There's nothing I like doing more on a day off from work than documenting the latest atrocities perpetrated by the Bushies and their cronies and enablers.
Outsourcing Immorality
Digby writes about how the U.S. outsourcing of what was previously military work in war zones to outside contractors isn't just about enriching cronies. (Though it's about that, too, of course; this is the Cheney administration we're talking about.) It's also about avoiding any accountability for their evil deeds, including torture.
The RAND Corp. Thought the Army Might Want to Hear About Some Lessons It Could Learn From the Bungling of the Iraq War
So RAND made a nice fancy report showing how Chimpy and Condoleezza Rice failed to stamp out the fighting between State and War of Aggression Defense over which department would handle what and also how the Bushies had all deluded themselves into thinking the reconstruction of Iraq would be a breeze. The study mentioned that when you're going to war based on a pack of lies as a "preventative" measure, to point out how things might not go smoothly after the initial fighting is done is to risk eroding public support for the war. So what was the generals' response to this report? They proved they'd learned a lot from the Bushies. And hid it.
The CDC Learned a Lot From the Generals
The government agency tasked with protecting the public's health has blocked the release of a report showing "elevated infant mortality and cancer rates" in eight Great Lakes states because of increased exposure to environmental hazards such as dioxin, PCBs, pesticides, lead and mercury. Oh, and the CDC also suppressed information on the cancer risk to those displaced by Hurricane Katrina who were living in those goddamned formaldehyde-tainted FEMA trailers.
Cheney and Oil Execs Decided to Take Iraq's Oil in Spring 2001
That's per Commerce Department documents, boingboing.net* writes.
The Supreme Court's "Arrogant Abstractness"
Stephanie Mencimer wrote in Mother Jones last month about how even the court's liberal justices, like Steven Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, are increasingly reluctant to upset the apple cart for Big Business. Both justices were among the majority that "upheld the use of mandatory-arbitration clauses in contracts for services that are themselves against the law. In Buckeye Check Cashing v. Cardegna, the court said a consumer could be forced to arbitrate a dispute with a payday lender rather than go to court even though payday lending is illegal in Florida, where the case originated." In my previous current events post, I railed against a mandatory-arbitration clause that's being used against women who alleged they were raped in Iraq by KBR employees.
The Supes also declined this month to hear an appeal of the ACLU's lawsuit over the National Security Agency's warrantless spying program. Glenn Greenwald tells you everything you need to know about the decision.
And just this week, Chief Justice John Roberts fretted about how Exxon Mobil could protect itself against punitive damages that entailed paying THREE WEEKS of profits to fishermen who lost their livelihoods (for far longer than three weeks) when the Exxon Valdez, which was piloted by a drunk, unleashed the largest oil spill in American history. As I fretted in an e-mail to Bob, that corporate tool is only in his 50s, so it's very possible he'll still be chief justice when Zane graduates from college. Which calls for a heavy-duty motherfuckin' sigh.
Aboard the Condoleezza Rice
This story by Robert Scheer at Truthdig is also about Big Oil and the Bushies. Even though it sounds like it's about the last time Condi got laid. During the Carter administration. Zing!
Bush Administration Argues Veterans Have No Right to Mental Health Care
Government lawyers said in federal court in San Francisco that Congress "intended 'to authorize, but not require, medical care for veterans,'" Bob Egelko reported in the San Francisco Chronicle. "'This court should not interfere with the political branches' design, oversight and modification of VA programs,'" the lawyers said, according to Egelko. I would hope that the court wouldn't interfere when veterans (and I'd gladly join in, too) slammed these lawyers' balls repeatedly in their briefcases. And when the lawyers sought medical help for their mashed testicles, the doctors would tell them they weren't required to treat slimy sons of bitches who would deny medical care to mentally ill men and women who had served their country.
In Voiding Suit, Appellate Court Says Torture Is to Be Expected
In other courtroom madness: This story is from Jan. 11, but how can I not post about it with a headline like that? The federal appeals court literally said, "It was foreseeable that conduct that would ordinarily be indisputably 'seriously criminal' would be implemented by military officials responsible for detaining and interrogating suspected enemy combatants." It also said that "detainees captured in Afghanistan aren't recognized as 'persons' under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act because they were aliens held outside the United States," Greg Gordon wrote for McClatchy Newspapers. "The Religious Freedom Act prohibits the government from 'substantially burdening a person's religion.'" The case involved four British Muslims who were captured in Afghanistan, taken to Guantánamo Bay, tortured on multiple occasions, and held for more than two years before being sent to Britain, where they were released within 24 hours. "The detainees filed suit in October 2004 against former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, former Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, and nine other senior military officers," Gordon wrote. "They allege that the Pentagon officials violated the Alien Tort Statute, the Geneva Conventions, the religious freedom law and the Constitution with their harsh treatment." We're living in a country now where judges are willing to rule that torture is a reasonable outgrowth of interrogation and that people aren't really people—if it means letting Rumsfeld off the hook.
A Good Court Decision!
"A federal appeals court [on Feb. 8] threw out the Environmental Protection Agency's approach to limiting mercury emitted from power-plant smokestacks, saying the agency ignored laws and twisted logic when it imposed new standards that were favorable to plant owners," according to the Washington Post. If there's one thing the Bushies excel at, it'd be ignoring laws.
U.S. Accused of Using "Kangaroo Court" to Try Men Accused of Role in 9/11 Attacks
So says CNN.** Furthermore, the former prosecutor at Guantánamo says he intends to be a witness for the defense in the death penalty case against Osama bin Laden's driver.
Inside the World of War Profiteers
Here's a kickass story from the Chicago Tribune about how contractors are cheating taxpayers of gobs of money in Iraq.
Who Wants Obama Dead?
"Security details at Barack Obama's rally [on Feb. 20] stopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena," Jack Douglas Jr. writes in the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. The story says the order to do so came from the Secret Service. And here's an update from the Media Bloodhound. (Who really, for coolness's sake, should have called himself the Media Basset Hound.)
How the Spooks Took Over the News
"For the first time in human history, there is a concerted strategy [by intelligence agencies] to manipulate global perception. And the mass media are operating as its compliant assistants, failing both to resist it and to expose it," Nick Davies writes in a book that was excerpted in the Independent UK.
Does Bilderberg Group Run the Western World?
Bob used to have this line at the bottom of his e-mails: "Member of Bilderberg—1992."*** A BBC story explains that Bilderberg Group is a secretive clique of American and European politicians and businesspeople who've been meeting every year since 1954. Bill Clinton attended while he was still governor of Arkansas, and Tony Blair attended before he became prime minister. Now if I could get Bob to spill the beans on what went down when he attended in 1992, I'd have the answer to the titular question in this post. :)
Once More: Supporting Mukasey Was Crazy!
It's just like us Schumer protestors said. And Atrios is saying here.
Thank God Congress Is Getting to the Bottom of the Sports Scandals
It's not like there's anything more important. (Hat tip to firedoglake.) I'd love to see Roger Clemens go to prison for perjury, but come on! Get some freakin' priorities. He's not a bigger villain than any random Bush official you could point a stick at, and they get away with thumbing their noses at Congress all the time. Clemens did testify under oath (and many of the Republicans chose to believe it), though, that his non-professional-athlete wife had taken HGH but he'd never touch the stuff! Hah hah hah! What a lying douchebag.
If Only the Awful Partisanship in Washington Would End *Hand Wringing*
That kind of talk is such bullshit. If only the Republicans would stop voting in lockstep—with some sellout Dems—for evil Bushie-enabling legislation, is more like it.
With Friends Like the Saudis...
How dare those bastards even pretend to be America's friends. With every new revelation that comes out about how various governments are willing to politicize "the global war on terror," it becomes increasingly more obvious that the idea the Bushies knew about 9/11 beforehand isn't only for tinfoil-hat-wearing paranoids.
What the New York Times Bought
Jonathan Schwarz of TomDispatch.com lays out how supremely ignorant Bill Kristol is. (You knew Kristol was a fool but you may not know just how big of a fool he is.) The story is also noteworthy for a frank discussion of how we let Saddam Hussein (the worst terrorist evah) use Sarin to put down the rebellion in Iraq after we booted him from Kuwait. We didn't want him in Iraq, but we wanted the Shiites in charge less, and we let him murder lots of people to prevent Shiite domination. It's also fascinating for the Dan Quayle angle. (And of course, a huge hat tip is due to Daniel Ellsberg, whose evisceration of Kristol on C-Span back in March 2003 is the springboard for Schwarz's analysis.)
And Speaking of Tools Masquerading as Serious Journalists...
CNN's John King admits he's in way over his head on the whole government spying story, but he still manages to be a loyal government soldier. And, btw, that would be this Mike McConnell whom King is toadying up to.
*Yes, I am somewhat embarrassed that my source for such an important story goes by the name of boingboing.
**Hah! Did you believe for even a second that CNN would report such a thing? That would make them traitors. Unpatriotic. Anti-Republican.
***His most recent e-mail endings were:
"I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace." — George W. Bush, June 18, 2002
"War is Peace" — Big Brother in George Orwell's 1984
and
"Those who make peaceful evolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable." — John F. Kennedy
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