Here's another whopper of a tale about the ever-expanding CIA counter-terrorism intelligence efforts.
Here are some courageous Brits ready to stand up against Britain's more Draconian anti-leak laws to keep a torture/rendition story alive for all of us -- and the world -- to see. Kos is keeping it alive too.
The most interesting thing about this WaPo dissection is how it reveals Bush to be what he is: a petty, weak man used by others to write their political dream stories. What's left -- since Bush as president could actually make decisions -- is a legacy of war and tax cuts leaving the U.S. with little to pay for it. Grover Norquist would be proud, but few else. After all, Grover is the great destroyer of federal governments. He's nearing his goal.
The prosecutors in the Abramoff cases are amping up the pressure to get Abramoff to roll over before his January trial in Florida. The WaPo has a story of his rise and fall that makes pretty interesting reading. I liked the line, "This could be the Enron of lobbying." I'd hate to think what is if this isn't.
...but it doesn't make it right. Raw Story has the report of how we expanded our surveillance of U.N. Security Council members as the vote for a resolution recommending war in Iraq approached in early 2003. If you recall, the Bushlings cancelled the vote when it was obvious that we couldn't win it, especially because of the defection of Mexico and W.'s great friend Vicente Fox.
Here's a message to the Bushling message machine: The press may want to control the message now that it's found a little courage. How long can our "free" press stand up to the withering assault?
It's Christmas eve, just thought I'd add some Christmas cheer.
According to the NY Times:
In previous posts I pointed out that something like Total Information Awareness, the supposedly killed-by-Congress ultimate data collector, was really behind the NSA warrantless wiretaps. Now the true story everyone should have anticipated comes out, that every international phone call and email by every U.S. citizen is likely being intercepted.
George W. Bush has maintained -- and so has his Justice Dept., from Alberto Gonzales to the much-heralded John Yoo -- that the Afghanistan Use of Military Force resolution gave the president the power to do practically anything. I think the term that has been used is "plenary," which means complete, total.
It's an American issue. Here are a number of conservative opinions that do not support the Bushling view of unfettered presidental power:
Here's a shot at the links right now on the front page of WaPo, online version:
Joe Conason, also of salon.com, frames the impeachment argument quite well, not as a gun drawn hastily by leftie bloggers and an overly partisan minority party and pointed at the head of a wartime president but rather as a necessity for the ages of our republic to come -- if Bush will not back down from the precipice to which he's driven the nation.
Two Op-Eds in the WaPo, one by a mere commentator and another by a federal judge I just blogged about.
Judge Richard Posner of the 7th Circuit has just published an Op-Ed piece in the WaPo that couches Bush's illegal acts in euphemisms while recommending changes in national security surveillance laws.
This interesting WaPo in-house blog/column points out that, yeah, Bush is out of control -- read too in control -- on the NSA spying but that the Bushlings need a complicit Congress to pull this off.
MSNBC's got a more expansive take of Jack spilling his guts.
The best I can come up with from the New York Observer is that the Times finally ran the story to prevent getting trumped by its own reporter's pending book.
...and the message is: Bush is violating the law. Otherwise, what?
Ouch! for Congress: Jack Abramoff is getting ready to roll over, according to the NYT.
...and while we're at it, knock down the NYT a bit. Here's a staggering line-up of breaking news and revelations:
Finally, some good news. The judge in the Dover, PA "intelligent design" case rules that teaching ID is unconstitutional.
Josh Marshall blogs over at TPM that some technology is at the root of the NSA story.
First, the Pentagon carries on extraordinary surveillance of U.S. citizens.
Senator Barbara Boxer becomes the first member of Congress to indicate that impeachment may be warranted in the NSA wiretap case.
A couple of days back we speculated about what new, formerly secret Bush-administration horror might come out. I speculated about death squads. Some may have thought that a bit dramatic. For those who thought so I offer a less freaky, albeit still chilling alternative: Total Information Awareness never really died. Its technology is actually at the center of the NSA wiretapping scandal, and that's the real reason why the Bushlings wouldn't go to the FISA court.
Ann Althouse seems to think this is a conflict between the Congress and the Presidency that need not be sorted out by the courts. She asserts that "Congress can decide if it stands in opposition to intercepting these phone calls without a warrant."
The Bushlings will unleash a monster that may be difficult to stop. The Pentagon is meant to serve the foreign policy needs of the United States. Soon it may be serving us up to ourselves.
Here's what W. said in his press conference:
...but Sen. Russ Feingold knocks that down forcefully and correctly.
The National Security Agency began to spy on Americans, illegally, before Bush authorized it.
The New York Times, whose complicity in the illegal NSA wiretaps clouds the validity of its position, at least steps up strongly will an editorial with real teeth in it. Quotables:
The Pentagon is spying on antiwar activists.
As the New Normal wants to focus on, there's something new and abnormal in what has transpired during the Bush years. Now, just as the torture debate gets taken off the front burner another pot begins to boil, that full of domestic spying by first the Pentagon and next the National Security Agency.
...and Steven Clemons of The Washington Note knocks it out of the park in analyzing what is wrong with the current system of sharing intelligence between the executive and legistative branches.
This makes for some dark contemplation: Bush taps U.S. citizens' international calls, without obtaining warrants, and when the New York Times finds out, it delays reporting for a year.
Franklin Foer of the New Republic Online makes a good point when he says we bloggers — on the left particularly — should avoid attacking the mainstream media.
The Raw Story points us to this very disturbing revelation that the Bushlings have secretly been screening our international calls. This feels incredibly unconstitutional.
McCain is a hero again. I guess that stuff runs deep.
Happy times at HuffPo and Andrew Sullivan over W.'s cave-in to the McCain torture amendment, and I'm happy, too, almost. But we're not there yet.
I have been far from a fan of W.'s jockish, arrogant tone all these five years now. I've always found it offensive. Next comes his policies that have either been fiscally irresponsible or diplomatically and militarily unsound, as well as the initiatives undertaken in his name by the Pentagon, the Justice Dept. and the CIA, most of which has harmed American interests at every turn.
I wrote my congressman, Rep. Mike Thompson (CA-01) the other day, and this was he reply. Obviously, I'm gratified to have this kind of representation in Washington:
