announced that the House Judiciary Committee will issue a subpoena in the same case to former White House counsel Harriet Miers.

It's this simple: a Congressional committee issued a subpoena, the White House will fight it (in court, if necessary), and the clock will go tick-tock tick-tock until January, 2009. The next administration, even if it's a Democratic one, will let the matter drop explaining, "We want to look forward not focus on the past."

And in the future, when this all happens again, even fewer people will give a damn.

Rinse. Repeat.

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Another Day...

...a few more laws being broken:

The Department of Homeland Security is breaking privacy laws by failing to tell the public all the ways it uses personal information to target passengers boarding flights entering or leaving the United States, according to a draft government report.

[...]

"CBP's current disclosures do not fully inform the public about all of its systems for prescreening aviation passenger information, nor do they explain how CBP combines data in the prescreening process, as required by law," the report says. "As a result, passengers are not assured that their privacy is protected during the international prescreening process."

The Ministry of Homeland Security insists that it is complying with the law. When they're shown to be lying (and they will be shown to be lying) nothing will happen or, at most, some patsy will resign to spend more time with Andrew Card's family.

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Deadline

Think Progress reports:

Earlier this month, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) subpoenaed Alberto Gonzales to turn over all e-mails to or from Karl Rove in connection U.S. attorney scandal. The committee gave the attorney general until 2 PM today to comply. That deadline has passed.

Wouldn't this be called "obstruction of justice"? At the very least, we're talking contempt of Congress.

Dispatch the Sergeant-at-Arms with manacles!

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Crackberry Junkie

Karl Rove.

I'm sure he has nothing to hide.

I'm sure.

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Surprise!

This morning I wrote on the subject of the White House using RNC mail servers:

Anyway, chances are the RNC will respond by saying, golly, we deleted those e-mails before anybody asked for them and then the hard drives were destroyed by accident. Ooops!

The virtual shredding began weeks ago. Guaranteed.

Well guess what?

The White House said Wednesday it had mishandled Republican Party-sponsored e-mail accounts used by nearly two dozen presidential aides, resulting in the loss of an undetermined number of e-mails concerning official White House business.

No, this doesn't make me a prescient genius. This band of criminals operates so obviously that any child could have seen this coming.

I'm no lawyer but I feel safe in assuming that we have all sorts of felonies in play here: Obstruction of justice, perjury, destruction of evidence, conspiracy, what have you.

The most galling thing of it is the media will continue to treat this as a normal political disagreement and produce bushels of think pieces asking the question, Are the Democrats going too far?

It's long past time to call the BushCheney White House and the Republican Party what they are: Crimianal conspirators.

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The Stupidity Astounds

Lindsay has the story.

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Fitting

Extra points for wit:

Man wearing Ronald Reagan mask robs Monroeville bank

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