More DOJ troubles brewing......

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The Bush Administration: Turning Justice into “Just Us,” since 2001.

From Think Progress;

Yesterday, the DoJ announced that it was expanding its investigation of Goodling’s partisan hiring practices to include “scrutiny of hiring in the Civil Rights Division, which oversees voting rights.” A central figure in the expanded probe is Bradley Schlozman, a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division currently serving in the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys. He is set to appear next Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Schlozman is reported to have repeatedly inquired about applicants’ political affiliations

Update: More smoking guns here;

The Los Angeles Times looks into why Thomas Heffelfinger, the former U.S. attorney for Minnesota, was targeted for removal and finds circumstantial evidence that Heffelfinger might have made himself a marked man by raising objection to the implementation of a voter ID law in the state. Some familiar characters crop up -- namely Bradley Schlozman and Hans Von Spakovsky, the two Republican lawyers who reigned over the Civil Rights Division's voting rights section.

A Thorn By Any Other Name......

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From Talking Points Memo;

"Enhanced interrogation", the Bush administration's preferred newspeak for torture, appears to have been coined by the Nazi Party in 1937.

There are way too many facile comparisons of whatever group or individual we dislike to Nazis. But when the shoe fits.

And this shoe fits like a finely designed Italian leather loafer.

And to make things worse, it doesn't even work....

As the Bush administration completes secret new rules governing interrogations, a group of experts advising the intelligence agencies are arguing that the harsh techniques used since the 2001 terrorist attacks are outmoded, amateurish and unreliable.

The psychologists and other specialists, commissioned by the Intelligence Science Board, make the case that more than five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration has yet to create an elite corps of interrogators trained to glean secrets from terrorism suspects...

In a blistering lecture delivered last month, a former adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called “immoral” some interrogation tactics used by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon...

...some of the experts involved in the interrogation review, called “Educing Information,” say that during World War II, German and Japanese prisoners were effectively questioned without coercion.

“It far outclassed what we’ve done,” said Steven M. Kleinman, a former Air Force interrogator and trainer, who has studied the World War II program of interrogating Germans. The questioners at Fort Hunt, Va., “had graduate degrees in law and philosophy, spoke the language flawlessly,” and prepared for four to six hours for each hour of questioning, said Mr. Kleinman, who wrote two chapters for the December report.

Mr. Kleinman, who worked as an interrogator in Iraq in 2003, called the post-Sept. 11 efforts “amateurish” by comparison to the World War II program, with inexperienced interrogators who worked through interpreters and had little familiarity with the prisoners’ culture.

Killin' for the Children......

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You know you've reached the bottom of the barrel when all you have to trot out is fear mongering "they're coming for your children" line. Well that's all the President had at his news conference yesterday;

President: I would hope our world hadn't become so cynical that they don't
take the threats of al Qaeda seriously, because they're real. And it's a danger
to the American people. It's a danger to your children, Jim. And it's really
important that we do all we can do to bring them to justice.

Yes, it's all about the children. If we don't fight those nasty islamofacisterroristerriblebadarkskinneduglynastyguys they will come here and kill our children.

Well, I agree with Charles Pierce and his response to this pandering;

Look, sport. I'll take care of my kids. One of the ways I'll do it is to make
sure that you and your creepazoid vice-president don't send them off to be
killed on the basis of lies, trickeration, and the fact that you never flattened
Daddy on the front lawn that night you were sockless. Another of the ways I'll
do it is to make sure they fight as hard as they can to recapture the
constitutional rights -- and the culture of civil liberties -- to which they are
entitled by nature and by nature's god, to make sure they never again have to
live under a government staffed by legacy idiots and the products of fourth-rate
right-wing diploma mills. The last way I'll do it is to make sure they recognize
and appreciate those things about this country that actually are worth fighting
for -- most of which you wouldn't recognize if they fell off a shelf onto your
head. Protect my kids? Ace, I wouldn't hire you to mow my lawn.

It's time to call a spade a spade.

72%

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That's how many Americans think this country is on the wrong track. That's what we call a landslide.....

So, in a democracy this should matter......why does it feel like it doesn't?

Analysts? Who needs analysts.....

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Documents released as part of a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation show that the Bush administration was warned by U.S. intelligence analysts about the challenges it now faces as it tries to stabilize Iraq.

They don't believe these realities when it's right in front of their eyes, why would they have believed a report that objected to their forgone conclusions.....

Highlights from the reports;

_ Establishing a stable democracy in Iraq would be a long, steep and
probably turbulent challenge. They said that contributions could be made from 4
million Iraqi exiles and Iraq's impoverished, underemployed middle class. But
they noted that opposition parties would need sustained economic, political and
military support.
_ Al-Qaida would see the invasion as a chance to accelerate
its attacks, and the lines between al-Qaida and other terrorist groups "could
become blurred." In a weak spot in the analysis, one paper said that the risk of
terror attacks would spike after the invasion and slow over the next three to
five years. However, the State Department recently found that attacks last year
alone rose sharply.
_ Domestic groups in Iraq's deeply divided society would
become violent, unless stopped by the occupying force. "Score settling would
occur throughout Iraq between those associated with Saddam's regime and those
who have suffered most under it."
_ Iraq's neighbors would jockey for
influence and Iranian leaders would try to shape the post-Saddam era to
demonstrate Tehran's importance in the region. The more Tehran didn't feel
threatened by U.S. actions, the analysts said, "the better the chance that they
could cooperate in the postwar period."
_ Military action to eliminate Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction would not cause other governments in the region to
give up such programs.

The Path to Barbarism....

Digby today, while discussing the recent stoning of an Iraqi girl, focuses on the slippery slope of authoritarianism and fundamentalism, and how, no matter the level of sophistication, these traits lead to the same results;

This is why I have contempt for tribalism, fundamentalism and authoritarianism. When it gets right down to it, it's always, in the end, about mob rule. A gang of violent bullies, often at the behest of some authority figure, "sends a message" by publicly humiliating, maiming or killing one of their own who had the temerity to fail to properly conform. Whether for God or country or tribe, it's always some poor victim, lying on the ground, covering his or her head, surrounded by people who have turned into animals.

There are a lot of manifestations of this particular human organizational style, some much more sophisticated and stylized. The violence becomes more ritualized and the humiliation takes other forms but underneath it all, the same impulse to dominate drives a fair number of people of all cultures. It's just a matter of degree.

This is the reason why it's so important to preserve our secular, reason-based constitution and fight against this horror of government endorsed torture and indefinite imprisonment. It is a very, very thin line between civilization and barbarism and every step we take away from the rule of law is a step toward becoming that primitive mob of killers. After all, I'm sure they felt justified too.


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From Bad to Worst......

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From Tom Schaller;

Sadly, it's official: With eight days still to go, May 2007 caps the deadliest six-month period for America of the entire Iraq war -- 540 dead, and counting. May also ends the first six-month period during which at least 80 American service personnel (never mind contractors) died every single month.

Kicked To The Curb.....

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So Paulie Wolf reaches out and tries to score his sweetie a plumb gig at the joint where he works. What does he get for his troubles? He loses his job over it, and his squeeze, now realizing he's unemployed, gives him the boot.

Mmmmm, boy. Are you tasting the Schadenfreude?

Reason.....

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Al Gore's new book, "The Assault On Reason" has some interesting things to say about our abilities to use reason to self govern, and how we may be abandoning the very thing that makes our country unique. (hattip to Andrew Sullivan)

Money quote:

For the first time in American history, the Executive Branch of our government has not only condoned but actively promoted the treatment of captives in wartime that clearly involves torture, thus overturning a prohibition established by General George Washington during the Revolutionary War.

It is too easy — and too partisan — to simply place the blame on the policies of President George W. Bush. We are all responsible for the decisions our country makes. We have a Congress. We have an independent judiciary. We have checks and balances. We are a nation of laws. We have free speech. We have a free press. Have they all failed us? Why has America's public discourse become less focused and clear, less reasoned?

Faith in the power of reason — the belief that free citizens can govern themselves wisely and fairly by resorting to logical debate on the basis of the best evidence available, instead of raw power—remains the central premise of American democracy. This premise is now under assault.

The 28%ers

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Keep feeding the base that reality free red meat.....

From Paul Krugman;

What we need to realize is that the infamous “Bush bubble,” the administration’s no-reality zone, extends a long way beyond the White House. Millions of Americans believe that patriotic torturers are keeping us safe, that there’s a vast Islamic axis of evil, that victory in Iraq is just around the corner, that Bush appointees are doing a heckuva job — and that news reports contradicting these beliefs reflect liberal media bias.

And the Republican nomination will go either to someone who shares these beliefs, and would therefore run the country the same way Mr. Bush has, or to a very, very good liar.

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-UF

Troop Support??

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In the watch what they do not what they say department;

Bush Threatens Veto Over Troop Pay Raise, Military Widow Benefits

-UF

Impeachment?

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I don't know how much more info we need to assign a Special Prosecutor to the warrant less wiretapping scandal. Each day there are new, more damning revelations. These clowns utter disregard for the rule of law and our constitutional guarantees make it imperative that we take these actions as seriously, and I don't think impeachment should be off the table.

Of course, when your personal butboy Fredo is running the DOJ you can certainly play the stall game.

Charles Pierce writing in Altercations sums it up;

OK, I'm convinced.

Impeach him. Impeach them all. Start chucking people into the hoosegow for contempt, and as material witnesses. Stuff this White House so full of subpoenas that it bursts. Blow this government apart.

I held off on this because I thought the process was both legally unjustifiable and politically futile. I believe it is still the latter. The difference is I don't care any more that it is. The Comey testimony -- coupled with the astonishing arrogance it takes simply to ignore congressional subpoenas as though they were something someone slipped under your windshield wiper -- pushed me all the way over the edge. The president spied on Americans and thereby broke the law. Repeatedly. The president was told he was breaking the law by members of the Department of Justice who had no reason to lie to him on the subject. (John Ashcroft noticed, for pity's sake.) The president knew he was breaking the law so he sent the White House chief of staff and the White House counsel out to behave like Mr. Wolf in Pulp Fiction. (Sorry, Andy Card. I liked you when we were both young and ambitious in Massachusetts, but it's off to Allenwood for a spell until you come clean.) The clean-up crew failed, and he kept breaking the law anyway. Repeatedly. They spied on their political opponents. They used their steroidal view of executive powers to justify it in their tiny little minds. That's what they're hiding. I have no doubts any more that the administration has committed more crimes than we know. And every day they remain unpunished -- hell, every day they remain in office -- we become more deeply complicit in their offenses. It's time to govern ourselves again.

This can't be a matter of political calculation any more. It simply can't. It's a fundamental question of what kind of government we want to have. Yet nobody of any clout in the Democratic Party wants any part of it. ...And the Republicans -- as demonstrated by the performance of the Ten Little Idiots trying to out-butch each other the other night -- are utterly hopeless. Look, Brainiacs, when John McCain tells you that torture doesn't work, take his bloody word for it, OK? Move along.

I get it!

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Just like Tony Soprano in the desert this week, I've had an epiphany!

Our current administration is modeling itself after the Godfather movies. Deep down you know exactly what I'm talking about, the corollaries are obvious and the players...right out of central casting. Fredo, Sonny, the Consigliari......Of course, I'm not very original and this is not new thinking. A quick google shows that it's been discussed in depth at various web sites.

But, while it used to be a fun joke, I'm beginning to think there are clear signs of a Mafia ethic to the way these clowns are working Washington DC.

-Former Deputy AG Comey testified this week on the strong arm tactics used against John Ashcroft, while he was in the hospital for God's sake, to attempt to get DOJ sign off on the administration's domestic serveillance initiative. You've got to be quite the lowlife dirtbag to make John Ashcroft look like a constitution loving stand up guy.

-Subpoenas? What subpoenas. This group will just ignore subpoenas.

A complete contempt for the rule of law. It's time to cook these guys.

-UF

Habeas Corpus back in the Saddle?

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Now is the time for our Democratic Representatives to step up and demand that we restore Habeas Corpus. Call your Congressperson and tell them it's important that this main tenant of our Constitution should be restored.

The Times says; Bring it back.

Glenn Greenwald sums it up;

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 is, without question, the single worst law enacted during the Bush presidency, and is one of the most destructive laws passed in the last several decades. It is not merely a bad law. It vests in the President the power to detain people indefinitely with no meaningful opportunity to contest the government's accusations. That is the very power the Founders sought first and foremost to prohibit......

Inmates and Asylums....

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Geez..... Remember when we used to just ignore the batshit crazies on either side of the political spectrum. Sure, we'd casually laugh when we saw one babbling incoherently on a street corner. But now, the nutcases on the right are actually written about, quoted, given air time, and generally treated as if their opinions are something more than the inane spoutings of ideological gasbags. From Ann Coulter to Michael Savage, it's just amazing to me that we pay any attention to them what-so-ever.

The AP really needs to ignore this drivel.

-UF

Anybody Home? Nope.........

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So. What happens when you try to wage a war with insufficient personnel, planning, or any type of coherent organized strategy?

This.

The government's response to the disaster was undermined by ongoing National Guard deployments to the Middle East, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said.

"I don't think there is any question if you are missing trucks, Humvees and helicopters that the response is going to be slower," Sebelius said. "The real victims here will be the residents of Greensburg, because the recovery will be at a slower pace."

It's called the "Law of Unintended Consequences". You see, incompetent stumblebums re-deploy National Guard troops and equipment, that were intended to provide support for natural disasters in this country, off to the never ending war in Iraq. So when a disaster hits in a place like Greensburg, Kansas, - well, what a surprise - we don't have the National Guard infrastructure to effectively provide necessary support.

Your tax dollars at work......

Mission Accomplished.....

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Four years and counting. A look at the numbers.

-UF