About the proposed bailout

Emptywheel says it all, and we need to be paying attention:

But here's all you need to know. Hank Paulson is asking for $700,000,000,000. That's $2,333 from every man, woman, and child in the United States.

In exchange for that money, Paulson is unwilling to accept any demands to make markets more transparent, limit executive compensation, or assist homeowners fighting foreclosure. The sole purpose of that $700,000,000,000 is to bail out Wall Street and only Wall Street, but not to fix it, or our larger economy.

He is asking to be absolutely unbound by any law when he spends that money.

[Emphasis mine]

Just. Say. No.

They can do better than that.

And if they don't, vote every damn one of them OUT in November. No prisoners.

UPDATE:
This is Glenn Greenwald's elegant summation:

Put another way, this authorizes Hank Paulson to transfer $700 billion of taxpayer money to private industry in his sole discretion, and nobody has the right or ability to review or challenge any decision he makes.

--the BB

I know, I didn't mention FISA yesterday

But that doesn't mean it went away.

The ACLU clues us in on what the FBI does when FISA says "no." They issue National Security Letters to get what they want anyway.

Remember, FISA almost never rejects government requests for warrants. I don't even mean one in a hundred; more like one in thousands. But they said no to the FBI. And the FBI used a different route to get what it wanted.

So, what makes you think that you have any Fourth Amendment rights? Under Bush's rule, you have none.

Congress needs to get its collective ass in gear and remedy this. Now.

In other news, you can check out the Nacchio case and what an appeals court had to say. It's related to FISA issues.
--the BB

A legacy of dismantling civilization

The NYT informs us:

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Saturday further cemented his legacy of fighting for strong executive powers, using his veto to shut down a congressional effort to limit the Central Intelligence Agency’s latitude to subject terrorism suspects to harsh interrogation techniques that are prohibited by the military and law enforcement agencies.

Mr. Bush vetoed a bill that would have explicitly prohibited the agency from using such interrogation methods, which include waterboarding, a technique in which restrained prisoners are threatened with drowning and that has been the subject of intense criticism at home and abroad.

Senator Feinstein and I disagree on many things and I protested to her office on several occasions when I lived in California. On this I agree with her:

“This president had the chance to end the torture debate for good,” one of its sponsors, Senator Diane Feinstein of California, said in a statement on Friday evening when it became clear Mr. Bush intended to carry out his veto threat. “Yet, he chose instead to leave the door open to use torture in the future. The United States is not well-served by this.”

The bill Bush vetoed would have restricted American interrogators to terms and methods set forth in the Army Field Manual, conditions that have served us quite adequately.

Bush, however, does not believe in regulation of almost any kind, especially if it might limit what he may or may not do (unless HE gets to regulate our rights, such as limiting free speech to "free speech zones").


I look forward to the day when the United States rejoins the company of civilized nations. In the meantime, impeach his sorry ass!

The Constitution makes it clear that, because we ratified them, the Geneva Conventions are among the supreme laws of this land. George Bush has willfully and knowingly violated them. It constitutes a high crime when the Chief Executive of this nation violates our supreme laws.
--the BB

Why?

Why would any Democrat try to protect this man's sorry ass?
Aside from keeping him alive so Cheney doesn't take over.

Telcom immunity is ONLY about keeping the American people from discovering the extent of White House lawbreaking. Nothing else.

Maha has a brief post on this today too.
--the BB

Fear not, Bush will protect his sorry ass the telcoms

Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

(via Dependable Renegade)

h/t to openthread at Daily Kos
--the BB

Running behind today

Good evening, my valentines, visitantes, and visionaries. I was up late last night and thus arose late this morning. Then I ran off to see Golden Compass with a friend, followed by supper at Village Pizza in Corrales (pepperoni and green chile--this IS New Mexico, land of Hatch chiles and slow vote counts).

I will keep my daily discipline for Lent but in a little while. For now....


Senator Harry Reid and Congressman Silvestre Reyes both sent Valentine letters to Bush, basically telling him to put a sock in it (or was that shove it somewhere?). About time someone told him to.

Amongst other comments, Reid wrote this:

Your opposition to an extension is inexplicable. Just last week, Director of National Intelligence McConnell and Attorney General Mukasey wrote to Congress that "it is critical that the authorities contained in the Protect America Act not be allowed to expire." Similarly, House Minority Leader Boehner has said "allowing the Protect America Act to expire would undermine our national security and endanger American lives, and that is unacceptable." And you yourself said at the White House today: "There is really no excuse for letting this critical legislation expire." I agree.

Nonetheless, you have chosen to let the Protect America Act expire. You bear responsibility for any intelligence collection gap that may result.

Fortunately, your decision to allow the Protect America Act to expire does not, in reality, threaten the safety of Americans. As you are well aware, existing surveillance orders under that law remain in effect for an additional year, and the 1978 FISA law itself remains available for new surveillance orders. Your suggestion that the law's expiration would prevent intelligence agents from listening to the conversations of terrorists is utterly false.

[Emphasis mine. Note the genteel wording in which Reid calls Bush a liar, which, of course, he is.]

Reyes wrote this:

Because I care so deeply about protecting our country, I take strong offense to your suggestion in recent days that the country will be vulnerable to terrorist attack unless Congress immediately enacts legislation giving you broader powers to conduct warrantless surveillance of Americans' communications and provides legal immunity for telecommunications companies that participated in the Administration's warrantless surveillance program.

Today, the National Security Agency (NSA) has authority to conduct surveillance in at least three different ways, all of which provide strong capability to monitor the communications of possible terrorists.

It's about time someone threw facts back in the lying weasel's face. [Yes, now you know what the "W" stands for.]

You can read it all in mcjoan's post at Daily Kos. Kagro X reminds us all that if you quote the President be sure to note that he's lying (always a good policy).

Mcjoan also points out that the world does not end when Dems do stand up to the chimperor:

The Democrats stood up to Bush, and the world didn't end. And I bet it felt really, really good. I know it did. I heard the raucous cheers on the House floor when Hoyer made that statement. Remember how good it feels, Dems, and keep at it.

It seems Keith Olbermann may have ended his special comment with this:

We will not fear George W. Bush, nor fear because George W. Bush wants us to fear.

On that happy note, to borrow from Garrison Keillor on "The Writer's Almanac":
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.
--the BB

If I believed in damning people to the fires of hell....

Q Dana, is the White House at all concerned that some of the evidence of the confessions by many of these men may not be admissible because they were obtained through waterboarding, which the administration admitted to last week?

MS. PERINO: Kathleen, I'm not going to able to comment about the trial from this podium.

No comment.
--the BB

Above the law???????????????????????

We have now the Attorney General of the United States telling Congress that it's not against the law for the President to violate the law if his own Department of Justice says it's not.

--David Kurtz at TPM
[You may augment Kurtz with Emptywheel's comments.]

Article. VI.

Clause 2: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

--United States Constitution

Compare and contrast in no more than 300 words.
--the BB

Have we thanked them adequately?

Check them out. These are the two who decided Mukasey might be OK, gave him the benefit of the doubt, and enabled him to become our Attorney General. We owe them so much. Like voting them out of office at the earliest possible opportunity. I might give Chuck Schumer a second chance [with one helluva tongue lashing] but I am a California native and have had to live with DiFi's compromises too long. When she supported an anti-flag-burning amendment to the Constitution I told her I would never vote for her again. If I were still living in California that would mean something. Now I don't have the opportunity to vote against her. She could lead me out of yellow dog Democrat territory so that I would vote for anyone who ran against her, no matter how awful.

Yes, I bear grudges. Deal with it. She could have been a great senator. Every now and again she says or does something really wonderful. Then she lets her inner Republican take over and upholds the Bush agenda. Repeatedly. She's a great example of what that touted bipartisanship gets us. Fucked over. Dry and without condoms. Leaving us raped, pregnant, diseased, and left to deal with the misery we owe to our rapists, who never gave a shit about us. We weren't even objects of desire--just something to be dominated and degraded and tossed aside. Rape, after all, is about power not sex. Yep, that's bipartisanship these days.

You see, while abuse continues it's pointless to discuss bipartisanship. Making nice with your abuser does not stop abuse, no matter how many times you tell yourself the abuse is your fault and it will stop if you can just be the woman, man, partner, parent, colleague, etc. your abuser wants you to be--which is presumed to be the correct ideal, of course, no matter how arbitrary, twisted, and sick it may be.

The Dems in Congress have been behaving as abused persons for far too long. They buy into the abusers' framework, they try to placate their abusers, they internalize all the lies they are told, and they take it, over and over and over again. Then they despise themselves, which plays further into the hands of their abusers. They tell themselves there are no alternatives to either making nice or getting slapped down. They cannot imagine any other way of being. That is exactly what the abuser has wanted to establish, a situation where the victims cannot even imagine things being other than as they are, or to imagine that they don't deserve what happens to them.

So here we are, making nicey nice with AG Michael Mukasey while he conveys, with less obvious contempt than Abu Gonzales, that the White House does not give a shit what Congress thinks, what laws it passes or does not pass, what oversight it thinks it is going to exercise, what subpoenas it issues. It is a law unto itself with plenipotentiary powers not subject to any restraints from Congress or the Courts.

Mukasey, a very borderline nominee for his position, was considered "the best we can get"--and isn't that the despairing perspective of the severely abused? Thanks to DiFi and Chuck turning, he got confirmed. Those hopes that he would be better than Bush's old BFF Fredo? Pfft!

Glenn Greenwald writes:

All day long, in response to Mukasey's insistence that patent illegalities were legal, that Congress was basically powerless, and that the administration has no obligation to disclose anything to Congress (and will not), Senators would respond with impotent comments such as: "Well, I'd like to note my disagreement and ask you to re-consider" or "I'm disappointed with your answer and was hoping you would say something different" or "If that's your position, we'll be discussing this again at another point." They were supplicants pleading for some consideration, almost out of a sense of mercy, and both they and Mukasey knew it.

Mukasey can go and casually tell them to their faces that the President has the right to violate their laws and that Congress has no power to do anything about it. And nothing is going to happen. And everyone -- the Senators, Bush officials, the country -- knows that nothing is going to happen. There is nothing too extreme that Mukasey could say to those Senators that would prompt any consequences greater than some sighing and sorrowful expressions of disapproval. We now live in a country where the President -- and those acting at his behest (see Lewis Libby, AT&T, and Verizon)-- have the power to break the law and ignore Congress and every other aspect of government, and can do so with impunity.
...
It ought to be newsworthy, to put it mildly, when the President announces that he has the power to violate the law at will. But in another sense, it's not really newsworthy any longer. It's been going on for years and we've chosen to do nothing about it. We have a Government where the President is not bound by the law, and it is just as simple as that.

That, my friends, is where we are today. We effing let it happen. Our representatives in both houses of Congress have let it happen. Makes you wonder whether we might not be better off today if the earth had opened and swallowed the Capitol and all in it during the SOTU speech, doesn't it?

So, how do we appropriately thank these people?
--the BB


[Note: I recognize that not all are spineless compromising slime-buckets. Alas, too many are, so the collective judgment stands in spite of some sterling exceptions.]

UPDATE:

Here is Greenwald's description of bipartisanship, only slightly less unsavory than mine:

But more importantly, "bipartisanship" is already rampant in Washington, not rare. And, in almost every significant case, what "bipartisanship" means in Washington is that enough Democrats join with all of the Republicans to endorse and enact into law Republican policies, with which most Democratic voters disagree. That's how so-called "bipartisanship" manifests in almost every case.

Remember the rule of law? Pretty vague memory, isn't it? - Updated

Smintheus at Daily Kos discusses Attorney General Mukasey's testimony:

The answer that waterboarding him personally would constitute torture puts Mukasey in line with DNI McConnell.

Funny though that in his answer to Kennedy, Mukasey doesn't need to know any further circumstances to make that decision. He's been claiming that torture is situational; certain circumstances make waterboarding legal. But with regard to himself, he doesn't hesitate to issue an opinion without even the slightest quibbling about possible circumstances.

That seems to imply that waterboarding Michael Mukasey would be torture under any conceivable circumstances - because he's innocent of wrongdoing. And yet none of the people who've been tortured by the CIA under George Bush's orders had been convicted of anything. The presumption of innocence is the very foundation of our law. Neither George Bush nor Michael Mukasey is in any position to rule that none of the prisoners might conceivably be innocent. They haven't attempted to assert that power. These and other prisoners of course remain innocent before the law until found guilty of some crime.

Essentially Michael Mukasey is declaring: No, you may torture other innocent people but never me. He is what passes these days for America's lawyer.

SSJOAS!

It would have been nice if the Senate of the United States of America had told the Sociopath-in-Chief that they would NEVER confirm anyone as Attorney General who would not unequivocally acknowledge that waterboarding is torture and therefore illegal. Of course, Bush could not do that, because we know we've waterboarded and if we admit that it's torture then it would follow, as the night the day, that the maladministration is guilty of violating the law. Which, my friends, the whole world already knows. We have a lawless thug in the Oval Office who has been turning the United States into a rogue nation.

Oh look! Britney got 52-50ed. [No, I am not going to provide a link; y'all have better things to think about.]

UPDATE:
Scott Horton has a great article up at Harper's about Mukasey's appearance. It really captures a lot of the issues and makes them quite clear. I recommend reading the whole thing.

Horton cites "Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin’s summation of the Mukasey testimony:"

You’re crazy if you think I’m going to admit that any of the interrogation practices previously performed by the Administration that just hired me are illegal. Saying that would suggest that people in the Administration violated the law and are subject to criminal prosecution, and that previous OLC opinions have condoned war crimes. The only thing I will tell you is that I sure hope we don’t continue one of these practices in the future (lucky for me you haven’t pressed me about the others!). But don’t ask me to say that the President can’t do any of them later on if he wants to. I mean, come on, guys, I just got here, you know? I just put new drapes in my office. I really don’t want to have to get fired only three months after I started. Oh, and by the way, the President, my boss, never violates the law. Got that?

There you have it: our American democracy gone down the tubes. Drawing toward his conclusion, Horton writes:

Mukasey promised a new rapport with Congress and with the American public, and he promised to restore the integrity for which the Justice Department was once famous. At this point he’s made a few positive personnel moves and given a few encouraging speeches, but when we come back to a focus on the major issues that he was forced to confront in the second day of his confirmation hearing, there is precious little to separate his opinions and conduct from his tarnished predecessor, Alberto Gonzales.

h/t to Smintheus at Daily Kos for the Horton tip.

--the BB

Let's remind ourselves

United States Law (courtesy of School of Law at Cornell):

U. S. Code
TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 113C > § 2340
§ 2340. Definitions

As used in this chapter—
(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and

(3) “United States” means the several States of the United States, the District of Columbia, and the commonwealths, territories, and possessions of the United States.

and:

§ 2340A. Torture

(a) Offense.— Whoever outside the United States commits or attempts to commit torture shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and if death results to any person from conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life.
(b) Jurisdiction.— There is jurisdiction over the activity prohibited in subsection (a) if—
(1) the alleged offender is a national of the United States; or
(2) the alleged offender is present in the United States, irrespective of the nationality of the victim or alleged offender.

(c) Conspiracy.— A person who conspires to commit an offense under this section shall be subject to the same penalties (other than the penalty of death) as the penalties prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.

Original document of the first Geneva Convention from 1864;
picture taken by Kevin Quinn, Ohio, US;
licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license

From the Third Geneva Convention:

Article 2
In addition to the provisions which shall be implemented in peace time, the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them.
The Convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance.
Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof. [emphasis mine]

Why does the Bush maladministration insist that captives in the SCWOT (so-called war on terror) are not prisoners of war? Well, this is why:

[From Article 17]
No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.

How about this?

Article 84
A prisoner of war shall be tried only by a military court, unless the existing laws of the Detaining Power expressly permit the civil courts to try a member of the armed forces of the Detaining Power in respect of the particular offence alleged to have been committed by the prisoner of war.
In no circumstances whatever shall a prisoner of war be tried by a court of any kind which does not offer the essential guarantees of independence and impartiality as generally recognized, and, in particular, the procedure of which does not afford the accused the rights and means of defence provided for in Article 105. [emphasis mine]

And the Bushies especially don't want anything like Article 3 to apply:

Article 3
In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:
Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria. To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
taking of hostages;
outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;
the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples. [emphasis mine]

I do understand that the circumstances outlined at the beginning of Article 3 may not obtain in the cases we are looking at but I should think the moral principles would!

Oh, and speaking of torture, a topic much on our minds these days, how about reviewing a historical case from a 1628 witch trial? You can read the account, both of the trial and the letter written by the defendant (who was tortured and killed as a witch, of course) to his daughter over at Digby's Hullabaloo.

...
Burr's note: So ended the trial of Junius, and he was accordingly burned at the stake. But it so happens that there is also preserved in Bamberg a letter, in quivering hand, secretly written by him to his daughter while in the midst of his trial (July 24, 1628):

Many hundred thousand good-nights, dearly beloved daughter Veronica. Innocent have I come into prison, innocent have I been tortured, innocent must I die. For whoever comes into the witch prison must become a witch or be tortured until he invents something out of his head and--God pity him--bethinks him of something. I will tell you how it has gone with me.
...
Now, dear child, here you have all my confession, for which I must die. And they are sheer lies and made-up things, so help me God. For all this I was forced to say through fear of the torture which was threatened beyond what I had already endured. For they never leave off with the torture till one confesses something; be he never so good, he must be a witch. Nobody escapes, though he were an earl. . . .

Yes, this is what America now stands for. This is our image among the nations of the world, and well-deserved, for we have elected amoral thieves and scoundrels and suffered them to remain in office. They flout the laws and scoff at the misery they have inflicted upon this nation and the nations of the world, knowing that none will call their power to account. We twiddle our thumbs as they perform outrage upon outrage and Congress dithers and blusters and concedes, then wastes its time championing a dominant faith when it should be about the business of the People. So our Constitution is daily reduced to shreds, a once-great land becomes a byword among the nations, and tyranny establishes itself each day more firmly until soon none shall be able to stand against it.

What will it take? Or is it already too late?

I say let's kick a congressman's nuts up into his throat (mutatis mutandis for the ladies) until we get some reasonable action.

Hold elected officials accountable. Hold the media accountable. Get the truth out there!

Power to the People!
--the BB

Privatization + Deregulation = Lawlessness & Thuggery

I don't see it anywhere on my Google headlines today but the blogosphere is abuzz with the tale of a young woman who was repeatedly raped by her coworkers and then, to cover it up, held captive by her employer. Now that this has come out there is not a scintilla of hope that anyone will be prosecuted for this crime.

We are talking about American citizens operating in an environment where no law applies to them--not American law, not Iraqi law, not the uniform code of military justice.

We are talking about Halliburton/KBR and the problem that arises when you hire people and turn them loose without oversight.

We are talking about what the Bush Administration (that fears neither God nor man) has been so hard at work creating: a lawless environment where power and wealth for the few mean misery and hopelessness for the many, and isn't that just too damned bad? What are you going to do about it? Can't bring them to a court martial. Can't put them to an Iraqi or an American trial. Nobody's going to enforce any subpoenas on their bosses and congressional "leadership" won't consider impeaching the folks ultimately responsible.

Bush and Cheney just assume the American People can eat shit and bay at the moon; nobody is going to be held accountable.

MissLaura has an article on this. She begins with this horrifying question: "Can you imagine being gang-raped and then imprisoned by your employer?"

ABC News reports the story:

Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.

...

In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave.

Her father, on learning of the situation, contacted Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, and they talked to the State Department who sent agents from the U.S. Embassy to rescue her.

There was a rape kit with all the evidence (I will spare you the details) but it was turned over to ... wait for it... KBR.

I don't have to tell you that the evidence disappeared, do I?

State Department is making no comments.

Justice Department has not, in two years, pursued it.

Nobody is giving any answers.

Civil litigation seems to be the only remaining recourse. However....

KBR has moved for Jones' claim to be heard in private arbitration, instead of a public courtroom. It says her employment contract requires it.

In arbitration, there is no public record nor transcript of the proceedings, meaning that Jones' claims would not be heard before a judge and jury.

You will not be surprised to learn that Halliburton wins about 80% of all cases against it. I am not convinced it is because of the rightness of their cause. They don't think they should be named in this because they have since divested of KBR.

Now let's see, how did Halliburton/KBR get all those lucrative contracts in Iraq without any bidding? Contracts they often did not fulfill or did so with malfeasance and still got paid? Oh, yes, their former CEO is now Vice President. How could I forget?

Hmm, and how did Bush choose Cheney? He asked Cheney to locate a good running mate and Cheney looked over the field and thought he should be it. How convenient.

Satan is a Dick Cheney wannabe.

We live in an era of lawlessness and it begins at the top.
--the BB

Death of a Nation

From the N Y Times

WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 — The Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Tuesday to approve the nomination of Michael B. Mukasey as attorney general despite opposition from most of the committee’s Democrats over Mr. Mukasey’s refusal to label a harsh interrogation technique used on terrorist suspects as torture.

Times Topics: Michael B. Mukasey
The vote, 11 to 8, with two Democrats joining all of the committee’s Republicans in supporting Mr. Mukasey, all but assured him of final confirmation by the full Senate. The Senate’s Democratic leaders are expected to schedule a vote by next week.

America cannot be destroyed from without. She is too strong, too diverse, and too resilient. We would unite in an instant against an attacking, invading, or occupying force. (Precisely what the Iraqis are doing with respect to us--duh!)

But we can be destroyed from within. Should it happen, it would be gradual.

Did I say "should it happen"?

My friends, it is happening.

Free speech? In restricted zones.

Free press? Not with deregulation and the consolidation of media into a few hands.

Privacy? Not when the Fourth Amendment is shredded and warrantless search and seizure are allowed.

Right to a speedy trial, confrontation by accusers, and knowledge of charges? Not when you can be seized on the President's sole say-so and "rendered."

Human rights? Civil rights? Legal rights? You don't have any in the eyes of Chenery, Bush, and their gang of thugs.

Is waterboarding torture? Historians seem to think so when it was used by the Inquisition. American jurisprudence thought so when it was used by the Japanese in WWII. The world thought so when it was used by the Khmer Rouge. People who have witnessed it or voluntarily submitted to it think so. It certainly violates international law to which the United States is a signatory. The whole world thinks it's torture.

But Mukasey is not sure, because if he came out and said waterboarding was torture, then that would put the highest echelons of the administration in violation of the law. Yes, the US Code. Can there be any question that authorizing torture constitutes a high crime?

Mukasey is not certain whether the President is subject to the law either. There might just be exceptions, you know.

And the United States Senate is likely to consent to this man being the chief legal officer of this nation?

Granted, we are not going to get an AG that is not to Bush's liking. If the Senate doesn't consent to one, Bush will establish one with a recess appointment. Is that really worse than the United States Senate being a co-conspirator in lawlessness?

I am watching the United States of America die around me, piece by piece. How can the People of this land take back our power, our laws, our rights, our freedom, our country, our pride?

DiFi and Schumer should, as my mama would have phrased it, be horsewhipped in the public square. And that's too good for them. I am ashamed of Congress and, as usual, outraged at the White House.

God is merciful, but she is not going to "fix" our own self-destructive stupidity. Redemption is not that simple or that magical. My beloved country is fucked beyond belief.
--the BB