But we don't torture

"Detainees subject to sleep deprivation who are also subject to nudity as a separate interrogation technique will at times be nude and wearing a diaper," it said, noting that the diaper is "for sanitary and health purposes of the detainee; it is not used for the purpose of humiliating the detainee and it is not considered to be an interrogation technique."

"The detainee's skin condition is monitored, and diapers are changed as needed so that the detainee does not remain in a soiled diaper," the memo said. |CNN|

On a more serious note

And in one previously undisclosed episode, the N.S.A. tried to wiretap a member of Congress without a warrant, according to a U.S. intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter.

The agency believed that the congressman, whose identity could not be determined, was in contact as part of a congressional delegation to the Middle East in 2005 or 2006 with an extremist who had possible terrorist ties and was already under surveillance, the official said. The agency then sought to eavesdrop on the congressman’s conversations to gather more intelligence, the official said.

The official said the plan was ultimately blocked because of concerns from some officials in the intelligence community about the idea of using the N.S.A., without court oversight, to spy on a member of Congress. |NY Times|

Warrentless wiretapping aside, what was the NSA doing investigating a congressman's contacts?

Adding: I guess the defense of this episode must go, "They weren't investigating a congressman at all! They were investigating an extremist with possible terrorist ties, and it just happened that the congressman had contact with that person, and so very naturally they wanted to listen in on some of his conversations. But they didn't, is the point!"

Well, Ok, but not everyone is a congressman and now you've got me imagining a bunch of NSA officers relaxing with a beer and playing six degrees of Osama Bin Laden.

Paulson's Deregulation Mania

With the Bailout bill now in the statute books, perhaps it's time to reflect on the deregulatory mania that got us here. As recently as March of this year the Treasury put out a Blueprint for a Modernized Financial Regulatory Structure.

The proposal provides a history of the development of financial regulation in the US and outlines short, intermediate and long term "solutions" to the problems identified.

Professor Lawrence Cunningham described the proposal this way:

In the new approach, Congress preempts all state laws and consolidates all power in a senior regulator in Washington. That regulator, in turn, delegates all its functions to self-regulatory organizations from the respective supervised industries. These, in turn, adopt their own regulations, self-certify them for speedy adoption, with limited public notice or comment, and use broad vague statements rather than detailed rules.

This approach, the philosophical heart of the US Treasury Department’s March 2008 blueprint for changing US financial regulation, is procedurally revolutionary and would no doubt revolutionize the substance of the law in these fields.

As a matter of procedure, no longer would the SEC develop or negotiate regulations governing securities markets. The stock exchanges and broker-dealers do so themselves. Nor will the CFTC assure that futures markets operate in an orderly fashion, letting the private National Futures Association do it alone. State banking and insurance regulators are out, a new federal supervisor is in for both, and banks and insurers form private associations to self-regulate. Public supervision, now solely federal, consists mostly of receiving information from participants and, when needed for systemic stability, publicizing this information to market participants so that markets can self-correct.

Substantively, numerous changes should be expected in such a regime. Take examples from the securities context. Restrictions against insider trading would be relaxed considerably or eliminated.|The Coming Regulatory Revolution - Concurring Opinions|

It is difficult to predict the eventual fallout of the current financial fiasco, but we can only hope it will discredit radical proposals like this that would essentially allow financial institutions to self-regulate.

The President is currently confusing me

I'm serious.

Bush's Catch 22

So, lets just say the hurricane hits some Gulf community--say, Lynchburg--and hits hard enough to warrant a federal response. What does George Bush do? Does he...

A) ... do the right thing, swing for the bleachers, and pull off a successful response, knowing that this will cement in some people's minds the idea that he didn't respond to Katrina because "George Bush does not care about black people?"

or

B) ... knowing the result of A, decide to pull a Katrina, just to prove he's an equal opportunity fuckup?

or

C) ... try for A but end up doing B out of genuine incompetence?

Discuss.

The L. Ron Hubbard school of extraordinary rendition

I hope Reprieve turns out to be wrong about this:

Reprieve, a human rights organization (UK branch, US branch), claims that the United States is using prison ships to keep prisoners outside legal jurisdictions. They say that there have been more than 200 new cases of rendition since 2006, when President George Bush declared that the practice had stopped.

A US Navy spokesman denied that such things were happening. Members of the British Parliament are calling for an investigation.

Not wrong, really... just premature

Since we lack data from the administrations of William Howard Taft or Warren Gamaliel Harding, however, it would probably be premature to declare Mr Bush the least-popular president ever.

.

From here. I think David Cross was the first person I heard actually say out loud that George Bush would be judged by history to be the worst president ever. We might not have to wait for history.

Hilarious and disturbing, if true

I don't know whether these are authentic, but on the Jeb Bush trivia page of tv.com, I find the following quotes:

Jeb Bush: The truth is useless. You have to understand this right now. You can't deposit the truth in a bank. You can't buy groceries with the truth. You can't pay rent with the truth. The truth is a useless commodity that will hang around your neck like an albatross all the way to the homeless shelter. And if you think that the million or so people in this country that are really interested in the truth about their government can support people who would tell them the truth, you got another thing coming. Because the million or so people in this country that are truly interested in the truth don't have any money.

and

Rep. Marco Rubio: No matter who the next governor is, Jeb Bush will still be the prominent Republican figure in Florida. He'll be without a title. But Jeb Bush's power comes from his ideas, not his title. And we are all about to find that out.

The page does not, however, cover Chang, or the unleashing thereof.

Don't everybody volunteer at once

(sorry for lack of attribution... i ended up downloading the image in a glut of surfing, and now I can't find the source blog).

Another small step down the road to fascism

“As President, my most solemn responsibility is to keep the American people safe.” -- George W. Bush, today

No. As President your most solemn responsibility is to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. Please check the oath.

It was not I that sinn’d the sin, the ruthless Body dragg'd me in

• Kung Fu Monkey -- L33T Justice (via)
  
• The Phil Nugent Experience -- Gabba Gabba (via)
  
• Walt Whitman -- The Singer in the Prison

You behave son or we'll throw away the key

Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush was asked directly how he could be certain that all 120-odd executions he has presided over as governor of Texas were carried out against guilty defendants. He replied that he was, indeed, certain that nothing like what had happened in Illinois had happened in Texas on his watch. "Maybe they've had some problems in their courts," he said. "Maybe they've had some faulty judgments. I've reviewed every case, . . . and I'm confident that every case that has come across my desk, I'm confident of the guilt of the person who committed the crime." |source|

---

"In terms of the detainees, we've had thousands of people detained. We've investigated every single complaint against the detainees. It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of -- and the allegations -- by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means not tell the truth. And so it was an absurd report. It just is. And, you know -- yes, sir."
|George W. Bush, May 31, 2005|

---

"I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.

"My decision to commute his prison sentence leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby. The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged. His wife and young children have also suffered immensely. He will remain on probation. The significant fines imposed by the judge will remain in effect. The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant, and private citizen will be long-lasting."
|George W. Bush, July 2, 2007|

Extremely odd quote for today

I have been a long time supporter of President Bush. Quite frankly, lately, I don't quite know what to make of the man. However, one thing about his legacy will go unchallenged. His term as President has been unparalled to serious coin collectors.

link

Why Gonzales won't be fired

To have any hope of Senate confirmation, the President would have to appoint someone with some credible level of independence; in other words, a real Attorney General who would let real investigations into the administration move forward. That’s a reality that President Bush simply cannot allow. |Josh Marshall|

Nothing to see here

One of the finest moments comes when Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., busts out a big, big chart. Which happens after almost everyone has gone home. The chart compares the Clinton protocol for appropriate contacts between the White House and the DoJ on pending criminal cases with the Bush protocol. According to Whitehouse, the Clinton protocol authorized just four folks at the White House to chat with three folks at Justice. The chart had four boxes talking to three boxes. Out comes the Bush protocol, and now 417 different people at the White House have contacts about pending criminal cases with 30-some people at Justice. You can just see zillions of small boxes nattering back and forth. It seems that just about everyone in the White House, including the guys in the mailroom, had a vote on ongoing criminal matters. |Lithwick|

Friday the 13th politics

You see, the president and his associates keep referring to historical events that never happened, at least not as they did in the fields we know. And they keep referring to the same ahistorical events. Over and over, the secretary of state and the (now former) secretary of defense have referred to guerrilla warfare in Germany after the Nazi surrender. But there just wasn’t any. You can’t find it in the history books or in the memories of people who were there at the time. My uncle was in Bavaria in the summer of 1945: no trouble. Secretary Rumsfeld repeatedly talked about the similarities between today’s Iraq and America after the Revolutionary War, but again, I’m pretty sure that there aren’t any. I don’t believe we found tortured corpses in the streets of Philadelphia every morning back in 1784. And why does President Bush keep saying that Saddam refused to admit those UN arms inspectors back in 2002 and early 2003? Why did Condoleezza Rice, in 2000, say that Iran was probably backing the Taliban, when in fact the two had almost gone to war in 1998?

Now some might say that these statements were just talking points—that is, lies—but I sure wouldn’t want to accuse anyone of lying. More to the point, there have been many ahistorical statements that are just strange and don’t seem to advance any particular political agenda. For example, when President Bush said that the Japanese lost two carriers sunk and one damaged at the Battle of Midway (instead of losing all four, which is what actually happened), who gained? When POTUS said that Sweden has no army (it does), what political argument was advanced?

We’re talking about the rulers of the most powerful nation on earth. It can’t be that they’re just pig-ignorant—of their own history, yet. There has to be a deeper, more subtle explanation.

Indeed. And the author's hilarious, and quite likely accurate assessment? They are from an alternate earth with a different history!

Read the whole thing for maximum funny, but here's a highlight:

The casual mention of World War IV strongly implies that these interlopers also had a World War III. They must have suffered greatly—maybe bombed out, likely short on resources such as oil. I would guess that those disasters irretrievably darkened their political perspective, just as our World War I left an entire generation embittered and disaffected. Certainly some kind of civilizational blight is needed to explain Vice President Cheney’s “Dark Lord” shtick.

Twilight Zone, via the splodinvark

Ducks up, geese down!

This is crazy but true:

From Morning Edition on NPR:

This is the morning that kids were invited to the White House for the Easter egg roll. The roll for Laura Bush includes reading a children’s book. It’s called, “Duck for President.” The first lady will read the story of a duck who takes over the farm, then runs for governor, and then runs for the White House. He wins after a recount, but Duck gives it all up to go back to the farm. The duck concludes, “Running a country is no fun at all.”

According to the book’s publisher, “President Duck,” who didn’t realize being president would require a lot of “very hard work,” ends up with “a very bad headache” before passing his duties off to his Vice President.

Sometimes, the jokes write themselves.

Indeed they do. Another line from the book I heard on a different news program:

"The duck gave speeches that nobody could understand, except for other ducks."

Word.

Quote of the day

CNN's Ed Henry hit the nail on the head: if no conversations occurred with the president, and no advice was given, then how can the White House assert executive privilege, claiming the need to shield presidential advice?

Tony Snow's response: "That's an intriguing question."

via

The Bush Administration

In 2005, when government scientists tested 60 soft, vinyl lunchboxes, they found that one in five contained amounts of lead that medical experts consider unsafe -- and several had more than 10 times hazardous levels.

But that's not what they told the public.

Instead, the Consumer Product Safety Commission released a statement that they found "no instances of hazardous levels." And they refused to release their actual test results, citing regulations that protect manufacturers from having their information released to the public. |CNN|

State of the Union Preview

Applause. Self-deprecating joke. Shout out to visiting dignitary from an American protectorate. Lie. Applause line. Applause line. Three more lies. Applause line. Unplanned democratic applause at an embarrasing admission. Lie. Lie. New program that sounds good, but actually isn't. Applause line. Applause line. Applause line. Lie. Applause line. Lie. Applause Line. Applause line. Applause Line. God bless America!