The World IS Round

No longer should there be any "debate" about the following subjects.

Climate change/Global warming is real.

• Mankind significantly contributes to this phenomenon by pumping 70 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere daily.
• It is not too late to do something about climate change to fend off the worst repercussions.

Waterboarding is torture.

• The Bush Administration has engaged in this activity, and others which are considered torture throughout the civilized world.
• High ranking Bush Administrations, including Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Cheney and Bush have known and/or ordered these procedures, well aware that they were indeed torture.
• These administration officials also were well aware that they could be found criminally liable for their involvement in these torture activities under both US and International Law.
• These same administration officials have engaged in a criminal conspiracy to cover-up their felonious activities related to torture.

Warrantless Domestic Surveillance of US residents is illegal and Unconstitutional.

• The NSA and other agencies of the US Government have electronically eavesdropped on US citizens and legal residents within our borders.
• The availability of retroactively obtaining warrants under FISA makes any suggestion that the warrant requirement is too cumbersome ridiculous.
• The telecoms knew they were acting illegally when they bowed to pressure and threats of retribution from the administration to allow the NSA and others access to their customers' private data.
• The administration pursued this illegal and unconstitutional activity well before 9/11/01 while ignoring terrorist threats from abroad.
  

Valerie Plame was "covert."

• Cheney, Rove, Addington and Libby, among others, deliberately exposed her status while being fully aware of said status for no other purpose than retribution against her husband.
• George Bush knew who leaked her name to the press, and why, and did nothing about it except pardon Libby so nothing further could be done to expose the conspiracy.

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and other high ranking administration officials knew that the chances of Saddam Hussein possessing WMD's was highly remote and provided little or no justification to engage in a war of aggression.

• The administration deliberately "fixed the intelligence around the policy."
• The administration deliberately conflated 9/11 with Iraq, knowing there was no connection whatsoever.
• Secure access to Iraq's oil, and a personal/familial vendetta against Hussein are the only "real" reasons we went to war with Iraq in the first place.

The war in Iraq is a disaster.

• Despite the "Surge," and a decrease in the death rate over the last 6 weeks, this year was worse than the year before, and the year before that.
• A marked increase in airstrikes, and ethnic cleansing have contribute to the stark rise in casualties over last year, completion of targeting missions and cleansing of the mixed neighborhoods has contributed to the recent decrease in the rate of killing.
• We have destroyed our reputation throughout the world by our conduct of the war, possibly to an irretrievable degree, no matter what the eventual outcome of the conflict.
• We have severely damaged our ability to form alliances, degraded our military capability, and crippled our intelligence gathering institutions by our conduct of the war.
• There will be tremendous bloodshed if we leave precipitously, and tremendous bloodshed if we stay.
• The Iraqi people will never accept any government, or power structure put in place while under the current US occupation.
  

For these, and so many other reasons, our government is infected with a hoard of felons and war criminals whose daily existence now serves no other purpose than to escape responsibility for their crimes.

There is no "balance" to be fair about these issues. Any so called "journalists" who engage in the petty he said/she said presentation of events that are well settled are looking to fill time, gain ratings, and engaging in the laziest and most disingenuous form of behavior. They are co-conspirators with the mafia fiefdom our republic has now become.

When someone starts talking about the personal loyalty of the ideologically pure being the sine qua non of anyone ever considered for a job with the Bush administration; pay attention, because you may have found that rarest of breeds -- a truth-teller in the media.

A Spine Is A Terrible Thing To Waste

Thursday: 64 Iraqis Killed, 28 Wounded

I'll believe it when I see it.

Dems will block Mukasey nomination unless they get an answer from the AG nominee on whether waterboarding is torture.

In a completely unrelated episode, in another wing of the Capitol Building, in what must be an alternate universe...

In a little-noticed speech Tuesday at the Georgetown Law Center, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said telecom immunity would be "grossly irresponsible" until Congress knows what conduct is being immunized.

Clearly a disease has infested some of the Democratic Congressional Leadership. I'm hoping it turns into a fever, but I fear it's just a cold. This will be the way they save face for passing more funding for the damn war.

Gee, Jay, How's That Intel Report Coming?

Monday Update: 69 82 Iraqis Killed, 73 75 Wounded

Are there no honest men (or women) in Washington?

Executives at the two biggest phone companies contributed more than $42,000 in political donations to Senator John D. Rockefeller IV this year while seeking his support for legal immunity for businesses participating in National Security Agency eavesdropping.

The surge in contributions came from a Who's Who of executives at the companies, AT&T and Verizon, starting with the chief executives and including at least 50 executives and lawyers at the two utilities, according to campaign finance reports.

So, I guess that means that the administration gets exactly what it wants in the FISA capitulation bipartisan compromise bill, including immunity for the telecos. Chalk another one up for Cheney. His pet Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee has come through for him again, with a little help in the spare change department. For a Rockefeller, this guy comes cheap.

More on Jello Jay under the fold.


I mean, didn't you think that it was all too convenient that Jay Rockefeller (D-Verizon) always seemed to cave when it looked like standing up to the dodges, lies and secrecy of the administration was the right prescription. Now the excuse is that they're too busy looking the other way on domestic spying to stand up to President 24%.

Well, now we know. don't we. They never were going to seriously look into the manipulation of intel leading up to the war and release the so-called Phase II report. You did hear that they were "shelving" that, didn't you?

The Phase II investigation is supposed to focus on two things: "examining the role of the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans and...contrasting the statements of public officials with what the intelligence community was saying at the time."

Oh, that's right. I forgot it was just supposed to quietly go away and only live on in myth, like the Kennedy assassination investigation into that magic bullet thingy. But come on. I don't need Jay Rockefeller to tell me they fixed the intelligence around the policy -- that they were going to trump up some reason to go to war against Iraq even before 9/11. They didn't need Curveball to con them into invading. He was just conveniently available to add to their house of cards.

Of course in a nation where 33% of the people STILL believe that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9/11, and 41% are pretty sure there was some kind of direct connection between the hijackers and Iraq, people like me will always believe that Doug Feith, Paul Wolfowitz and Elliot Abrams cooked up enough smoke and mirrors at Cheney's direction to make Bush believe what HE will always believe -- that there was some sort of rational explanation why we went into Iraq in the first place.

No doubt in some twisted corners, twisting the intelligence was seen as a patriotic duty.

Allowing this administration and their buddies to get off -- again -- scott free, is beyond the usualy spinelessness of the Democratic Leadership, something we've grown accustomed to ever since Pelosi's "Off the Table" moment. But hey, I've always wondered what a guy named Rockefeller was doing in the Democratic Party anyway. True, his clan were never really considered true conservatives, and 42 Grand is chump change to the Rockefeller family.

But a populist? Someone who was going to "take it to the man," he is not. BooMan is livid about the Intel Committee finding better things to do . . . than their job . . .

I call bullshit. Where is the urgency? You call this 'absolute committment'? I call it a total whitewash. At this point we should be moving onto Phase III: How the Intelligence Community is using psychological operations to maintain support for a failed war. And Phase IV: How the intelligence is being fixed around the policy of obliterating Iran.

We've seen this before...it was called Iran-Contra, and it was far less serious that what we are facing now. I saw Fred Thompson, on a post-debate show last night, tell Alan Colmes that Iran is trying to take over the entire Middle East and that we are therefore justified in spending hundreds of billions on discretionary defense spending. He told Colmes 'to read something' and then he might understand that our budget problems are all about entitlements and have nothing to do with preventing the 1000-year Persian empire.

The Republicans are out there in some alternate reality...a reality that has no connection to reality. Their ideology is dangerous. And the Democrats are covering their ass.

This has to stop.

Thanks to Avedon, you can read a little bit more on Rockefellers new BFF's at Democracy Now.