Hell hath no fury like King George scorned.
Instead of opening an investigation into the illegalities of the Bush administration, the Justice Department has opened an investigation into the leak of Snoopgate, the president’s extensive program of spying on Americans via the NSA.
Technorati Tags : george+bush, NSA, spying, snoopgate, politics, investigations, department+of+justice
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This comes via TalkLeft and seems to be a rather significant and damning evidence against Bush and Tony Blair on torture detainees. Boiling people to death is not just a little persuasive treatment.
Tony, Tony. I’m getting quite disappointed in you. You know better and are not in the same category as George Bush – don’t let the man dupe you anymore!
BlairWatch, fearful of Great Britain’s Official Secrets Act, is requesting that bloggers publish these memos.
The HTML or JPEG document is a legal opinion rendered by the UK’s Foreign Office on the boundaries of when torture is legal or not legal, and what the implications are. The second document (PDF) is by far the most telling – the type of document that is quite likely to raise the ire of many. It contains several memos/telegrams from Craig Murray, Britain’s former Ambassador to Uzbekistan, which details the passing of intel from the Uzbek Secret Forces to the UK and the US.
Complicity is definitely demonstrated in these documents – quite damning.
The original documents can be found here and here or posted within the framework of BlairWatch. Don’t miss reading them.
More later…
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Every day something new is revealed that tears into the fiber of the Bush administration. With Congress not being in session, things are a bit slow, but thanks to the White House, CNN, MSNBC, and bloggers are not lacking for items to report and discuss – the building NSA drama, cookies from the NSA (no, not the chocolate chip variety), web bugs on the White House Web site, etc. If the administration could be trusted, I would not worry too much about the Web tracking revealed this week, but there is always that big “if†looming out there. “If†doesn’t have a very good track record to stand on.
What does remain as a concern, regardless of the extent of actual harm done, it is against the law. Period. End of discussion. No matter how much George Bush and Rush Dumbaugh want to tout, “no harm done,†it is against the law and it is the president’s Constitutional responsibility to uphold the law.
Tracking cookies can be very benign and useful to Web site publishers. They are used here at TPC, but the sole purpose is to collect statistics primarily on new and returning visitors in an aggregate fashion. There is no personally identifiable information associated with each cookie, but integrate the right technology and with less than honorable intentions and you have a perfect recipe for significant surveillance of the wrong kind.
Bush and company cannot be allowed to employ their historically successful strategy of saying it’s not so, or no big deal and America turns the other cheek. The apologists and Bush continue this modus operandi and a deaf ear must be turned to the rhetoric rather than the other cheek.
It’s simple – you break the law and you suffer the consequences.
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I have been out of town all day and it looks like its been a cookie monster, web bug, and UK torture news day.
First, let me briefly explain why I have been out of town so much lately and “attending meetings”, etc., which has impacted the normal flow of things here. I prefer to not make a public statement like this for many reasons, but feel that it is necessary so faithful readers will not get the impression that “things are just getting slack.”
Life seems to present the most trying of times when one starts a new venture, which in “blog years”, The Political Chase is relatively new. The only reason I am making this public, is I have a strong commitment to the purpose of this blog and to those that read it. I feel obligated to provide an honest explanation, apologies for not being as productive as possible (on the blog), hope that each of you will understand and will remain a TPC reader.
My father is in the final stage of the dreadful disease, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. His decline has been quite rapid, especially within the last week and honestly we don’t know if he has 5 minutes or 5 weeks. It varies by the day and sometimes by the hour. He received last rites Monday, but it was obviously a fire drill.
So much for that…I will be here as much as possible and this too will past. Now, on to the business of the day.
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The democracy George Bush envisioned for Iraq may not be panning out, but at least he can toot his horn for one item common to a Bush influenced government.
Until recently [in Baghdad], Ahmed Taha saw himself as providing a public service, his bustling Abu Qlam gas station dispensing dirt-cheap fuel to Baghdad’s growing horde of motorists.
Then one day last week, he said in an interview, the Iraqi government raised gas prices eightfold. Customers already frustrated by strict rationing and mile-long lines were outraged.
A United Nations official has determined the Iraqi elections were legitimate, which puts the Shiites in the driver’s seat. With Sunni rebellion against the Shiites and the Shiite alliance with Iran, this doesn’t bode well for the democracy the administration had on its wish list.
Washington Monthly has a big spread on Kos (Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of the Daily Kos).
[J]ust after the 2004 elections, in the ornate Lyndon B. Johnson room of the capitol where he’d been invited to give Senate Democrats a post mortem on what went wrong. The party had just lost its third election in a row, and his audience, a self-flagellatory group at the best of times, was feeling glum and a little bit desperate. Moulitsas told the assembled crowd that they, the establishment, had mismanaged party strategy for too long and that he, Markos, had a better plan. He can be so intense and high-strung, so full of kinetic energy, that the sheer performance of his speeches—he never writes them out, just talks off-the-cuff—can be distracting, like watching snakes fighting in a bag.
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The article, “A Political Debate on Stress Disorder,†in today’s edition of The Washington Post highlights the significant rise of veterans diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the related increase in medical expense to the Veterans Affairs, and the VA raising concerns about fraudulent claims. While much of the article is factual and brings to the forefront a significant problem that statistically has been under the radar of the government and society in general, it does not adequately address the core issue. According to a source familiar with the matter, the economic issue is actual budget cuts ordered by the Bush administration rather than the ambiguous excuse of “facing a budget crunchâ€.
The Post reports a budget crunch as a significant problem the VA faces due to the increase of disability claims related to PTSD. That is ambiguous and misleading. It is presumed this is information and statements provided to the Post by the Veterans Affairs. A budget crunch is frequently interpreted as having to spend more than was budgeted, for whatever reason, as opposed to a reduction in funding. This is the prevailing theme in the Post’s article, especially when considering the following passage.
“On the one hand, it is good that people are reaching out for help,” said Jeff Schrade, communications director for the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. “At the same time, as more people reach out for help, it squeezes the budget further.”
PTSD is unequivocally a by-product of war that has significant effects on veterans’ general health and day-to-day productivity. For reasons not illuminated in the Post’s article, it has not always been reported and is more widespread than previously thought. The Post’s article implies the issue begins with the Vietnam era and progresses to current day. This issue goes beyond Vietnam. Recently diagnosed cases and claims (less than five years) extend to World War II. The presentation of PTSD in veterans and associated disability claims would be notable beyond World War II if natural mortality was not a factor.
According to the source familiar with the matter, “the Bush administration is cutting the budget for VA benefits.†Furthermore according to the source, this summer, VA officials told a group of World War II POW veterans, many that were at least 80 years old, the Bush administration was reducing the VA budget overall; medications previously available to them may no longer be available, and their disability may be reduced or eliminated entirely. All veterans in the group were receiving disability benefits for PTSD directly attributable to military service and being prisoners of war. Many of the veterans were considered disabled to varying degrees for other conditions in addition to PTSD.
American culture and sociological considerations are different today than in other periods of military conflicts, especially World War II. Two major factors for delayed presentation of PTSD cases are stigma and some individuals’ not requiring financial assistance to maintain a subsistence level. Many veterans would endure the illness because it was psychiatric related and thereby shunned by society. Fortunately, stigma is not the problem it was years ago, but it is still an unjustifiable issue in society today. Moreover, many veterans that were financially secure did not pursue military related disability. They simply did not want to be viewed, personally or by others, as receiving a “hand out.â€
One veteran from the POW group mentioned above, refusing to be identified due to fear of retribution and loss of benefits, provided a brief, partial description of his POW experience. He was unable to provide additional details because, “they were too gruesome to tell†and he could not bear to “re-live the experience by talking about it.†(ed. note: the following is quite graphic and some may find it offensive – you may not want to read the quoted passages.)
After the interrogation, there were only long faces. There was no doubt what was about to happen to us. Being heavily guarded, escape seemed impossible, but [name redacted] kept us looking for an opportunity to do that.
They marched us across crisp frozen snow to a dirt-floored stockade without heat, where they had kept animals. When you are shocked, depressed and scared you don’t notice being hungry or cold. We knew from briefing what they did with prisoners and we knew from General Bobon’s ruling what was about to happen to us.
About daybreak on our second day, a bunch of hardcore Ustaše marched us off to jail. There were eight or ten small cells down one side, and in front of those a small yard that was enclosed with an eight foot tall fence on three sides. It was easy to tell this was where they executed their prisoners. They put 11 of us in one cell which was no larger than 8’x10’. At best, there was standing room only. We were elbow to elbow, not a chance to sit, let alone lie down.
After a few days there, we saw no evidence of other prisoners and they had been at war for four years. On three occasions, they got the gallows ready for us. They had the wooden frame cross bars and heavily knotted rope, but a Catholic priest was able to interrupt the hanging each time. Up until this time, we were prisoners of the dreaded Ustaše. They patterned themselves after the German SS troops. They kept no prisoners, tortured and killed everybody they captured.
[…We had not had a meal in four days. We were discussing possible escape plans] when we saw a truck coming across the field. They had our supper; a bowl of soup for each of us. We were not knocking it; at last, they were feeding us something. To me it was grass soup, but it did have some seasoning in it - maybe barley. This would be our daily diet for approximately three months, with the exception that sometimes the seasoning would be identifiable. On one occasion when I dipped the ladle to fill my bowl, I came up with a horse’s jaw. On another day we couldn’t stomach it at all when someone spotted a horse’s penis floating in it. It was consistent, every day, and it was mostly grass soup.
For sixty years, this veteran has had nightmares about his POW experience. Every night, a frightening experience in his dreams about his military experience results in him literally screaming out loudly, which wakes him up in a cold sweat. This veteran did not apply for full VA benefits until approximately four years ago. Two years later, he was approved.
I was unable to get a comment from the Veteran Affairs regarding the benefits to veterans.
Technorati Tags : veteran+affairs, va, benefits, ptsd, military, post+traumatic+stress+disorder
After a few days off for Christmas, I will resume posting today. For the first time in many years, excepting a few vacations in places like the Caribbean, I have benn virtually void of news sources. This morning, the alarm clock put the world back in motion for me - it’s nice to know the globe continues to spin and remains properly situated on its axis. My first priority this morning is to do a quick scan of the past couple days to insure I have not missed anything significant.
More later…
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The rhetoric of this man never ceases to amaze me. “How to Win Friends and Influence People” was obviously not in the Yale or Harvard library when George Bush went to school.
“No one should be allowed to block the Patriot Act,” Mr. Bush said in a statement, referring to a bipartisan coalition of senators who last week derailed a measure to update the act, the nation’s main antiterrorism law.
It’s probably best that he not consider starting a new career in sales when he leaves the White House. But, then there was Arbusto –I suppose he’s already tried sales. Didn’t work too well then either.
Tags : George+Bush, politics
We may have opportunities to do a significant amount of legal research in the near future and I don’t want anybody scratching their head wondering where to go for information. Therefore, links (many categorized) to The Legal Information Institute (LLI), part of The Cornell University Law School, have been added to the TPC Reference Section.
The LLI is a valuable resource - the Constitution, US code, case law, criminal and civil procedure, state constitution and code, rules of evidence, commercial code, WEX (legal dictionary and encyclopedia), and a bazillion other legal reference items.
If you want to give it a test drive, try starting with the Fourth Amendment. You might find it interesting based upon events covering the past few days.
Let me know if you find any links with errors.
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This post is derived from a request at the Daily Kos. You may already be familiar with the post, requests, and associated activity. For those who are not, I am requesting all readers that believe President Bush made an error in judgment, to whatever degree, please read this post at Daily Kos (after reading this post) and follow the requests and guidelines they propose.
Before you jump over to Kos, please read the following New York Times editorial, if you have not had the opportunity to read it previously. [Emphasis added.]
[President Bush] secretly and recklessly expanded the government’s powers in dangerous and unnecessary ways that eroded civil liberties and may also have violated the law.
In Friday’s Times, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau reported that sometime in 2002, President Bush signed a secret executive order scrapping a painfully reached, 25-year-old national consensus: spying on Americans by their government should generally be prohibited, and when it is allowed, it should be regulated and supervised by the courts. The laws and executive orders governing electronic eavesdropping by the intelligence agency were specifically devised to uphold the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures.
But Mr. Bush secretly decided that he was going to allow the agency to spy on American citizens without obtaining a warrant - just as he had earlier decided to scrap the Geneva Conventions, American law and Army regulations when it came to handling prisoners in the war on terror….
Let’s be clear about this: illegal government spying on Americans is a violation of individual liberties, whether conditions are troubled or not. Nobody with a real regard for the rule of law and the Constitution would have difficulty seeing that. The law governing the National Security Agency was written after the Vietnam War because the government had made lists of people it considered national security threats and spied on them. All the same empty points about effective intelligence gathering were offered then, just as they are now, and the Congress, the courts and the American people rejected them.
This particular end run around civil liberties is also unnecessary. The intelligence agency already had the capacity to read your mail and your e-mail and listen to your telephone conversations. All it had to do was obtain a warrant from a special court created for this purpose. The burden of proof for obtaining a warrant was relaxed a bit after 9/11, but even before the attacks the court hardly ever rejected requests.
The special court can act in hours, but administration officials say that they sometimes need to start monitoring large batches of telephone numbers even faster than that, and that those numbers might include some of American citizens. That is supposed to justify Mr. Bush’s order, and that is nonsense. The existing law already recognizes that American citizens’ communications may be intercepted by chance. It says that those records may be retained and used if they amount to actual foreign intelligence or counterintelligence material. Otherwise, they must be thrown out.
President Bush defended the program yesterday, saying it was saving lives, hotly insisting that he was working within the Constitution and the law, and denouncing The Times for disclosing the program’s existence. We don’t know if he was right on the first count; this White House has cried wolf so many times on the urgency of national security threats that it has lost all credibility. But we have learned the hard way that Mr. Bush’s team cannot be trusted to find the boundaries of the law, much less respect them.
Mr. Bush said he would not retract his secret directive or halt the illegal spying, so Congress should find a way to force him to do it. Perhaps the Congressional leaders who were told about the program could get the ball rolling.
These are strong words coming from the largest newspaper in the world.
Technorati Tags : George+Bush, surveillance, spying, NSA, FISA, politics, wiretap, Bush+administration
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This is a week old. I wish I had caught it earlier. That notwithstanding, it’s worth posting.
Ann Coulter (I don’t need to add any description do I) is hurting badly for readership. I just read the first paragraph, started laughing and moved on.
Titled: “Why Can’t I Get Arrested”
I’m getting a little insulted that no Democratic prosecutor has indicted me. Liberals bring trumped-up criminal charges against all the most dangerous conservatives. Why not me?
Hmm…
Tags : politics, political+humor, Ann+Coulter
We get just about everything from China, manufactured goods, financing of the national debt…the list goes on. Maybe we should pick this up. Some of the Republicans in Congress might think twice about running down to Signatures for cocktails and a $74 steak.
Lu Wanli, former head of the Communications Department of southwest China’s Guizhou province, was executed Friday in Guiyang for taking huge amounts of bribes, according to the Supreme People’s Court.
The supreme court, which re-examined and approved the execution, holds that Lu had taken more than 25.59 million yuan (US$3.16 million) worth of bribes from June 1998 through January 2002 when he served as the provincial communications chief and general manager of the provincial expressway development company.
In addition, he failed to account for another 26.51 million yuan (US$3.27 million) of property, said the supreme court.
Lu fled abroad in January 2002 using a false passport, but was later arrested and brought back to China.
The Guiyang Intermediate People’s Court meted out the death sentence on Lu in April 2004. With the approval of the supreme court, the Guiyang court carried out the execution.
Tags : Congress, Jack+Abramoff, corruption, scandal, Tom+DeLay
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