born live love die

I saw a little of the State of the Union and I heard President Bush quote from a letter written by a Marine who was killed in action in Fallujah. They were stirring words about the meaning of sacrifice. The President recognized the widow and parents of this brave Marine and they stood. They were sitting behind Mrs. Bush. There was a prolonged period of applause, and during that period, the cameras panned the audience a couple of quick pans. And then they settled on President Bush and he was looking at someone in the audience. And he winked.

The cowardly piece of dung winked. I’m holding back here because Bookzilla, my daughter, might read this, and she will too soon learn the words that I would like to use here, but won’t.

He winked.

I just watched this on the tube. Via Reuters, a bull jumped into the crowd and started hooking people.

A half-tonne bull named “Little Bird” has flown into Mexico’s history books by leaping into a packed crowd of bullfight fans and injuring seven in a panicked frenzy.

Television images from a bullfight on Sunday showed terrified spectators scattering as the 1,107-pound (503-kg) beast jumped over the heads of stunned journalists and crashed into the most expensive seats at the vast Mexico City ring.

Call me callow, but I was with the bull on this one.

Update: I have seen the video a few times since then, and they always stop playing it just as a man with a sword slides the sword over the edge of the barrier. Why not show how these animals die? As P. J. O’Rourke says, Hemingway was watching people pester farm animals. Why not show how barbaric this really is?

J. D. Henderson, over at INTEL DUMP gives us the lowdown on the Bush’s down low.

I have now read the entire justice department document defending the NSA warrantless wiretaps.

It is a longer version of what the administration has been saying all along. It admits that the wiretaps were not authorized under FISA unless the AUMF is considered authorization to bypass FISA. That argument has already been hacked to death. It is an exceedingly weak argument.

To re-address this argument briefly, the document states that the AUMF authorized the president to ignore FISA because of the “President’s… long-recognized power to engage in communications intelligence targeted at the enemy.” These warrantless wiretaps were of US citizens within the United States, not the “enemy.” Is there any due process or oversight involved before US citizens can be declared an enemy of the state? The president says no, the decision is his and his alone. That seems to jar with the Bill of Rights.

The document also states that FISA is a restriction “placed on national security operations during times of peace.” As mentioned in other posts, FISA is part of Title 50 of the US Code, which is entitled “War and National Security.” The president is claiming that laws specifically written for “War and National Security” are laws only relevant in times of peace.

The other argument is the “inherent authority” as commander-in-chief argument. That is even weaker. Commander in Chief is a military title, not a civilian one. It merely means that generals are subordinate to the president - not that Congress is, and most definitely not that civilians are subordinate. Generals can’t order civilians about and damn sure can’t ignore the law. Neither can a “commander in chief.” The president is “commander in chief” only for the military. He is not your commander in chief unless you are on active duty.

Read the whole thing.

Media Matters documents the misstatements of the press. The lead from today:
Media less assertive in covering NSA scandal than Whitewater

They also have a bit about Chris Matthews.

Last year, we noted that MSNBC’s Chris Matthews repeatedly smeared Democrats by falsely claiming that a memo distributed by the Democratic National Committee accused Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. of being “lenient on the mob,” and calling that an example of Democrats “going after [Alito’s] ethnicity.” In fact, Matthews was lying. The memo said nothing about Alito being “lenient” on anyone and made no mention of ethnicity. But Matthews repeatedly made false claims about the memo, waving it in front of cameras — but not quoting from it.

Check it out.

t r u t h o u t has something from the Sunday Times that tells the tale of Bush and spying. I have added emphasis to the lies being propogated by the Bush Administration.

A bit over a week ago, President Bush and his men promised to provide the legal, constitutional and moral justifications for the sort of warrantless spying on Americans that has been illegal for nearly 30 years. Instead, we got the familiar mix of political spin, clumsy historical misinformation, contemptuous dismissals of civil liberties concerns, cynical attempts to paint dissents as anti-American and pro-terrorist, and a couple of big, dangerous lies.

(more…)

If I were a Republican, I would refrain from using any word that sounds like peach, even when talking about fruit.

“I think this president is a man of unimpeachable integrity,” Pence said. “The American people have profound confidence in him.

Last week, Arlen Specter said that “impeachment is a remedy”. So is castor oil.

Newsweek, via MSNBC, has a great article up about principled conservative Republicans who stood against the expansion of executive power sought by President Bush and his acolytes after 9/11.

In the summer of 2004, Goldsmith, 43, had left his post in George W. Bush’s Washington to become a professor at Harvard Law School. Stocky, rumpled, genial, though possessing an enormous intellect, Goldsmith is known for his lack of pretense; he rarely talks about his time in government. In liberal Cambridge, Mass., he was at first snubbed in the community and mocked as an atrocity-abetting war criminal by his more knee-jerk colleagues. ICY WELCOME FOR NEW LAW PROF, headlined The Harvard Crimson.

(more…)

Senator Frist has a revelation.

Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” if he had any regrets regarding the Schiavo case, Frist said: “Well, I’ll tell you what I learned from it, which is obvious. The American people don’t want you involved in these decisions.”

If it was so obvious, how come it was so hard to realize?

Jesus General has a caustic wit. Here is his take on Senator Frist’s fall back position on the Bill of Rights:

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law

without the expressed approval of the executive or his deputy chief of staff

. respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Hmmm. It looks like WordPress is not formatting it the way I want to format it. Check out the whole thing on JG’s site.

Tim Russert is an intelligent chump. Rather than pimping his wife (which is what a ‘chump’ does), he pimps his credibility. He recently wrote a book about his father called “Big Russ and Me”. It is supposed to be about how important fathers are. But his mother is barely mentioned in it and the divorce of his mother and father is dismissed in a couple of paragraphs. The book was not about how important Tim Russert’s father was, but how important Tim Russert is. “I have not come to bury Big Russ but to praise him.” I think you get the idea.

Check out Open Letter To Tim Russert. They are on the case.