Grumpasaurus.com

on the Quaylerrific token, corrupt, unready, and ill-suited babe Palin:

Given Sarah Palin’s rather doctrinaire approach to conservative libertarian Christian evangelicalism, her political flirtation with the secessionist Alaska Independence Party (AIP) is hardly surprising, but the AIP’s ties to the U.S. Constitution Party raise some creepy issues. It is not fair to suggest that Palin agrees with all of the political positions of the AIP or Constitution Party. It is fair to ask with what policies she does or does not agree. It is already clear that on the issue of the “Sanctity of Life,” Palin and the theocratic Consititution Party are on the same Dominionist page.

The AIP has placed the candidate of the U.S. Constitution Party on the Presidential ballot in Alaska in the 2008 race. Let’s be clear, the U.S. Constitution Party would impose a form of theocratic neofascism in the United States. And I am not a person who tosses the term fascism around lightly.

She’s a nothing and a loser for the GOP and McCain, but while she’s hot (as an issue, not talking about looks here), it’s worth pointing out who could be a heartbeat away from sitting in the oval office.

She’s the American Idol candidate and as such well reflective of our diminished society – no skill necessary, no work or planning, just get picked as winner! It’s like the lottery where the presidency is the prize.

/me shakes head.

It just ducked its head for a while

So here we have a massive assault led by Federal Government law enforcement agencies on left-wing dissidents and protesters who have committed no acts of violence or illegality whatsoever, preceded by months-long espionage efforts to track what they do. And as extraordinary as that conduct is, more extraordinary is the fact that they have received virtually no attention from the national media and little outcry from anyone. And it’s not difficult to see why. As the recent “overhaul” of the 30-year-old FISA law illustrated — preceded by the endless expansion of surveillance state powers, justified first by the War on Drugs and then the War on Terror — we’ve essentially decided that we want our Government to spy on us without limits. There is literally no police power that the state can exercise that will cause much protest from the political and media class and, therefore, from the citizenry.

7 years ago today, Bush was presented with the “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US” Presidential Daily Briefing. To which Bush replied “Alright, you’ve covered your ass now.”

Heckuva job, Caligula.

Because he is

Alice Rocchio is an office manager at the New York headquarters of the Hess Corp., drives a 1993 Chevy Cavalier and lives in an apartment in Queens, N.Y., with her husband, Pasquale, an Amtrak foreman.

Despite what appears to be a middle-class lifestyle, the couple has written $61,600 in checks to John McCain’s presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee, most of it within days of McCain’s decision to endorse offshore oil drilling.

At a June fundraiser, the Rocchios joined top executives at Hess Corp. — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Hess, his wife, Susan, his mother, Norma Hess, and six other officials in giving a total of $313,500 to a joint McCain-RNC fundraising committee, Federal Election Commission records show.

Vote McCain! It’s like doubling down on Bush. You get 10% more narcissism, bloodlust, and sock puppetry for big oil and/or the evangelicals all for the same low price!

Also, fraudulent and illegal

The bundle of $2,300 and $4,600 checks that poured into Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign on March 12 came from an unlikely group of California donors: a mechanic from D&D Auto Repair in Whittier, the manager of Rite Aid Pharmacy No. 5727, the 30-something owners of the Twilight Hookah Lounge in Fullerton.

But the man who gathered checks from them is no stranger to McCain — he shuttled the Republican on his private plane and held a fundraising event for the candidate at his house in Delray Beach, Fla.

In case you weren’t aware, “maverick” McCain is dirty, dirty, dirty. And he knows it.

And the last two have resulted in the complete destruction of your basic civil liberties.

Federal agents may take a traveler’s laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.

Also, officials may share copies of the laptop’s contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Your data will never, ever be disappeared. This is essentially the newest ultimate expression of the fascist panopticon. Welcome to your GOP overlords.

Suggestions: If you must travel across borders with your laptop, use a high-security system (Linux, or in a pinch, a Mac) and if stopped, refuse to hand over your password or log in. You’ll almost certainly lose your laptop (for a bit), but your data will still be yours and what passes for privacy these days still secured… until quantum computers come out, that is.

Alternatively, pack a blank hard drive and hide your second. So long as your second (real) hard drive is still encrypted and not in obvious plain sight where it will be seized, you’ll be fully up and running as soon as you get out of Der Homeland’s sites… and they’ll be stuck with useless, false information.

I’m sensing a new business opportunity in database-destroying false information hard drives to savvy consumers. a) profit; b) privacy; c) civil liberties; and d) if we poison the database with bad information, it will lose all value. Any interested angel investors out there, give me a call.

I should point out that the policy is not all that new, just the publishing of it. Schneier has some other suggestions on how you can hide your data (encryption within encryption, among others)

You know, the one granting the executive the right to spy on American citizens without a warrant and granting all telecom companies retroactive immunity for helping this occur while the practice was patently illegal?

Also: fuck you, Democrats. We expect that from the GOP, but you guys? Screwed the pooch. I want my Constitution back!

The Bush Admnistration was directly involved in the method, extent, and forms of torture used against captured persons of (possible) interest.

In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News.

The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of “combined” interrogation techniques — using different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time — on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.

Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects — whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.

The high-level discussions about these “enhanced interrogation techniques” were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed — down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

The advisers were members of the National Security Council’s Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

The fact that these people are still (mostly) running our government instead of being behind bars is probably the most accurate snapshot, and indictment, of our country today. Ruled by a clutch of undemocratic totalitarians, the America I grew up with is gone and our moral authority with it.

ABC News: Hillary Was in White House on ‘Stained Blue Dress’ Day

Hillary Clinton spent the night in the White House on the day her husband had oral sex with Monica Lewinsky, and may have actually been in the White House when it happened, according to records of her schedule released today by the National Archives.

Excuse me? Relevance? Is there a single iota of meaning or worth behind this story? Does it serve any purpose at all? This is taking the recent attack-on-the-Democratic-(but not St. Johnny McCain’s!!!)-surrogates ridiculousness to a whole new level. Apparently, you don’t even need to be a sentient being any longer in order for the corporate media to whip your existence into something for which one of the Dem candidates must “repudiate” or “reject.”

Ladies and gents, your “liberal” media at work.

Have you no sense of decency ABC? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

Jose Padilla sentenced to 17 years in prison

Jose Padilla, once accused of plotting with al Qaeda to blow up a radioactive “dirty bomb,” was sentenced Tuesday to 17 years and four months on terrorism conspiracy charges that don’t mention those initial allegations.

Padilla, an American citizen, was taken on U.S. soil (with Ashcroft holding a press conference to announce the grab of the dirty bomber), held without charges for 3.5 years,¹ in solitary confinement, denied access to an attorney, and tortured.² I’ve mentioned this before.

Without even going to the elements of what appears on the surface to be a Thought Crime more than an actual crime, there is no conceivable way by which this trial could be imagined to have been fair or Padilla’s civil rights upheld. Any one of the elements above would be sufficient in a system still beholden to the rule of law to create a mistrial; taken together the are a nightmare of coercion, duress, and authoritarianism.

This verdict is a black eye on the Department of Justice, the prosecuting attorneys who did not resign rather than try this case, the judge, the judicial system, the media, the Bush administration, and America.

Just fucking embarrassing.

I’m sure my shame and anger will comfort the now-physically and mentally broken Padilla while he’s in solitary confinement and on suicide watch for the next 17 years.

The Bush administration and the DoJ forwarded an argument in this case, and one that has apparently stood, that the President has the power to declare anyone – even a United States citizen – to be an enemy combatant and outside the jurisdiction of our system of laws. Again, I’ve talked about this before. Gentle reader, from the results of this case, you too could be deemed an enemy combatant. At any time. In any place.

I hope you like Uzbekistan. Or at least windowless rooms in hot climates. I also hope you aren’t too attached to your fingernails, skull, or skin.

Note: unlike John Cole, I don’t think this sentence is a rebuke to the Bush government. To reach that stage, you first have to accept the Bush-DoJ interpretation of enemy combatant and that this was a fair trial. A real rebuke would have dismissed the case. This is just mealy halfassed reasonableness by the judge.

Wow, what a coincidence! It just so happens that the missing emails (related deletions discussed previously) from the records the White House turned over to Congress aren’t complete. Golly gee willickers! Whouda thunk that the emails turned over by the OVP would be missing 16 days worth of emails?

House Oversight Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) revealed that the White House failed to preserve emails for at least 473 separate days. Waxman’s report said “Vice President Cheney’s office showed no electronic messages on 16 occasions from September 2003 to May 2005.” Among the sixteen days for which email are missing from Vice President Cheney’s office “is Sept. 30, 2003, the same day the day the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced they were investigating who outed former CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson.”

INT. office – night

We revolve around a classic, quality desk largely cleared of papers. It’s dark wood exudes power and solidity. A single lamp spotlights the desktop and the two liver-spotted hands lightly touching at the fingertips. CHENEY, the man behind the hands, is in shadow. He may or may not be undead. Thunder BOOMS outside and rain DRUMS on the windows. The phone RINGS.

cheney

The data we provided to Congress is incomplete you say? And the missing days just happen to align with my Energy Task Force and the Plame records?

(beat)

My, that is unfortunate.

(beat)

How could that have ever happened?

CUT TO:

Close up of a severe, old, possibly dead man’s eyes. Which are behind glasses. We slowly pan back until we can see all of CHENEY’S face. A corner of one side of his mouth curls up. CHENEY winks. The lamp CLICKS off.

END

Remember, this is the group that permanently deleted the pre-Iraq email backups. The group (especially Rove) that used RNC mail servers for official government business and then deleted those emails when subpoenaed. All of this is in violation of the Federal Records Act and we’re not even into conspiracy to obstruct justice territory or the substance of the underlying crimes yet.

And Congress apparently still thinks “impeachment” is a new cocktail from Georgia.

Just like the Enron they so resemble and admire (and used to work for), the Bush administration just happened to destroy all records of pre-Iraq war emails. How convenient!

The White House has acknowledged recycling its backup computer tapes of e-mail before October 2003, raising the possibility that many electronic messages — including those pertaining to the CIA leak case — have been taped over and are gone forever.

The disclosure came minutes before midnight Tuesday under a court-ordered deadline that forced the White House to reveal information it has previously refused to provide.

Among the e-mails that could be lost are messages swapped by any White House officials involved in discussions about leaking a CIA officer’s identity to reporters.

Note that this, in addition to, you know, hiding the crimes, is almost certainly in violation of the Federal Records Act. To be in compliance with the FRA, records may only be destroyed under the authority of a records disposition schedule approved by the Archivist of the United States.

NARA issues a General Records Schedule (GRS) that gives record descriptions of records that are common to most Federal agencies and authorizes record disposals for temporary records. The Department is responsible for developing agency record schedules-with the approval of the Archivist of the United States-that are tailored to our own agency-specific records that are not provided for in the GRS.

Record schedules are mandatory instructions of what to do with records (and nonrecord materials) no longer needed for current Government business. The records schedules indicate how long a document must be kept before it is transferred to a Federal Records Center, destroyed or transferred to NARA for permanent preservation.

Now, gentle Congresscritters, who is going to be the first to query the record schedules to see if these documents were on the list? Who is going to be the first to issue a subpoena? Who is going to be the first to mention “criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice”?

I’m going with “no one,” but they should. Not only did Congress let the administration get away with rampant lawbreaking for 7 years… they’re going to let them destroy the evidence while they sit around and have bullshit investigations about fucking steroids in a sport?!? Jesus fuck that makes me want to find the nearest protruding object and run into it full force with my eyeball.

The sad part is, I remember when this behavior by the Busheviks used to surprise me.

Mark Deli Siljander, a former Republican congressperson from Michigan was indicted today as part of a conspiracy to funnel money terrorists who have threatened US troops in Afghanistan.

A former congressman and delegate to the United Nations was indicted Wednesday as part of a terrorist fundraising ring that allegedly sent more than $130,000 to an al-Qaida and Taliban supporter who has threatened U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan.

The former Republican congressman from Michigan, Mark Deli Siljander, was charged with money laundering, conspiracy and obstructing justice for allegedly lying about lobbying senators on behalf of an Islamic charity that authorities said was secretly sending funds to terrorists.

Siljander is a true warrior for the true GOP cause – money. It’s not about nationalism, jingoism, saving the troops, saving the unborn, saving christmas… it’s all about the benjamins. With regards to his true orthodoxy, Siljander is surely going to spend eternity with his 72 bags of glittery gold. Or the gold may be from the fronts of his soon-to-be cellmate smiling down at Siljander as Siljander performs his patented 72-lick salad toss. Hard to tell on these things. It’s heaven for one of them!

I give it approximately 30 10 minutes before Faux news “inadvertently” labels the GOP Republican GOP Republican GOP Republican GOP Republican GOP Siljander as “(D-MI)”. Oopsies! How’d that D get in there?

Read the indictment in my newly-opened “unfinished” legal bits section.

Michael Scherer is either the most brilliant satirist since Ambroce Bierce, or he’s the best fluffler since Linda Lovelace.

Here’s one thing you need to know about John McCain. He’s always been the coolest kid in school. He was the brat who racked up demerits at the Naval Academy. He was the hot dog pilot who went back to the skies weeks after almost dying in a fire on the U.S.S. Forrestal. His first wife was a model. His second wife was a rich girl, 17 years his junior. He kept himself together during years of North Vietnamese torture and solitary confinement. When he sits in the back of his campaign bus, we reporters gather like kids in the cafeteria huddling around the star quarterback. We ask him tough questions, and we try to make him slip up, but almost inevitably we come around to admiring him. He wants the challenge. He likes the give and take. He is, to put it simply, cooler than us.

You can make your own choice on this one, but me? I’m going with “Toothless” Gormy Gorm.

Please also note that this … person … is employed by Time magazine and constitutes an official member of our modern media corps.

You might want to check who is writing the entries

The gospel of truth according to fake penis experts and nerds with chips on their shoulders, Wikipedia, has been edited by a Bush friendly member of the US House of Representatives.

Apparently the person was so concerned that people no longer bought the story about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that he or she took to tampering with the Whackypedia entry.

The entry was edited by someone with a House of Representatives IP address to make the bizarre claim that there was a link between the terrorist organisation al Qaeda and the Iraq government.

Orwell wept. See also, the CIA and Vatican.

A US hacker’s homemade program to pinpoint origins of Wikipedia edits indicates that alterations to the popular online encyclopedia have come from the CIA and the Vatican.

Virgil Griffith’s “Wikiscanner” points to Central Intelligence Agency computers as the sources of nearly 300 edits to subjects including Iran’s president, the Argentine navy, and China’s nuclear arsenal.

Update: Add the US Army at Gitmo to the list.