Did Bush think McCain was tortured. by his definition of torture, no. via ram.

The Tax Cut That Neutered Congress. Former Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee gives an overview of Cheney and Bush, a jackass and a punk.

Daily Show interview with Aram Roston. who recently published a book about Ahmed Chalabi entitled The Man Who Pushed America To War

Go Fox Yourself | MetaFilter. the daily show’s jon oliver gives fox news a lambasting. hilarious.

This American Life - The Audacity of Government. “Stories of the Bush Administration, its unique style of asserting presidential authority, and its quest to redefine the limits of presidential power.” via ram.

The Surge is Not Sustainable: Augustus Richard Norton explains why. it’s amazing how many year we can waste in iraq. via ram.

Senate Passes Bill to Expand U.S. Spying Powers - New York Times. this bill also gives telco’s immunity for breaking the law and essentially allows warrent-less wiretaps. way to go democrats!

The Raw Story | Bush ‘kills’ Freedom of Information Act compliance officer. bush, still fucking things up in ‘08.

RFK Jr on conservatism

These two videos are of a speech Robert Kennedy Jr during a panel about the republication of Barry Goldwater’s The Conscience of a Conservative. He talks about the meaning of Goldwater’s conservatism and it’s perversion by the modern day conservative movement. There’s some really choice quotes amongst the whole speech. Here’s the youtube links for both part 1 and part 2.

The Politics of Posters | MetaFilter. it is pretty crazy how long the list of bush fuckups is. via ram.

supreme court on guantanamo

Anton just sent me an NPR write-up on yesterday’s Supreme Court oral arguments on the habeas rights of Guantanamo prisoners. In summary, it seems the court is divided 4-4 along party lines with Justice Kennedy, as usual, holding the swing vote. There’s one part from the end of the write-up that I found really interesting and very troubling. It’s a comment from the defense attorney…

To illustrate his point, Waxman pointed to a case in which he said a detainee was finally released after four years in detention because the detainee, a German man, had “what other detainees have not had — a lawyer.” And when the lawyer filed a habeas petition in the federal courts, and the government filed a reply with its evidence, the lawyer saw that the government claimed the detainee had associated with a named terrorist who had blown himself up.

“Within 24 hours, his counsel had affidavits not only from the German prosecuter, but from the supposedly deceased Mr. Bilgen, who is a resident of Dresden, never involved in terrorism, and fully getting on with his life,” Waxman said.

US spies give shock verdict on Iran threat | Guardian Unlimited. A National Intelligence Estimate report says Iran stopped it’s nuclear program in 2003. Can someone please get the President a video game or anything that might occupy his time until 2008.

FRONTLINE: the storm. just watched this report from 3 months after Katrina. I’m just flabbergasted at the stupidity. bush and company really managed to get just about everything wrong with FEMA.

Let the Eagle Soak | MetaFilter. just in case you needed to hear more insanity about waterboarding and the bush administration. via ram.

zefrank.com: “privacy”. solid ze frank commentary.

Bob Simon tells the story of the Iraqi defector known as “Curve Ball,” whose fabricated story of mobile biological weapons drove the U.S. argument for invading Iraq.. Bob Simon details the single source behind Colin Powell’s “slam dunk” UN presentation. I don’t think I’ll ever believe anything that an “intelligence” agency says again.

Bush’s former press secretary, Scott McClellan, has a book coming out where he’s basically claiming that Bush, Cheney, and Rove all knowingly lied about the Valerie Plame leak. surprised, not at all.

“The Justice Department’s Culture of Torture” - Harper’s. a lawyer in the whitehouse actually got waterboarded to evaluate the effects, said it was torture, and got fired for disagreeing. these people are SO crazy. via ram.

blackwater

Anyone who reads this blog probably has now probably heard about Blackwater, the private military firm from the US whose employees recently killed 17 civilians in Iraq. Frontline did a report last year entitled Private Warriors which covered the role these private military personnel play, the total clusterfuck Blackwater caused after 4 of their men were killed in Falujah, and how they operate with little to no oversight. What they didn’t talk about was how fucking scary Blackwater actually is.

Jeremy Scahill released a book back in February entitled Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army and is probably the leading expert on Blackwater. He was on Real Time with Bill Maher on the weekend and what he said really shocked me. Here’s the clip…

Boris mentioned to me that he was also on Bill Moyer’s Journal a few weeks ago. The Moyer’s piece is quite interesting as it shows how Eric Prince, Blackwater’s CEO and founder (and “Christian Supremist” as Scahill calls him), managed to pull off a PR blitz that fooled just about everyone who interviewed him and failed to point out the total lies he’s managed to spin. I’d highly recommend watching the segment.

FEMA sorry for fake news briefing — chicagotribune.com. they had employees pretend to be reporters and barred reporters from asking questions. i feel like i’m taking crazy pills.