Of course, they’re just Black People so it’s not really that important. But I though you’d like to know, and Steven is wondering about a Second Civil Rights Movement.

Thousands of chanting demonstrators filled the streets of this little Louisiana town Thursday in support of six black teenagers initially charged with attempted murder in the beating of a white classmate.  Read more 

At the end of a very long story about how the Bush administration has remade the Department of Justice, we get this extremely buried lead.

It looks like the loyal Bushes are giving Christianists bonuses just because they’re Christianists. Hey, doing well by doing good, eh?

Several career lawyers said that some political appointees favored the religious-oriented employees, intervening to steer $1,000 to $4,000 annual merit bonuses to them.

Well, of course, that’s only a few thousand, right?  Read more 

Okay, at the last minute he was reminded that what he was doing was unconstitutional and added a sentence. But if Murray Waas is to be believed, there’s something really, really fishy here.

Can’t quote a lot out of the National Journal, and this is a moderately long piece. Really quite balanced—all relevant “Clinton did it too!” excuses are noted. But Abu Al basically delegated to Sampson and Goodling—who had maybe one actual prosecution between them as legal experience—authority to take dictation from the White House on hiring and firing decisions of all non-Civil Service Justice Department employees.

And hide it from Congress.

oopsie…Abu Al may have to come back and sit with the dunce Can’t Recall cap on again for awhile longer.  Read more 

Yeah it’s over at the House of Orange but you have got to see The Charts. You’ve probably heard of them but if you haven’t actually seen them you can’t know just how powerful they are.

These have to be on the front page of every paper in the country tomorrow. They should lead off the evening news for at least as many nights as a tragic but isolated shooting incident did. It might even perversely seem to at least slightly exonerate Abu Al G’s repeated “can’t recalls” in his testimony the other day, because who COULD recall all the possible exchanges between the Bush White House and the Bush Justice Department. The contrast between this setup and the one of the previous administration should STFU any further whine of “But Clinton Did It Too!” that these people who hate Clinton so much leap to at every opportunity.

Go look. It’ll take ten seconds. Then (those with graphics skill ’n’ shit) copy them and start spreading them everywhere.  Read more 

Clammyc says no. Some highlights:

However, that isn’t really why I am writing this – I am looking more at WHY they won’t testify as opposed to the underlying issues, documents, and possible crimes (I will say that the fired attorneys will most likely provide enough information regarding whether any “obstruction of justice” charges would be warranted with or without Rove and Miers).

It all obviously goes to the matter of Executive Privilege. And the question is – will Congress fight the Administration all the way to the Supreme Court (only to run out the clock and possibly lose in this case anyway), or will they focus on all other areas of this case and determine whether charges can be brought or if this will truly become yet another slimy but political matter. The upshot if it remaining political is that it will damage the republicans – the downside is that it pisses off the American public because Congress was spending too much time on this as opposed to getting us out of Iraq and promoting policies that are good for We the People.

Whether this technically should even fall under executive privilege is a question in and of itself – but will likely be resolved through negotiations or in court.  Read more 

It’s pretty well out in the open now. The United States Government wants to know every single bit of information that goes in and out of your computer when it’s connected to the Internet. Is that clear enough? Do you want that to happen? Can you be persuaded or browbeaten into believing that if they JUST use this information for some “good reason” like stopping kiddie porn, or preventing terrorism, that (a) well then that’s okay; that good cause is so important it’s worth giving up a little of my privacy for, and besides, I don’t do kiddie porn or terrorism so what do I have to worry about? or that (b) they will in fact only use this information for that purpose?

If you persuade yourself to believe either of the above, you’re an idiot. Go away, we do not want you as a reader. You are the enemy, you are one of Them. Fuck off, eat shit and die.  Read more 

Michael Shaheen, who headed the OPR from its inception until 1997, said that his staff “never, ever was denied a clearance,” and that OPR had conducted numerous investigations involving the activities of attorneys general. “No attorney general has ever said no to me,” Shaheen said. He added that, over the past several years, the OPR’s muscle has degraded, in part because it was stripped of its authority to pursue criminal investigations. But under the Bush administration, the weakening has been especially pronounced, Shaheen said. “I just think that the White House has so frightened everybody…. If I were still at OPR and was told I couldn’t have security clearances, the first word out of my mouth … would have been, ’Balderdash!’ “

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