At what point do progressives stop being Democrats' whipped dogs and start acting like a movement capable of putting the Dems in their proper place as the party of the people? David Sirota wrote today about Obama's latest call to increase war spending beyond its already ludicrous proportions.

How many of the extreme right-wing and criminal policies of Bush-Cheney has Obama adopted? How many of those extreme right-wing policies has he exceeded? Last month, knowledge that Obama has gone a step further than Bush, authorizing the executive branch to murder American citizens on the flimsiest of rationales. This sh__ has GOT to end.

By David Swanson

Former prime minister Tony Blair's testimony was streamed live at 4:30 a.m. ET at the Iraq Inquiry website and on other sites, such as the UK newspaper the Telegraph which allowed viewers to rank Blair's responses on a "Lie Meter". Telegraph readers' top desired questions pre-hearing were:

I'm sure everyone's read by now that James O' Keefe, creator of the infamous fake "Pimp and Ho" ACORN videos, was arrested today for allegedly attempting to wiretap Mary Landrieu's office. And I certainly appreciate the irony here, having been repeatedly brushed off when I called up Landrieu's office and voiced my opposition to the telecom immunity bill.

But anyway. In yet another proof of the self-similarity of the wingnut function, I found this little gem about acting Lafayette US Attorney Bill Flanagan, a Bush appointee and father of one of the suspects:

President Barack Obama has nominated a federal prosecutor in Lafayette to be U.S. Attorney for Louisiana's western district that is headquartered in Shreveport.

Stephanie Finley's nomination on Wednesday must be confirmed by the Senate before she can take the post.

Finley would replace Donald Washington, who was appointed by President George W. Bush and resigned on Monday. The U.S. Attorney's office is currently run by Bill Flanagan of Shreveport, the first assistant U.S. Attorney.

So Flanagan's "replacement" (not really, but he will be superceded) is set to be nominated tomorrow by a Democratic president. Today, his son gets busted trying to tap the phones of one of the most odious -- and therefore most important -- Democratic Senators.

Interesting, no? Alright, now let me roll out some foil for you.

Somehow I suspect that this nomination wasn't going to go through quickly. Was this part of a plan to catch Landrieu making some kinda crooked deal on healthcare and then blackmail Obama into... promoting Flanagan? Seems risky and insane, but this is Louisiana, after all.

Or maybe they were just trying to make more "gotcha" tapes. Since they're facing 10 years, things might get entertaining when the prosecution offers each of the 4 suspects a deal... I just can't believe that these were the only 4 guys in on this.

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:

Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'

WASHINGTON, DC–Mere days from assuming the presidency and closing the door on eight years of Bill Clinton, president-elect George W. Bush assured the nation in a televised address Tuesday that "our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over." ...

...Bush swore to do "everything in [his] power" to undo the damage wrought by Clinton's two terms in office, including selling off the national parks to developers, going into massive debt to develop expensive and impractical weapons technologies, and passing sweeping budget cuts that drive the mentally ill out of hospitals and onto the street.

Boston Globe:

President Obama will maintain a lid of secrecy on millions of pages of military and intelligence documents that were scheduled to be declassified by the end of the year, according to administration officials.

I'm sure you all recall the early days of the NSA Hoovering up all domestic data warrantless wiretapping scandal, when they referred to it as the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" and assured us that they were only targeting Al-Qaeda operatives.

Naturally, this turned out to be a lie enhanced duplicity technique, because it turns out they were spying on all of us everyday American citizens. Nobody was off the target list, and we were all potential Al-Qaeda operatives.

Now, there's a big hubbub about some sketchy CIA assassination ring, apparently answering to Cheney himself. Nobody's willing to talk about the nitty-gritty details, but it's enough to have even Nancy "off the table" Pelosi spooked or pissed off enough to start publicly discussing how fucked-up it was, whatever "it" was.

The public justification for this shadowy, super-classified, apparently reprehensible death squad?

They were only targeting Al-Qaeda operatives.

Yeah, okay, I'm gonna go ahead and call bullshit. Does anyone seriously doubt that what we'll eventually learn is that they formed a group to assassinate American citizens in the National Interest? Consider this, via TPM:

Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief, told TPMmuckraker that because we've been in a state of war against al Qaeda since just after September 11, there would have been no need for a secret CIA program that received special legal authorization...

As for what the program did involve, Cannistraro suggested that it involved Americans as targets, and that it went beyond surveillance, but declined to elaborate. He added that, though Cheney may have directly ordered the CIA to keep Congress in the dark, the veep wasn't acting alone. "The approval was from the president," said Cannistraro.

Hmm, I wonder...

Interesting times:

(TPM link)

So, as far as I can tell, Rep. Jane Harman [D-Ca] was conspiring with the Israelis to drop some spy charges in exchange for some lobbying on her behalf, and Alberto Gonzales had an NSA warrantless wiretap™ (wait for it) on her phone and overheard the deal.

In exchange for not investigating, Gonzales asked her to attack the NYT's exposé on (wait for it) NSA warrantless wiretapping. The one she had personally requested be held back until before after the 2004 election (Department of With Democrats Like These, anyone?)

And so she goes free, although the Israelis didn't get her that committee chair she wanted in the first place.

One has to wonder just how much dirt Hoover Gonzales and Rove had on everyone in Washington, and more importantly, how many other favors they blackmailed out of people. And it certainly explains some of those bizarre, neo-Maoist ritual apologies.

The Kansas City Star's political blog is reporting that an investigation by the Justice Department and the Inspector General's office found former US Attorney (and Bush appointee) Brad Schlozman "violated federal law" by considering "political and ideological affiliations when hiring and taking other personnel actions relating to career attorneys, in violation of Department policy and federal law" during his term in office.

Scholzman's case was "referred this matter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia for a decision on whether the evidence warrants a criminal prosecution."

Some people think this is the key issue before us. Not being one to argue unnecessarily, and always pleased to join a good cause, I suggest all who agree on its importance consider voting for the following question now leading the pack at Obama’s “Change.gov” website:

"Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor - ideally Patrick Fitzgerald - to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?"

It is Bob Fertik’s question, and he has all the details here. Seems a respectably subversive sort of an effort, organizing to take control of the agenda, so please take a moment straightway before this cycle closes.

Shit happens. For a reason. While there is a worthy discussion going on in the internets about the varying degrees of morality on either side of the conflict, I particularly like to look at the policy-related causes and effects.

After failing to anticipate Hamas’s victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, the author reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.

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.

from USAToday blogs:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/200...

Update at 12:50 p.m. ET. In his speech, Obama outlines six principles for reform. From his remarks, as prepared for delivery:

"First, if you're a financial institution that can borrow from the government, you should be subject to government oversight and supervision. Taxpayers who have now been called upon to spend nearly a trillion dollars to save our economy from the excesses of Wall Street have every right to expect that financial institutions are not taking excessive risks.

This post is largely an attempted response in the form of a summation to the long comment thread Lambert"s "Roubini" post of yesterday continues to produce. I have used so many tags because this crisis is the sum total of all the Bush/Republican/Rightwing shit we've lived through for the past eight years, and the similar shit stretching back to Nixon and Reagan.

Across the liberal blogisphere a consensus has been building that what Paulson is asking for is unacceptable. How to frame why it is unacceptable has been the on-going question, and how to best bring some kind of pressure on the congressional Democrats, but also on Obama to show leadership, presidential leadership, right now, when it'sneeded, to keep both the tax payers and liberal progressive ideas from becoming implicated in yet another disaster not of their making.

"Peter" seemed to feel, in that comment thread, that Lambert and others were failing to understand that there is a real problem in the economy.

No one doubts that. In fact, all kinds of progressives have been insisting that no one was paying attention to the fundamental instability which the housing bubble was creating, appeals to sanity which were ignored. In fact, even after the initial bailouts, this administration and Paulson had done nothing to stave off the freezing up of liquidity which happened last week. I believe it took them by surprise. But I also agree with Lambert that their instinctive reaction is precisely the one that Naomi Klein has been pointing out - to use the crisis to continue to advance the same policies that created the crisis.

This is an excerpt from a longer post at Pruning Shears

The Friday news dump by the White House was a doozy (via):

... "Give em BACK!!!" --George W. Bush

Boy-- just IMAGINE the hot and tasty US DoD goodies that the Russians are finding as ground score behind the Georgian Army... "Slightly used, dropped once."

via AFP

CRAWFORD, Texas (AFP) — The White House on Tuesday demanded that Moscow return any US equipment its forces seized in Georgia, amid reports Russian troops grabbed some US military vehicles.

"If the Russians have it, it needs to be returned immediately," spokesman Gordon Johndroe said as US President George W. Bush followed the Georgia crisis from his ranch near this tiny Texas town.

"But there's conflicting reports on it right now. We'd certainly expect that the Russians would return any equipment that is US equipment and return it quickly, if, in fact, they do have it," Johndroe told reporters.

"There's some, also, indications that they've made that assurance. If they've made that assurance, they need to honor that commitment, as well," he said, describing the reports as "too sketchy" as to the material's location.

Russian forces in Georgia seized five Humvees (High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle) that either belong or had belonged to the US military from the port of Poti, witnesses said.

Give 'em BACK!

HAW!!!

No. George is honestly NOT worried one damned bit about some HumVees. We just gave over a shitload of super serious toys, and DARPA
Happy Fun Balls (Google Video Link) to the Russians, and you can imagine, to the entire NotWest.

Give 'em BACK!!!

Oh, hell that is one of George's bestest yet.

Oh, gods almighty we are so FUCT.

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

I know Robert Fisk is controversial. But he lives and breathes the Middle East and has intimate knowledge of it. In his latest column for the Independent, he reports on the restraint that Al Jazeera has shown considering the amount of atrocities on tape it receives:

""We've trained ourselves not to go to the maximum in our feelings when we see terrible things like this," Ayman Gaballah, Al Jazeera's deputy chief editor, says bleakly. And I can see why. There are other tapes, other outrages too terrible to show. George Bush wanted to bomb the station's headquarters in Doha but staff have shown great sensitivity with what they show the world from Iraq. There is no proof that any of Al Jazeera's reporters was ever tipped off about anti-American attacks before they happened – in Iraq, I investigated these claims in 2003 and 2004 – but plenty of proof that some things are too awful to see.

This is the actual bag that will be given to attendees at this year's DNC.

Somebody call for the Bucket Brigade?

UPDATE And Kudos to TalkLeft for the Fourth Amendment tote. -- Lambert

That's what someone from Iowa just said to me. Take a look for yourself:

More here. This is apparently the independent teevee station in the area and doing a good job of covering events there.

If you have money, or time, think about donating some to the Red Cross or similar organizations. It seems Bush's cronies at FEMA can't do more than give speeches.

Dennis Kucinich is on the floor of the House introducing 35 articles of impeachment against George W. Bush.

In re: Valery Plame, the charge is 'misprision of a felony.'
Go Dennis Go!!!

Four hours -- he's laying out the evidence as he goes.

More typical behavior from the Bush Administration.

In retaliation for Scott McClellan's new saucy tell all book, which he is now pimping*.

I like this part.

Fox News contributor and former White House adviser Karl Rove said on that network Tuesday that the excerpts from the book he's read sound more like they were written by a "left-wing logger" than his former colleague.

Messengers. They shoot them.

"They're saying some of the exact same things about McClellan they said about me."

-- Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism chief. (emphasis added)

Cross-posted from the Global Sociology Blog

Standard Operating Procedure is a book co-authored by Philip Gourevitch (also author of the great We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow, We Will Be killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda and writer for the New Yorker) and Errol Morris (director of the great documentary The Fog of War, among others) who also directed the documentary of the same title (incredible website that is well worth checking out with tons of great information that supplement the book very well and makes you impatient for the film to be shown in your area... not yet for me, unfortunately).

The book and documentary are about the Abu Ghraib scandal, of course. We might think that we had read, seen and heard (see also the excellent HBO documentary Ghosts of Abu Ghraib) everything we could probably stomach about this sorry mess but we were wrong. Besides, as a country, we deserve to have this thing shoved in our face on a regular basis because, as the book states, this stain is our own.

And let's remember that the story of Guantanamo Bay has not been told yet. Who knows what horrors will come out of there? (Although this post by DDay over at Digby's place, relating how the US offered its Gitmo facilities to the Chinese for torturing purposes and the fact that we're stuck there because we have a whole bunch of people we can neither trial - because they've been tortured - nor release, because, huh, who cares about their excuses anymore... seems to me there will be no end to the evils to be dug up there). And there's more coming out every day lately: see McClatchy (one of the only decent remaining reporting outfits), the BBC, and Jeralyn at Talk Left.

But back to the book itself.   Read more…

Surprise! Verizon and AT&T Win Homeland Security Contracts.

Verizon Business, a unit of No. 2 U.S. telephone service provider Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N), said on Wednesday it has won a contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security worth around $678.5 million over 10 years.

...
AT&T Government Solutions, a business unit of AT&T Inc (T.N), won a $292 million contract to serve as the secondary network service provider in the Eastern and Western region.

And nothing for Quest.   Read more…

To know her is to love her:

Cheney's memory is a great fallacy that haunts us today, just as the misbegotten Iraq war will haunt us 30 years from now. It was a huge mistake to pardon Richard Nixon and I say that as someone who thought it was the right thing to do at the time. I was very young and had a soft heart and thought that it was gratuitous to punish him more after his terrible humiliation and that it would be good for the country to "move on."

Allowing Nixon to get away with his crimes while his fellow Republicans angrily stewed over the injustice of his downfall is what led to the ongoing usurpation of the constitution under Republican rule. They believe the president is above the law and the constitution. Why wouldn't they? They do these things and there's no accountability so they do it again the first chance they get, always upping the ante. When they finally lose an election and take a breather from illegal wars and pillaging and shredding the constitution, the Democrats are so busy beating back political attacks and trying to clean up the mess that they decide accountability isn't worth it. They "bind up the wounds" allowing the infection to fester until the next time it happens.

Won't happen anytime soon. Why? Because there are more high ranking, trannie/gay/metrosexual/perv Republicans who worry about such a law than any large gathering of liberals and progressives could ever produce.

We're not ashamed of what we do, who we are, who we love. They are. There have been many times in history when pr0n has safeguarded freedom; this is one of them. The domestic use of the FISA laws is your guide; they spy because they expect to find us doing what they are, and they can't imagine life without hatred, fear and perversion. And they despise us not only because we can, but because we are/do.