Bouncing around in Blogtopia™

This is just a catch-all post on the first Friday of winter. [Which means the days are getting longer now. Hooray!]

Six Degrees of CIA Torture by marktheshark at Daily Kos speaks about issues of Constitutional law and Jonathan Turley's thoughts on recent revelations (via Raw Story).

"Just when you think this scandal can't get worse, it does," the George Washington University Law School professor told CNN's John Roberts. "I mean, this is a very significant development because it shows that this was not just some rogue operator at the CIA that destroyed evidence being sought by Congress and the courts. It shows that this was a planned destruction, that there were meetings, and those meetings extended all the way to the White House."

The phrase "could constitute as many as six crimes" caught my attention. Read it all here. Turley is a frequent guest on Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

I may post daily links to Rep. Wexler's petition on starting hearings regarding impeachment of Dick Cheney. Thanks to those who signed on yesterday. 122,614 signatures as I type this.

Bushco Retreats on Politicizing Military Lawyers by Gary Norton, also at Daily Kos, gives us this update:

The Bush plan, through the Pentagon's General Counsel, to politicise the Judge Advocate General Corps (JAG) has been withdrawn. The means by which they had hoped to achieve this was to require that all JAG promotions be approved by the political lawyers in the Pentagon.

As reported by the Boston Globe today the proposal died a swift death....

How Bush Hides the Budget Deficit by gjohnsit shares this comedic bit:

Despite years and years of record deficit spending, the Bush White House is still trying to sell itself as some sort of fiscally responsible entity. For instance, just the other day it created a press release titled:
Setting the Record Straight: President Bush Holds the Line on Irresponsible Spending

You may not have realized that the Bush Administration was using its spare time as a stand-up comedy act.

Juan Cole at Informed Comment notes this:

Mitt Romney slammed Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid for saying the the Iraq War was lost. Romney has to define what 'victory' would look like in Iraq. My guess is that it doen't look very much like the current situation.

Wall Street losses, in historical perspective by Chris in Paris at Americablog, where he notes these eye-catching facts:

• Morgan Stanley posts first ever quarterly loss. The company has been in business for 72 years (from The Washington Post)
• Bear Stearns has reported its first ever loss in 84 years. Even during the Great Depression, they did not report losses (from CNBC)

Raed Jarrar and Joshua Holland assert that Bush, Maliki Break Iraqi Law to Renew UN Mandate for Occupation (found at Truthout; original at Alternet):

On Tuesday, the Bush administration and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pushed a resolution through the U.N. Security Council extending the mandate that provides legal cover for foreign troops to operate in Iraq for another year.

The move violated both the Iraqi constitution and a law passed earlier this year by the Iraqi parliament - the only body directly elected by all those purple-finger-waving Iraqis in 2005 - and it defied the will of around 80 percent of the Iraqi population.

Lakota withdraw from treaties, declare independence from U.S. (USA Today):

The Lakota Sioux Indians, whose ancestors include Sitting Bull, Red Cloud and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from all treaties their forefathers signed with the U.S. government and have declared their independence. A delegation delivered the news to the State Department earlier this week.

Portions of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming comprise Lakota country, and the tribe says that if the federal government doesn't begin diplomatic discussions promptly, liens will be filed on property in the five-state region.

Hau. Lila waste yelo. (Yes! It is very good. --O.K., that almost exhausted my Lakota.)

Given the record of the current administration, can the rest of us withdraw? (A joke, but a very sad one.) h/t to BlondeSense for this story.

Goats Do What They Do. Woman Ticketed.

Carol Medenhall of Dibble, OK received two tickets: one for allowing her goats to be seen mating in her yard, and another for allowing her goats to be seen relieving themselves in her yard.

Yes, Dibble, Oklahoma, has some strange laws on the books. This story is from boing boing via BlondeSense.

How about some historical review?
I looked in my files last night for articles from 2 and 3 years ago.
This time in 2007 I was reading things like this:
Armando writes "Nonsense from Justice on Warrantless Surveillance ":

The Justice Department has issued an absurd defense of President Bush's authorization of warrantless electronic surveillance. As I have stated before, in the end, the argument necessarily boils down to arguing that the President, when acting as Commander in Chief, has unchecked and unconditioned power.

On Christmas Day 2005, SusanG wrote "Bush Tried to Kill Post CIA Prison Story":

Last week, we learned that Bush summoned New York Times editors to the Oval Office in an effort to kill the NSA domestic surveillance story.
Now we can add another summons to the list ... according to tomorrow's WaPo, Bush put pressure on the Post as well to kill its CIA secret prison story.
Neither newspaper complied.

Looking back three years:
How does this sound?

FBI E-Mail Refers to Presidential Order Authorizing Inhumane Interrogation Techniques
Newly Obtained FBI Records Call Defense Department’s Methods "Torture," Express Concerns Over "Cover-Up" That May Leave FBI "Holding the Bag" for Abuses

Read the Hoffmania article here.

Also from three years ago Juan Cole discusses a CNN poll

The poll found that nearly half of Americans understood that things have gotten worse in Iraq in the past year, and the fools who think the situation has improved have been reduced to a mere fifth of the public....

On a more affirmative note:
One can read last Friday's poem of the week
I, Too, Sing America by Langston Hughes

And just for fun head on over to FranIAm's place for some Yiddish humor.

*Blogtopia was coined by skippy the bush kangaroo (he likes to get credit for it)
--the BB