Jeff Carlson (.Thought)

You've Got to Be Fucking Kidding

I don't throw that out there as a title lightly:

The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments.

To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 in some cases.

Now men and women who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.

Again, anyone who says the Bush administration supports the troops is deeply deluded, full of shit, or both. (And I know it's "the Military" doing this, but guess whose desk that falls on?)

Goodbye Gonzales. Dems, Don't Screw This Up, Too

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced his resignation today (effective September 16), eliciting a collective sigh of relief across the nation. The term "incompetent" gets thrown around too much these days (and isn't that a statement on the political climate we're living in), so I'm not going to say that Gonzales was incompetent - he was just horribly, embarrassingly bad at his job. Or rather, his second job. His first job and main priority over the years has been to protect George W. Bush, which he's managed to do in spades, to the incredulity of nearly everyone. It's just that he was terrible at his second job, which was to serve the American people.

Within the last few weeks, Bush's brain trust (I use the term loosely) has started to unravel. Rove is exiting, Gonzales is headed out, not to mention all of the other administration lackeys who've suddenly realized that they need to spend more quality time with their families. It's surely a blatant attempt to head for cover now that there's real heat in the air (subpoenas, and all those pesky facts that have been suppressed for so long which are now finally emerging), in the hopes that they'll be passed over and people will forget all about it.

So, subpoena-power wielding Democratic legislators, once again we're at a point where your country is begging you: don't fuck this up. Don't go easy on these law-breaking bastards in the name of attaining some higher level of political consciousness. Defend your Constitution, and punish people for the crimes they've committed. Political goodwill is fine when you're dicking around with minor partisan matters, but we've reached a point where the current administration has clearly and unashamedly undermined the Constitution, the government, and the American people in its pursuit of power (and don't kid yourselves thinking that it hasn't been a giant six-year power grab by the Republican party at every level of government it can get its hands on). Do you want to stay in power yourselves? Do the right thing and crack down on the law breaking and corruption (and that includes members of your own party; you've seen what covering up for criminals and pedophiles in their ranks has done for the Republicans).

Screwing the Troops (Again/Still)

Henceforth, I don't want to hear anyone make the claim that the Bush Administration "supports the troops." It's already established that Bush claims to listen to his generals, but then does what he wants (and fires the generals who disagree with him). And that he uses the troops that he commands as PR shields, propping himself up in military bravado while the injured languish at Walter Reed hospital. But now, this is the last fucking nail: Bush Threatens Veto Over Troop Pay Raise, Military Widow Benefits.

I've never served in the military, never had any interest in it, and don't know if I'd have the aptitude for it. But it pisses me off that "Commander Guy" can't provide for the people who are, literally, suffering and dying for him.

The Bush administration today threatened to a veto a House defense spending bill over a 3.5 percent pay raise for U.S. soldiers and a $40/month increase in benefits for military widows, among other provisions. The legislation passed the House today 397-27.

ThinkProgress noted last night that the White House opposed the pay raise for troops:

Troops don’t need bigger pay raises, White House budget officials said Wednesday in a statement of administration policy laying out objections to the House version of the 2008 defense authorization bill. […]

The slightly bigger military raises are intended to reduce the gap between military and civilian pay that stands at about 3.9 percent today. Under the bill, HR 1585, the pay gap would be reduced to 1.4 percent after the Jan. 1, 2012, pay increase.

Bush budget officials said the administration “strongly opposes” both the 3.5 percent raise for 2008 and the follow-on increases, calling extra pay increases “unnecessary.”

The White House says it also opposes:

– a $40/month allowance for military survivors, saying the current benefits are “sufficient”

– additional benefits for surviving family members of civilian employees

– price controls for prescription drugs under TRICARE, the military’s health care plan for military personnel and their dependents

House Minority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) said today he was “shocked and disappointed in the President’s threat,” noting that Bush’s problems with the bill are over measures that benefit “the very people who sacrifice the most in the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and who serve at home and overseas.”

UPDATE: VoteVets chairman and Iraq veteran Jon Soltz adds:

Believe me, even with the current benefits that get paid out by the Department of Defense and insurance that many troops buy into, those who lose spouses in Iraq aren’t sleeping in mounds of cash. The increase proposed by Democrats will mean a hell of a lot. At VoteVets.org, we’ve heard absolute horror stories on the type of cutbacks that widows and widowers have had to make because the government doesn’t provide enough to those who lose a loved one in war.

"Won" or "Lost" Isn't the Issue

Josh Marshall has an excellent, succinct post about the misguided thinking about whether the war in Iraq is "lost," as Harry Reid has said, or is able to be "won," as Bush and the Republicans hollowly maintain. As usual, what's being talked about is the smoke that obscures the reality, something Americans have been subjected to for, oh, going on six years now. Sorry for the long quotation, but it's worth it:

Frankly, the whole question is stupid. Or at least it's a very stilted way of understanding what's happening, geared to guarantee President Bush's goal of staying in Iraq forever. A more realistic description is President Bush's long twilight struggle to see just how far he can go into one brown paper bag.

We had a war. It was relatively brief and it took place in the spring of 2003. The critical event is what happened in the three to six months after the conventional war ended. The supporters of the war had two basic premises about what it would accomplish: a) the US would eliminate Iraq's threatening weapons of mass destruction, b) the Iraqi people would choose a pro-US government and the Iraqi people and government would ally themselves wtih the US.

Rationale 'A' quickly fell apart when we learned there were no weapons of mass destruction to eliminate.

That left us with premise or rationale 'B'. But though many or most Iraqis were glad we'd overthrown Saddam, evidence rapidly mounted that most Iraqis weren't interested in the kind of US-aligned government the war's supporters had in mind. Not crazy about a secular government, certainly not wild about one aligned with Israel and just generally not ready to be America's new proxy in the region. Most importantly, those early months showed clear signs that anti-Americanism (not surprisingly) rose with the duration of the occupation.

This is the key point: right near the beginning of this nightmare it was clear the sole remaining premise for the war was false: that is, the idea that the Iraqis would freely choose a government that would align itself with the US and its goals in the region. As the occupation continued, anti-American sentiment -- both toward the occupation and America's role in the world -- has only grown.

I would submit that virtually everything we've done in Iraq since mid-late 2003 has been an effort to obscure this fact. And our policy has been one of continuing the occupation to create the illusion that this reality was not in fact reality. In short, it was a policy of denial.

...

Of course, the damage that's been done over the last four years of denial is immense -- damage to ourselves, to the Iraqis, damage to Middle Eastern security and our standing in the world. So walking out of the bag isn't easy and it won't fix things. But the stakes alleged by the White House are largely illusory. Most of the White House's argument amounts to the threat that if we walk out of the bag that we'll have to give up the denial that the White House has had a diminishing percentage of the country in for the last four years. The reality though is that the disaster has already happened. Admitting that isn't a mistake or something to be feared. It's the first step to repairing the damage. What the president has had the country in for four years is a very bloody and costly holding action. And the president has forced it on the country to avoid admitting the magnitude of his errors.

I wonder if the remaining 28% of the country that fervently supports Bush will ever stop and realize that they've been fed nationalistic lies since he came into office. I doubt it. Bush and his administration is firmly tapped into the base of world-fearing warmongers (start with Dick Cheney and move on down), so facts aren't likely to intrude on their reality.

A Word to the House Dems

According to the latest news reports, the Democrats have taken power in the House. This is extraordinarily satisfying, because hopefully this means there's going to be some positive force in government.

But we (and here I actually mean you, House Democrats) can't get cocky. Oh sure, we want to. The big Republican bully, the one that's called us names and equated us with terrorists, has been kicked to the curb. He's wounded, but there is still power to grab and scores to settle, and he does still control the White House (and the Senate, although hopefully that might change by tomorrow).

You're going to be getting lots of advice in the coming days, but read mine first.

1. Go ahead and call it a mandate, just to piss off George Bush. But only do it once.
2. Check your house before you enter the House. By this I mean: there can be no skeletons, no dirty tricks, no backroom shady deals. The Republicans are losing because they've failed to govern, yes, but it's also because they're corrupt. Extremely corrupt. And they've done whatever they can to hide that corruption. House leadership means actual checks and balances, and I'm hoping to see a whole host of subpoenas and investigations to root out the grubby crap that's infested the government. It's vitally important that the corruption sticks with the Republicans. Don't think that because you're in power you can start to get away with the same shit. If a Democrat is embezzling funds, beating his or her spouse, profiting from legitimate shady land deals, or has someone's head in a freezer, discipline them severely and appropriately. You need to prove to the country that the Democratic party is not what the Republicans have sneered, and that the good of the country comes before the good of the party or the individual.
3. Do not, at least at first, push all the Republican enmity under the rug in the name of mending fences and bipartisanship. Yes, I want us all to get along, but the best way to do that right now is to prove that Democrats can lead and govern, and that's not going to happen if you become the pansy-asses that you know you can be. Take the reins and make it work.
4. I don't know how to say this nicely: cast Lieberman out. He lost his party's primary, but couldn't handle losing his power, so he ran as an independent. His words and actions indicate that he'll say anything to keep that power, and that he's a Bush Republican in everything but name. So, let him walk in the wilderness. No high-ranking committee appointments (if that's an option). Personally, I suspect that he'll just turn Republican, although he's been the best mole in the Democratic party that a Republican could hope for, so maybe he'll try to stick with that role.
5. Finally, work hard, be honest, and don't fuck this up.

Cutting and Running from 'Stay the Course'

Josh Marshall succinctly makes one of the most obvious comparisons: Bush the president and Bush the failed CEO/entrepreneur are exactly the same:

Fundamentally, it doesn't have to do with military strategy or ideology. It has to do with coming to grips with the monumental failure he has wrought, which of course he can never do.

Setting aside the vast costs in human life, national treasure and regional stability, I see President Bush's adventure as a failed business venture, a start-up that went bad -- an analogy that, come to think of it, he could probably relate to.

A failed company can lose money for a very long time before it makes money and becomes a success. It only really fails when the investors decide that the problems aren't transient but terminal. They decide to stop throwing good money after bad. And then that's it.

If we look at the matter in those icy terms, that moment of reckoning came at least two years ago, certainly before the 2004 election. By then it was depressingly clear the whole matter was never going to come to a good end. But President Bush got the country to reinvest and the country has kept on doing so since then with some factor of lives, money and time.

...

But President Bush's interests are not the same as the country's. He's maxed out, in for 100%. If Iraq is a failure, a mistake, then the same words will be written right after his name in the history books. A country, though, can take missteps and mistakes, course corrections and dead ends, and move on. We've done it before and we'll do it again.

But President Bush can't and won't withdraw from Iraq because when he does, under the current conditions, he'll sign the epitaph, the historical death warrant for his presidency. Unlike in the past there are no family friends to pawn the failure off on and let them take the loss. It's all his. So he'll keep kicking the can down the road forever.

The Crook List

Wonkette has started assembling a list of Bush administration and Republican figures who have been imprisoned or resigned for legal reasons: The Crook List. Boy, that's a lot of crooks.

To My Republican-Supporting Friends and Family Members

Due to a bill that passed in the Senate today, I want you to understand just what you've been supporting since electing George W. Bush as President. I suspect that you've bought into the drumbeat, forced into your consciousness, that Democrats are terrorist sympathizers and are interested only in "cutting and running." But let's look at what today's legislation has produced.

The United States now legitimizes torture. Despite evidence that tortured individuals will do or say anything in order to make the torture stop, the government believes that it can be like a great big Jack Bauer and beat the evil out of anyone it wants to. Today's legislation gives them the power to do it. Legally.

"But," you may be saying, "that's not going to affect me, so why should I care? It's all happening on the other side of the world."

However, it's likely going to happen to someone you know who's serving the United States over there. Our government has just given a free card to any terrorist group that kidnaps American soldiers that says, "Torture our men and women, because we'll do the same to you." It's bad enough that our government, as admitted by the President, has been rendering people to secret prisons for the past year (or more). Now it's legal.

So, instead let me bring these actions home. The powers granted by the House and Senate this week give the President of the United States singular tyrannical power. Let's suppose, next year or in ten years, that someone calls the government - the NSA, Homeland Security, CIA, FBI, whomever - and says that your spouse or your child participated in terrorist activities. It doesn't matter to what extent those activities entail, or even if it's true; the call is made.

The government, acting on behalf of the President, can arrest your spouse or your child and detain them. Detention could mean being sent to the facilities at Guantanamo Bay. And then, because of the laws passed today, you may never see your spouse or your child again. He or she would have no right to, or method to, refute the charges; he or she would not even need to be told what those charges were. While in indefinite detention, your spouse or your child could be legally subjected to torture. Not that you'd ever know about it.

Of course, this could happen to you, too. It's all up to the President, currently the man who's done more to damage this country that Bin Laden or Al Queda could have ever hoped.

I'm pissed and demoralized and wonder how the simple question of "Is torture okay?" turned into a yes.

(See: Glenn Greenwald, New York Times)

Forget false "compromise": block torture altogether

Glenn Greenwald, writing at Salon, notes why all the talk of a Republican compromise over the detainee interrogation bill that Bush wants passed is bunk ("The president's power to imprison people forever"). The fact that the government is actively trying to legalize torture is amazing to me, and proves that the country is off the rails.

Bilal Hussein is an Associated Press photographer and Iraqi citizen who has been imprisoned by the U.S. military in Iraq for more than five months, with no charges of any kind. Prior to that, he was repeatedly accused by right-wing blogs of being in cahoots with Iraqi insurgents based on the content of his photojournalism -- accusations often based on allegations that proved to be completely fabricated and fictitious. The U.S. military now claims that Hussein has been lending "support" to the Iraqi insurgents, whereas Hussein maintains that his only association with them is to report on their activities as a journalist. But Hussein has no ability to contest the accusations against him or prove his innocence because the military is simply detaining him indefinitely and refusing even to charge him.

Under the military commission legislation blessed by our Guardians of Liberty in the Senate -- such as John McCain and Lindsey Graham -- the U.S. military could move Hussein to Guantánamo tomorrow and keep him there for the rest of his life, and he would have absolutely no recourse of any kind. It does not need to bring him before a military commission (the military only has to do that if it wants to execute someone) and as long as it doesn't, he is blocked from seeking an order from a U.S. federal court to release him on the ground that he is completely innocent. As part of his permanent imprisonment, the military could even subject him to torture and he would have no legal recourse whatsoever to contest his detention or his treatment. As Johns Hopkins professor Hilary Bok points out, even the use of the most extreme torture techniques that are criminalized will be immune from any real challenge, since only the government (rather than detainees) will be able to enforce such prohibitions.

Broke. The. Law.

President Bush today vowed that he would overturn yesterday's ruling that the government's warrantless wiretapping program is, in fact, illegal. The best part of the ruling is this:

We must first note that the Office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its powers, by the Constitution. There are no hereditary Kings in America and no power not created by the Constitution. So all 'inherent power' must derive from that Constitution.

Glenn Greenwald has been all over the story with analysis, and it's highly recommended reading.

I've been screaming at my computer screen all along: What part of "broke the law" does Bush not understand? The administration claims that the secret wiretapping of United States citizens was essential to fight the war on terror, but the FISA court exists to provide just that capability. Yet the Bush and the NSA went around the court.

I know it's a pipe dream, but I really want to see Bush and the whole gang of crooks handled like criminals over this and other abuses of executive power. They are not above the law.

Best rant on this is from Aravosis at AmericaBlog delivers my feelings exactly (thanks to Ags for pointing it out):

I've had it with this idiot.

We've got the president of the fucking United States of America lecturing a US court of law that it's supposed to reach decisions NOT based on the rule of law, but on "the nature of the world we live in."

[...]

You have the nerve to claim Osama and the terrorists hate our democracy? They got nothing on you and your fellow "Republicans." Do you people even believe in freedom? Do you believe in the Bill of Rights? Do you believe in our Constitution? Do you fucking believe in anything other than your absolute power to do whatever the fuck you want like some two-bit communist dictator rather than the president of the greatest country on earth?

We live in a democracy, you incompetent ass - one that is quickly eroding because half the people of this country elected a moron to the presidency (twice) and now are so embarrassed by their vote that they refuse to stand up and demand an end to your idiotic reign of terror.

These are judges you're demeaning. American jurists. The people in charge of our laws. And you speak of them like they're nothing more than crap. You and your party have contempt for our entire system of jurisprudence, the entire system of checks and balances our democracy is based on, because you can't get your way 100% of the time. Well boo-fucking-hoo. We are a country of laws, you stupid stupid man.

My Dog Is Smarter

My friend Mark created this bumper sticker ("My Dog Is Smarter Than Your President") on his own printer a while back, and I encouraged him to make a real bumper-sticker out of it. Now, thanks to the wonders of Café Press, you can buy one ($4), plus T-shirts with variations like "My Lab is Smarter..." and "My Cat is Smarter...".

(Keep in mind that this design can last for years and years, since it's not necessarily tied to any particular president.)

Order yours today, and help him retire early!

Nuke the Messenger

I've long believed (in any administration), that when you start blaming the media, it's a clear sign that your problems are your own, and the media is just a convenient way to distract attention from yourself. Bush and the Republicans have taken that to the extreme this week by claiming that the New York Time's articles about the government's secret bank account monitoring are directly aiding terrorists, with some pundits suggesting that the reporters involved should be tried for treason.

Read Dan Froomkin in the Washington Post (link via Atrios), who asks, "But not once has the White House definitively answered this question: How are any of these disclosures actually impairing the pursuit of terrorists?"

How does it possibly matter to a terrorist whether the government got a court order or not? Or whether Congress was able to exercise any oversight? The White House won't say. In fact, it can't say.

By contrast, it does matter to us.

This column has documented, again and again , that when faced with a potentially damaging political problem, White House strategist Karl Rove's response is not to defend, but to attack.

The potentially damaging political problem here is that the evidence continues to grow that the Bush White House's exercise of unchecked authority in the war on terror poses a serious threat to American civil liberties and privacy rights. It wasn't that long ago, after all, that an American president used the mechanisms of national security to spy on his political enemies.

So, as usual, Bush can't make a case for actually thwarting terrorists or protect the United States, but instead trots out fear to mask his administration's blatant, dangerous, and ongoing power grab.

Sigh. Two and a half more fucking years.

The Constitution Is Important When It's Directed at You

Wanted to pass this along from Dailykos, which sums up what I think too:

Pardon my cynicism for a moment. But in the wake of the raid on Congressman Jefferson's office, all the flutter in the legislative and executive branches about concepts like the "separation of powers" and "constitutionally protected areas" has a tangibly synthetic feel to it, does it not?

So Dennis "Don't Tell Anyone I'm Under Investigation" Hastert suddenly dusted off his copy of the Constitution. And Bill "Ongoing SEC Investigation" Frist wants procedures in place to know "exactly what will happen if there is a similar sort of thing." Of course he does.

...

And let's look at Alberto Gonzales, who didn't resign over Bush's domestic spying program, who didn't resign over his laughably dishonest definition of torture, who didn't resign when he was caught perjuring himself before Congress--he now threatens to resign if he has to hand back a few papers? Please, spare me the political theater. I agree with Steve Soto over at the Left Coaster. This is all utter bullshit.

Imprisoning Journalists

This is simultaneously chilling and yet not surprising:

The administration's assault on a free and vital press took a huge leap forward this weekend, when Attorney General Alberto Gonazles announced on national television that the Bush administration has the power to imprison journalists who publish stories revealing conduct by the President which the administration wants to conceal (such as the warrantless NSA eavesdropping program, which he specifically cited). Gonazles went further and made clear that the administration is actively considering prosecution against journalists who publish such stories. The video is here.

It really is hard to imagine any measures which pose a greater and more direct danger to our freedoms than the issuance of threats like this by the administration against the press. If the President has the power to keep secret any information he wants simply by classifying it -- including information regarding illegal or otherwise improper actions he has taken -- then the President, by definition, has complete control over the flow of information which Americans receive about their Government.

Schneier on Security: The Value of Privacy

Security expert Bruce Schneier puts it best: The Value of Privacy

Last week, revelation of yet another NSA surveillance effort against the American people has rekindled the privacy debate. Those in favor of these programs have trotted out the same rhetorical question we hear every time privacy advocates oppose ID checks, video cameras, massive databases, data mining, and other wholesale surveillance measures: "If you aren't doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?"

Some clever answers: "If I'm not doing anything wrong, then you have no cause to watch me." "Because the government gets to define what's wrong, and they keep changing the definition." "Because you might do something wrong with my information." My problem with quips like these -- as right as they are -- is that they accept the premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong. It's not. Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect.

Go read the whole thing.

Dictatorship

Writing about the Angry Liberal Guy Rant yesterday allowed me to vent some steam, but then I got roiled up again by today's news that the NSA has been monitoring billions of domestic phone calls without court approval, something that is clearly against the law. From USAToday:

The NSA's domestic program, as described by sources, is far more expansive than what the White House has acknowledged. Last year, Bush said he had authorized the NSA to eavesdrop — without warrants — on international calls and international e-mails of people suspected of having links to terrorists when one party to the communication is in the USA. Warrants have also not been used in the NSA's efforts to create a national call database.

In defending the previously disclosed program, Bush insisted that the NSA was focused exclusively on international calls. "In other words," Bush explained, "one end of the communication must be outside the United States."

As a result, domestic call records — those of calls that originate and terminate within U.S. borders — were believed to be private.

Sources, however, say that is not the case.

Of course, it's not the evesdropping that's the key issue here, though that's terrible enough (are you a possible terrorist? The government thinks so). It's that the Bush administration has no regard for the laws of our country.

Jack Cafferty on CNN:

Cafferty: We all hope nothing happens to Arlen Specter, the Republican head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, cause he might be all that stands between us and a full blown dictatorship in this country. He's vowed to question these phone company executives about volunteering to provide the government with my telephone records, and yours, and tens of millions of other Americans.

Shortly after 9/11, AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth began providing the super-secret NSA with information on phone calls of millions of our citizens, all part of the War on Terror, President Bush says. Why don't you go find Osama bin Laden, and seal the country's borders, and start inspecting the containers that come into our ports?

The President rushed out this morning in the wake of this front page story in USA Today and declared the government is doing nothing wrong, and all this is just fine. Is it? Is it legal? Then why did the Justice Department suddenly drop its investigation of the warrantless spying on citizens because the NSA said Justice Department lawyers didn't have the necessary security clearance to do the investigation. Read that sentence again. A secret government agency has told our Justice Department that it's not allowed to investigate it. And the Justice Department just says ok and drops the whole thing. We're in some serious trouble, boys and girls."

Think that's overreaction? Let's put some of the pieces together: Bush believes that the President is not bound by laws; according to The Boston Globe, Bush has appended signing statements over 750 times during his presidency, "...official documents in which a president lays out his legal interpretation of a bill for the federal bureaucracy to follow when implementing the new law.... In his signing statements, Bush has repeatedly asserted that the Constitution gives him the right to ignore numerous sections of the bills -- sometimes including provisions that were the subject of negotiations with Congress in order to get lawmakers to pass the bill."

The President also has the power to declare anyone an "enemy combatant" and hold them without trial. And despite the reassurances of the White House's military order (Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism), the government has engaged in torture and extraordinary rendition against those held as potential terrorists.

And, the White House has been actively consolidating government power under the military (most recently, transferring many of the duties of the CIA to the Department of Defense).

You say, "Well, I'm not a terrorist, and if I keep out of trouble it doesn't affect me." Except that it's not your decision to determine whether you're a law-breaker, or a potential terrorist. Maybe you spent some time in a remote cabin in Oregon (hotbed of terrorist training camps!). Maybe you were talking to a friend on the phone and mentioned that you don't like the President's policies. Maybe you share the name of a real suspected terrorist on the government's secret no-fly list. Whatever the case, if the government detains you as an enemy combatant, you're gone. No lawyer, no rights granted under the Constitution.

So here's my prediction. I've not really wanted to voice this over the past couple of months, because it seems too absurd to take seriously, but now I don't think it's absurd at all. Bush is putting pieces into place to get around the two-term limitation of the presidency, and working to ensure that America is run (not governed, but controlled) by his people. After all, in their eyes, they haven't succeeded in Iraq, or the economy, or [pick your Republican failure] because the Democrats, the media, or [pick your powerless boogeyman] haven't let them. So, enough with this two-party system and three branches of government nonsense. Just rule.

We all say, "They wouldn't do that," because we're rational people. But we thought they wouldn't fabricate reasons to go to war with a country that wasn't threatening us. We thought they wouldn't spy on honest, law-abiding Americans.

But they have.

I wish I could just say it's creeping paranoia, but the facts suggest otherwise.

Angry Liberal Guy Rant

Via Boing Boing, C.B. Shapiro writes about why there seem to be "angry liberals" (count me among them), making a list of exactly why he/we/I think that our country is in far worse shape than it was before the Bush administration:

I’ve compiled a short (and by no means complete) list just so I could see it all in one place:

I’m angry about the shredding of the constitution…illegal wiretaps…falsified intelligence…secret prisons… use of torture as an accepted means of interrogation…Terry Schiavo…the war on science…denial of Global Warming…the fascistic secrecy of our elected officials… presidential signings that declare the President above the law…the breakdown of the wall between church and state…the outing of a clandestine CIA agent for purely partisan political gain…the corrupting influence of K Street… the total sell-out of the legislative process to corporate interests… appointments of unqualified cronies at every level of government…Harriet Miers…Brownie…Abu Ghraib… Scooter …the complete mismanagement of the war in Iraq…the lies about the complete mismanagement of the war in Iraq…the grotesque budget deficits… the pathetic response to Katrina… a civil rights division dedicated to undermining civil rights…an environmental protection agency that refuses to protect the environment… (Take a breath, Angry Liberal Guy.)

One of the things that cuts me to the bone about Republican/conservative responses to, well, everything these days is that they throw out these nebulous projections: the liberals will give in to terrorists; Democrats will raise taxes and force straight people to marry gay people; whatever. It's their only fallback argument, because they're standing on a massive record of failure, which, having been in power the entire time in all areas of the government, is entirely their fault. Read that list above again. Those aren't projections, they're not what-if scenarios, they're real, documented, colossal failures. When Bush became president in 2000, I distinctly remember saying that he was going to ruin the country, but that was bluster at the time. I had no idea I'd be so, so right.

The Wrongness Singularity

My knowledge of physics is shallow at best, but I grasp enough to recognize that this blog post is pure geeky genius: The wrongness singularity | Cosmic Variance.

So in fact, Reynolds has managed to fit five units of wrongness into only four declarative statements! This is the hackular equivalent of crossing the Chandrasekhar Limit, at which point your blog cannot help but collapse in on itself.

Respect? Bush needs to earn it.

The House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) commented about Stephen Colbert's closing keynote at the Washington Correspondents' Dinner:

“I thought some of it was funny, but I think it got a little rough,” Hoyer said. “He is the president of the United States, and he deserves some respect.”

I respect the office of the President of the United States, but at this point Bush needs to earn any respect that he's given. Just sitting in that chair doesn't do it anymore. For a president who vowed to "restore integrity to the Oval office," he's sure done a damn crappy job of it.

I continue to stand by my earlier question: What has Bush done right? And I reach the same conclusion: nothing. Prove me wrong.