Grumpasaurus.com

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.

UN-hating UN ambassador slash incompetent nincompoop slash singlehanded destroyer of the North Korean negotiations slash ridiculous moustache affectation wearing buffoon slash administration official who grants exclusive interviews to D-list insane groupie bloggers John Bolton resigns.

I’d start the LGF-spawned PamAtlas/BoltonGroupie71 suicide watch, but it appears others are already hot on this particular trail.

Goodbye, John. You will not be missed. At all.

Update: call the ShruggyTears hotline, quick! Also bigoted self hater Magalangalong. And the stoptheACLU cheetos-stained humanoid. Good times, good times.

Normally, the Busheviks bury news like this on a Friday. Bush’s temper tantrum/throwing Rove under the bus is already paying dividends.

As an update to a previous post, the Houston janitors who were striking for better pay and benefits and who were attacked by the police… won!

City-wide union contract will more than double income for more than 5,300 janitors and families, latest victory in national fight for good jobs with health care

And that makes this a very good Thanksgiving for us all. Happy T-day, everyone!

but Nicaragua is now officially on the Grumpy boycott list

Hopes among women’s groups in Nicaragua that President Enrique Bolaños would stop one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Latin America from taking effect have been dashed, as the president signed it into law late Friday.

Abortion has been illegal in Nicaragua for more than a century, and most women who decide to end unwanted pregnancies seek procedures at underground clinics. But the new law strikes out a clause that made it possible for a woman to obtain an abortion legally when three doctors certified that unless she did, her own life would be in danger.

For months, the proposed law has drawn fierce criticism from several local women’s groups, the country’s association of gynecologists, the United Nations, the World Health Organization and Human Rights Watch, among others.

“This is a throwback to the Middle Ages for women’s rights,” Juana Jiménez, the leader of the Women’s Autonomous Movement in Nicaragua, said after the law was passed.

Book, TV show cancelled

News Corp., the parent company of book publisher HarperCollins and the FOX network, has canceled publication of the O.J. Simpson book and television special “If I Did It.”

“I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project,” said Rupert Murdoch, News Corp. chairman. “We are sorry for any pain that this has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson.”

In the book, the one-time football superstar tells how he would have killed his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman if, in fact, he had done it.

A dozen FOX affiliates had already said they would not air the two-part sweeps month special, planned for next week before the book’s publication.

One station manager who had said he wasn’t airing the special said he was concerned that whether or not Simpson was guilty, he’d still be profiting from murders.

It’s still not going to stop me from running my picture again, though.

More from the Obama files

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, who is contemplating a run for the presidency, on Monday called for a “gradual and substantial” reduction of U.S. forces from Iraq that would begin in four to six months.

Feh. Decisive action is always 6 months away for these people (it’s a good idea… just not… right… now). Less talking, more doing please. Until you’re coming with a solution and action rather than words, go away. Again.

Bonus points for elbow grease, risk-taking, and inventiveness

Tipped off by three plastic pipes mysteriously skimming the ocean’s surface, authorities seized a homemade submarine packed with 3 tons of cocaine off Costa Rica’s Pacific coast.

Four men traveled inside the 50-foot wood and fiberglass craft, breathing through the pipes. The craft sailed along at about 7 mph, just six feet beneath the surface, Security Minister Fernando Berrocal said Sunday.

As an update to a previous post, it is now conclusively proven that there is no God.

Republicans Friday chose Rep. John Boehner as minority leader, succeeding Speaker Dennis Hastert in the top GOP leadership post for the Democratic-controlled House that convenes in January.

Laura Ingraham’s God has forsaken her. What will Laura do now?