Major Taliban Operative Captured

By GottaLaff

Once again, President Obama proves what a hindrance he is to national security:

Mulvi Kabir, the former Taliban governor in Afghanistan's Nangahar Province, and a key figure in the Taliban regime was recently captured in Pakistan, two senior US officials tell Fox News. Kabir, considered to be among the top ten most wanted Taliban leaders, was apprehended in the Naw Shera district of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province by Pakistani police forces.

And once again, one has to ponder BushCo's inability to accomplish in eight years what this administration has in one year.,

Justice Department Intervenes In Gay Rights Suit For First Time In A Decade

By GottaLaff

This is a good example of why it matters who you support/vote for in any election, and why it is vital that you vote, period:

Yesterday, for the first time in a decade, the Justice Department intervened in a gay rights suit. In August, an openly gay 14-year-old student named Jacob — with the help of the ACLU — sued the Mohawk Central School District in upstate New York because officials “did not appropriately respond to relentless harassment, physical abuse and threats of violence” that Jacob received because of his sexual orientation. NPR reported on some of the harassment to which Jacob alleges he was subjected.

The heartbreaking details are here.

So are the heartening ones, including:

Under Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, the Justice Department has had a dramatically different focus than it did during President Bush’s terms. While the Bush Justice Department was focused on installing political cronies, going after mythical voter fraud cases, and the suppression of minority voters while looking out for the voter disenfranchisement of whites. The Obama Justice Department, by contrast, recently announced that it would also start aggressively going after “banks and mortgage brokers suspected of discriminating against minority applicants in lending.”

"It doesn't matter if I vote. The candidates are interchangeable. Someone else will cancel out my vote anyway." Wrong.

This boy's life was changed because of who Americans elected. He knows the ObamAdministration is looking out for him. He won't feel quite as alone and helpless any more.

He may even feel optimistic that change is in the air, no matter how incrementally, and that there's reason for hope... all because enough people exercised their right to vote.

As frustrated as some of us may be with Obama, this is one time we can come together and unite behind him.

Shallow Thoughts: Bite me, BushCo edition

By GottaLaff

Today's Shallow Thought:

Under President Obama's watch, a terrorist attack was prevented. Under Bush's, a terrorist attack succeeded. So far, Obama has kept America safe. Bush didn't. Yet BushCo continues to criticize Obama.

Conclusion: Bush and Cheney let the terrorists win. Epic fail. Bite me, BushCo.

That was today's Shallow Thought. Thank you for wading in.

Federal scientists: Limit offshore drilling plans

By GottaLaff

Once again, attempts are being made to eradicate the ugly, toxic BushCo stain:

The federal government's top ocean scientists are urging the Interior Department to drastically reduce plans to open the coast to offshore oil and gas drilling, citing threats to marine life and potentially devastating effects of oil spills in Arctic waters.

The recommendations by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are informal and not binding. But if adopted, they would restrict development in some of the nation's most resource-rich untapped offshore areas and mark a significant departure from the pro-drilling policies of the George W. Bush administration. They also give added -- and official -- weight to environmentalists' concerns.

It's like being held captive and suddenly having the gag and shackles removed. Breathing again sure feels swell, doesn't it?

In a letter sent to Interior officials last month, NOAA recommended excluding large tracts of the Alaska coast, the Atlantic seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico from Interior's draft offshore drilling plan for 2010 to 2015.

NOAA recommends establishing buffer zones around the Southern California Ecological Preserve off Santa Barbara. In addition, it suggests that its broader recommendations, such as taking greater account of drilling's effects on marine life, could affect potential lease sales off California.

The agency calls for a ban on drilling in the Arctic until oil companies greatly improve their ability to prevent and clean up oil spills. And it asks Interior to delay new drilling plans until an Obama administration ocean policy task force completes its work late this year.

The comments, dated Sept. 9 and obtained by the Washington Bureau, were included in a letter to Interior officials from NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco. They include an often sharp critique of the offshore leasing plan, developed under Bush, that would open swaths of the California coast and other areas to new drilling.

NOAA says the leasing plan's assessment of the risks of drilling, such as oil spills, is "understated and generally not supported or referenced."

Isn't it amazing how wrong BushCo was about so many issues, yet how little resistance they got while in office? Cronyism sure comes in handy.

NOAA urges the Minerals Management Service -- the Interior division that handles offshore drilling -- to consider ocean ecosystems, coastal communities and other environmental factors when finalizing a leasing plan.

The agency stresses the challenges of cleaning up an oil spill in remote, icy waters, which NOAA says would be substantially more difficult than cleaning up a spill elsewhere.

The recommendations highlight the competing pressures on Interior Secretary Ken Salazar as he weighs whether to amend the Bush-era leasing plan.

Let's see: Profits for Big Oil v. the health of the planet.

Dep't. of So What Else is New: Alberto Gonzales flip flops on torture investigation

By GottaLaff

Gonzo, August 31, 2009 (posted here yesterday):

Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales on Tuesday defended the decision of his current successor, Eric H. Holder Jr., to investigate alleged prisoner abuse by CIA interrogators over President Obama's desire to look forward.

"As chief prosecutor of the United States, he should make the decision on his own, based on the facts, then inform the White House," said Mr. Gonzales, who was appointed to the post by President George W. Bush in 2005 and resigned in 2007. [...]

"Anyone who politicizes... the interrogations... should be condemned..." he said, unwittingly condemning himself and his fellow thugs.

The Washington Times America's Morning News (interview with Alberto Gonzales)

Gonzo today:

In a new interview with the Washington Times, he said that just because he thinks it’s “legitimate to question and examine” the interrogators’ conduct, he doesn’t endorse an investigation:

I don’t support the investigation by the department because this is a matter that has already been reviewed thoroughly and because I believe that another investigation is going to harm our intelligence gathering capabilities and that’s a concern that’s shared by career intelligence officials and so for those reasons I respectfully disagree with the decision.

He probably just didn't "recall" his previous-- recorded-- statments.

AUDIO: Gonzales defends Holder's decision on CIA

By GottaLaff

The Washington Times has this exclusive... probably because nobody else wanted to listen to Gonzo:

Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales on Tuesday defended the decision of his current successor, Eric H. Holder Jr., to investigate alleged prisoner abuse by CIA interrogators over President Obama's desire to look forward.

"As chief prosecutor of the United States, he should make the decision on his own, based on the facts, then inform the White House," said Mr. Gonzales, who was appointed to the post by President George W. Bush in 2005 and resigned in 2007.

Of course he also said BushCo lawyers clearly defined which "interrogation techniques" were legal. You know why they did that, Gonzo? Because they rewrote the law so that they could legalize torture.

Maybe he agrees with Holder because the narrow parameters of the investigation would let him off the hook for his own involvement. Paddy and I are scratching our heads a little over this one.

"Anyone who politicizes... the interrogations... should be condemned..." he said, unwittingly condemning himself and his fellow thugs.

I need a drink. Here's the entire interview:

The Washington Times America's Morning News (interview with Alberto Gonzales)

Dickless in DC: Obama's torture investigation "offends the hell out of me"

By GottaLaff

This is the biggest endorsement of Barack Obama that I can think of, and it comes by way of Dickless Cheney:

"I was not a fan of his when he got elected, and my views have not changed any," Cheney said of Obama.

That should bring multitudes of voters our way. We owe him.

Oddly, my favorite quote has been removed from the AP piece. It was in regard to Dickless' claim that-- stop me if you've heard this one, it's a knee-slapper-- Obama is politicizing investigations, those unnecessary CIA ones. About BushCo's illegal torture of detainees? Yeah, those investigations.

Now maybe the quote was never in there to begin with, but that would be odd, because here is the The Daily Beast version that they attribute to the Associated Press:

“It’s clearly a political move,” the former vice president told Fox News Sunday when he was asked about the Obama administration’s investigation of CIA interrogations. “[It] offends the hell out of me. … I just think it's an outrageous political act...."

Here is the AP version:

"It's clearly a political move," Cheney said in an interview aired on "Fox News Sunday." "I mean, there's no other rationale for why they're doing this."

He added: "I just think it's an outrageous political act that will do great damage, long term, to our capacity to be able to have people take on difficult jobs, make difficult decisions, without having to worry about what the next administration is going to say."

The Case of the Missing "Offends the Hell Out of Me". Maybe Dickless is no longer offended? Offensive, yes; offended, no longer. Who knew he could be so forgiving?

What the CIA hid from Congress

By GottaLaff

Jane Harman (D-Venice) chairs the House Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence and terrorism risk assessment, and part of the "Gang of Eight" who are " required by law to be briefed on the CIA's "covert" action programs." She'd like to clarify a few things:

[C]omments by Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency and the CIA, that the Gang of Eight was "fully" briefed on the TSP prompt me to disclose, for the first time, what they were like.

In virtually every meeting, Hayden would present PowerPoint "slides," walking us through the operational details of the TSP [Terrorist Surveillance Program]. The program has since been described, in part, as one that intercepted communications to and from the U.S. in an effort to uncover terrorist networks and prevent or disrupt attacks. We were told that the program was the centerpiece of our counter-terrorism efforts, legal and yielding impressive results.

Often present were CIA officials (including then-Director George Tenet) and then-White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales. Missing was any Justice Department presence -- a tipoff, in retrospect, to the legal limbo under which the program operated. [...]

It is now clear to me that we learned only what the briefers wanted to tell us -- even though they were required by law to keep us "fully and currently informed." Absent the ability to do any independent research, it did not occur to me then that the program was operated wholly outside of the framework Congress created as the exclusive means to conduct such surveillance: the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Nor did I know that the Justice Department was cut out of the process, and that one lawyer, John Yoo, had drafted the internal memo justifying the TSP under the president's Article 2 authorities. A new head of the Office of Legal Counsel repudiated that memo, citing the "shoddiness" of the legal reasoning. [...]

While our country had experienced the worst terrorist attack in our history, the Orwellian solution conjured up by a small group in the Bush administration was to shred our laws and Constitution in order to save us -- a false and unnecessary choice. [...]

The House and Senate intelligence authorization bills would require increased notification, including, in the House bill, information on lawfulness, cost, benefit and risk. The White House has issued a veto threat, citing constitutional concerns. Surely both sides -- and policy -- would profit more from a robust partnership.

Remember, John Yoo was one of the exclusive fraternity that created law, as in "Torture Memos" (all my related posts on torture, detainee mistreatment, military commissions, etc. here).

This sleazy little club would concoct flimsy, tortured legal memos that were binding, and they would do so under the radar, excluding anybody whose input should have been seriously considered, even required. If anybody dared challenge them, they would be loudly and abruptly cut short and/or paid lip service and ignored.

Jane Mayer goes into great detail about this in her book The Dark Side.

I have two words for BushCo: Screw Yoo.

Judge: Ex-Bush lawyer John Yoo can be sued over torture

By GottaLaff

Last night I posted about John Yoo being ordered to testify about his handywork leading to torture. Here's an update:

A prisoner who says he was tortured while being held for nearly four years as a suspected terrorist can sue former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo for coming up with the legal theories that justified his alleged treatment, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled Friday.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White's decision marks the first time a government lawyer has been held potentially responsible for the abuse of detainees.

"Like any other government official, government lawyers are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their conduct," White said in refusing to dismiss Jose Padilla's lawsuit against Yoo.

If Padilla, now serving a 17-year prison sentence on terrorism charges, can prove his allegations, he can show that Yoo "set in motion a series of events that resulted in the deprivation of Padilla's constitutional rights," White said.

That's a big "if".

John Eastman, law school dean at Chapman University in Orange County, where Yoo taught for the past year, [...] predicted that the Justice Department will file an immediate appeal, going to the Supreme Court if necessary. [...]

Declared an enemy combatant, Padilla was held in a Navy brig for three years and eight months and was denied all contact with the outside world for the first half of that period, his suit said. He was then taken out of the brig and charged with taking part in an unrelated conspiracy to provide money and supplies to Islamic extremist groups. He was convicted and has appealed.

His suit against Yoo covers his time in the brig. He says he was detained illegally, held for lengthy periods in darkness and blinding light, subjected to temperature extremes and sleep deprivation, confined in painful stress positions, and threatened with death to himself, harm to his family and transfer to a nation where he would be tortured.

The suit said Yoo - who has acknowledged being a member of an administration planning group known as the "war council" - personally reviewed and approved Padilla's detention in the brig and provided the legal cover for his treatment.

At a hearing in March, Justice Department lawyer Mary Mason told White that courts had no power to scrutinize high-level government decision-making, especially in wartime.

But White said Friday that Padilla had a right to sue "the alleged architect of the government policy" on enemy combatants. He said an examination of Yoo's publicly disclosed writings would not damage national security, and an inquiry into "allegations of unconstitutional treatment of an American citizen on American soil" would not affect foreign relations.

Obama ‘quashed’ 9/11 Commission-style torture panel

By GottaLaff

It appears that, finally, BushCo will be properly dissected, and we will get to the truth. Obama is doing what he feels is right, and hopefully additional efforts will eventually pay off. I agree with Prez O. IMHO, we can do a whole lot better than using a 9/11 style commission to get to the bottom of all this:

Yesterday, President Obama said he would support a "bipartisan" congressional commission examining the Bush administration's torture program. [...]

There was, according to a senior official, considerable support among Obama's advisers for the creation of a 9-11 Commission-style investigation as an alternative to releasing the Justice Department memos. But Obama quashed it. "His concern was that would ratchet the whole thing up," the official said. "His whole thing is, I banned all this. This chapter is over. What we don't need now is to become a sort of feeding frenzy where we go back and re-litigate all this."

According to Balz, Obama was "reluctant to give a presidential imprimatur to a national commission that would keep the controversy alive for months and months and months." Instead, Obama chose to release the OLC torture memos. Multiple members of Congress have signaled they will try to move forward on a commission.

Commissions schmomissions. Actually, any avenue that will lead to evidence that will hang BushCo is fine with me. I'll take any and all offers.

The Bush Six to Be Indicted

By GottaLaff

David G. emailed me an article from The Daily Beast. Wasn't that sweet? Especially considering the content, which goes back to my original post here.

Presenting... "Indict BushCo: The Sequel:

Spanish prosecutors will seek criminal charges against Alberto Gonzales and five high-ranking Bush administration officials for sanctioning torture at Guantánamo.

Spanish prosecutors have decided to press forward with a criminal investigation targeting former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and five top associates over their role in the torture of five Spanish citizens held at Guantánamo, several reliable sources close to the investigation have told The Daily Beast. Their decision is expected to be announced on Tuesday before the Spanish central criminal court, the Audencia Nacional, in Madrid. But the decision is likely to raise concerns with the human-rights community on other points: They will seek to have the case referred to a different judge.

The six defendants—in addition to Gonzales, Federal Appeals Court Judge and former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, University of California law professor and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, former Defense Department general counsel and current Chevron lawyer William J. Haynes II, Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff David Addington, and former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith—are accused of having given the green light to the torture and mistreatment of prisoners held in U.S. detention in “the war on terror.” The case arises in the context of a pending proceeding before the court involving terrorism charges against five Spaniards formerly held at Guantánamo. [...]

But prosecutors will also ask that Judge Garzón, an internationally known figure due to his management of the case against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and other high-profile cases, step aside. [...] Spanish prosecutors consider it “awkward” for the same judge to have both the case against former U.S. officials based on the possible torture of the five Spaniards at Guantánamo and the case against those very same Spaniards. A source close to the prosecution also noted that there was concern about the reaction to the case in some parts of the U.S. media, where it had been viewed, incorrectly, as a sort of personal frolic of Judge Garzón. Instead, the prosecutors will ask Garzón to transfer the case to Judge Ismail Moreno, who is currently handling an investigation into kidnapping charges surrounding the CIA’s use of facilities as a safe harbor in connection with the seizure of Khalid el-Masri, a German greengrocer who was seized and held at various CIA blacksites for about half a year as a result of mistaken identity. [...]

Announcement of the prosecutor’s decision was delayed until after the Easter holiday in order not to interfere with a series of meetings between President Barack Obama and Spanish Prime Minister José Zapatero. However, contrary to a claim contained in an editorial on April 8 in the Wall Street Journal, the Obama State Department has been in steady contact with the Spanish government about the case. [...] The Spanish prosecutors advised the Americans that they would suspend their investigation if at any point the United States were to undertake an investigation of its own into these matters. [...]

The reaction on American editorial pages is divided—some questioning sharply why the Obama administration is not conducting an investigation, which is implicitly the question raised by the Spanish prosecutors. Publications loyal to the Bush team argue that the Spanish investigation is an “intrusion” into American affairs, even when those affairs involve the torture of five Spaniards on Cuba. [...]

[T]he law of unintended consequences has kicked in. If U.S. courts and prosecutors will not address the matter because of a lack of jurisdiction, foreign courts appear only too happy to step in.

Pop quiz: Which two names are missing from the list? Hint: yenehC kciD, hsuB egroeG.

I can't wait for Part III.

Please go here to read the details I left out.

BushCo: After Iraq invasion, Europeans hid Iran intel because they feared a U.S. attack

By GottaLaff

The next time anyone tells you how beneficial the Iraq War has been, or how we're safer today because of Bush's policies, show them this little gem:

Today in an email to Fox News, David Wurmser, former top aide to Vice President Cheney, cautioned the Obama administration on its hopes that Russia is willing to get tougher on Iran regarding its nuclear program. But [...] Wurmser basically says that it was the U.S. invasion of Iraq that led to less cooperation on Iran’s nuclear program from Russia and other European countries:

But the American-led invasion of Iraq complicated the Bush administration’s efforts to persuade other countries to take aggressive action to contain Iran’s nuclear threat. […]

“Every time in this period I landed in a European capital at [U.N. Ambassador] John Bolton’s request to discuss Iran, the first thing I got was: ‘What is your end game here; are you going to use the information to pull another Iraq? Tell us where you are going with this before we tell you how much we will admit Iran is going down the path to a bomb in the U.N.’ When I failed to give them a guarantee that we will not strike Iran, they stalled on moving ahead with acknowledging or using the evidence in public which in private they accepted.”

Bolton also indicated that the Iraq war stifled progress with Iran. “Before the Iraq war, I thought we were breaking through to [the Russians],” Bolton said today. “Since 2003, they have been very resistant to the idea that Iran was a proliferation threat.”

There is so much we still don't know. I'm almost afraid to imagine what else will come to light. It seems like every day, we get another boogey man story that leaps out at us and screams, "Surprise!!", scaring the living daylights out of us.

McCain Adviser Flips on Bush Tax Cuts

By GottaLaff

Any chance of any McCainians flipping on the Iraq occupation? Never mind. That's asking too much:

Heard in the CQ newsroom:

Though economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin spent the 2008 presidential campaign advising Sen. John McCain to defend the Bush-era tax cuts, he now thinks they should be allowed to expire on Dec. 31, 2010 due to "the prospect of an Argentina-style fiscal meltdown."
Said Holtz-Eakin: "If you ask: 'Who pays the taxes?', it's the first step toward not having the answer be: 'Our kids.'"

Now that's change you can believe in.

Waterboarding didn't reveal plots, useful info given prior to torture

By GottaLaff

This is not news, this is confirmation:

When CIA officials subjected their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaida, to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, they were convinced that they had in their custody an al-Qaeda leader who knew details of operations yet to be unleashed, and they were facing increasing pressure from the White House to get those secrets out of him.

The methods succeeded in breaking him, and the stories he told of al-Qaeda terrorism plots sent CIA officers around the globe chasing leads.

In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida -- chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates -- was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said.

Here's something I didn't know:

Moreover, within weeks of his capture, U.S. officials had gained evidence that made clear they had misjudged Abu Zubaida. President George W. Bush had publicly described him as "al-Qaeda's chief of operations," and other top officials called him a "trusted associate" of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and a major figure in the planning of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. None of that was accurate, the new evidence showed.

New, but not surprising. Shocking, but not surprising. Infuriating, but not surprising. Oh, and guess which group Bush inspired Abu Zubaida to hook up with:

Abu Zubaida was not even an official member of al-Qaeda, according to a portrait of the man that emerges from court documents and interviews with current and former intelligence, law enforcement and military sources. Rather, he was a "fixer" for radical Muslim ideologues, and he ended up working directly with al-Qaeda only after Sept. 11 -- and that was because the United States stood ready to invade Afghanistan.

But all of this doesn't matter one iota to BushCo. Par for the course:

"We spent millions of dollars chasing false alarms," one former intelligence official said.

Despite the poor results, Bush White House officials and CIA leaders continued to insist that the harsh measures applied against Abu Zubaida and others produced useful intelligence that disrupted terrorist plots and saved American lives.

Fraud means never having to say you're sorry.

John Ashcroft: “I think history will be very kind to" Bush

By GottaLaff

The Traveling-BushCo-Media-Blitz-Rewriting-History-Snake Oil Show continues, now with extra crispy John Ashcroft revisions! How generous of Ashy to slip in the ever-popular "Bush made some mistakes" disclaimer. Why, that takes care of everything! All is forgiven:

Yesterday, former attorney general John Ashcroft spoke at the University of Texas at Austin on the differences between the Obama and Bush administrations in a lecture hosted by the Young Conservatives of Texas and College Republicans. Although “[m]ost in attendance were respectful of Ashcroft’s right to speak,” he was greeted by a group of protesters who waved “signs of dissent” and booed when he first appeared. [...]

“I think history will be very kind to [former President George W. Bush],” Ashcroft said as he began discussing the powers of the president, drawing cheers and gasps.

Ashcroft acknowledged the fact that Bush is not a perfect man and made some mistakes. […]

At one point Ashcroft noticed a dry-erase board to the side of the stage and began to describe the overlap of power between Congress and the president to declare war. As Ashcroft made his way to the right side of the stage, one protester made sure to exclaim, “No, it’s not a waterboard!” Ashcroft didn’t hear him and proceeded to draw a Venn diagram. […]

Ashcroft said he doesn’t regret any decisions he made during his time as attorney general. “I don’t have a mark on my conscience,” Ashcroft said. [...]

Since Ashcroft can’t seem to remember any of his misdeeds, we’re here to help him out: He was the chief architect of the invasive Patriot Act, and maintains to this day that Bush is “among the most respectful of all leaders ever” of civil liberties. Of course, in 2003, he also approved waterboarding and other torture techniques on detainees.

The Daily Texan notes that the only time the entire audience cheered for Ashcroft was when he “pok[ed] fun at his own political past,” noting how he lost the 2000 Missouri U.S. Senate race to a deceased rival.

The Traveling Show is doing more to perpetuate BushCo's horrific legacy than not, by continuing to push the usual lies, therefore drawing even more attention to them. Soon, this will be the mental image in every American head:

Unclenching fists: Syria edition

By GottaLaff

What was that the Rushpublics were saying about reaching out to the evildoers? Fists are unclenching, despite their best efforts to undermine President Obama:

Syria's foreign minister said on Wednesday his country would be happy to help U.S. President Barack Obama implement his plan to pull U.S. combat troops out of Iraq.

"Syria is ready to offer whatever help is necessary" to make a success of the U.S. withdrawal plan, Walid al-Moualem told journalists after meeting Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki during a visit to Baghdad.

The United States had not asked if it could withdraw troops through Syria, he told a joint news conference with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari.

Moualem's friendly tone was a sign of the marked improvement in bilateral relations since Obama became president on January 20.

No, what?! Relations have... improved? With who again? Syria? Since when, again? Ohhh, since Obama became pres-i- dent.

Im. Proved.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad called Obama "a man of his word" in an interview with an Italian newspaper last week and said he hoped to meet him.

Think, think... What was it like, say-y, a few months ago? When that swaggering, mouth-breathing, delusional mental amoeba was in office? Why, here's the answer now!

Under former President George W. Bush, relations were extremely strained. U.S. officials accused Syria of doing little to stop the flow of foreign jihadists into Iraq through its porous border, though Syria said it was doing what it could.

Bush's little autobiography may have just been reduced to four pages, because he might want to leave this part out.

Obama to his administration: Do not to rely on Bush’s signing statements

By GottaLaff

Via Think Progress:

The New York Times’ Charlie Savage writes that President Obama has instructed his administration not to rely on any of Bush’s signing statements, calling into question their legitimacy:

In his directive, Mr. Obama said that any signing statement issued before his presidency should be viewed with doubt, placing an asterisk beside all of those issued by Mr. Bush and other former presidents.

“To ensure that all signing statements previously issue are followed only when consistent with these principles, executive branch departments and agencies are directed to seek the advice of the Attorney General before relying on signing statements issued prior to the date of this memorandum as the basis for disregarding, or otherwise refusing to comply with, and provision of a statute,” he wrote.

How could anyone question the legitimacy of BushCo?! Why, that's crazy! Never before has there been such a group of level-headed, rational, caring candidates for sainthood in the White House. What could Prez O have been thinking?

Presidential memo: Protect scientific decisions from political influence

By GottaLaff

Welcome to the new normal, meaning the real normal as opposed to the old normal which was the BushCo normal:

When President Obama lifts restrictions on funding for human embryonic stem cell research Monday, he will also issue a presidential memorandum aimed at insulating scientific decisions across the federal government from political influence, officials said today.

"The president believes that it's particularly important to sign this memorandum so that we can put science and technology back at the heart of pursuing a broad range of national goals," said Melody Barnes, director of Obama's Domestic Policy Council.

No more creating one's own reality? No more politicizing science? On the Makes-Sense-O-Meter scale of 1-10, that's like a... 400.

While officials would not go into details, the memorandum will order the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to "assure a number of effective standards and practices that will help our society feel that we have the highest-quality individuals carrying out scientific jobs and that information is shared with the public," said Harold Varmus, who co-chairs Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

What?! Did I hear them say "share information with the public"? Everyone duck! The Makes-Sense-O-Meter's about to explode!

The memorandum will ensure that "people who are appointed to federal positions in science have strong credentials and that the vetting process for evaluating scientific information doesn't lead to any undermining of the scientific opinion," he said.

Oh puh-leeze. Credentials schmedentials. Allowing cronies to dictate what happens to other people's bodies, which lab procedures to approve, or which religious beliefs to inject into research and development is perfectly sound... if you're an insecure, sadistic little splat of a tyrant named George.

Quote-O'-The-Day: Jonathan Turley edition

By GottaLaff

Are you listening, President Obama, Congress, and anyone else who might be inclined to look the other way?

"We need a special prosecutor, not another commission."

--Jonathan Turley just now on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, re: those pesky BushCo Office of Legal Counsel memos

BREAKING: Al Qaeda agent to be tried in civilian court

By GottaLaff

Liveblogging:

Per Rachel Maddow just now: Another anti-Bush move for President Obama. A suspected Al Qaeda sleeper agent is to be tried in a United States civilian court. Criminal charges have been filed.

Think about that: A fair trial. In an American court. For someone arrested in America. This is the first step to bring these people back into the rule of law, as Obama promised he would do early on.

Al-Marri was never allowed to contest or defend himself, until now, per Rachel. This means the U.S. won't hold detainees indefinitely without charges. Obama is doing things differently.

Al-Marri has been tortured, mistreated, and wasn't charged with committing a terrorist act, just thinking about it, per Jane Mayer. He's already spent a lot of time in prison, which would be considered, too.

We're becoming "us" again.

Al-Marri was arrested in 2001 as material witness to the 9/11 attacks.

And now he is being treated as a criminal instead of an enemy combatant. He is no longer in a legal black hole.

UPDATE: Here's a link to the print story.