And the walls came tumbling down...

The top ten list of the week.

And a quote:

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson last week insisted that the price tag for bailing out Wall Street would come to a princely $700 billion - cha-ching! - a vast pile of cash that we could somehow never seem to find when it was needed for silly things like healthcare or education or fixing Social Security. But here comes Wall Street, cap in hand, and what do you know? There it is.

crossposted at Rants from the Rookery

If you are reading this, you're probably on the list

To be rounded up. Pack a toothbrush:

Govt. May Have Massive Surveillance Program For Use In ‘National Emergency,’ 8 Million ‘Potential Suspects’

Last year, former deputy attorney general James Comey revealed that in 2004, he refused to “certify” the legality of certain aspects of the National Security Agency (NSA) spy program. Comey witnessed Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card try to force a bed-ridden John Ashcroft to approve the program. Comey, however, did not publicly give specifics as to what program he opposed.

CAP’s Peter Swire wrote on ThinkProgress at the time that Comey’s testimony implied that “other programs exist for domestic spying” outside of the NSA program. Radar’s Christopher Ketcham suggests that another spy program does exist: “Main Core,” a program that authorizes “computer searches through massive [unspecified] electronic databases” in order to discover “potential threats” in the event of a “national emergency”:

According to a senior government official…”There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.” … One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.

Remember the ten easy steps to fascism:

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
2. Create a gulag
3. Develop a thug caste
4. Set up an internal surveillance system
5. Harass citizens' groups
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
7. Target key individuals
8. Control the press
9. Dissent equals treason
10. Suspend the rule of law

This explains all those secret private prisons around the country, the odd obsession that Cheney and Rumsfeld had about playing shadow government games, Cheney's claim that the Vice President was outside the law and the Constitution, the indifference to foreign workers, the ICE raids, Blackwater mercenaries, Gitmo, Tasers being issued to police and being scrubbed from autopsy reports, identifying every crime and misdemeanor as terrorism, and the officious arrogance of the airport security, doesn't it?

These loyal Bushies must have been promised really neat uniforms and high glossy black boots so they could shock and awe their craven neighbors. Is that why they gutted the treasury? To create a depression that would make Americans desperate to support a fascist regime? It might have worked when Georgie's grandfather Prescott Bush tried to start a coup against FDR.

Are they hoping another terrorist strike will do the trick?


crossposted at Rants from the Rookery

Sitting in the Dock of the Hague

With groveling apologies to Otis Redding and a shaking fist at Steve Bates who got the song and the idea stuck in my head....



Sittin' in the mornin' sun
I'll be sittin' when the evenin' come
Watching the lawyers roll in
And then I watch 'em roll away again, yeah

I'm sittin' in the dock of the Hague
Watching my poll numbers slide away
Ooo, I'm just sittin' in the dock of the Hague
Wastin' time

I left my home in Texas
Headed for the Capitol Hill
'Cause I've had preznitshal elections
And everything wuz gonna come my way

But I'm just gonna sit in the dock of the Hague
Watching evidence pile day by day
Ooo, I'm sittin' in the dock of the Hague
Wastin' time

Look like nothing's gonna change
Everything still remains the same
I can't do what ten people tell me to do
So I guess I'll remain the same, yes

Sittin' here resting my bones
And this loneliness won't leave me alone
It's three or four countries I bombed
Just to make this dock my home

Now, I'm just gonna sit in the dock of the Hague
Watching my life roll away
Oooo-wee, sittin' in the dock of the Hague
Wastin' time



crossposted at Rants from the Rookery

Update: It needs this picture:

Yoo who?

Steve Bates of The Yellow Doggerel Democrat has the timeline and lists of torture memos and statements that puts Yoo right up there with the Nazi apologists and enablers.

Anyone for the Nuremberg Defense?

The Nuremberg Defense is a legal defense that essentially states that the defendant was "only following orders" ("Befehl ist Befehl", literally "order is order") and is therefore not responsible for his crimes. The defense was most famously employed during the Nuremberg Trials, after which it is named.

Yoo really did want to please his overlords, didn't he?


crossposted at Rants from the Rookery

Out of time, out of gas, and out of here

And none too soon. Froomkin of the Washington Post gives an overview of Bush's STFU speech to the nation and the media's reactions. The shorter version? Nobody is listening anymore:

There it was last night, for all the world to see: A presidency running on empty.

In his final State of the Union address, President Bush had almost nothing to say. Certainly nothing new and significant. Nothing remotely memorable.

It's a safe bet that nothing he said last night will amount to much. Nothing he said will help bring the country together, or undo the damage he has done to American interests abroad. Nothing he said will help him win back the trust or support of the American people, both which he lost a long time ago.

On the traditional State of the Union litany of subjects, his repetition of familiar and sometimes delusional talking points conveyed a clear, though unintended message: That those looking for meaningful progress on the key issues facing our nation and our world today will have to wait for the next president.

(Picture from here.)

Update: Dear God, he's doing it again! Tengrain of Mock, Paper, Scissors has the pic.
crossposted at Rants from the Rookery.

Dancin' Dave has the blow by blow of the SOTU 'speech'.

Bush's Legacy needs a bit more polish

Dan Froomkin's article for the Washington Post has caused the halo to tarnish a bit:

With time running short on his presidency -- and on the eve of a trip to the Middle East -- President Bush seems to have overcome his aversion to talking about his legacy and is now speaking fervently about how he expects to be remembered.

As it turns out, the president sees himself as quite the heroic figure.

"I can predict that the historians will say that George W. Bush recognized the threats of the 21st century, clearly defined them, and had great faith in the capacity of liberty to transform hopelessness to hope, and laid the foundation for peace by making some awfully difficult decisions," Bush told Yonit Levi of Israel's Channel 2 News. Bush held several interviews with Middle Eastern journalists last week in anticipation of his trip to the region, which starts tomorrow.

[snip]

Bush's self-image contrasts sharply with his image among his fellow Americans. More than 60 percent of Americans disapprove of the job is doing, and a CNN poll in November found that 58 percent of Americans rated Bush either a poor president, a very poor president, or the worst president ever.

I'll go with the worst president ever.


(cross-posted at Rants from the Rookery)