The Dynamic of a Bush Scandal: How the Spying Story Will Unfold (and Fade)
Sadly, Peter Daou’s analysis of the current spying scandal, in the context of the numerous other impeachable offenses the president has committed, is entirely correct. Bush commits a crime, the media fumbles the story, the Republicans front for him, the Democrats back down, the public gets confused, and eventually the story fades and the crimes continue. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Interesting, the comments people are making on that story. Basically, people are acknowledging that Daou is right, and predicting the end of America. Very disillusioned.
Cool bumperstickers and magnets
I clicked through an ad from my site to the Pro-Democrat Progressive Anti-Right Wing Products and had a fun time looking around, so I thought I’d give them an extra plug.
I loved their flag bedecked ribbon magnet that says “Just pretend it’s all okay” and the “F the President” sticker designed like the “W” sticker that everyone has on their cars. Unfortunately, my whole car is taken up already with stickers and magnets, and I already look like a fanatic.
Absolute Power corrupts absolutely
Obsidian wings has some commentary:
September 11 started the war. When will it end? Maybe never. Where is the battlefield? The entire world, including the United States. Who is an enemy combatant? Anyone the President says is an enemy combatant, including a U.S. citizen–no need for a charge, no need for a trial, no need for access to a lawyer. What if they’re found not to be an enemy combatant? We can keep them in prison anyway, and we don’t have to tell their families they’re alive or their lawyers that they were cleared. What can you do to an enemy combatant? Anything you want. Detain him forever, for the rest of his life, because this is a war like any other and we have always been able to detain POWs for the duration of the war. But you don’t need to follow the Geneva Conventions, because this is a war like no other in our history. And oh yes–if the President decides that we need to torture a prisoner for the war effort, it’s unconstitutional for Congress to stop him. They took that position in an official memo, and they have not backed down from it. They have said it was “unnecessary” but they have never backed down from it.
They are not only entitled to do these things to people; they are entitled to do them in secret. When Congress asks for information about them, they can just ignore it. And they are entitled to actively deceive the public about all this.
That’s the power they claim. At what point are we going to take that claim seriously?
At some level, I think we read these things and think: well, they can’t really mean that. But by now we know that they mean it enough to have shattered a number of lives.
Local FBI spying on vegan groups
In another article about the domestic spying on left-wing organizations, this time from the New York Times, the article mentions in passing:
One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a “Vegan Community Project.”
Wow. If they’re spying on vegetarians in Indy, what do you think they’re doing about all those crazy homos? I wonder how to file for the Freedom of Information Act.
UPDATE: Okay, the ACLU press release is a bit clearer on what this is about. Our local FBI was investigating PETA, and one of the group’s events was passing out vegetarian starter kits to students and faculty on the “University of Indiana” campus. (They mean Indiana University.)
Well, I guess that actually isn’t any clearer to me what the FBI was doing.
A link to the redacted PDF document that the ACLU obtained through the FOIA.
Bush Illegally spies on US Citizens
According to the New York Times, and later also reported by the Washington Post:
Bush Secretly Lifted Some Limits on Spying in U.S. After 9/11, Officials Say
Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.
Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible “dirty numbers” linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.
The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval represents a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches.
One of the groups they’re spying on the QUAKERS, and other local anti-war organizations. The Quakers are pacifists, people. They believe in NOT blowing shit up.
The Quakers are one of thousands of organizations on a 400 page list (that’s 400 pages not 400 groups) that the Administration has been spying on inside the United States. All of them are left-wing organizations.
None of the investigated are right-wing groups. You know, right-wing ones, like the guys who bombed the Olympic park and abortion clinics. Like the ones who sent Anthrax to the Democratic leadership. The ones who blew up the Oklahoma Federal Building. The ones who keep killing doctors. Yeah, nobody’s investigating them. I feel so safe.
Dingell’s HOLIDAY Jingle for O’Reilly and House GOP
Washington, DC – Congressman John D. Dingell (MI-15) (original link, no longer active – http://www.house.gov/dingell/documents/press_releases/109th_Congress/12-14-05_2.htm) recited the following poem on the floor of the US House of Representatives concerning House Resolution 579, which expressed the sense of the House of Representatives that the symbols and traditions of Christmas should be protected. “Preserving Christmas” has been a frequent topic for conservative talk show hosts, including Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly:
‘Twas the week before Christmas and all through the House
No bills were passed ’bout which Fox News could grouse;
Tax cuts for the wealthy were passed with great cheer,
So vacations in St. Barts soon would be near;
Katrina kids were nestled all snug in motel beds,
While visions of school and home danced in their heads;
In Iraq our soldiers needed supplies and a plan,
Plus nuclear weapons were being built in Iran;
Gas prices shot up, consumer confidence fell;
Americans feared we were on a fast track to…well…
Wait— we need a distraction— something divisive and wily;
A fabrication straight from the mouth of O’Reilly
We can pretend that Christmas is under attack
Hold a vote to save it— then pat ourselves on the back;
Silent Night, First Noel, Away in the Manger
Wake up Congress, they’re in no danger!
This time of year we see Christmas every where we go,
From churches, to homes, to schools, and yes…even Costco;
What we have is an attempt to divide and destroy,
When this is the season to unite us with joy
At Christmas time we’re taught to unite,
We don’t need a made-up reason to fight
So on O’Reilly, on Hannity, on Coulter, and those right wing blogs;
You should just sit back, relax…have a few egg nogs!
‘Tis the holiday season: enjoy it a pinch
With all our real problems, do we honestly need another Grinch?
So to my friends and my colleagues I say with delight,
A merry Christmas to all,
and to Bill O’Reilly… Happy Holidays.
Wagging the dog: supreme court nomination to hide plame investigation
The inquiry into the leaking of a CIA agent’s identity is set to wrap up this week, so the President was quick to nominate a supreme court justice to distract the press from the coming scandal when White House officials will be indicted. Especially since there is new information that Bush and Cheney were actively involved in the Plame outing.
As someone in the blogosphere anticipated… “Hello, President Hastert!” Hee hee.
“Operation Offset” is more accurately “Operation Offset with money from your pocket”
The Republican Study Committee (RSC) lead by Indiana Rep. Mike Pence proposes “Operation Offset” which is their plan to pay for Hurricane Katrina, by raping America and transferring money to their big business cronies.
Marla helps us out by summarizing the plans:
- $225 billion cut from Medicaid, the last-resort health insurance program for the very poor.
- $200 billion cut from Medicare, the health care safety net for the elderly and the disabled.
- $25 billion cut from the Centers for Disease Control — pending flu pandemic? What me worry?
- $6.7 billion cut from school lunches for poor children — protein deprived children grow up to make a less pesky, more compliant workforce or breatharians must receive early training.
- $7.5 billion cut from programs to fight global AIDS — it’s bad enough we have to pay anything for one group of poor black people, so don’t push it.
- $5.5 billion to eliminate all funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — bye-bye Big Bird.
- $3.6 billion cut to eliminate the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities — if we can’t tolerate Big Bird, don’t even dream of tolerating art. So what if it’s an essential for consideration as a civilized society and only costs us 4 cents a day. You don’t expect the richest 1 percent to give up their tax cuts. Puhlease!
- $8.5 billion cut to eliminate all subsidized loans to graduate students — aka professional jobs should be reserved for the sons and daughters of the oligarchy.
- $2.5 billion cut from Amtrak — except for the commuter trains for Wall Street types, there goes that program, too.
- $2.5 billion to eliminate the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative — the only thing remotely environmentally friendly Shrub embraced but what’re two hurricanes when you can make more, more, more!
- $417 million cut to eliminate the Minority Business Development Agency — it’s not as if a reasonable amount of the windfall of the Katrina/Rita budget is going to make it into minority-owned businesses anyway. All those rules were suspended along with the prevailing wage requirement straight off.
- $4.8 billion cut to eliminate all funding for the Safe and Drug-Free schools program — no use trying to prevent any future poverty if we’re not willing to pay for it now.
Now, none of this would be neccessary if Bush eliminated the tax breaks he’s given to his big-business buddies, and to the richest 1% of America. But of course that’s not gonna happen.
I think the Repugnicans are forgetting what happened after Marie Antoinette and her infamous “let them eat cake” incident. The peasants rose up and cut off her head. Almost makes me want to take up knitting.
Condi, I need a potty break
Yep, it’s a real photo from Reuters, of President Bush writing a note to Condoleezza Rice during a Security Council meeting at the UN on September 14th. World leaders are exploring ways to revitalize the United Nations at a summit on Wednesday.
In case you can’t see it, the note says “I think I may need a bathroom break.” I didn’t know that was part of the Secretary of State’s job.
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