By David Swanson

No one disputes that Jay Bybee's name is at the bottom of memos that were, and to some extent still are, treated as laws which legalized aggressive war at the pleasure of a president and a variety of acts of torture. For many months the House Judiciary Committee has had two excuses for not impeaching Judge Bybee, even while proceeding with the impeachments of a judge for groping and another judge for petty corruption. The private excuse has been that impeaching Bybee would be opposed by Fox News. The public excuse has been that the Justice Department has not yet released its Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) report on the crimes of Bybee and his former colleagues.

If a group of dedicated scholars, attorneys, journalists, and activists had tried to generate a comprehensive list of impeachable offenses committed by George W. Bush as president, and only 35 of them had been introduced into Congress, one of the many discarded ones, in rough and overly detailed form, might have read something like this:

Deval Patrick’s likely Senate pick raises ‘serious concerns’

The Kennedy-backed pick for interim senator - a Beltway insider who could enjoy a lifetime pass to the Senate floor - has deep ties to special interests, sitting on a board that oversees a health-insurance provider and having lobbied for the pharmaceutical industry, the Herald has learned.

We need a HR 676 co-sponsor to primary this jerk.

The United States Supreme Court has denied the right of an inmate to pay for a DNA test that could prove he's innocent. He's been in jail for 14 years for a crime he says he did not commit. As Matthew Yglesias posts:

lhttp://kwout.com/cutout/u/a5/8s/2uk_bor_rou_sha.jpg

Business Lecturing Anyone on Moral Issues
March 8th, 2009 by SocProf and tagged Religious Fundamentalism
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/...

Brazil rocked by abortion for 9-year-old rape victim - Americas, World - The Independent via kwout

Let me see if I get this straight: the Church has excom

I have got to say that saving the life of a 9 year old rape victim as opposed to a forced pregnancy was really out of the realm of of common sense, but , this is the Catholic church ....Right?

The situation as it stands:
Wall Street had been holding its breath, pricing in, and "banking" (betting) on an effective Stimulus Plan, and a new and sensible Bank Rescue Plan. Well, neither are happening, and now we've continued with our regulary-scheduled collapse.

Geithner is a total fucking schmuck, clearly unwilling to properly confront the real problems of his Banker-Buddies' greed, their unwillingness to be honest about the shittiness of their piece of the Big Shitpile, and unwillingness help their borrowers, and those others on the hook in order to help themselves (see Banker's Greed). So many better candidates for the roll, and it's too damned early in the Obama Administration to replace the pinch-faced piece of shit, dammit.

OK. Don't Worry. I have a solid plan to fix Geithner's epic failure.

Obama Wants Journalist Gupta for Surgeon General

By Howard Kurtz
President-elect Barack Obama has offered the job of surgeon general to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the neurosurgeon and correspondent for CNN and CBS, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation.

Gupta has told administration officials that he wants the job, and the final vetting process is under way. He has asked for a few days to figure out the financial and logistical details of moving his family from Atlanta to Washington but is expected to accept the offer.

At the risk of deflating my capital (even further) here at the Mighty Corrente Building, I'm voicing a concern/pet peve. Much like the abuse of the term "gate", the word czar is now tacked on to every government appointment that doesn't currently have an official label. Besides having a major problem with these appointments, in and of themselves, I'd rather not give the appointees the idea that they can exercise power without concern. Didn't we have 8 years of that w/ our own little dictator, George Bush, who intoned that running our country would "be a lot easier if this were a dictatorship."

I think my gag reflex kicked in when the cutesy "car czar" was coined.

Influential Democrat asks Obama to keep spy chiefs

The comments in Wednesday's Congress Daily by U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, a Texas Democrat, run counter to the views of his likely Senate counterpart, who has called for a new team.

Reyes said he had recommended to Obama's transition team that CIA Director Michael Hayden and Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell be kept in place for at least six months.

Until 1947, the United States habitually told the truth about at least one thing. The job title of the Pentagon's highest ranking civilian was the Secretary of War. But the recent slaughter of tens of millions in the Second World War had given the Pentagon's real function a bad name. So Democrat Harry Truman rebranded the Department of War, naming it the Department of Defense. From that day, the Secretary of War became the Secretary of Defense. War plants, war expenditures and bloodthirsty war industries became more benign-sounding defense plants, the defense expenditures and the patriotic defense industry.

Robert Parry

Surprisingly this Thanksgiving, the Washington Establishment had a lot to give thanks for. And its chief mouthpiece – the Washington Post’s neoconservative editorial page – was glowing over its good fortune in the three-plus weeks since Barack Obama's election.

On Friday, the Post’s lead editorial thanked President-elect Obama for settling on insider favorites for key jobs, especially officials with long records of promoting the neocon foreign policy agenda. ...

He is a advocate of homophobia, is stalling on closing Guantanamo and giving excuses in place of results.

Gates blames everyone but himself. Gates fires reality-oriented officers. Gates is a warmonger, that is how he got his present job.

President Obama's global agenda, part two: Iran

Obama Team Tilts Toward Gates

Another sign that Obama may be close to retaining Gates has been the lack of chatter from transition officials about alternative candidates

Robert Gates; bad as Rumsfeld?,
The Danger of Keeping Robert Gates

Obviously there are no plans to hold torturers accountable and no plans to tell the truth about what happened.

So, I bet you all remember that wonderful sexist Larry Summers who said that women aren't excelling in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields because of innate differences between our brains and men's. Isn't he sweet?

It truly sickens me the way Republicans can spend a lifetime of running our country into the ground, go on Sunday morning TV, make a few nice sounds and presto, he's cabinet material.

The latest from Steve Clemons: Chuck Hagel Will Help Obama Find his "Inner Nixon".

Clemons says this like it was a good thing. Yeah, the secret bombing of Cambodia, the destruction of Chilean democracy, and so many other things were such a good idea and worked out so well for our country.

even the sports blogs are weighing in on some of the inanities of the "emergency relief in this bill, (found while waiting for the Phillies game to start)- NASCAR . (via Yahoo )
And the House bill started out in 10/2007 as a bill from Rep Rangle (NY) as H.R.3997 - "An Act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide tax relief and protections for military personnel, and for other purposes." They couldn't pass a bill to provide financial help to our soldiers and families in over a year, but Wall Street and bankers...

Melissa McEwan

Obama would like to appoint Republicans Chuck Hagel and Dick Lugar to key cabinet positions, like Secretaries of Defense and State, if elected.

So what, precisely, would change under a President Obama?

I agree with Rudi Giuliani

Times:

In adamantly refusing to declare waterboarding illegal, Michael B. Mukasey, the nominee for attorney general, is steering clear of a potential legal quagmire for the Bush administration: criminal prosecution or lawsuits against Central Intelligence Agency officers who used the harsh interrogation practice and those who authorized it [Bush], legal experts said Wednesday.

So it's come to this:

The advanced penal code.

Corrente’s policy on activism discourages violence, a position with which I wholeheartedly agree. In that spirit let us all unite in clearly and unequivocally condemning the deplorable actions described below. Retelling the story should in no way be considered supportive or an endorsement of such rash and dangerous conduct.

What a surprise. Maybe somebody could ask Mukasey if he blew up frogs by shoving firecrackers up their assholes when he was a kid, like Bush did. Perhaps that would form a common bond. Anyhow, WaPo:

Mukasey also demurred when he was repeatedly asked whether a simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding constitutes unlawful torture. Mukasey had strongly condemned the use of harsh interrogation tactics yesterday and said that the president could not order treatment that violated constitutional prohibitions.

But Mukasey said he could not elaborate on what techniques might be allowed, and specifically refused to answer questions from Democrats about whether waterboarding specifically was unconstitutional, saying he did know enough about what the technique entailed.

Oh, bullshit. Pure obfuscation. How about we keep it simple, and just say that if the Spanish Inquisition did it, it's torture. Well, guess what?

Remember the latest Republican election scam? The one where they were going to hold a referendum to eliminate winner-take-all in California only, so whichever districts were still voting for Kool-Aid would throw the election to a Republican in the electoral college?* Turns out the winger billionaire who was secretly funding the scam was a Giuliani suporter! LA Times:

A confidant of Republican presidential contender Rudolph W. Giuliani, and one of the candidate's biggest donors, was the source of a mystery $175,009.11** donation to a stalled initiative proposal seen as an attempt to help the GOP win a portion of California's 55 electoral votes.

New York hedge fund billionaire Paul E. Singer issued a statement Friday acknowledging that he gave the six-figure gift, ending speculation over its secrecy and fanning criticism of the Giuliani campaign.

Giuliani said he knew nothing about it, and his spokeswoman, Maria Comella, called the contribution "completely independent from our campaign."

Of course, of course.

But here's the weird thing: