Trust But Verify

yahoo: President-elect Barack Obama (L) introduces retired General Eric K. Shinseki as nominee for Veterans Affairs secretary during a news conference in Chicago, December 7, 2008.
REUTERS/John Gress

Barack Obama was elected little more than a month ago. He won't take office for another month and a half. He has run one of the quickest and smoothest transitions ever, rolling out appointees and being essentially a shadow government (for the nonfunctioning Bush bunker White House) in waiting.

So what's the problem? Liberals don't like his cabinet choices. Where are the liberals? Rather than appointing the economists who predicted the meltdown of the mortgage and credit markets, Obama has appointed people who were part of the Wall Street posse that got us into this mess. Apparently sensitive to the criticism, Obama has his deputy Steve Hildebrand post on Huffington Post asking liberals to, essentially, STFU.

Me, I'm still rather sanguine about the whole thing. It's not like FDR appointed a bunch of raging liberals to his Cabinet, and from that group we got the New Deal. (FDR did appoint one raging liberal: Frances Perkins, the first woman ever to hold a Cabinet position, and the longest-serving-ever Secretary of Labor. Obama still needs a Frances Perkins type in his Cabinet.)

But, jeez, he hasn't even taken office yet. Cabinet appointments haven't all been made. He hasn't even announced his Secretary of Labor yet. I am willing to give Obama a little slack here. The people aren't the policies. And while I may not agree with all his appointments (Larry Summers, chauvinist pig, grrrrrr) I'm going to hold my fire for now. I'll wait until actual policy making is done. Patience, people, patience.

Speaking of Cabinet appointments, I was very happy to see that General Eric Shinseki - the guy who told Donald Rumsfeld that his Iraq plan was a crock and got forced out for his truth-telling -- has been named Secretary of Veterans Affairs.

Republicans Obscenely Show 9/11 Victims Dying as Their Convention Backdrop

Monsters.

The Republican Party has reached its basest nadir. The party of George W. Bush, the man who ignored the CIA's warning "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US", the party that let 3,000 people die on 9/11/01 and then used 9/11 to destroy the constitution, that party has reached a yet another low.

That party has now shown footage of the 9/11 attacks including graphic footage of the Twin Towers burning and collapsing.

During the family hour here on the east coast, 8:40 EST.

They are nothing but a bunch of sickos.

Boston Globe:

[A]t approximately 7:40 CST, when a video aired before delegates at the Republican National Convention included slow-motion footage of a plane striking the World Trade Center, the towers' subsequent collapse, and smoke emerging from the Pentagon.

Here's Keith Olbermann's commentary:


If you have the stomach for it, here's the obscene video the Republicans blew up on the big screen for everyone to see. How must the 9/11 families be reacting to this obscenity?


The Republican Party is a national disgrace. First they kill us; then they put us up on the big screen for entertainment.

Go Directly to the Dock at the Hague

ABC reports that war criminals Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet and John Ashcroft discussed and approved of specific methods of torturing prisoners during meetings in the White House situation room. And though the reporters do not mention him, I have no doubt that the Master of Disaster himself, the psychopath-in-chief George W. Clusterfuck was right in there with them, gleefully discussing violating the most fundamental of human rights, the right not to be tortured.

Under the rules of their own religions, they will certainly go to hell. Before, that, I hope most sincerely that they are taken to the Hague in shackles and paraded in front of the world as the monstrosities that they are. I think the fact that each of these church-going hypocrites approved of torture proves that there is no God, for if there was a God, surely she would have struck each of them down by now.

ABCNews: Top Bush Advisors Approved 'Enhanced Interrogation'
Detailed Discussions Were Held About Techniques to Use on al Qaeda Suspects

ABC cited a top official as saying that Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly."

Reuters: Top Bush aides approved interrogation tactics: report

"Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding," ABC reported.

In addition to Rice, the principals at the time included Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft, the report said.

The Sisyphean War in Iraq

Q: How do you get to 100 years in Iraq?

A: Six months at a time.

From moveon.org

Blogtopia* RoundUp, Wednesday August 1, 2007

SI Neg. 95-9624. Date: 1995...Liddicoatitie (tourmaline family), Madagascar. ..Credit: Laurie Minor-Penland (Smithsonian Institution)
flckr

The 2004 election was stolen; conveniently for the vote-thieving Republicans, ballots in 56 of 88 counties have been destroyed, in violation of a federal order to preserve them.

Senator Stevens has been trying to weasel his way out of charges his house renovations were a sweetheart deal by saying "My wife and I paid every bill that was presented to us". Of course, there were probably many things that went unbilled, if you know what I mean.

CNN has given Laura Ingraham Paula Zahn's slot until Mrs. Dan Senor (the USRepublican spokesman in Iraq), Campbell Brown, takes over. At Hullabaloo, Dover Bitch remembers one of Ingraham's sycophantic interviews with Heckuva Job Rumsfield.

Speaking of Rummy, that psychopathic MF will testify in the Tilllman investigation by the House Oversight Committee today. I hope Henry Waxman rips him a new one. ACTION ALERT: Sign VoteVets petition to get Bush to release the Tillman documents he's covering up with a bogus executive privilege claim.

Home Depot (following Lowes) pulls its advertising from Bill O'Lielly's show. Or maybe they don't. Pressure is having an effect, for sure.

Watch This Video: "How to Create an Angry American"

Another General Knifed in the Back by the Chickenhawk Bush Administration

Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker: Annals of National Security
The General’s Report
How Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its casualties.

Taguba, watching the hearings, was appalled. He believed that Rumsfeld’s testimony was simply not true. “The photographs were available to him—if he wanted to see them,” Taguba said. Rumsfeld’s lack of knowledge was hard to credit. Taguba later wondered if perhaps Cambone had the photographs and kept them from Rumsfeld because he was reluctant to give his notoriously difficult boss bad news. But Taguba also recalled thinking, “Rumsfeld is very perceptive and has a mind like a steel trap. There’s no way he’s suffering from C.R.S.—Can’t Remember Shit. He’s trying to acquit himself, and a lot of people are lying to protect themselves.” It distressed Taguba that Rumsfeld was accompanied in his Senate and House appearances by senior military officers who concurred with his denials.

“The whole idea that Rumsfeld projects—‘We’re here to protect the nation from terrorism’—is an oxymoron,” Taguba said. “He and his aides have abused their offices and have no idea of the values and high standards that are expected of them. And they’ve dragged a lot of officers with them.”

Here's the report that killed his career.

We Got Our Man

Donald Rumsfield meeting with Saddam Hussein in Iraq, 1983.
Veteran CIA asset Saddam Hussein was hung yesterday in Iraq. The murderer of hundreds of thousands was supported by the US throughout his career until the first Iraq War. Watch this excellent Flash movie by Eric Blumrich for a tour of the lowlights of US support of Hussein and the bloody results. (Link from Informed Comment.)

The trial of Saddam Hussein was a shameful kangaroo court from start to finish. His lawyers were muzzled or murdered; the result was pre-ordained, and announced to coincide with the US elections; he was convicted by an Iraqi court, but hung inside the US-controlled Green Zone in secret. As Steve Gilliard notes: "Weak governments kill their enemies."

Independent (uk): Robert Fisk: A dictator created then destroyed by America

Who encouraged Saddam to invade Iran in 1980, which was the greatest war crime he has committed for it led to the deaths of a million and a half souls? And who sold him the components for the chemical weapons with which he drenched Iran and the Kurds? We did. No wonder the Americans, who controlled Saddam's weird trial, forbad any mention of this, his most obscene atrocity, in the charges against him. Could he not have been handed over to the Iranians for sentencing for this massive war crime? Of course not. Because that would also expose our culpability.

Prof. Juan Cole, Informed Comment: For Whom the Bell Tolls:
Top Ten Ways the US Enabled Saddam Hussein

Riverbend, Baghdad Burning: End of Another Year...

You know your country is in trouble when:

1. The UN has to open a special branch just to keep track of the chaos and bloodshed, UNAMI.
2. Abovementioned branch cannot be run from your country.
3. The politicians who worked to put your country in this sorry state can no longer be found inside of, or anywhere near, its borders.
4. The only thing the US and Iran can agree about is the deteriorating state of your nation.
5. An 8-year war and 13-year blockade are looking like the country's 'Golden Years'.
6. Your country is purportedly 'selling' 2 million barrels of oil a day, but you are standing in line for 4 hours for black market gasoline for the generator.
7. For every 5 hours of no electricity, you get one hour of public electricity and then the government announces it's going to cut back on providing that hour.
8. Politicians who supported the war spend tv time debating whether it is 'sectarian bloodshed' or 'civil war'.
9. People consider themselves lucky if they can actually identify the corpse of the relative that's been missing for two weeks.

A day in the life of the average Iraqi has been reduced to identifying corpses, avoiding car bombs and attempting to keep track of which family members have been detained, which ones have been exiled and which ones have been abducted.

The Burning Question

Other architects of disasters receiving Presidential Medal of Freedom from the Master of Disaster himself.
The burning question is, how long before Rummy gets his Presidential Medal of Freedom? Will it be at today's farewell ceremony to ol' Heckuva Job Donald?

WaPo: Rumsfeld Career Ending in Ignominy of Iraq

"I think his epitaph will be a dark one," said Justin Logan, a foreign policy analyst with the libertarian Cato Institute. "Rumsfeld's one-line epitaph will be, 'The man who was at the helm of the Defense Department and supported what was doomed to be a losing war effort that Americans will remember as a national tragedy'."

James Carville Needs To STFU

James Carville, Clintonista married to a Republican strategist, is running around accusing Howard Dean of doing a terrible job as DNC Chairman. Carville charges that the DNC had $6,000,000 in the bank that they should have spent in Democratic races, and that the party should have taken an additional 15 seats as a result. (He called Dean's performance "Rumsfeldian"; them's fightin' words, Boudreaux.)

I'll put aside the fact that you can't do a straight money-to-victory analysis here. Rahm Emmanual put $3,000,000 into Tammy Duckworth's race, and she lost; he put $0, zero, into Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01), and she won, so there you go.

But why doesn't Carville look at his own Clintonista house? Hillary Clinton spent $29.5 million to win her Senate race in New York, a race that was essentially over before it started; can you even name her opponent? (HINT: he had the same name as a member of the cast of West Wing; I'll leave his name in Comments.) She won 67% to 31%. Wouldn't it have been more useful for her to donate half of her vast stores of money to candidates around the country who were actually in competitive races? Looking at it from that perspective, her actions were Cheneyesque. (Is that stretching it? Like giving no-bid contracts to Halliburton? Well, it works as well as James Carville calling Howard Dean who helped WIN BACK CONGRESS Rumsfeldian. I mean, what has Rumsfeld ever won? The handshake of Saddam Hussein? The trust of Commander Codpiece? I mean, really.)

What Becomes A Torturer Most? Medal of Freedom, Lifetime Court Appointment....

William Haynes, nominated for seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, leaves the British Attorney General's Office in London, in this Aug. 12, 2003 file photo. Haynes, an architect of the Bush administration's policy toward detainee treatment, which has since been abandoned, struggled Tuesday to save his nomination to an appellate judgeship. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)
He looks so banal for being so evil

Bush nominates torture advocate and Pentagon general counsel William Haynes for 4th Circuit judgeship with lifetime appointment. Will Democrats stand up and filibuster, or go along yet again? MoDo actually takes on a serious subject in today's Times:

Maureen Dowd, NYTimes: He Let the Dogs Out! (TimesSelect wall), full article at Ed Strong

As three female protesters in Abu Ghraib-style orange jumpsuits and black headscarves stood vigil in the back of the Senate Judiciary hearing room, like the supernatural chorus in “Macbeth,” William Haynes was grilled about his worthiness to ascend to the federal bench when his main claim to the promotion is complicity in letting Dick Cheney dance a jig on the Geneva Conventions.

“The State Department characterizes the use of dogs as an interrogation aid as torture, cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment,’’ Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat, said to the Pentagon general counsel. “We publicly condemned the countries of Libya and Burma for using dogs in interrogation. In November of 2002, you recommended that Secretary Rumsfeld approve the use of dogs to intimidate detainees at Guantánamo.

“The Department of Defense’s own investigation concluded that this technique migrated from Guantánamo to Iraq and Abu Ghraib. At least two members of the armed forces have now been convicted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for using dogs to frighten detainees. It is striking that as these soldiers were prosecuted, you were being promoted. What message are we sending our troops? And what message are we sending the world, in light of your role in promulgating abusive interrogation techniques, like the use of dogs, stress positions and forced nudity. What message are we sending if we promote you to the second highest court in the land?”....."Well, we’re going to dispatch a few privates, a few corporals, a sergeant, maybe it will get to a lieutenant, but it’ll never get upstairs. ... Apparently, upstairs there’s a promotion party. Downstairs people are being sent to prison.’’

Mr. Haynes, 48, lamely resorted to the argument that Abu Ghraib was simply a few bad apples, “the work of the night shift, without any authority whatsoever.”....

[]

A group of 20 retired military officers sent a letter to Senator Arlen Specter, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, expressing “profound concern” about Mr. Haynes and arguing that he promoted policies that “compromised military values, ignored federal and international law, and damaged America’s reputation and world leadership.’’

They asserted that the policies “fostered animosity toward the United States, undermined rather than enhanced our intelligence-gathering efforts, and added significantly to the risks facing our troops serving around the world.’’

Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator who is a military lawyer, a member of the Armed Services Committee and is close to the JAG Corps lawyers, is reported to oppose Mr. Haynes behind the scenes. Speaking to reporters in the hallway, he echoed Senator Durbin’s fear that soldiers should not take the fall for superiors’ decisions: “We just need to make sure that what we do in terms of promotion, of a civilian, who was part of policies that have led to military members being prosecuted and having their careers ruined, needs to be thoughtfully considered.”

WaPo: Bush judicial nominee struggles to win Senate OK

Will Congress Give Paris Hilton A Tax Break?

Congress poised to give her millions
Our economy is in a tailspin, the Iraq war is pouring money into the hands of private contractors and draining the treasury. What do Republicans want? Give the mega-rich another tax cut! Only makes sense if you are rich -- like the Bush Administration members who stand to save millions.

Paul Krugman, NYTimes: Shameless in the Senate

The Senate almost voted to repeal the estate tax last fall, but Republican leaders postponed the vote after Hurricane Katrina. It's easy to see why: the public might have made the connection between scenes of Americans abandoned in the Superdome and scenes of well-heeled senators voting huge tax breaks for their even wealthier campaign contributors.

But memories of Katrina have faded, and they're about to try again. The Senate will probably vote this week. So it's important to realize that there's still a clear connection between tax breaks for the rich and failure to help Americans in need.

Any senator who votes to repeal the estate tax, or votes for a "compromise" that goes most of the way toward repeal, is in effect saying that increasing the wealth of people who are already in line to inherit millions or tens of millions is more important than taking care of fellow citizens who need a helping hand.

[]

Who would benefit from this largess? The estate tax is overwhelmingly a tax on the very, very wealthy; only about one estate in 200 pays any tax at all. The campaign for estate tax repeal has largely been financed by just 18 powerful business dynasties, including the family that owns Wal-Mart.

[]

In the interest of stiffening those spines, let me remind senators that this isn't just a fiscal issue, it's also a moral issue. Congress has already declared that the budget deficit is serious enough to warrant depriving children of health care; how can it now say that it's worth enlarging the deficit to give Paris Hilton a tax break?

Full article: Ed Strong.

Sebastian Mallaby, WaPo: Reward for the Hereditary Elite . . .

It doesn't matter if you are liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican. There is no possible excuse for doing what Congress is poised to do this week: Abolish the estate tax.

The federal government faces a future of expanding deficits. Thanks to the baby bust and medical inflation, spending is projected to rise by nearly 3 percent of gross domestic product by 2030, a growth equivalent to the doubling of today's Medicare program. What is the dumbest possible response to this? Take a source of revenue and abolish it outright.

fuzzy and blue: EstateTaxRepeal: GOP prays at lucre alter

[] Estate tax repeal would save the estate of Cheney between $13 to $61 million, according to the publicly available data on his net worth. It would save the estate of Rumsfeld between $32 to $101 million. The estate of retired Exxon Mobil chairman Lee Raymond would pocket a cozy $164 million. As for the late Sam Walton's kids, whose company already makes taxpayers foot the bill for the medical expenses of 1000s of its employees, the cost to the govt for not taxing their estates would run into the multiple billions. []

Eight Retired Generals: Rummy Must Go

Now it's eight:

ThinkProgress: VIDEO: 8th General Calls For Rumsfeld’s Resignation

Van Riper follows the calls of Generals Swannack, Newbold, Eaton, Zinni, Batiste, Riggs, and Clark.

Two more and the Leaker-In-Chief will give Rumsfield a Medal of Freedom.

We Love Lists

And there are lot of them out there.

Sunday Times (UK): Rich List 2006 (Britain)

Rich List 2006 (Women)

J.K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame is #10; the queen is only #15.

Rich List 2006 (Young People)

29 men on the list play football (soccer), far more than any other category, e.g. music (16).

Rich List 2006 (Ireland)

No. 7 on the list is my former landlord, Thomas Flatley, who owns scads and scads of property around here, and put up a hideous statue (pictured above) memorializing the Irish Famine. I'm not sure how he qualifies for the Irish list, given that he's lived in Massachusetts his entire adult life

Harper's Index for March 2006

Number of U.S. counties where more than a fifth of “residents” are prison inmates: 21 []

Number of these that are in Texas: 10

[]

Minimum number of times that Frederick Douglass was beaten in what is now Donald Rumsfeld’s vacation home: 25

AOL: Blender's The 50 Worst Things to Ever to Happen to Music

A sample:

THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER

Here's an idea: Let's have the theme song for the world's biggest and most diverse democracy be: 1) boring; 2) violently militaristic; and 3) next to impossible to sing. Not enough? OK, now let's bring in ROSEANNE BARR to perform. She's too busy? Get me WILLIAM HUNG!

They're Wrong, Wrong, Wrong

Edward Jayne, Dissident Voice: '36 Bush disasters'

Almost everything has gone wrong in the Bush administration. Bush constantly takes the presumably high moral ground while using trickery and misdirection to promote unacceptable policies. He seeks to benefit his "real" base, the wealthiest segment of the U.S. population, while remaining mostly indifferent to less affluent Americans. He harasses his opponents as enemies of the state, while staffing his administration at all levels with political hacks whose only qualification is their undiluted loyalty to his leadership. And he actually takes pride in being a "war president" in direct contact with God, able to obtain God's permission to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. Insisting on his conservative agenda, he has become a "radical" president, probably the worst and most incompetent in U.S. history.

John Farmer, Newark (NJ) Star-Journal: 'Bush's band of war-happy simpletons'

And what about the neocons, our home-front heroes -- Cheney, Rumsfeld, the civilians they've recruited like Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz and Stephen Hadley -- who orchestrated the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war and foreign regime change?

They should never again be allowed anywhere near the instruments and agencies of the American government.

Rummy, You're Doin a Heckuva Job

WaPo: Bush Speaks Out for Rumsfeld
'My Full Support' For Defense Chief

Rumsfield: The Real Torture Guy

And I've been calling Attorney General Abu Gonzales Torture Guy. He approved the policies; Rumsfield participated in the torture. No wonder the retired generals are out to get him. Real members of the military oppose torture. If we torture the enemy, we approve a policy that will be surely used against us.

Raw Story: Salon: Rumsfeld 'personally involved' in interrogation of Qaeda detainee that turned 'harsh'

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was "personally involved" in the interrogation of an al-Qaeda detainee that turned "harsh," according to an explosive report at Salon.com based on an Army inspector general's report released through an FOIA request.

Salon: What Rumsfeld knew
Interviews with high-ranking military officials shed new light on the role Rumsfeld played in the harsh treatment of a Guantánamo detainee.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was personally involved in the late 2002 interrogation of a high-value al-Qaida detainee known in intelligence circles as "the 20th hijacker." He also communicated weekly with the man in charge of the interrogation, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the controversial commander of the Guantánamo Bay detention center.

During the same period, detainee Mohammed al-Kahtani suffered from what Army investigators have called "degrading and abusive" treatment by soldiers who were following the interrogation plan Rumsfeld had approved. Kahtani was forced to stand naked in front of a female interrogator, was accused of being a homosexual, and was forced to wear women's underwear and to perform "dog tricks" on a leash. He received 18-to-20-hour interrogations during 48 of 54 days.

Unverified, Scurrilous Gossip

But hysterically fun! This dailykos diary made me laugh out loud:

Someone may be spilling the beans at the White House

How could you not laugh at statements like this:

Donald Rumsfeld needs to wear iced underwear because of some medical condition []

Although, if you think about it, 6 retired generals coming out for your resignation in the last month could make anyone need iced underwear.

Stock Up On....Tuna?

That's your federal government's recommendation for surviving bird flu. Rummy (Donald Rumsfeld makes $5m killing on bird flu drug) would recommend getting the Tamiflu shot, but that's just science. Powdered milk and canned tuna are the official way to go. Perhaps the mercury in the tuna is a cure?

Stockpile tuna for bird flu crisis, says HHS secretary

March 13, 2006 - In a remarkable speech over the weekend, Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt recommended that Americans start storing canned tuna and powdered milk under their beds as the prospect of a deadly bird flu outbreak approaches the United States.

[]

ABC News has obtained a mathematical projection prepared by federal scientists based on an initial outbreak on an East Coast chicken farm. Within three months, with no vaccine, almost half of the country would have the flu.

As Brilliant at Breakfast puts it:

So just as Tom Ridge advised Americans to stock up on duct tape and plastic sheeting as a means of keeping them terrified so they wouldn't notice how Osama Bin Laden was still on the loose and the war in Iraq was going badly, so is Mike Leavitt now telling people that only a can of Chicken of the Sea stands between them and certain death.

[Insert your own mercury contamination joke here.]

A loaf of bread....a jug of wine....a can of tuna....and bird flu

So Who Did Review the UAE/Ports Deal?

Secretary of Defense Rumsfield is supposedly on the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States, which supposedly unanimously approved the deal allowing a United Arab Emirates company to take over security at six US ports on Monday, February 13th. Problem? Rumsfield now claims he just heard about the deal this weekend. So how did he vote for it? Or did they just not invite him to the meeting? Maybe the invite is in his email. (That's a joke; Rummy doesn't have email.)

This gets fishier and fishier.

From Thinkprogress:

BREAKING: Rumsfeld and Pace Not Consulted On Transfer Of Port Operations To UAE

Previous posts:

Terrorist Funders Would Control US Military Equipment Shipments As Well As US Ports

If Terrorist Funders Run Our Ports, Terrorists Win

Privatization Gone Wild - Bushco Puts Terrorist Funders in Charge