New Report on Detainees Deaths

Glen Greenwald at Salon:

A major new report from Seton Hall University School of Law released this morning raises serious doubts about both the military's version of events and the reliability of its investigation. The Report details that the three men "died under questionable circumstances"; that "the investigation into their deaths resulted in more questions than answers"; and that "without a proper investigation, it is impossible to determine the circumstances of the three detainees' deaths." The 54-page, heavily-documented Report raises numerous troubling questions, as illustrated by these (click images to enlarge):

So we have three detainees who "committed suicide" by tying themselves up and hanging themselves in isolated cells under constant supervision by both guards and video, and none of their bodies were discovered for two hours. Detainees who had no charges against them. One detainee had even been cleared for release within a month of his death.

So we have hundreds of detainees without any of the human rights guaranteed by the US Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, in a legal void. How did Candidate Obama put it? Oh yes. "A legal black hole."

What did Candidate Obama have to say about this sort of thing?

RealClearPolitics.blog.time.com:

June 12th, 2008
Obama on SCOTUS Decision
Posted by Kyle Trygstad |

Barack Obama statement on the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision today extending civilian legal protections to terrorist suspects held in Guantanamo Bay:

Today's Supreme Court decision ensures that we can protect our nation and bring terrorists to justice, while also protecting our core values. The Court's decision is a rejection of the Bush Administration's attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantanamo - yet another failed policy supported by John McCain. This is an important step toward reestablishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law, and rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus. Our courts have employed habeas corpus with rigor and fairness for more than two centuries, and we must continue to do so as we defend the freedom that violent extremists seek to destroy. We cannot afford to lose any more valuable time in the fight against terrorism to a dangerously flawed legal approach. I voted against the Military Commissions Act because its sloppiness would inevitably lead to the Court, once again, rejecting the Administration's extreme legal position. The fact is, this Administration's position is not tough on terrorism, and it undermines the very values that we are fighting to defend. Bringing these detainees to justice is too important for us to rely on a flawed system that has failed to convict anyone of a terrorist act since the 9-11 attacks, and compromised our core values.

Except now, the Obama Administration is continuing the same BushCo crap of saying that these detainees have no rights whatsoever.

Here's the rest of Greenwald's post:

There is one way that a meaningful investigation could be conducted into what happened to these three detainees: a lawsuit filed in federal court by the parents of two of the detainees against various Bush officials for the torture and deaths of their sons -- who had never been charged with, let alone convicted of, any wrongdoing (indeed, one had been cleared for release). By itself, discovery in that lawsuit would shed critical light on what was done to these detainees and what caused their deaths.

The problem, however, is that the Obama DOJ has been using every Bush tactic -- and inventing whole new ones -- to block the lawsuit from proceeding. As The Washington Independent's Daphne Eviatar detailed in October, "the Obama administration has surprisingly endorsed the same legal positions as its predecessor, insisting that there is no constitutional right to humane treatment by U.S. authorities outside the United States, and that victims of torture and abuse and their survivors have no right to compensation or even an acknowledgment of what occurred." As Eviatar wrote about the Obama position, which -- among other things -- invokes the Military Commissions Act to argue that Congress stripped federal courts of jurisdiction to hear even Constitutional claims from Gitmo detainees:

The Obama administration is insisting, however, that Congress had the power to eliminate judicial review of these claims. It also argues that the Defense Department officials are immune from suit, because, as the Bush Justice Department argued in previous cases, it wasn’t clear at the time that detainees had a right not to be tortured by U.S. officials at Guantanamo. They therefore have "qualified immunity" from suit.

But the Justice Department goes further than that. Under President Obama, the government is arguing not only that it wasn’t clear what rights detainees were entitled to back in 2006, but that even today the prisoners have no right to such basic constitutional protections as due process of law or the right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. The "Fifth and Eighth Amendments do not extend to Guantánamo Bay detainees," writes the Justice Department in its brief.

And, the government argues, the courts should not imply a right to sue under the Constitution, in part because that could lead to "embarrassment of our government abroad."

Ultimately, the Obama administration is arguing, victims of torture at a U.S.-run detention center abroad have no right to redress from the federal government. Only the military can take action in such cases, by disciplining military officers for abuse of prisoners.

In fact, the Brief filed by the Obama DOJ demanding dismissal of the case explicitly argues -- in classic Bush/Cheney fashion -- that merely allowing discovery in this case to determine what was done to these detainees would help the Terrorists kill us all:

All of this is depressingly consistent with multiple other cases in which the Obama DOJ is attempting aggressively to shield even the most illegal and allegedly discontinued Bush programs from judicial review. Time and again, the most radical Bush claims of executive power, immunity and secrecy (ones Democrats and even Obama frequently condemned) are invoked to insist that federal courts have no right to adjudicate claims that the Government violated the Constitution and the law. As Harper's Scott Horton documented over the weekend, a new filing by the Obama DOJ in defense of John Yoo is "seeking to make absolute the immunity granted Justice Department lawyers who counsel torture, disappearings, and other crimes against humanity." In other words, as we lecture the world about the need for them to apply the rule of law and hold war criminals accountable, we simultaneously proclaim about ourselves:

We can kidnap your sons from anywhere in the world, far away from any "battlefield," ship them thousands of miles away to an island-prison, abuse and torture them mercilessly, and when we either drive them to suicide or kill them, you have no right to any legal remedy or even any recourse to find out what happened.

As Horton writes, the claim that government officials enjoy a virtually impenetrable shield of immunity even in the commission of war crimes "has emerged as a sort of ignoble mantra for the Justice Department, uniting both the Bush and Obama administrations." Indeed, that is the common strain of virtually every act undertaken by the Obama DOJ with regard to our government's war crimes and other felonies, from torture to renditions to illegal eavesdropping.

With revelations of serious, recent abuse at an ongoing "black site" prison in Afghanistan, serious questions have been raised about the extent to which detainee abuse has actually been curbed under Obama. But there's no question that the single greatest impediment to disclosure and accountability for past abuses is the Obama Justice Department, which has repeatedly gone far beyond the call of duty in its attempt to protect Bush war crimes and other illegal acts. This new Seton Hall Report regarding these three detainees deaths illustrates not only how perverse and unjust, but also how futile, such efforts are. War crimes never stay hidden, and the only question from the start was whether the Obama DOJ would be complicit in the attempt to shield them from disclosure. That question has now been answered rather decisively.

UPDATE: Scott Horton has an interview with Law Professor Mark Denbeaux, the primary author of the report, in which he elaborates on why the military's claims and "investigation" are so suspect.

Study: Bush administration blocked efforts to prevent housing crisis

Yeah, I remember reading about this last year...

Raw Story:

By Daniel Tencer
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 -- 10:42 am

Federal regulators in the Bush administration blocked attempts by state governments to prevent predatory lending practices that resulted in the financial crisis now stalking the American economy, a new study from the University of North Carolina says.

In 2004, the Office of the Currency Comptroller, an obscure regulatory agency tasked with ensuring the fiscal soundness of America's banks, invoked an 1863 law to give itself the power to override state laws against predatory lending. The OCC told states they could not enforce predatory-lending laws, and all banks would be subject only to less-strict federal laws.

Now, a research paper (PDF) from UNC-Chapel Hill's Center for Community Capital shows that those anti-predatory lending laws had actually worked. States that had stricter regulations on issuing mortgages were found to have fewer foreclosures.

"We believe that these findings are remarkable, since they suggest an important and yet unexplored link between [anti-predatory lending laws] and foreclosures," the study's authors state.

The study may be the first scientific evidence to back up claims made by many critics that the Bush administration and earlier administrations allowed last year's financial crisis to happen by not enforcing common-sense regulations on lenders.

Last year, seven months before the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the ensuing government banking bailout, then-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer wrote a Washington Post column in which he described how the Bush administration blocked states' efforts to prevent a crisis in the mortgage industry.

Spitzer wrote:

Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis. This threat was so clear that as New York attorney general, I joined with colleagues in the other 49 states in attempting to fill the void left by the federal government. Individually, and together, state attorneys general of both parties brought litigation or entered into settlements with many subprime lenders that were engaged in predatory lending practices. Several state legislatures, including New York's, enacted laws aimed at curbing such practices.

What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge? As Americans are now painfully aware, with hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure and our markets reeling, the answer is a resounding no.

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.

Spitzer's Post column ran a month before the New York Times reported that federal authorities were investigating Spitzer as a patron of high-end hookers, ending his political career and long-running crusade against corporate malfeasance. Some observers, including investigative reporter Greg Palast, say this was not a coincidence.

The UNC study "is a perfect reminder, as Congress and the administration tackle financial regulatory reform, that not all regulations are onerous, anti-business, and aimed at choking off financial innovation," writes Mary Kane at the Washington Independent. "And it’s more evidence that borrowers buying beyond their means weren’t the only only players in the sub-prime mess."

Anytime you see a majority opinion written by Scalia, run

"All candidates are different from one another. It depends on the issues. I can see Obama being better on some domestic issues than McCain and I can see McCain taking on a military contract that Obama wouldn't, like Boeing. The point is, these candidates, whatever is in the recesses of their conscience and intellect, are homogenized by the corporatization of our government."

—Ralph Nader, August 06, 2008

In other words, in many ways the Obama Adminstration is stuck in the ruts left by the Bush Administration. Case in point:

AP, courtesy of Truthout.org:

Court: Suspects Can Be Interrogated Without Lawyer

Tuesday 26 May 2009

by: Jesse J. Holland | Visit article original @ The Associated Press

Justice Antonin Scalia and the Supreme Court's conservatives succeeded yesterday in overturning a ruling that mandated the presence of a lawyer while a defendant is being questioned by police. (Photo: AP)

Washington - The Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned a long-standing ruling that stopped police from initiating questions unless a defendant's lawyer was present, a move that will make it easier for prosecutors to interrogate suspects.

The high court, in a 5-4 ruling, overturned the 1986 Michigan v. Jackson ruling, which said police may not initiate questioning of a defendant who has a lawyer or has asked for one unless the attorney is present. The Michigan ruling applied even to defendants who agreed to talk to the authorities without their lawyers.

The court's conservatives overturned that opinion, with Justice Antonin Scalia saying "it was poorly reasoned."

Under the Jackson opinion, police could not even ask a defendant who had been appointed a lawyer if he wanted to talk, Scalia said.

"It would be completely unjustified to presume that a defendant's consent to police-initiated interrogation was involuntary or coerced simply because he had previously been appointed a lawyer," Scalia said in the court's opinion.

Scalia, who read the opinion from the bench, said the decision will have "minimal" effects on criminal defendants because of the protections the court has provided in other decisions. "The considerable adverse effect of this rule upon society's ability to solve crimes and bring criminals to justice far outweighs its capacity to prevent a genuinely coerced agreement to speak without counsel present," Scalia said.

The Michigan v. Jackson opinion was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, the only current justice who was on the court at the time. He and Justices David Souter, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented from the ruling, and in an unusual move Stevens read his dissent aloud from the bench. It was the first time this term a justice had read a dissent aloud.

"The police interrogation in this case clearly violated petitioner's Sixth Amendment right to counsel," Stevens said. Overruling the Jackson case, he said, "can only diminish the public's confidence in the reliability and fairness of our system of justice."

The Obama administration had asked the court to overturn Michigan v. Jackson, disappointing civil rights and civil liberties groups that expected President Barack Obama to reverse the policies of his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush.

The Justice Department, in a brief signed by Solicitor General Elena Kagan, said the 1986 decision "serves no real purpose" and offers only "meager benefits." The government said defendants who don't wish to talk to police don't have to and that officers must respect that decision. But it said there is no reason a defendant who wants to should not be able to respond to officers' questions.

Russ Baker's book on Bushes affirms every conspiracy you've ever heard of

Baker's biggest revelation: the American public’s increasingly tenuous hold upon the levers of its own democracy.

the book: Family of Secrets

the end of the review at http://www.religiondispatches.org:

Here are some of the major revelations of the book:

*George H. W. (“Poppy”) Bush, and many of his closest associates throughout his adult life were deeply and secretly enmeshed in covert intelligence activities. He has gone to great lengths to conceal many of his activities, no matter how mundane, and engaged in overt acts of misdirection. Bush’s extensive intelligence ties prior to his becoming CIA Director in the Ford administration, and going back to World War II, have not been previously reported. Baker calls this Bush’s “double life.”

*Poppy Bush was deeply involved with an array of CIA covert operators, Bay of Pigs veterans and rightwing Texas oil industry characters linked to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Baker shows that Bush was actually in Dallas on November 21, 1963 and was probably there on the day of the assassination as well. Baker draws no particular conclusions from the fact, except to document, describe and underscore the great lengths he went to conceal the fact.

*Baker asserts that, much to his own surprise, Richard Nixon while no innocent, was not the instigator of the Watergate crimes and the cover-up, but appears to have been set-up. What’s more, some of the seeming good guys, were not, and much of what seemed to be, was not as it seemed. Among those he implicates in the set-up are Poppy Bush and perhaps most remarkably, John Dean, the former White House counsel who became best known as the key whistleblower.

*In a related point, Baker notes that Nixon suspected the CIA of infiltrating his White House staff. Nixon recognized the Watergate burglars from his own days supervising covert operations as Vice President in the Eisenhower administration, and knew that their bosses were seasoned CIA hardliners with ties to the Bay of Pigs invasion and events linked to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Nixon battled the CIA for files on what he called the “Bay of Pigs thing,” but never could get access to them. (To borrow from Woody Allen, just because Nixon was paranoid, doesn’t mean they were not out to get him.)

*Baker questions the integrity and independence of famed Watergate reporter Bob Woodward of the Washington Post who he reports had been recommended for his job by senior Nixon White House officials who had known him when he worked in Naval intelligence prior to his becoming a reporter. In that capacity, which Woodward denies he held, he was a frequent visitor to the White House.

*Baker details the Bush family’s personal, political and business connections to the Saudi royal family; and to apparent international slush funds and money laundering schemes. Much of this is told in such a matter of fact fashion that it is easy to lose sight of the significance of many of the individual facts.

Regarding George W. Bush, in addition to the manufacture of the legend his conversion story (see main story) the book covers familiar turf regarding how strings were pulled to get George W. Bush into the “Champagne Unit” of the Texas Air National Guard in order to avoid military service that might send him to Vietnam; how he failed to fulfill that service; and how his failure was systematically covered-up and politically defused. Also covered are the allegations of how W. was an abuser of illegal drugs in addition to his apparently drinking problems as a young man.

One important story from W.’s past that has long been rumored is confirmed in this book. It is a story that perhaps as much as his going AWOL from the National Guard and orchestrating a cover-up could have derailed his political career.

And that story is the illegal abortion he obtained for a girlfriend in Texas before Roe v. Wade. This is substantiated in part by four reporters whose stories were not published, but who shared their “experiences and detailed source notes” and even tapes with him. Two Bush pals took charge of arranging the abortion go to the hospital and who went to the hospital to inform her that he would not see her again. All of the names are named. Certainly as an candidate who was seeking to appeal to conservative evangelical, anti-abortion constituencies, this would have been a high hurdle to overcome.

“As president,” Baker concludes, “Bush promulgated tough new policies that withheld U.S. funds not only to programs and countries that permitted abortions, but even to those that advocated contraception as opposed to abstinence. Moreover, his appointments to the Supreme Court put the panel on the verge of reversing Roe v. Wade. Like his insistence on long prison sentences for first time drug offenders and his support for military action, his own behavior in regard to sexual responsibility and abortion could be considered relevant *and revealing.” Such journalistic understatement is typical of Baker’s narrative, even while reporting potentially politically explosive material.

Perhaps the revelation that would be most difficult for readers will not be anything about the Bush family, or Watergate or the Kennedy assassination, or any of the figures in this nearly 500 page book and 1000-plus footnotes. “These revelations about the Bushes,” Baker writes, “lead in turn to an even more disturbing truth about the country itself. It’s not just that such a clan could occupy the presidency or vice presidency for twenty of the past twenty-eight years and remain essentially unknown. It’s that the methods of stealth and manipulation that powered their rise reflect a deeper ill: the American public’s increasingly tenuous hold upon the levers of its own democracy.”

An alternate take on the Bailout

...well, it's different...!

Pablo Ouziel in Online Journal:

If private institutions are requiring money from the taxpayer because their mismanagement is putting the whole economy under risk of collapse, then the bailout should be reframed and converted into the $700 billion bail. The taxpayer should demand that every CEO who requires money from the government be locked up and only released on a bail of $700 billion dollars. Otherwise it is just a blatant joke and an insult to the elementary functioning of a democratic society.

People are being urged by their government to approve legislation, which will ultimately allow the same people who created the mess, to have a blank check to play with the future of the American people. The same people, who until only a few weeks ago were certain that the fundamentals of the economy were solid, are now rushing to ask for funds. They either lied or they had no clue about what was happening. Either way, it would be wise to remove them from their posts before any decisions are made. Maybe Nouriel Rubini should be called up to become chairman of the Fed or treasury secretary, after all he has been one of the few voices making correct calls on events as they have unfolded. Surely, the American people deserve someone with a successful track record, making the calls on the future of their very fragile economy.

There seems to be in this society a rejection of simplicity. If it isn’t fancy enough, we want complicated mechanisms and complicated people telling us how things should be done. To a certain extent, I can understand how that can impress the simplest of minds, but at some point, when the complicated mechanisms and the complicated people have proved to be wrong, they must be removed from positions in which they can cause greater harm. Yet, simplicity always finds a hard sell when it comes to telling people what would seem like coherent first steps.

Here are a few steps which would convert the taxpayer bailout into bail for the prison sentence of irresponsible CEOs. This will at the very least guarantee the safety of the American people, and the restoration of their tarnished democratic ideal. Yes, I am in agreement with policy makers and financial analysts about the fact that legislation has to be approved fast, in order to avoid the complete meltdown of the economic system. However, if those responsible truly agree with this view, they should patriotically accept the demands of the taxpayer. The demands of the taxpayer, as manifestations against the bailout, should state the following preconditions to any agreement:

1. Impeachment of George W. Bush for lying about the fundamentals of the economy.
   
   
2. Ben Bernanke’s immediate removal from his post as chairman of the Board of Governors of the United States Federal Reserve for lying about the fundamentals of the economy.
   
   
3. Henry Paulson’s immediate removal from his post as the United States Treasury Secretary and member of the International Monetary Fund Board of Governors for lying about the fundamentals of the economy.
   
   
4. Immediate arrest of the CEO and CFO of any organization asking for funds from the taxpayer. Bail should be set at $700 billion. Once the markets have stabilized, trials can proceed to determine the guilt or innocence of individuals.
   
   
5. Immediate return of bonuses by management teams in distressed institutions asking for taxpayer funds.
   
   
6. Immediate cancellation of the mortgages of American families owning only one home.

These preconditions might sound harsh, but we are talking about a rushed document, which is the biggest bailout in the history of the world. The last rushed decision of this magnitude created the mess in Iraq. Hopefully, this time around the U.S. taxpayer, after having experienced the harsh consequences of rushed decisions, will be smarter. The difference this time around, is that instead of shooting Iraqis, the Americans are about to shoot themselves in the foot. I do feel for the majority of the American people, who frankly have no clue about what is happening to their cherished country, but apart from writing to them, there is nothing much one can do.

The blatant lies of their elites continue to destory the little crumbs that are still left of what was once the “Great American Dream” and has now become the “Great American Nightmare.” Faced with this scenario, setting bail at $700 billion seems completely reasonable to me.

Pablo Ouziel is a sociologist and freelance write based in Spain.

Elaine Supkis's Tour of the Washington D.C."Bailout" Hearings

We all hear about the goings-on in D.C. But what really goes on there?

For instance, we hear about Paulson and Bernanke meeting with Congress, pleading for their $700 villion+ bailout. What was that really like?

Wouldn't it be nice to hear about it from someone who actually understands more about it than most of the participants? Someone who could explain the arcane financial travails, tracing their roots back into history?

Having endured the "debate" tonight and exhausted my critical facilities, I stumbled upon such a resource, right here in the tubes of the internets. This lady, whose web writing appeared on my screen for the first time just a few weeks ago, undertook the trip to D.C. and wrote it all down, and posted it, complete with photos and illustrations, for our viewing pleasure.

What are her credentials? Who knows? I honestly know only a few snippets of her varied and extraordinary background from what I've read at her website. But her D.C. story (which must have been written and posted in great haste) has a clarity and insight (and humor) that I've rarely encountered. She explains things in the metaphor of mythology, which I find delightful, but might turn you off. I find it helpful in grasping the complexities of the situation.

Here is her trip in four lengthy installments:

the Pre-Bernanke Hearings in DC

The Sphinx And The Hijinks

Bush gives he Democrats the Monkey's Paw

OTC Derivatives Monster Mess Gets Worse

I can only hope you find them as useful as I did.

Financial Elite Terrorism—Bushco at work

This is mind boggling in it's implications. Let's dissect this a bit...

White House Dispatches Team to Push Economic Bill

September 23, 2008, 10:42 a.m.
By Keith Koffler
Roll Call Staff

---

The White House today is drumming up extraordinary pressure on Congress to approve its plan to enact a $700 billion mortgage bailout fund, suggesting the markets cannot wait much longer and dispatching Vice President Cheney and other top officials up Pennsylvania Avenue to jawbone lawmakers.

Cheney, White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and presidential adviser Ed Gillespie are meeting this morning with House Republican conservatives, where a rebellion is brewing against the size and questionable free market credentials of the administration proposal.

Yes, that's right— the opposition is coming from House Republican Conservatives. For a quick education, look up Ed Gillespie in Wikipedia: "When Karl Rove also departed in August, the Washington Post described Gillespie as stepping up to do part of Karl Rove's job in the White House" "He also played an aggressive role as spokesman for the Bush campaign during the vote recount in Florida."

Cheney will later gather with GOP Senators at the regular Tuesday lunch. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who collaborated in drawing up the proposal, are testifying this morning on Capitol Hill in an effort to defend their handiwork.

But Bush himself continues to do little to explain his plan, and he has refused to be questioned about it.

How much you want to bet he doesn't have a clue what they're doing.

Asked during a telephone briefing for reporters today whether Bush was speaking with lawmakers, White House Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto said the president is aware of their concerns but that Paulson is the salesman.

At least, that's what they told Bush.

Paulson said Congress and the administration must move rapidly.

Before anyone actually has a chance to read the thing. Hey, it worked with the Patriot Act...

“We must do so in order to avoid a continuing series of financial institution failures and frozen credit markets that threaten American families' financial well-being, the viability of businesses both small and large, and the very health of our economy,” Paulson said in remarks as prepared for delivery. “The market turmoil we are experiencing today poses great risk to U.S. taxpayers.”

Fratto said it would be “unthinkable” for Congress not to pass legislation this week, asserting the result would be a “very, very serious situation” for the U.S. economy.

“It shouldn’t take much analysis to remember what happened last week, which was a very serious freeze-up in our credit markets,” Fratto said. “Our financial markets right now do not need uncertainty, they need increased certainty as to how this rescue plan is going to go forward — and that they can be sure that there is a plan to go forward — and that will begin the correction in our financial markets.”

Fratto insisted that the plan was not slapped together and had been drawn up as a contingency over previous months and weeks by administration officials. He acknowledged lawmakers were getting only days to peruse it, but he said this should be enough.

And here's the clue. They've been working this thing up for months, waiting for things to get so desparate, so critical, that they could spring it on Congress and then force it through before anyone could take a breath.

If it was so serious, why didn't they discuss it with, oh, maybe the Congressional Republican Leaders? I know, it would be asking too much to expect them to discuss it with the folks who supposedly actually run Congress, the Democrats...

This time they're even trying to scam their own Republicans.

Amid growing criticism of the initiative from multiple quarters, Fratto sought to defend its key principles and argue against changes.

He argued that the proposal is being unfairly characterized as a boon to Wall Street at the expense of Main Street, since credit market difficulties also squeeze average consumers. He minimized the need to help homeowners as part of the package — a key demand of Democrats — saying aiding the credit markets will help on its own and noting that Congress just approved a housing bill that includes assistance.

And Fratto sought to beat back efforts to limit the pay of CEOs whose companies would draw assistance under the legislation, saying it would make it difficult for the plan to work “If you provide disincentives for companies and firms out there that are holding mortgage-backed securities and other securities from participating in the program.”

What part of "rule of law" do they not understand? Apparently, any of it. "Making stupid, economy-threatening scams illegal might make crooks oppose it." Do tell.

Fratto noted that some firms holding troubled securities are otherwise successful. “They were not necessarily irresponsible players, and so you have to be careful how you deal with them,” he said.

Yes, and the Mafia built schools and orphanages...Hitler was kind to children... it is a complex world.

Some protesters and newsreporters exercise their constitutional rights and are beaten and jailed without mercy. No one is too concerned about being careful how they're dealt with...

Is this the week the US economy melts down?

There are so many interesting articles that I can't seem to stop reading. It's like watching a trainwreck in slow motion.

Or it's like this. I've thought for years that having George Bush and Company, Inc., running things was like having a drunken underage frat boy driving the bus with all your loved ones aboard, veering off the road, and nearing the edge of a precipice. Well, now we've officially driven off the edge. The wheels have left the ground. The bus is hurtling through space. What will happen when it hits bottom? I can't help but watch.

According to all the folk I can find who seem to know what's happening, every Fed bailout of crooks and theives just digs the chasm the bus is falling into that much deeper. Here's a selection of excerpts from astoundingly dismal and horrific posts for your entertainment:

First, a gaggle of links from today's Online Journal—

The Final Meltdown Explained:

Today’s banking crisis is the THIRD trillion dollar plus US-caused financial meltdown in the last 20 years. Each one of these crises came into being through the same basic mechanism . . . the fraudulent over-valuing of financial assets by Wall Street -- with a “wink and a nod” (and sometimes a lot more) from the White House and Congress.

The fraudulently valued assets stimulate the economy, impart the illusion of health and then, inevitably, the fraud goes too far and the whole house of card comes painfully crashing back to earth.

The three trillion dollar plus frauds were:

Fraud #1: The so-called “Savings and Loan Crisis” of the late ’80s

Fraud #2: The so-called “Tech Bubble” of the late ’90s

Fraud #3: The so-called “Credit Crisis” of today

How the scam works

The mechanism of these frauds is simplicity itself. Take a shaky financial asset and blow up its value and then sell as much of it as you can. In the “Savings and Loan Crisis,” the instrument was junk bonds. In the “Tech Bubble” it was Internet stocks. In the “Credit Crisis” it was individual mortgages collected into pools and then resold to investors.

In each case, normal, well established “bread and butter” financial principles were consciously thrown away by Wall Street with no hint of protest from federal regulators.

[detailed descriptions of the three trillion dollar scams follow...]

Mike Whitney : Grasping at Straws—

On Friday morning, Senator Christopher Dodd, the head of the Senate Banking Committee, was interviewed on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” Dodd revealed that just hours earlier at an emergency meeting convened by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, lawmakers were told that “We’re literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system.” Dodd added somberly, that in his three decades of serving in public office, he had “never heard language like this.”

The system is at the breaking point, and despite Wall Street’s elation over the proposed $1 trillion dollar bailout to remove toxic mortgage-backed debt from banks’ balance sheets, the market is still correcting in what has become a vicious downward cycle. This cycle will persist until the bad debts are accounted for and written off for or until the exhausted dollar-system collapses altogether. Either way, the volatility and violent dislocations will continue for the foreseeable future.

[. . .]

The malfunctioning of the markets and the freeze-over in the banking system are the outcome of a massive credit unwind instigated by trillions of dollars of low interest credit from the Federal Reserve, which was magnified many times over via complex derivatives contracts and extreme leveraging by speculative investment bankers. This has generated the biggest equity bubble in history. That bubble is now set for a ”hard-landing” which is the predictable result of an unsupervised marketplace where individual players are allowed to create as much credit as they choose.

If Paulson is not removed and his rescue plan scrapped altogether; the dollar will lose its position as the world’s reserve currency and the US government will face a historic funding crisis as foreign sources of capital dry up. That will thrust the country into a hyper-inflationary depression.

Jerry Mazza: Financial terrorism: US taxpayers bail out Wall Street criminals—

“If you want to know who to blame for the past 5 years of naked shorting, you only have two places to look: the financial brokers themselves, and the nonfeasance of a feckless SEC.” And so what goes around comes around.

But now you know. We’re under attack. Even my conservative broker said, “Somebody is making money on this.” That is just the way certain individuals made millions on 9/11, having foreknowledge of the coming event, by betting on Morgan Stanley (located in the North Tower), United and American Airlines’ stock to tank, and by betting on defense industry stocks to zoom up. The real revelation here is that the market and its so-called protective systems are offering us about as much protection from foreign and domestic attack as NORAD’s air-defense system did on 9/11. America once more is under fire.

As on that day, Cheney was in the White House bunker directing activities, and Bush was stranded somewhere listening to some school children read a goat story. And above them, some financial elites were pulling the strings to pull down the American economy and make us less than a banana republic for their continued picking. Seven years later, hardly anything has changed.

Why Elliot Spitzer was Assassinated:

The US news media failed to draw the obvious connection between the bizarre federal law enforcement investigation and leak campaign about the private life of New York Governor Spitzer and Spitzer's all out attack on the Bush administration for its collusion with predatory lenders.

While the international credit system grinds to a halt because of a superabundance of bad mortgage loans made in the US, the news media failed to cover the details of Spitzer's public charges against the White House.

Yet when salacious details were leaked about alleged details of Spitzer's private life, they took that information and made it the front page news for days.

Then some links from what have become some of my other favorite sites...

Elaine Supkis: Bailout Bill Hitting Congress September 26!

Financial Armageddon will cause the Apocalypse if the US follows Germany and Japan's examples from the Great Depression. The US is going bankrupt. Our banking system is now officially bankrupt. The rescue scheme whereby a deep in debt government bails out a deep in debt banking system always fails. The coup is not complete. We have time to argue with our rulers. I hope people are truly interested in going to DC to lobby against this bail out. Even if no one listens to us. We have to speak out. About going to DC: I now have learned that the deadline for this bail out bill is Sept. 26. If anyone wants to lobby, don't try this unless you are within 250 miles of DC. I just got a donation to help defray my own train ticket there.

IOZ: Gladitorial Combat and Other Entertainments—

400 point daily swings aren't indicative of, whadayacallit, a functioning market, but of a gang of panicked, headless chickens reacting to any bit of data with no holistic, synthetic, systemic analysis of just what the fuck is going on. Traders have absolutely no idea what they're doing, thus the wild gyrations. The notion that this is a "liquidity crisis" spurred on by sad-sack psychology, that the solution consists of a billion here, a trillion there in public-sector capital, is only that much more indicative that the geniuses running the store can't even read a balance sheet. I mean, the largest single financial entity in the world, which is the United States Federal Government is trying to rescue the so-called private economy by a.) absorbing trillions of dollars in debt obligations and b.) making multi-billion-dollar, off-the-books cash payouts from its own treasury. That ain't psychology; it's catastrophe.

I suppose this is all bad for my retirment account, but damned if I'm not enjoying it. Watching market apologists who believe that the storm is going to blow over and the ship right itself sometime in the next forty-odd days get swept overboard, food for crabs, is going to be even better. I caught a brief snippet of Kudlow the other day and thought to myself, Now there is a man with blood in his stool. At this point, these motherfuckers better hope the Large Hadron Collider swallows the fucking world. It's their only hope.

Jonathan Schwarz at A Tiny Revolution: Upside To The Bailout—

With all the gloom and doom about giving Hank Paulson $700 billion to hand out to his friends, with no oversight of any kind, it's easy to miss the upside to the bailout.

For instance:

1. An early proposal that would have allowed Wall Street executives to literally eat 100 million Americans has been discarded as "politically unfeasible."

Bush family cleaning up on transfer of public lands to private hands

Wayne Madsen via Online Journal:

September 16, 2008

(WMR) -- WMR has learned from a senior Democratic congressional source that the Bush family, most notably former President George H. W. Bush, is reaping windfall profits from the transfer of title of public federal and state lands to private hands. The elder Bush, according to our sources, has a vested financial interest in land title companies that specialize in the transfer of public lands to private interests.

The revelations represent the first evidence that the elder Bush has benefited from the transfer of public lands to private hands in a giant scheme to defraud federal and state governments, as well as the American taxpayers and Native Americans.

The land-grabbing scheme primarily involves the transfer of federal lands, including Native American lands and national forest system lands, in the Rocky Mountain West, state lands in Texas, and both federal and state lands in California, Mississippi, and Florida to private entities. The scheme is also at the center of the scandal surrounding jailed GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff who conspired to privatize federal lands and assets around the country to benefit his corporate clients.

In 2004, under pressure from Abramoff and the White House, Senators Harry Reid (D-NV) and Jim Gibbons (R-NV) shepherded the passage of the Western Shoshone Distribution Act, which was quickly signed by President George W. Bush. The act settled federal violations of the Ruby Valley Treaty of 1863 with the Shoshones and compensated them a mere $135 million for 24 million acres of Shoshone land illegally seized by the federal government in Nevada, California, Utah, and Idaho. The Shoshones cried foul, saying their land is rich in gold reserves. Gibbons, who is now governor of Nevada, instantly moved legislation to privatize the former Shoshone lands. Reid, Gibbons, and Senator John Ensign (R-NV), all received lucrative cash contributions to their campaigns from Abramoff clients.

Bush White House official Jennifer Farley urged passage of the bill claiming that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were personally interested in its enactment, further adding that the legislation was considered “hot.” Cheney paid a visit to Nevada as the Senate voted to pass the bill.

The Washington Post reported that Farley and Karl Rove were recipients of sporting event tickets from Abramoff’s assistant Kevin Ring, arrested and jailed this past week for his involvement in the Abramoff bribery scandal. Farley termed tickets as “fruit” in her conversations with Ring. Abramoff, already serving a prison sentence for a guilty verdict from a Florida case, received an additional four years in prison last week for his role in the scandal, which has tainted a number of Republicans in Congress, as well as senior members of the Bush administration. Tony Rudy, another Abramoff assistant and a former deputy chief of staff to former Texas Republican Representative Tom DeLay, pleaded guilty in the bribery scandal.

WMR has also learned that the Bush administration ordered a number of California and other Western state forest wildfires purposefully set with the intention of damaging and destroying federal and state forestlands, thus making them ripe for exploitation and sale to private interests. California Republican Representative John Doolittle, also under investigation in the Abramoff bribery scandal, promoted the passage of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, which permitted national forests to be purposefully thinned by timber companies to make them less susceptible to the fires, exacerbated by global warming, that were being set by others within the Bush administration. The purposeful destruction of federal forests was carried out with the knowledge of top officials of the Interior Department under both Interior Secretaries Gale Norton and Dirk Kempthorne.

In 2003, California law enforcement concluded that a number of devastating fires that destroyed 718,000 acres in the state were the result of arson. Some within the Bush administration suggested that “Al Qaeda” terrorists could be behind the blazes. It now appears that it was the Bush administration that was the actual terrorists in carrying out the arson to enrich their friends in the real estate, Indian gambling casino, mining, and other exploitation industries.

In Florida, under both Governors Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist, the St. Joe Company, a firm that has close financial ties to both Jeb and George H. W. Bush, has steadily encroached on lands adjacent to state and federal wildlife management preserves, state forests and parks, and national forests.

Elaine Scarry explains in devastating detail why not holding accountable the Bush Adminstration for sanctioning torture is not allowed

The question remaining is, are we a country of law, or not? If so, there is no alternative. If not, what have we become?

from the BostonReview.net: (this is the end of a very long article)

...Finally—and for us, most important—the international rules against war crimes and torture do not allow prosecution to be thought of as discretionary; they do not allow an escape provision based on electoral euphoria or on one’s doubts about one’s own stamina in fighting injustice. Very distant from a mere disinclination to prosecute is a country’s act of granting an amnesty. The international laws about some criminal acts do, in fact, allow for amnesty if required to establish peace. But torture is not one of those crimes. As Michael Scharf writes, the Commentary to the Geneva Conventions (the “official history” of their adoption) “confirms that the obligation to prosecute is ‘absolute,’ meaning . . . that states parties can under no circumstances grant perpetrators immunity or amnesty from prosecution for grave breaches.”⁶³ So, too, the Convention against Torture requires that states “submit” cases to the “competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution.”⁶⁴ This means, writes Scharf, that “where persons under color of law commit acts of torture in a country that is a party to the Torture Convention, the Convention requires Prosecution.”⁶⁵

The United States is a party to these agreements. The duty to prosecute means that the failure of a government to do so violates international law and that the country reneges on its treaty obligations.⁶⁶ It also increases the pressure of other countries to bring cases against President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and former Secretary of State Rumsfeld based on the principle of “universal jurisdiction” that permits all parties to a treaty to prosecute grave war crimes that originated in another country.

It is odd that the designers of the Brattleboro resolution used “universal jurisdiction” as one of its legal bases, since that doctrine exists to enable countries distinct from the wrongdoer’s home ground to indict and arrest them. It is also odd that New York City’s Center for Constitutional Rights ,which in 2004 successfully argued for Guantánamo detainees to be heard in federal court, a year later chose to file a torture case by Iraqi prisoners against Donald Rumsfeld in Germany rather than in the United States. Their choice of venue was based on the fact that Germany has an explicit statute permitting them to try war crimes carried out anywhere in the world if the home country neglects to do so. The logic both in Vermont and New York seems to be: if the doctrine of universal jurisdiction allows citizens of a different country to try a case, surely it authorizes citizens of the home country to do so. Perhaps the valiant Brattleboro citizens and the stern fighters at the Center for Constitutional Rights doubt whether the ground they stand on is still in the United States. Can the ground be put back under their feet? How long?

Mission Accomplished—Again

BushCo manages to once again accomplish the exact opposite of what they profess.

AP via Truthout:

Apr 26, 12:24 PM EDT

The whistleblower's unending story

By ADAM GELLER
AP National Writer

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- The guest lecturer steps to the front of classroom 322 with a lesson plan, but not from any textbook.

Instead, Dave Welch comes with a story to tell, edgy and very personal. The names have been changed, he says, "to protect the guilty."

He directs students to the corporate financial forms projected on to a screen. Years ago, working at a small-town bank in the Virginia mountains, Welch combed through these figures and saw things that made him suspicious.

When he confronted the bank's president with his doubts, it cost him his job.

The story might have ended there. But this time - months after titanic scandals capsized Enron and WorldCom - things would be different.

There ought to be a law, Congress decided, protecting workers who expose what might be the next Enron. Who could've imagined the fight between the little bank and the fired accountant would become the new measure's most unlikely - and most strenuous - test?

More than 1,000 self-professed whistleblowers have come forward since.

The great majority have seen their cases rejected; about 160 settled before an initial ruling. Only six workers have won before a Labor Department judge - and the review board that hears appeals has not ruled in favor of a single whistleblower.

Now, Welch is ready to bring his story to a close. It's not easy, though, to conclude something that winds on without an ending.

"This is the message the courts are sending to whistleblowers," Welch says, the Tennessee in his voice taking on a chill. A new image beams on to the classroom screen - a pack of hunting dogs. In their midst is the prey, a nervous fox, head down low.

"When you're in deep trouble, keep your mouth shut and your eyes straight ahead."

There's a whole lot more.

Chalmers Johnson explains the situation

TomDipatch.com via Commondreams.com:

Why the Debt Crisis Is Now the Greatest Threat to the American Republic

by Chalmers Johnson

The military adventurers of the Bush administration have much in common with the corporate leaders of the defunct energy company Enron. Both groups of men thought that they were the “smartest guys in the room,” the title of Alex Gibney’s prize-winning film on what went wrong at Enron. The neoconservatives in the White House and the Pentagon outsmarted themselves. They failed even to address the problem of how to finance their schemes of imperialist wars and global domination.

As a result, going into 2008, the United States finds itself in the anomalous position of being unable to pay for its own elevated living standards or its wasteful, overly large military establishment. Its government no longer even attempts to reduce the ruinous expenses of maintaining huge standing armies, replacing the equipment that seven years of wars have destroyed or worn out, or preparing for a war in outer space against unknown adversaries. Instead, the Bush administration puts off these costs for future generations to pay — or repudiate. This utter fiscal irresponsibility has been disguised through many manipulative financial schemes (such as causing poorer countries to lend us unprecedented sums of money), but the time of reckoning is fast approaching.

There are three broad aspects to our debt crisis. First, in the current fiscal year (2008) we are spending insane amounts of money on “defense” projects that bear no relationship to the national security of the United States. Simultaneously, we are keeping the income tax burdens on the richest segments of the American population at strikingly low levels.

Second, we continue to believe that we can compensate for the accelerating erosion of our manufacturing base and our loss of jobs to foreign countries through massive military expenditures — so-called “military Keynesianism,” which I discuss in detail in my book Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic. By military Keynesianism, I mean the mistaken belief that public policies focused on frequent wars, huge expenditures on weapons and munitions, and large standing armies can indefinitely sustain a wealthy capitalist economy. The opposite is actually true.

Third, in our devotion to militarism (despite our limited resources), we are failing to invest in our social infrastructure and other requirements for the long-term health of our country. These are what economists call “opportunity costs,” things not done because we spent our money on something else. Our public education system has deteriorated alarmingly. We have failed to provide health care to all our citizens and neglected our responsibilities as the world’s number one polluter. Most important, we have lost our competitiveness as a manufacturer for civilian needs — an infinitely more efficient use of scarce resources than arms manufacturing. Let me discuss each of these.

And he does.

A more telling comparison that reveals just how much worse we’re doing can be found among the “current accounts” of various nations. The current account measures the net trade surplus or deficit of a country plus cross-border payments of interest, royalties, dividends, capital gains, foreign aid, and other income. For example, in order for Japan to manufacture anything, it must import all required raw materials. Even after this incredible expense is met, it still has an $88 billion per year trade surplus with the United States and enjoys the world’s second highest current account balance. (China is number one.) The United States, by contrast, is number 163 — dead last on the list, worse than countries like Australia and the United Kingdom that also have large trade deficits. Its 2006 current account deficit was $811.5 billion; second worst was Spain at $106.4 billion. This is what is unsustainable.
[. . .]

By 1990, the value of the weapons, equipment, and factories devoted to the Department of Defense was 83% of the value of all plants and equipment in American manufacturing. From 1947 to 1990, the combined U.S. military budgets amounted to $8.7 trillion. Even though the Soviet Union no longer exists, U.S. reliance on military Keynesianism has, if anything, ratcheted up, thanks to the massive vested interests that have become entrenched around the military establishment. Over time, a commitment to both guns and butter has proven an unstable configuration. Military industries crowd out the civilian economy and lead to severe economic weaknesses. Devotion to military Keynesianism is, in fact, a form of slow economic suicide.

On May 1, 2007, the Center for Economic and Policy Research of Washington, D.C., released a study prepared by the global forecasting company Global Insight on the long-term economic impact of increased military spending. Guided by economist Dean Baker, this research showed that, after an initial demand stimulus, by about the sixth year the effect of increased military spending turns negative. Needless to say, the U.S. economy has had to cope with growing defense spending for more than 60 years. He found that, after 10 years of higher defense spending, there would be 464,000 fewer jobs than in a baseline scenario that involved lower defense spending.

Baker concluded:

“It is often believed that wars and military spending increases are good for the economy. In fact, most economic models show that military spending diverts resources from productive uses, such as consumption and investment, and ultimately slows economic growth and reduces employment.”

[. . .]

Nuclear weapons furnish a striking illustration of these anomalies. Between the 1940s and 1996, the United States spent at least $5.8 trillion on the development, testing, and construction of nuclear bombs. By 1967, the peak year of its nuclear stockpile, the United States possessed some 32,500 deliverable atomic and hydrogen bombs, none of which, thankfully, was ever used. They perfectly illustrate the Keynesian principle that the government can provide make-work jobs to keep people employed. Nuclear weapons were not just America’s secret weapon, but also its secret economic weapon. As of 2006, we still had 9,960 of them. There is today no sane use for them, while the trillions spent on them could have been used to solve the problems of social security and health care, quality education and access to higher education for all, not to speak of the retention of highly skilled jobs within the American economy.

The pioneer in analyzing what has been lost as a result of military Keynesianism was the late Seymour Melman (1917-2004), a professor of industrial engineering and operations research at Columbia University. His 1970 book, Pentagon Capitalism: The Political Economy of War, was a prescient analysis of the unintended consequences of the American preoccupation with its armed forces and their weaponry since the onset of the Cold War. Melman wrote (pp. 2-3):

“From 1946 to 1969, the United States government spent over $1,000 billion on the military, more than half of this under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations — the period during which the [Pentagon-dominated] state management was established as a formal institution. This sum of staggering size (try to visualize a billion of something) does not express the cost of the military establishment to the nation as a whole. The true cost is measured by what has been foregone, by the accumulated deterioration in many facets of life by the inability to alleviate human wretchedness of long duration.”

In an important exegesis on Melman’s relevance to the current American economic situation, Thomas Woods writes:

“According to the U.S. Department of Defense, during the four decades from 1947 through 1987 it used (in 1982 dollars) $7.62 trillion in capital resources. In 1985, the Department of Commerce estimated the value of the nation’s plant and equipment, and infrastructure, at just over $7.29 trillion. In other words, the amount spent over that period could have doubled the American capital stock or modernized and replaced its existing stock.”

The fact that we did not modernize or replace our capital assets is one of the main reasons why, by the turn of the twenty-first century, our manufacturing base had all but evaporated. Machine tools — an industry on which Melman was an authority — are a particularly important symptom. In November 1968, a five-year inventory disclosed (p. 186) “that 64 percent of the metalworking machine tools used in U.S. industry were ten years old or older. The age of this industrial equipment (drills, lathes, etc.) marks the United States’ machine tool stock as the oldest among all major industrial nations, and it marks the continuation of a deterioration process that began with the end of the Second World War. This deterioration at the base of the industrial system certifies to the continuous debilitating and depleting effect that the military use of capital and research and development talent has had on American industry.”

Nothing has been done in the period since 1968 to reverse these trends and it shows today in our massive imports of equipment — from medical machines like proton accelerators for radiological therapy (made primarily in Belgium, Germany, and Japan) to cars and trucks.

Our short tenure as the world’s “lone superpower” has come to an end. As Harvard economics professor Benjamin Friedman has written:

“Again and again it has always been the world’s leading lending country that has been the premier country in terms of political influence, diplomatic influence, and cultural influence. It’s no accident that we took over the role from the British at the same time that we took over… the job of being the world’s leading lending country. Today we are no longer the world’s leading lending country. In fact we are now the world’s biggest debtor country, and we are continuing to wield influence on the basis of military prowess alone.”

Some of the damage done can never be rectified. There are, however, some steps that this country urgently needs to take. These include reversing Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for the wealthy, beginning to liquidate our global empire of over 800 military bases, cutting from the defense budget all projects that bear no relationship to the national security of the United States, and ceasing to use the defense budget as a Keynesian jobs program. If we do these things we have a chance of squeaking by. If we don’t, we face probable national insolvency and a long depression.

Chalmers Johnson is the author of Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, just published in paperback. It is the final volume of his Blowback Trilogy, which also includes Blowback (2000) and The Sorrows of Empire (2004).

[Note: For those interested, click here to view a clip from a new film, “Chalmers Johnson on American Hegemony,” in Cinema Libre Studios’ Speaking Freely series in which he discusses “military Keynesianism” and imperial bankruptcy. For sources on global military spending, please see: (1) Global Security Organization, “World Wide Military Expenditures” as well as Glenn Greenwald, “The bipartisan consensus on U.S. military spending”; (2) Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, “Report: China biggest Asian military spender.”]

Failure to impeach Bush will haunt Democrats and the country

Weldon Berger in BTCNews:

Nearly a decade of investigations, a lurid final report and a concerted campaign for impeachment left Bill Clinton among the more popular American presidents, with the majority of Americans unconvinced of any need to impeach or remove him from office. Nearly a decade of no investigations, with no coherent summary of misdeeds and no institutional effort to impeach, has left George Bush among the most unpopular of all presidents with a large minority, possibly a plurality, of Americans believing he deserves impeachment.

Clinton was impeached for personal reasons, on both sides of the equation: it was his personal behavior that provided whatever basis for the charges existed, and the desire to impeach him was intensely personal as well. However much impeachment proponents dislike Bush and Cheney—often considerably—the rationale for impeaching them is their official behavior. Consequently, any indictment of the two, whether for repeatedly breaking the law with respect to warrantless surveillance, or violating the Geneva conventions, or politicizing the Department of Justice or any of a number of other crimes, would constitute an indictment of their Congressional enablers as well.

No doubt that’s among the reasons some Democrats in Congress are dead set against the idea, since many of them can be counted among the enablers. But in the long run, Democrats are missing an opportunity to methodically expose the scofflaw nature of the Republican party and to decertify it as a legitimate participant in governing the country until it reconstitutes itself in a more palatable form (or until Democrats implode, whichever happens first).

Nancy Pelosi recently restated her opposition to impeachment, saying that it would be divisive. As I noted at the time, she’s absolutely right. On one side of the divide would be those who support the Constitution and the rule of law, and on the other, whether from party loyalty or personal philosophy, those who don’t. It’s a division that, were it to be explicitly drawn, would benefit the country and those Democrats who stand on the better side of it even if impeachment were to fail, which is possible, or if impeachment succeeded and the Senate voted, as is all but certain, to acquit.

Should the next president be a Democrat, he or she would benefit considerably from serving with a Congress in which Republicans were stigmatized by having been forced to side with Bush and Cheney against the Constitution and Democrats were clearly identified as standing with it. A Republican president would be constrained by the same circumstances.

But, Our Meat Supply is Safe!

...or so I've been told by people who should know better...

the Cosmic Iguana:

January 30, 2008

SICK COWS FED TO SCHOOL KIDS, AND TORTURED TO BOOT

Yet another example of atrocities you couldn't make up during the age of Bush. RAW STORY:

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has released footage taken by an undercover investigator which reveals horrifying abuse of cows at a California slaughterhouse which reportedly supplies meat to American school lunch programs.

Cows too sick or lame to walk are shown being shocked, prodded, shoved with forklifts, and even blasted with hoses in what the head of the HSUS describes as "torture ... right out of the waterboarding manual." Such "downer" animals normally would not be led to slaughter out of fear of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (i.e., "mad cow" disease) entering the food supply.... [*]

Two years ago, as posted here, BushCo eliminated most Mad Cow testing [*]. The obvious reason was fear of finding any, since they also forbid ranchers to test their own [*].

So the net result will probably be a Mad Cow epidemic here in about another ten years. But, hey, since it's gonna happen anyway why not squeeze out a little extra profit by feeding it to school kids? After all, they're probably juvenile delinquents anyway.

935 False statements Preceded Iraq War

News.Yahoo.com:

By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press Writer Wed Jan 23, 6:43 AM ET

WASHINGTON - A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel did not comment on the merits of the study Tuesday night but reiterated the administration's position that the world community viewed Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, as a threat.

"The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world," Stanzel said.

The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq's links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell's 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.

The center said the study was based on a database created with public statements over the two years beginning on Sept. 11, 2001, and information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches and interviews.

"The cumulative effect of these false statements — amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts — was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war," the study concluded.

"Some journalists — indeed, even some entire news organizations — have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, 'independent' validation of the Bush administration's false statements about Iraq," it said.