A Sure Miss

As  you probably know, George W. Bush’s  memoir, Decision Points, is due out in November 2010. Gawker is having fun with alternate cover photos as you can see with this one example(though some are not funny). Thanks to Grace at Scriptoids for pointing out this and more.

It Gets Worse

On top of finding out we tortured captives 6 times a day and put their children in boxes full of bugs.... The Senate Armed Service Committee has released its full report on detainee abuse by the US Armed Forces. I have only just read the executive summary on Balloon Juice and it is shameful, to say the least. People like Donald Rumsfeld, Ricardo Sanchez and Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller are shown for the criminals they are, not to mention George Bush.

I went through SERE training which teaches you what to expect if you are captured by an enemy that doesn't recognize the Geneva Conventions. When I think about George Bush and others authorizing techniques specifically designed to violate the Conventions without a second thought it just makes me sick. There are a lot of controls and safety mechanisms built into the SERE protocols that don't exist in the actual theater. It's no wonder captives died in our hands. What really bothers me is that the people authorizing and executing this are militiary people who should know better. Didn't they have a problem using these techniques against captives in Afghanistan, Iraq and GTMO?

The link is here to get the full (15 mb) .PDF of the report?.

h/t Balloon Juice

Bush Numbers All In the Wrong Direction

Devilstower has a post over at the Orange Satan that summarizes the Bush reign of incompetence in some of the key numbers...let's call it the "Shrub Delta". You should read the post for the detail but here are the high(low) lights;

Unemployment up 3%
Median Income down 2%
Stock Market down 37%
US Crude Oil Production down 13%
US Crude Oil Imports Up 13%
National Debt Up 86%

Of course, there are plenty of other numbers to track. Illegal signing statements. Violations of the Constitution. Americans and non-Americans killed in an unnecessary war. Idiots put in charge of stuff. Industry cronies put in charge of regulation of the same industry. American cities lost. Terrorist attacks on American cities. There are many more and feel free to add them to the comments.

Contrast

I may come up with some lasting contribution to the dialogue that is suitable for the pregnant promise of the change we are seeing today but we will just have to wait and see if the "light " comes.
I would, however, like to note something on the philosophical side of things...

If Shrub wasn't the worst President in our nation's history and his tenure hadn't been such a cesspool of hate, incompetence and downright nastiness then the magnitude of hope, promise and joy that so many of us feel today would be somewhat diminished. If nothing else we owe Bush some gratitude for making today such a fan-fuckingtastic moment in history.

Goodbye Shrub from Around the World

Reuter's has a roundup of what the papers around the world are saying on the eve of Bush's last day as President. It is not pretty as you can see from the samples below.

Canada's Toronto Star was categorical in its condemnation.

"Goodbye to the worst president ever," it declared. "Bush was an unmitigated disaster, failing on the big issues from the invasion of Iraq to global warming, Hurricane Katrina and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression."

The Scottish Daily Record observed:
"America is now hated in many parts of the world. Bush leaves a legacy of wars and the world economy in meltdown. He has been dismissed as a buffoon and a war-monger, a man who made the world a more dangerous place while sending it to the brink of economic collapse."

Le Monde:

"It's hard to find a historian who won't say that Bush was the most catastrophic leader the U.S. has ever known," the French daily wrote. "One success: since September 11, 2001, there was no attack on U.S. soil. But this sits alongside an interminable list of failures, starting with the war in Iraq."

It's not pretty.

A Last Slap at the French

I know it's not a big thing but for some reason this epitomizes the small ugly aspects of the Bush administration. They wait until right until the end and then increase import duties on Roquefort cheese! What the hell is that all about? It would be different if it would actually have any other impact other than pissing off the French and hurting a few small farmers just a tiny bit. The U.S. accounts for maybe 2% of Roquefort cheese sales. The reason stated is even worse...to try and force the French to eat some of our hormone saturated and poison beef. Good for the French for not wanting their children eating crap and having their young girls mature at 9 years old. I don't often buy Roquefort but I'll make a point of spending some of my limited food budget on some just to spite them. I don't know why any self respecting Frenchman would eat American beef anyway when they have their glorious grass fed beef anyway.

Less than a week before it leaves office, the Bush administration has sparked anger across the Atlantic by tripling the import duty rate on roquefort cheese to 300%, a move which the US hopes will "shut down trade" in the sheep's milk product by making it prohibitively expensive.

The decision, part of Washington's attempts to force the EU into dropping its ban on hormone-treated beef, was greeted with disbelief by the French government and by farmers in the south-western Aveyron region who depend on the industry for their livelihoods.

"Maybe the Bush administration indulged itself by taking this decision just before it leaves," Robert Glandieres, president of the roquefort producers' group, told Reuters.

The tariff on roquefort, condemned as "incomprehensible and inadmissible" by the French government, will probably have a minimal effect, given exports to the US account for just 2% of annual sales. French farmers said it would mean "the end" for roquefort in the US and vowed to take "symbolic actions" in return.

That will show those couple of dozen French farmers a thing or two.

It's the Constitution

Once again Krugman is right. Obama doesn't have a choice under the oath he will take next Tuesday to ignore the crimes of Bush and his cronies. It's not about what is convenient and comfortable for Obama and his team. It's about the Constitution and what the long term consequences of ignoring the laws that have been broken are.

Now, it’s true that a serious investigation of Bush-era abuses would make Washington an uncomfortable place, both for those who abused power and those who acted as their enablers or apologists. And these people have a lot of friends. But the price of protecting their comfort would be high: If we whitewash the abuses of the past eight years, we’ll guarantee that they will happen again.

Meanwhile, about Mr. Obama: while it’s probably in his short-term political interests to forgive and forget, next week he’s going to swear to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” That’s not a conditional oath to be honored only when it’s convenient.

And to protect and defend the Constitution, a president must do more than obey the Constitution himself; he must hold those who violate the Constitution accountable. So Mr. Obama should reconsider his apparent decision to let the previous administration get away with crime. Consequences aside, that’s not a decision he has the right to make.

I'm as big a fan of live and live as the next guy but this is about the rule of law and there should be consequences for breaking it or ignoring or wiping your feet with it.

Don't You Just Hate Long Goodbyes

Ah yes, another tweak to the nose of the American public, this time focused on federal workers.

WASHINGTON — President Bush issued an executive order on Monday that denies collective bargaining rights to about 8,600 federal employees who work in law enforcement, intelligence and other agencies responsible for national security.

Mr. Bush said it would be inconsistent with "national security requirements" to allow those employees to engage in collective bargaining with respect to the conditions of their employment.

Among those affected are 5,000 employees of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which is now part of the Justice Department.

It just seems to be getting longer and longer. Everyday of this 'goodbye, fuck you very much' is being blessed with another in what seems an endless line of these things. How much carnage can a single person reap in fifty or so more days? It just seems to me that it just might be counterproductive to our national security to have people who aren't allowed to organize for decent pay and working conditions running the show. It's kind of like pissing off the waitress or waiter before he or she brings you your food. I would think that these are exactly the people you would want to keep off the "disgruntled worker" list.

Pardon Me? No, Pardon You!

While I sit here and wait for the dev guys to figure out why "optimistic locking" on the database (I have no idea so don't ask) is preventing me from testing, I was reading around and the subject of Shrub's upcoming pardons has surfaced here and there and there was also the comment by someone on Obama's team that torture prosecutions probably won't happen.

So we know that a herd of pardons is coming down the pipe. This last 8 years has been so full of criminal acitvity that has gone unpunished you just know that the pardon list is long and distinguised. Any ideas? I think we all can agree that Darth Cheney and Rumsfeld are going to head the list--guaranteed. Probably a good bet that anyone and everyone involved in the torture we didn't do is pretty much guaranteed to be preemptively pardoned as well. Who else? Skooter Libby, Turdblossom Rove, maybe Ted Stevens? There are, of course, many others that could show up...Mark Foley, Abramoff? Both of those would be a little harder to swallow but don't put it past Bush. We know he is a mean and vengeful person and could give a crap whether what he does is morally right or wrong. The last two would cause even Bush some heartburn, but don't think they're not being considered. Oh, and let's not forget the old BugMan Tom Delay. Have any other candidates?

Wounded Animals

Remember the 'angry left' that the wingnuts on the right have railed against since Saint Reagan or before? From what I am seeing in the news and around some of the lefty blogs the right is trying to raise the ante. McGrumpy and Caribou Barbie are increasingly feeding angrier and angrier crowds that shouting 'terrorist' and even 'kill him' with no response from either candidate. They are feeding it and taking energy from it. It's like the seen in Star Wars where Luke is finally facing the Emperor and Darth Vader in person and the Emperor encourages the anger and hate. I can't remember the exact dialogue but it is something like "yes young Skywalker let the hate grow--your transition to the dark side is almost complete". It's the first thing that came to my mind when I read the stories of the angry crowds surrounding.

I don't remember this much outright hate and vitriol in previous campaigns. What is different this time? Could it be that in the previous campaigns they were the assured winners and that this time it is almost assured that they are the losers? Does it go beyond the election itself and actually touch on who they are and the knowledge that they are about to lose control?

The reality is that in the last 8 years they have had power. They have had their boy George in the White House with Darth Cheney in the background pulling the strings. Bush and Cheney were their justification for their extremist views. Bush and Cheney in power validated their hate, war mongering, gay baiting, and yes, racist views. Think back over how often the rallying point for the conservative right has been their derision and resentment of liberals, intellectuals, Europeans or anything else that threatened their carefully constructed alternate and self-serving reality. What is happening now is that it is starting to sink in that they are losing and losing in a big way. The failure of Iraq, Afghanistan, free market capitalism and all the rest is shredding their belief structure. Cap all of the sense of loss with the unthinkable - a black man as President of the U.S. and you have a sense of how dangerous this is really is. If you think cornered and wounded animal then you may get the sense of where we are.

Anybody what to take odds on how soon the "N" word pops up at one of these hate fests?

crossposted at SteveAudio

It's a Scam, Pure and Simple

Since it is Sunday morning and I am a good neighbor I am not going to go out early and fire up the brush trimmer and continue my assault on the garden and seeing as how the Sunday paper hasn't arrived yet there is nothing left but to prattle on a bit about the "plan". The more I read the more it seems like a good old scam. You have to remember where good old Hank came from. He was the CEO of Goldman Sachs, one of the big players and all the good old boys he wants to bail out are his old drinking buddies. They belonged to the same private clubs and all came to work in their penthouse offices in limos. Paulson is looking for one last raid on the Treasury for his good friends because he knows the Republicans have only a few more months in which to feed at the public trough. Hello! Paulson and his Republican friends created this crisis, if it is a real crisis, and now they want even more money to fix it? Sounds very suspicious.

Paulson, Bush, Bernanke and whoever are threatening Congress with a "market meltdown. They are asking for 700 billion bucks and unlimited discretion in how to spend it and with absolutely no, nada oversight. Nowhere have I seen a justification of the 700 billion dollar number. How do we know that 700 billion is required? Could the job be done with 50 billion? Who knows? Yes, there is some turmoil in the market and yes some of the big banks are insolvent but that is not the fault of the American taxpayer, it is the fault of GOP de-regulation and a lack of oversight and poor judgement and greed on the part of all of Paulson's buddies on Wall Street.

So here we are with Paulson, Bush and company trying to rush Congress into giving them a real big shit pile of money with no oversight. It worries the hell out of me that they are insisting that there is no time to think it through, do any due diligence and if Congress doesn't act immediately then a disaster will occur on Tuesday. Anytime someone tries to rush you into a decision, especially about money and power, without giving you time to think it through and doing some research, alarm bells should go off and the red lights should flash.

Paulson wants to bail out his friends at the highest levels on Wall Street. Remember that this is Paulson's world, the one he has been a part of all of his life. He doesn't want it to change. He wants the same friends that have been in charge to stay in charge and he wants them all to stay wealthy and comfortable. He doesn't give a shit about all the little people because regardless of what happens they are going to lose their jobs anyway.

Paulson and Bush are rushing Congress to act before any meaningful reform is included in the bill and before there are a lot of conditions and before there is time to properly re-regulate the market. There is a reason Paulson is rejecting any talk of Wall Street executives suffering any kind of punitive actions. He is calling it a "poison pill".

At some level or degree the economy is in a crisis. The question that needs to be asked, is it in a crisis of sufficient magnitude to warrant giving an appointed government official 700 billion dollars to do with as he pleases ( even to the point of buying foreign toxic paper) and literal dictatorial powers? I don't think so. Congress does not need to sign a blank check and give legal immunity to Paulson for how he spends it.

Don't forget that the Republicans are really good at this scam. They have used it before with great success. It worked with the Patriot Act and they turned right around and repeated it with AUMF. Here's the drill. Create a crisis, real or a lie, then rush Congress into granting dictatorial powers and unlimited spending authority to deal with it. Bush and Paulson are betting they can pull it off one more time.

I think this time cooler heads should prevail. We have some form of crisis but it is not going to blow up tomorrow or in the next two weeks. Congress needs to look at it closely and make sure the financial crisis is dealt with effectively and that the right people are in place to watch over it. We need to insure that there is some punitive action on those responsible and that the markets are re-regulated.

Double Down

There is absolutely no way the Republicans can claim to be fiscal conservatives without lying. The Bush/McSame economic policies are crushing the country under a growing mountain of debt while their buddies in Big Oil and on Wall Street walk away laughing with huge profits, CEO salaries that would feed a small country and increasingly lower taxes. The federal deficit will jump from $161 billion up to $407 billion in only one year, which trumps the record high only outdone by Bush in 2004. What part of wrong direction don't the McSame supporters understand?

The presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said the $407 billion deficit for this fiscal year is "more than $1 trillion worse than the budget surplus President Bush promised for 2008 in his first budget."

The Obama campaign charged on its Web site that Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the Republican presidential candidate, "wants us to think he represents change, but he wants to spend $3.4 trillion more than President Bush on tax cuts, most of which will go to the wealthiest corporations and big oil companies and leave more than 100 million middle-class families without a dime of tax relief." It said Obama "will bring real change by cutting taxes for middle-class families and small businesses, paying for all his proposals to reduce the deficit, and will put America on a path towards fiscal responsibility and a stronger economy."

Shedding the Props

Neat little tidbit in the article at Huffpo concerning "Wall Street Got Drunk" comment by Bush.

Then, making light of the foreclosure crisis, he said: "And then we got a housing issue... not in Houston, and evidently not in Dallas, because Laura's over there trying to buy a house. [great laughter] I like Crawford but unfortunately after eight years of sacrifice, I am apparently no longer the decision maker."

I guess Shrub has decided that he no longer needs the "ranch" to prop up his image as a "real cowboy". It was always a political prop and now he no longer needs it.

Update: I wonder how much money the government has spent on making the ranch a suitable place for the alternate White House?

h/t DKos

No Time for Satire

I've decided it is time for me to briefly wade in on the New Yorker cover disaster.

First of all, I didn't find it that funny. Secondly, we on the left are virtually 'shell shocked' over the constant stream of propaganda, innuendo, distortions and outright lies pumped out by the right over the last 8 years that anything that smacks of it touches raw nerves. We are also acutely aware, it having been demonstrated endlessly, that a great many American voters are apparently not aware enough to recognize satire when they see it and file it away as a joke. The reality is that the image on the New Yorker cover will sear itself into their dimly functioning brains and that will be what pollutes what little thinking they do over the next few months until the election. Every piece they see on Faux News, which is their primary input source for misinformation, will be filtered through the image of Obama in Muslim garb, Michelle with a machine gun and the burning American flag.

Think I am being too hard on my fellow Americans? Remember that half of them voted for Shrub...twice no less and some 28% of them still think he is doing a good job. Forty percent or more are planning to vote for McSame. Think about it.

Aren't you proud of me for not calling them 'knuckle-draggers'?

The Real 'Surge'

While most of us have a sense that things are not going well in Afghanistan the following puts it in a little more sobering perspective:

There have been 556 Americans killed in Afghanistan since 2001. 64 of them--nearly 12 percent--have been killed in the last six weeks.

'Bring it on Bush' is spilling the blood of our men and women needlessly. He needs to be impeached and imprisoned for lying to the American people, killing Americans in a useless war and ignoring the real threat posed by the Taliban in Afghanistan. His incompetence has allowed them to rebuild and his ill advised 'surge' in Iraq is resulting in a real 'surge' of dead American soldiers in Afghanistan.


crossposted at SteveAudio

A Crime Any Way you Look At It

Here's "Bring 'em On" Shrub in September 2004

The Taliban no longer is in existence.

Yesterday:

Taliban insurgents carried out a bold assault on a remote base near the border with Pakistan on Sunday, NATO reported, and a senior American military official said nine American soldiers were killed.

The attack, the worst against Americans in Afghanistan in three years, illustrated the growing threat of Taliban militants and their associates, who in recent months have made Afghanistan a far deadlier war zone for American-led forces than Iraq.

This is monumental failure 'writ large'. What a tragedy...and the only ones paying the price are our soldiers.

I'm Getting Cheaper but I Still Have My Pride

I had to struggle to get of bed this morning after finding out my value as a human being was down a million bucks since Shrub showed on the scene.
It is just plain hard getting excited about the future when you see your valued going down, down, down. Calling me worthless is going to take on a whole new meaning.

The "value of a statistical life" is $6.9 million in today's dollars, the Environmental Protection Agency reckoned in May — a drop of nearly $1 million from just five years ago.

The Associated Press discovered the change after a review of cost-benefit analyses over more than a dozen years.

Though it may seem like a harmless bureaucratic recalculation, the devaluation has real consequences.

When drawing up regulations, government agencies put a value on human life and then weigh the costs versus the lifesaving benefits of a proposed rule. The less a life is worth to the government, the less the need for a regulation, such as tighter restrictions on pollution.

Not All Bad News

It wasn't all bad news in the Senate yesterday. Senator Ted Kennedy arrived back in the Capitol to vote on the Medicare bill, which passed by a veto-proof 69 - 30 margin. A few weeks ago Kennedy's vote could have been critical as Senate Republicans blocked any movement on this legislation by only one vote. The GOP action on Medicare, or lack thereof, resulted in a huge backlash. Doctors were irate and the AMA has been running ads against Republican Senators across the country. Obviously, Republican Senators got the message that their action wasn't making some very wealthy people very happy. As always with the GOP...money talks.

Not surprisingly Shrub was happy about the FISA bill as it will probably save him from a prison sentence, but he is threatening to veto the Medicare bill. Interestingly, Mr. Straight Shooter was the ONE Senator who didn't vote today on Medicare. According to The Hill McSame wouldn't even say how he would've voted. Now that is what I call leadership! Of course, McShrub has his own private form of Medicare in the form of a very wealthy wife.

What Constitution?

Isn't amazing how the GOP can so completely show their ignorance or even their total disregard for the Constitution? It is no wonder the current administration so blithely tramples over it at the drop of a hat.

Today:

WASHINGTON—Former secretaries of state James Baker III and Warren Christopher say the next time the president goes to war, Congress should be required to say whether it agrees. The co-chairmen of a bipartisan study group have proposed legislation that would require the president to consult lawmakers before initiating combat lasting longer than a week, except in cases of emergencies.

1787:

Article I, Section 8

The Congress shall have Power ...

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

H/t the Great Orange Satan

Why is Shub Going to the Olympics?

I am hearing all kinds of claptrap about Shrub going to the opening ceremonies of the Olympics and it is unusual as most sitting presidents only attend the opening of games on their own soil. Chimpy's excuse is that it would be an "affront" to the Chinese people.

Bullshit! The reality is that the Chinese have told him that he will attend and no ifs, ands or buts. The Chinese have financed his little Mastercard war and own his ass several times over and that is the only reason he is going.