John Ashcroft's Shameful Defense of Waterboarding

John Ashcroft cements his legacy as a public servant.



You have to give him credit for being more forthcoming that Michael Mukasey--but then you have to remember that this is a man defending the practice of waterboarding:

"The reports that I have heard, and I have no reason to disbelieve them, indicate that they were very valuable," Ashcroft said, adding that CIA Director George Tenet indicated the "value of the information received from the use of enhanced interrogation techniques -- I don't know whether he was saying waterboarding or not, but assume that he was for a moment -- the value of that information exceeded the value of information that was received from all other sources."

Waterboarding is a technique designed to simulate drowning. The agency has acknowledged using it on terror suspects. Some critics regard it as torture; others say it is a harsh interrogation technique, and proponents say it is a useful tool in the war on terror.

Ashcroft, who stated his opposition to torture, said the Justice Department has determined that waterboarding -- as defined and described by the CIA -- doesn't constitute torture.

"I believe a report of waterboarding would be serious, but I do not believe it would define torture," Ashcroft said, responding to questions from Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California.

Only, we now know that the practice drove the men insane. We now know it killed men. We know that there were people arguing against it, touting the proven method of building rapport. We have defined deviancy down to the point where monstrous things are commonplace discussion. Flippant, ridiculous, self-serving and intellectually bankrupt defenses of waterboarding signal many, many years of batshit crazy discourse ahead.

Yep, the worst times in our country's history are upon us. We're living them and we're seeing the deviancy up close, and it's truly an awful thing. Awful.

[video below the fold]

They're Not Giving McCain Money Because They Think He's an Asshole

Really, how much more simple is it than that?

Few House Republicans have contributed to Sen. John McCain since he clinched the Republican nomination at the end of February.

McCain, Arizona’s senior senator, has had a far warmer reception in the upper chamber. At least 22 Senate colleagues have contributed to McCain’s campaign, including Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.), an Independent who attends Democratic caucus meetings. [out of 49!]

Only 21 House Republicans have given to McCain from their personal campaign accounts since he became the presumptive GOP nominee four and a half months ago, according to an analysis of House fundraising reports made public Wednesday. [out of 199!]

In addition, eleven House Republicans who did not give from their personal campaign accounts this year contributed from their leadership political action committees (PACs), according to fundraising reports covering the election cycle through the end of May.

So while nearly half the Senate GOP conference has given to McCain, less than 20 percent of House Republicans have pitched in.

How is it that ALL of them have not given the nominee of their party any money? I mean, a hundred bucks. Fifty bucks. Here you go. Perfunctory and obligatory, there's your money, now go run for President and lose. Ten bucks? Five?

Here's the answer you won't find in the Mancrush Media--a startling number of the members of the House and the Senate think John McCain is a self-centered, heavy-handed flaming asshole. They have, repeatedly and consistently, been saying as much since the day McCain got to the Hill. The people who have glommed onto McCain don't like him--they want things from him. He engenders little or no camaraderie with people beneath him and probably had more friends on the Democratic side of the aisle than on the Republican side--like Lieberman (who used to pretend to be a Democrat) and ex-buddy John Kerry. Good luck finding anyone who has the guts to write that--they are few and far between.

Update: Case in point. "McCain's Humor Often Backfires."

McCain's political allies also sometimes feel the sting. He has jokingly threatened staffers with waterboarding (a practice he condemns as torture). After former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, a close McCain adviser, dismissed talk of a bad economy as mere psychology, McCain told reporters he planned to make Gramm — who had been seen as a prospective Treasury secretary — ambassador to Belarus.

--WS

So What?

Get this--Congress is unpopular!

Congress' job approval rating has dropped five percentage points over the past month, from 19% in June to 14% in July, making the current reading the lowest congressional job approval rating in the 34-year Gallup Poll history of asking the question. The previous low was 18%, last reached in May.

When has Congress ever been popular? Why, then, do incumbents have such huge advantages in keeping their jobs? Perhaps it's because of the feeling that my Congressman is a great guy--YOUR Congressman is a perverted fiend who wants to sell out America!

Notice anything?

[Note-there's an issue with graphics in blogger. This image has disappeared and reappeared, based on some bug I haven't been able to figure out. Go here if you want to look at the stats.]



Congress sure was unpopular when the economy was in the toilet--as in, 1979, 1982 and 1991. The only time Congress was popular was when the country had just been attacked on 9/11. The rest of the time, people have the same basic who-gives-a-shit? attitude.

Talk about a non-story.

--WS

Looking Beyond the FISA Bill

You didn't really expect them to do the right thing, did you?

That's okay. I was naive once. We've all been a little naive. The issue with telecom immunity boils down to this--there was no way that the telecom companies that illegally assisted the government with an illegal warrantless wiretapping program that did nothing to protect the American people were ever going to face true legal jeopardy. There was no way they were going to pay the penalties. No way were the decision makers going to face the music. There was no chance of a perp walk similar to the one we saw yesterday with the people at Bear Stearns. There was no way their cadre of lobbyists was going to allow legislation to come out of the Congress that would eviscerate these companies and cost them billions in liabilities.

With Fred Fielding in the White House and Michael Mukasey at the Justice Department? Forget it. Only a naive, pie-in-the-sky worshipping bobble-eyed hippie would have hoped it would all turn out right. Have we been able to set aside the freakout and accept such a bummer outcome all along? Did we know it was all going to turn to shit?

We may never know the full extent of what happened--nor should we care to. Someone waved papers at someone else across a table and someone had more intestinal fortitude than someone else. Someone got beat, and beat badly. That's all there is to it.

You can go read Jessalyn Radack and you can go read Glenn Greenwald and I will tell you--everything they're saying is correct.

But there is one thing no one knows--and that is, how bad was the thing that was used to threaten the Democratic Party to roll over on this issue? How bad was the thing they were threatening to use against anyone who opposed them? Was it the fact that there are archives on every Democratic politician kept sealed away--archives of their personal conversations, archives of their monetary dealings, details of their sex lives?

Here's one thing I do know--nothing is outside the realm of possibility. Nothing is too crazy, too paranoid or too outlandish to rule out. Did someone threaten to destroy the careers of a few prominent Democrats? Did a few lobbyists band together and threaten to have someone's dog shot and killed on a suburban street? Did someone produce photos of a lawmaker pressed naked against the headboard of a cheap hotel bed?

Something had to have been done to produce this result. Something awful.

You are never going to beat these people with outrage. You are never going to beat them with righteous indignation. You are never going to beat these people by citing the US Constitution as proof they do not respect the rule of law.

Because that's a fool's paradise in America, circa 2008.

No, you're only going to beat these people by quietly and purposefully organizing strong opposition to their efforts by backing candidates for office that have a chance of defeating them in primary races or in general election races. We need better Democrats now, not necessarily more Democrats, just better ones. We need to get rid of the Steny Hoyers, Jay Rockefellers, and the concern trolls like Harold Ford Jr. and James Carville. Their time is over. Not one thin dime, to any of them. They are craven fools who have sold us out.

The only way to beat them is to assume that, for the next ten years, you're not going to win anything. Assume that it will take that long, or longer, to find grassroots candidates who believe in what is right and are willing to fight against the people who are selling us out. Assume that there's a good possibility you'll never get there. Assume you'll get half way there and your candidate will sell you out.

That's how it works in the grown up world. You take what you can get. You fight to get whatever you can. But if you toughen up and learn to expect disappointment and frustration, those times when you do win and when you do make a massive impact will be all the more fulfilling. If you're up against tight-fisted, mean and nasty people who will say or do anything to hold on to what little they have then you've got to get just as mean and just as nasty and be willing to go where they won't--like, door to door in the rain signing up voters or being the only person you know who cares.

It is time to grow up--we're not going to get what's right. We're not going to get what's fair. We're going to get a cold, hard, bitter tasting pill to swallow. The question is--do you give up? Do you fight harder? Do you take this as a legitimate grudge against the people who sold you out and use it against them when they are weak and vulnerable and damn them to hell with it? When you're both exhausted and on the ground, and when your opponent reaches out to you for mercy, do you slap their hand away and stomp them into the ground and remember back to this moment and savor the victory?

The next fight is forming. They're not sitting there feeling sorry for you. They're celebrating. They popped corks last night and drank themselves silly because they won and we lost.

Are you going to take that?

Special Closed Session Tonight in the House

I have CSPAN on right now--live in the Senate, killing time on the House side:

WASHINGTON (AP) - House Democratic leaders agreed Thursday to a rare closed-door session - the first in 25 years - to debate surveillance legislation. Republicans requested privacy for what they termed "an honest debate" on the new Democratic eavesdropping bill that is opposed by the White House and most Republicans in Congress.

The closed-door debate was scheduled for late Thursday, after the House chamber could be cleared and swept by security personnel to make sure there are no listening devices.

The last private session in the House was in 1983 on U.S. support for paramilitary operations in Nicaragua. Only five closed sessions have taken place in the House since 1825.

President Bush vowed to veto the House Democrats' version of the terrorist surveillance bill, saying it would undermine the nation's security.

Bush opposes it in part because it doesn't provide full, retroactive legal protection to telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop on their customers without court permission after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

About 40 lawsuits have been filed against telecommunications companies by people and organizations alleging they violated wiretapping and privacy laws. The lawsuits have been combined and are pending before a single federal judge in California.

UPDATE I - PALE RIDER

Explanations--we go to the brilliant Kagro X at DKos:

FISA fight: Leadership maneuvers you'll actually like
by Kagro X
Thu Mar 13, 2008 at 03:26:39 PM PDT
FISA fight got you down? Fed up with the Congressional Democratic leadership? Tired of watching Dems cave, and Republicans use the rules to run roughshod over them?

Perhaps you've heard about how House Republicans have used the motion to recommit to trip up various versions of the FISA bill that don't give retroactive amnesty to the telecom companies. And perhaps you're concerned that despite the much-improved FISA language coming to a vote in the House this week, it'll be undercut by another such motion.

Well, dig this:

The RESTORE Act, H.R. 3773, passed the House last year without including retroactive amnesty for the telecom companies and sent it on to the Senate.

When the Senate took up the issue, it opted not to deal with H.R. 3773, but instead passed its Rockefeller-backed FISA bill (S. 2248) that did include retroactive amnesty. And there was a tremendous uproar among immunity opponents over the procedure the Senate used, making the Bush-backed Rockefeller legislation the base bill, and the immunity-free Judiciary committee bill the substitute, creating an uphill battle for the fight against immunity. That situation created a lot of ill will toward Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Everyone remembers that.

But here's the interesting part. Rather than send S. 2248 to the House once it passed, Reid sent the bill on a little detour. With the unanimous consent of the Senate, he stripped out the language of H.R. 3773 and substituted in the language of S. 2248, vitiated the passage of S. 2248, and sent the amended H.R. 3773 back to the House.

That put the House in the position of considering the Senate amendment to H.R. 3773, as opposed to the original version of S. 2248. What difference does that make? Well, it makes no substantive difference, in that H.R. 3773 as amended now included retroactive immunity, along with all the other garbage we didn't want the Senate to pass.

But as I've stressed a number of times, control of procedure can, in the end, control the substantive outcome.

So, what's a House that's opposed to retroactive immunity to do? Amend H.R. 3773 to take it back out, of course. And that -- along with a number of other substantive improvements -- is what Chairmen Conyers and Reyes plan to do, in the form of an amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 3773.

Sounds like a joke, doesn't it? The sort of thing people say when they make fun of the legislative process: the House amendment to the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 3773.

Only guess what's special about offering an amendment to the amendment that isn't true of just starting over with a new House bill that doesn't have immunity in it?

You can't move to recommit an amendment to an amendment.

So the House gets to strip immunity (and the other junk) back out of H.R. 3773, and the Republicans can't just undo that work with a motion designed to peel off Blue Dogs. If the amendment to the Senate amendment passes, it pops right back out of the House and goes back to the Senate on the express bus, no stops.

And there's more. It arrives back in the Senate in privileged form, as a message from the House (the message being: we amended your crap) the consideration of which is not subject to filibuster. To be sure, the Republicans (or anyone willing to stand in their shoes) can filibuster the actual debate on the House amendment to Senate amendment, but they can't filibuster the question of whether or not to even have that debate, as they can with most other legislation.

UPDATE II - PALE RIDER - 1152PM Eastern

Senate still in session, DiFi and Boxer are speaking out against an amendment condemning Berkley, CA. Conrad cuts through the crap and calls for yeas and nays...

This is the bullshit that goes on. They are trying to get through budgetary matters in the Senate, no word from the House. I suspect Boehner is crying, though, and maybe Blunt is holding up a picture of a terrorist holding a gun to a puppy's head.

Senator Allard is trying to define a child from conception and play some sort of game with SCHIP--it's unborn child/pro life stuff and it's designed to hold up legislation. Once in a while, you see this, and it's making sausage in public, is all it is.

I'm going to bed--we'll talk in the AM.

Updates as warranted--if this post disappears, it means there's no news made tonight.

FISA and the FBI

Here's a comment that I posted elsewhere--

At the breakfast yesterday, [Kenneth] Wainstein highlighted a different problem with the current FISA law than other administration officials have emphasized. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, for example, has repeatedly said FISA should be changed so no warrant is needed to tap a communication that took place entirely outside the United States but happened to pass through the United States.

But in response to a question at the meeting by David Kris, a former federal prosecutor and a FISA expert, Wainstein said FISA's current strictures did not cover strictly foreign wire and radio communications, even if acquired in the United States. The real concern, he said, is primarily e-mail, because "essentially you don't know where the recipient is going to be" and so you would not know in advance whether the communication is entirely outside the United States.

Privacy advocates have raised concerns that the Senate bill contains a provision that would allow the attorney general to erect a new barrier to future privacy cases brought under the nation's foreign intelligence surveillance law.

Contrary to current practice, the Senate bill would halt such lawsuits if the attorney general certifies that the assistance provided by the telecom carrier is lawful. The only check on that certification would be a court review as to whether the attorney general "abused" his discretion, which experts said yesterday is the lowest possible standard of judicial review.

"This provision is yet another example of the executive branch 'just trust us' mentality when it comes to intelligence matters," said Kevin Bankston, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

You know, when I see something like this reproduced and commented upon here--as if it were actually true--it makes me realize that we're fighting a losing battle with people who will say anything to stay in power.

Here's Glenn Greenwald, to smack this shit down once again:

The only reason why Congress began considering amendments to FISA in the first place was because a FISA court earlier this year ruled that a warrant was required for foreign-to-foreign calls incidentally routed through the U.S. via fiber optics. Everyone -- from Russ Feingold to the ACLU -- agreed that FISA never intended to require warrants for foreign-to-foreign calls that have nothing to do with U.S. citizens, and thus, none of the bills being considered -- including the bill passed by the House -- requires warrants for such foreign-to-foreign calls. Here is Rep. Rush Holt, a member of the House Intelligence Committee and one of the key architects of the House bill, explaining what the House bill actually does:

Ensure that the government must have an individualized, particularized court-approved warrant based on probable cause in order to read or listen to the communications of an American citizen. . . .
The RESTORE Act now makes clear that it is the courts -- and not an executive branch political appointee -- who decide whether or not the communications of an American can be seized and searched, and that such seizures and searches must be done pursuant to a court order.

Under the House bill, individualized warrants are required if the U.S. Government wants to eavesdrop on the communications of Americans. Warrants are not required -- as [Time Columnist Joe] Klein falsely claimed -- for "every foreign-terrorist target's calls."

While the government (in order to prevent abuse) must demonstrate to the FISA court that it is applying its surveillance standards faithfully, the warrant requirement is confined to the class Rep. Holt described. Klein's shrill condemnation of the House FISA bill rests on a complete falsehood (that's not surprising; the last time Klein wrote about FISA, he said that "no actual eavesdropping on conversations should be permitted without a FISA court ruling" and then proceeded to defend a FISA bill which, unbeknownst to him, allowed exactly that).

So, once again, we have to stomp our feet and patiently explain why you can't believe anything a member of the Bush Administration or the Republican Party has to say--they are lying and they know it. This is the smokescreen that they are trying to use to cover up systematic abuse.

Here is an excerpt from a filing dated MAY 17 2002
from the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and it details abuse of intercept BEFORE 9/11:

In November of 2000, the Court held a special meeting to consider the troubling number of inaccurate FBI affidavits in so many FISA applications. After receiving a more detailed explanation from the Department of Justice about what went wrong, but not why, the Court decided not to accept inaccurate affidavits from FBI agents whether or not intentionally false. One FBI agent was barred from appearing before the Court as a FISA affiant. The Court decided to await the results of the investigation by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility before taking further action.

In March of 2001, the government reported similar misstatements in another series of FISA applications in which there was supposedly a "wall" between separate intelligence and criminal squads in FBI field offices to screen FISA intercepts, when in fact all of the FBI agents were on the same squad and all of the screening was done by the one supervisor overseeing both investigations.

To come to grips with this problem, in April of 2001, the FBI promulgated detailed procedures governing the submission of requests to conduct FISA surveillances and searches, and to review draft affidavits in FISA applications, to ensure their accuracy. These procedures are currently in use and require careful review of draft affidavits by the FBI agents in the field offices who are conducting the FISA case investigations, as well as the supervising agents at FBI headquarters who appear before the Court and swear to the affidavits.

In virtually every instance, the government's misstatements and omissions in FISA applications and violations of the Court's orders involved information sharing and unauthorized disseminations to criminal investigators and prosecutors. These incidents have been under investigation by the FBI's and the Justice Department's Offices of Professional Responsibility for more than one year to determine how the violations occurred in the field offices, and how the misinformation found its way into the FISA applications and remained uncorrected for more than one year despite procedures to verify the accuracy of FISA pleadings. As of this date, no report has been published, and how these misrepresentations occurred remains unexplained to the Court.

Instead of correcting the problem, which actually dated back to the Clinton Administration, the problem got worse:

At the end of 2006, the FBI's Telecommunications Intercept and Collection Technology Unit compiled an end-of-the-year report touting its accomplishments to management, a report that was recently unearthed via an open government request from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Strikingly, the report said that the FBI's software for recording telephone surveillance of suspected spies and terrorists intercepted 27,728,675 sessions.

Twenty-seven million is a staggering number given that the FBI only got 2,176 FISA court orders in 2006 from a secret spy court using the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

According to the math that means each court order resulted in 12,742 "sessions," all in regards to phone, not internet, surveillance.

That's a lot of terrorism. You'd think there were bombs going off on Main Street in Podunk, Idaho on a daily basis.

The only explanation is that the FBI is running wild, collection all manner of information on US persons, and handing that information over to the Bush administration. Is the FBI complicit in the wholesale spying of the Bush administration on the Democratic Party? On anyone opposed to the policies of the Bush Administration?

There aren't even 27.7 million illegal aliens in this country. How could there be 27.7 million terrorists?

If they grant immunity to the telecom companies, we will never find out why they had to listen in on 27.7 million conversations in 2006. We will never get to the bottom of this.

Wilkes Doesn't Get Enough Time In Jail

The "Duke Stir"
Americans never pay attention to what matters. Corruption during wartime? Hey, that matters. People end up dead or maimed for life because of contracting fraud. It ain't sexy, but it's real. And it matters. It matters what gear the troops get and it matters how that money is spent.

Today, something that matters happened and I doubt you could find more than a handful of people who get the significance of it.

SAN DIEGO - A defense contractor was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison Tuesday for bribing former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham with cash, trips, the services of prostitutes and other gifts in exchange for nearly $90 million in Pentagon work.

Brent Wilkes was labeled "a predatory wolf (in) self-styled patriot's clothing" and a "poster boy for war profiteering" by prosecutor Phillip Halpern. U.S. District Judge Larry Burns said he was troubled that Wilkes continued to maintain his innocence.

"If you were to do the right thing about this, today is the day to own up," Burns told Wilkes at the sentencing hearing.

Well, of course, there's no way in hell Wilkes is ever going to own up to being a world class sleaze. Isn't there a war on? Wouldn't Wilkes qualify for the Death Penalty if somehow, somewhere, there was just an ounce of shame left in the US Justice system? Twelve years for a slam dunk case like this? What do you want to bet that a whole lot of prominent people wrote the judge nice letters about Wilkes?

This is what it was all about:

Prosecutors argued during a three-week trial that Wilkes lavished Cunningham with more than $700,000 in perks, including cash, submachine gun shooting lessons and the services of prostitutes. In return, they said, Cunningham helped Wilkes secure $87 million in Pentagon contracts, mainly for scanning paper documents.

Wilkes' attorney asked for a sentence less than the eight years and four months Cunningham received. Prosecutors asked for a "significantly higher punishment," and federal probation officials had recommended 60 years.

Wilkes acknowledged no wrongdoing in a brief statement in which he asked the judge to look beyond his dealings with Cunningham.

"I am a man who cares deeply for this community, for my family, for my country," Wilkes said.

Bullshit. Wilkes cared about that contract, and nothing else. This country was at war and he profited from it by bribing a Congressman. AND THAT DOESN'T GET YOU THE DEATH PENALTY IN THIS COUNTRY? I mean, what the hell?

This war has been a massive transfer of spending from social programs and entitlements to a defense contracting world that is stuffed full of contracts like the one Wilkes got Cunningham to send his way. Was he the lowest bidder? Probably not. Was it rigged? Obviously. So scanning paper documents probably isn't a sexy, glamorous contract. Not like, say, providing Marines with Mine Resistant Vehicles. Except that instead of money going to something that would save lives, here's a classic case of a bullshit contract eating up tens of millions of dollars that should have gone somewhere else. Isn't it weird to see Kit Bond actually doing something decent for once? Gotta take note of that.

Anyway, this contract also went into the Homeland Security realm, including a link to a limosine company. Nice to see how that money was pissed away, too.

This is what set me off tonight, though:

Authorities said Wilkes bribed Cunningham to win work for ADCS Inc., a data and document storage company he owned.

"Wilkes coldly and successfully exploited the simplemindedness of one of this country's war heroes, now a tortured shadow of his former self," prosecutors wrote in a pre-sentencing court filing last week. "Wilkes stands now revealed as a war profiteer, a thug, a bully, a lecherous old man who preyed on his young female staffers and hired prostitutes."

BULLSHIT! How loud can I scream it. Bull fucking shit.

Cunningham was not duped--Cunningham made a fucking list of what he wanted! He wrote it out on his office stationery! He knew exactly what he wanted, including spending time doing weird shit with women on the Duke Stir.

This went back years, for crying out loud. And Cunningham was always the bully in the room, NOT the one being bullied:

In the case of Cunningham, Stern remembers an incident he witnessed in 1996 between Duke and Congressman Barney Frank, the gay congressman from Massachusetts, embroiled at the time in his own scandal involving a former male companion who had been caught running a prostitution ring from the congressman's basement. The exchange happened at a meeting on immigration during which Republicans were maneuvering to prevent Democrats from commenting on a related bill. Frank objected to being steamrolled.

“When Barney started to make his plea, Cunningham cut him off and said, ‘Well, would you like to talk about prostitutes and basements,'” Stern remembered. “The room just fell silent.”

Yeah, so good riddance to you, Mr. Wilkes. May you rot in prison and then find a way to rot in hell as well.

Cunningham gets to rot with you...

Lying, Cheating, Hypocritical Bastards

Scroll Down So You Can Read About The Fundraiser (SDSYCRATF)
---------

You've got to love how the media frames an issue:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush's last State of the Union address is expected to be heavy on Iraq and the economy, but he also will say he is entering a congressional fray over earmarking taxpayer dollars, administration officials said.

President Bush delivers his State of the Union address in January 2007.

Bush will announce "unprecedented changes" in the way lawmakers earmark money for special projects that benefit their districts or campaign contributors, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said in an e-mail.

The president plans to sign an executive order Tuesday "directing agencies to ignore any future earmarks included in report language, but not in the legislation," Fratto said.

The order will not be retroactive, he added. Democrats were quick to point out that almost half of the 11,735 earmarks approved in 2008 were GOP-sponsored and White House-endorsed.

"The president will say that if these spending items are worthy, Congress should debate them in the open and hold a public vote," Fratto said. "He will state his commitment to veto any spending bill that does not succeed in cutting earmarks in half from 2008 levels."

The move comes after House Republicans challenged Democrats in a letter Friday to join a bipartisan effort to overhaul earmarks. Republicans are expected to use earmarking as an issue against Democrats in the 2008 elections.

Is this executive order even Constitutional? Doesn't it sound like it interferes with the role of Congress, which is to represent the people by being a large, slow, methodical and deliberative body that appropriates and spends the money only after both houses compromise and agree on legislation? There was a reason why the founders put the power of the purse in the hands of the many rather than the Unitary Executive. They knew there would be a George Bush someday.

Here's how that lede should have been written:

Despite widespread use of earmarks by the Republican-controlled Congress for the majority of his time in office, President Bush will attempt to remain relevant for the remainder of his lame-duck term by attempting to sign legislation to curb the use of earmarks.

It's smart politicking--as the GOP continues to descend into hell, the Republicans want to staunch the flow of earmarks into Democratic districts because that money will help re-elect Democrats. Hey--what was Tom DeLay good for? Using earmarks to batter the Democrats because the money flowed into areas where Republican members of the House could keep their seats. What better way to keep the Dems from increasing their control of Congress than by cutting off the earmarks that will help get some of the Democratic members re-elected in close districts?

Here's where we pray for Democrats in the leadership in Congress to shove this issue back down their throats.

Today's testimony has me in a funky mood

The Democrats were so spineless today. How pathetic. I hope the Senate does a better job tomorrow. I don't have any high hopes for my Democratic Senator. But I have hope that Jim Webb and John Kerry will be willing to show a little more spine. We'll see.

The spineless wimps of banality in the House scratched their chins thoughtfully, and furrowed their brows most Seriously. They will begin to debate, and in Serious Tones, they will deem the Surge™ has shown just enough signs of progress that they must advance General Westmoreland Petraeus another Friedman Unit. Of course, the defining characteristic of the Friedman Unit is that it is an automatically resetting unit.

The Surge™ has been a failure. The Surge of PR has been successful. Bush will run out the clock. And every day that blithering idiot and the evil, warmongering Cheney are in office, the closer we are to this:



Fuck it. I think I am going to pour a big-assed glass of Whiskey and spend the rest of tonight drinking. Heavily. I'll bring the outrage tomorrow.

Some Questions for General Petraeus

Ever since the Surge™ plans rolled off the presses at the American Enterprise Institute and the escalation got underway, any time anyone has brought up withdrawal of troops and drawing down in Iraq, Resident Evil™ and his slavering lackeys have engaged in a stall tactic. “Wait for September.” is the rote refrain. “Wait to hear what General Petraeus has to say.” Well, it's September.

(As if we could count on receiving the unvarnished truth about success on the ground! Ha! I inwardly roll my eyes. I’ve read that op-ed before – right before the last presidential selection, in fact.)

Well, we know he is going to spin and mince and parse and do a soft-soap routine extraordinaire. None the less, when he is in front of the congressional committees, I would dearly love to see him asked to answer the following questions – and for the committees to make him answer them in a forthright manner.

Start at the beginning.

General Petraeus, could you start by defining the mission of the U.S. military in Iraq? How does that correspond with the original grounds for the invasion?

What was the population of Iraq in March 2003? What was the unemployment rate? GNP?

What is the population now? Unemployment rate? GNP?

How many Iraqis have fled the country as refugees? How many people have fled violence in their neighborhoods and home districts, but remain in the country as internally displaced persons? How many internal refugee camps have sprung up in recent months?

Of the population remaining in Iraq, how many would you estimate are actively involved with violence toward other Iraqis? Toward American troops?

Would you provide the names of and background on groups which the U.S. maintains have engaged in violence against Americans?

al Qaeda in Iraq

Of the jihadist/resistance fighters in Iraq, how many claim an affiliation with al Qaeda? How many are members of the main al Qaeda organization, and would take direct orders from ObL? Of those claiming membership in AQI, how many are Iraqis? How many are foreign nationals? Of the foreign nationals, where do they come from? How many jihadist fighters do you estimate come from each of these other nations? How many were loyal to al Qaeda before the United States invaded Iraq? Can you provide names and background information on those claiming to be AQI leadership? Are any of the professed leaders Iraqi? How many? How many people in Iraq professed membership in or allegiance to al Qaeda in March 2003.

The Insurgency

Can you provide the statistics on insurgents by sect? Can you give us this information for each province? Of the insurgents in Iraq today, how many have been active since the invasion? How many have taken up arms since the bombing of the al-Askiri Shrine in February 2006? What provinces have seen attacks committed against American forces since the “Surge™” achieved >50% of the troop buildup. What provinces have been violence free in this time period?

Iraqi Casualties

How does the U.S. count Iraqis killed by gunshots? How are Iraqis killed by explosions counted? How are Iraqis killed by American air strikes counted? Do you feel the slightest pang of conscience when you parse death statistics by whether a victim died execution style, or facing their killer? Do you think that matters to the decedent or their family?

Iraqi Perceptions

How many Iraqis oppose continuing the American military presence in that country? Of Iraqis not engaged in violence against Americans, how many nonetheless do not object to attacks against American forces?

The Missing Millions

How much cash was airlifted to Iraq after the invasion of 2003? We know that at least $110 million went missing from your command in Mosul. What happened to that money, General? How much of that missing money has been used to fund the insurgency, either directly or indirectly?

The Missing Weapons

We know that fully half of American casualties in Iraq are the result of the failure to secure munitions (al Qua Qua) in the early days of the invasion. Were you in any way responsible for the decisions that led to that failure? Who was? Have they faced any accountability?

The GAO estimates that approximately half of all light weapons supplied by American forces to Iraqi military and police forces – 190,000 AK-47’s and handguns – have gone missing. Who got those weapons? Have they been turned against American forces? Used against other Iraqis in sectarian attacks? Used in criminal acts?

Infrastructure

How many bridges have been attacked since the troop buildup got underway?

How many hours of electricity does the average Iraqi experience in a day? What was the average before the invasion in March 2003? What was the average temperature in Iraq this August? How do Iraqis cool their homes? How many times has the electrical grid been attacked by insurgents since the start of the escalation? Who is responsible for the security of the grid? How many hours of electricity does your headquarters enjoy per day?

How many Iraqi homes, on average went without water for more than 24 hours during the month of August? What is the status of the water delivery system? How safe is the water to drink, when it is available? Hypothetically: If your family came to visit you in Iraq, would you feel comfortable with them drinking the water?

***

And then, after a brief restroom break, I would start asking even tougher questions about the status of the Iraqi security forces. And I would segue into the ten and twenty year occupation predictions and projections. But that is me – and I am not a lily-livered poltroon afraid of being perceived as being mean to a poor little helpless four-star general.

(Hat tip to one of the commenters at Political Animal for posting many of these same questions, and many more. Reading that comment, I was able to pull all the disparate strands of outrage together and write a post that passes for cogent.)