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.

Watch $1.2 billion dollars go up in flames.

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?

I’ve been talking about the decline and fall of the American empire forever (or close thereto. No, really), but it appears that the New America Foundation realizes they want some skin in that game.

Many saw the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as the symbols of a global American imperialism; in fact, they were signs of imperial overstretch. Every expenditure has weakened America’s armed forces, and each assertion of power has awakened resistance in the form of terrorist networks, insurgent groups and “asymmetric” weapons like suicide bombers. America’s unipolar moment has inspired diplomatic and financial countermovements to block American bullying and construct an alternate world order. That new global order has arrived, and there is precious little Clinton or McCain or Obama could do to resist its growth.

[Colbert]Bow before me for I am mighty![/Colbert]

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.

I know people are kicking Obama’s ass for saying something so fucking stupid as to praise Reagan, but contextually he has a point. Reagan was a paradigm shift.

Watch for yourself and decide:


I’ve expressed my lack of preference for Obama before, but this on this one, I can understand what he’s saying. If you were charting a map of where the country was heading, Reagan would definitely be a hard right turn (into a dead end, filled with spikes, toll roads run by the oligopoly, and minorities in press gangs maintaining the shrubs). Clinton was not a strong turn away from the pro-business, mushiness of HW Bush, more like a left bank. Nothing inherently wrong with that.

That said, given his position as a candidate, a speaker for “change” and the people, to not take a moment to express that not all change is good and that Reagan’s change was the wrong direction is unconscionable. Maybe he just forgot a clause in his sentence. Or even an adjective. But these are things he shouldn’t forget.

I just want to be first on the bandwagon. From today’s state of the State address

In addition, next week that tradition of service continues as roughly 2,000 of New York’s citizen soldiers will be shipping out to Afghanistan. On behalf of the State, I will be there to wish them well, share our pride, and offer our prayers for their safe return.

And when they do return, we owe them our gratitude, but also something more – we owe them the chance to enjoy the freedoms and opportunities at home they have so honorably fought for overseas. In the name of all of those who have served on our behalf, I will send you a bill guaranteeing New York’s returning combat veterans a benefit that covers the full cost of SUNY or CUNY tuition, and that can be used at any college or university in New York State.

That’s a fantastic idea and a great, if inadequate to the debt owed, tribute to those who have served this demonspawned administration in their ill begotten war.

Spitzer’s taken on a number of highly powerful, highly funded, anti-we, the People interest groups since his time as an AG. Right on, Elliot.

Chris Dodd is going to filibuster the pro-authoritarian “fixed” FISA bill tomorrow. The site has links to how you can offer your support (things he can read, how to contact your congresscritters). AFAIK only Kennedy and Feingold have his back so far. Encourage your senator to help out.

Thank you for standing up for the Bill of Rights, Chris.

It’s the only solution.

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA’s overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

…

With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).

Now you know why impeachment is off the table. All their hands are dirty.

The answer: impeach them all.1

1 Yes, yes, you can’t “impeach” members of the Senate or House. You can, however, expel them.

Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two thirds, expel a member.

In the interests of keeping the end goal clear, language has been used interchangeably in this here post. Deal.

Ahhh… the rule of law

In the biggest news story of the year so far out of Washington, I Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, has just been convicted by a jury for lying about his role in the public outing of a covert CIA officer whose husband, a former diplomat, had strongly challenged the Bush administration’s case for going to war against Iraq.

Now, given the testimony and what we know, it is obviously time to impeach Cheney. Granted, he and Bush should have been impeached long ago, but we have even stronger evidence of his felonious activities now.

Impeach Cheney before that blood clot finally kills the evil bastard.

An actual, honest to goodness, straight talk from a pol. A Republican no less:

Credit where credit is due. Bravo, sir.

(I’m at a conference all week, hence the light posting)

Watching and listening to the members of the Bush administration in their public speaking, it is increasingly clear that they are planning preemptive naval and air strikes on targets inside Iran.

They feel they can do this with no Congressional support.
They feel they can do this with no popular support.
They feel they can do this with impunity and at any time they so choose.

Because in their world view - now fully supported by their handpicked regulatory agency heads and their legal lackeys - that the president is accountable to no one in a time of war … and the president is the only one who gets to determine when we are in a state of war or what war is.

Welcome the Bush imperial presidency.

Evidence? We’ve already attacked an Iranian consulate in Iraq. We’ve arrested Iranian diplomats inside Iraq. Condi’s statements this week were full of prevarications when it came to intent with Iran and also threw in language obviously intended to create a fig leaf for causus belli. They administration is on record hoping for a Gulf of Tonkin incident (in Iraq there, but they discussed plans to fabricate an incident if no argument otherwise could be found), and they’ve been goading the Iranians for months. Years, if Sy Hersh is correct… and I think we know that he is.

And now these insane, bloodthirsty, chickenhawks need to slake their thirst in Iran.

Ignore for the moment that such a strike is unwise, illegal, and a violation of everything this country has ever stood for - I will make this plain: an attack on Iran will result in the deaths of thousands of US troops. Sadr runs Iraq, is tight with the Iranians, and has the ability to interdict our troops logistics. If we attack Iran, it is going to make Chosin Reservoir look like a walk in the park. We don’t have the airpower or naval capacity to fully resupply our troops throughout the country and our army will be forced to retreat to a few isolated bases in major ports. Not only will our army be in trouble, but Iran is going to make life for our navy pay and pay heavily. The Gulf is a tiny area, Iran has multitudes of very good, very fast anti ship missiles. Shipping as a whole will come to a halt, but if we don’t lose a good number of ships, I will be surprised (or it will be because they’re not actually in the Gulf and thus are not in full support of the ground). One carrier sinks and the entire endeavor just became a miserable failure.

Now is the time to stand up. Call your congresspersons and tell them to speak out publicly against attacking Iran.

I also think it timely for us to start the articles of impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors. One would think that the deaths of more than 100,000 people and the destruction of American goodwill and power worldwide ought to be enough to qualify. Then again, there’s no blowjob involved.

Stand up and say no to an insane, illegal, preemptive strike against Iran. Do it now. All we can do is call our representatives, but what they can do is make it a constitutional issue.

What say you, presumptive Dem ‘08 nominees? Where’s Hilary? Obama? Edwards (note: he’s not in congress, of course)? More triangulation from the first two and the latter’s focusing on the McCain/Lieberman/Bush escalation AFAIK.

And if anyone needs a top-notch lawyer to draft up the articles of impeachment for you, I’m here for you.

Update: Edwards has come out strongly against escalation, so I’ll consider him anti-Iran as well. Obama is still triangulating (grr). General Clark (still my fav candidate) is also outspoken in opposition to the escalation and exceedingly concerned about Iran. Go Clark!

I’m putting the over/under on “some time in the next 3 months… whenever that best weather month is.” From last night’s speech

Though President Bush’s national address Wednesday night was about Iraq, his most provocative comments focused on her neighbor, Iran.

Early in his speech Bush raised the matter of Iran, suggesting that if U.S. efforts to secure Iraq failed, “Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons.”

Bush blamed both Syria and Iran in helping radical insurgents within Iraq.

“These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq,” he said.

He then singled out Iran, adding that she “is providing material support for attacks on American troops.”

Bush made an implied military threat against both nations: “We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.”

The President continued in this vein, suggesting a larger U.S. goal of stopping Iran’s nuclear program:

“We are also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region. We will expand intelligence sharing — and deploy Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies.

So you’ve got a 30% approval president pursuing a 12% approval strategy of escalation pumping a sub-5% new attack on a new target that is not threatening us… tell me again how we’re living in a democracy instead of an authoritarian banana republic?

Island? What Island? This is not the island you were looking for. You may go about your business. Move along… move along.

Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. The obliteration of Lohachara island, in India’s part of the Sundarbans where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true.

As the seas continue to swell, they will swallow whole island nations, from the Maldives to the Marshall Islands, inundate vast areas of countries from Bangladesh to Egypt, and submerge parts of scores of coastal cities.

Eight years ago, as exclusively reported in The Independent on Sunday, the first uninhabited islands - in the Pacific atoll nation of Kiribati - vanished beneath the waves. The people of low-lying islands in Vanuatu, also in the Pacific, have been evacuated as a precaution, but the land still juts above the sea. The disappearance of Lohachara, once home to 10,000 people, is unprecedented.