Memos: Destroying C.I.A. Tapes Wasn’t Opposed by Republican Senator Pat Roberts

By GottaLaff

Qeqzadjkwrksdazttt!!!

At a closed briefing in 2003, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee raised no objection to a C.I.A. plan to destroy videotapes of brutal interrogations, according to secret documents released Monday.

The senator, Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, also rejected a proposal to have his committee conduct its own assessment of the agency’s harsh interrogation methods, which included wall-slamming and waterboarding, the documents say.

But Mr. Roberts, through a spokesman, denied having approved the destruction of the videotapes, which is under criminal investigation, and defended his record in overseeing the interrogation program.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, a very special WTF moment:

“Senator Roberts listened carefully and gave his assent,” the C.I.A. memo says.

Of course he did. And after he listened carefully, too.

So what can be done?

A prosecutor, John H. Durham, is trying to determine whether it violated court orders to preserve evidence related to detention and interrogation or violated any laws.

Last August, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. directed Mr. Durham to expand his inquiry to consider whether the interrogations themselves broke any law.

Of course, this isn't surprising, but it's still jaw-dropping.

Yeah. We're all thinking the same thing here.

Much more at this link.

UPDATE: I should have added this in:

The same document says that Senator Bob Graham of Florida, the Democrat who had preceded Mr. Roberts as chairman, had proposed that the committee “undertake its own ‘assessment’ of the enhanced interrogation,” the C.I.A.’s term for coercive methods. Agency officials told Mr. Roberts that they would oppose allowing any Senate staff members to observe interrogations or visit the secret overseas prisons where they were taking place.

Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler) pointed out to me that "more importantly, Roberts shut down Bob Graham's efforts to actually exercise oversight torture. We knew he approved tape destruction."

Thank you Marcy.

More from Marcy, who scooped the Times, here.

Federal Judge: Arpaio shredded controversial documents

By GottaLaff

Just the latest in a series of articles that illustrate what a peach Sheriff Joe is:

The police chief in Maricopa County Arizona, Joe Arpaio, could be sanctioned by a federal judge after checking that the controversial sheriff's office shredded documents related to a lawsuit that accused him of racial discrimination.

District Judge of the United States, Murray Snow said there was enough evidence to punish Arpaio, known as "the toughest sheriff in U.S.

All previous posts on Arpaio here.

H/t: Tiggrr1

Haley Barbour: Health care reform like Jonestown

Sigh, I guess they've squeezed all the usage out of the other disastrous massacres or do they just rotate them?

Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss.), chairman of the Republican Governors Association, called the Democrats' health care reform proposal "catastrophic" Thursday and compared it to the poison ingested at the infamous Jonestown cult’s mass suicide in 1978.

(snip)

"This is such bad policy for the United States, and it's going to be so bad for our health care system," the Mississippi governor said. "It's going to make health insurance premiums go up. It's going to cut Medicare by about $500 billion. Huge state tax increases. It is catastrophic for small business. But if the Democrats wanna do something to help Republicans, I can't improve on this.

"I've been looking for Jim Jones and where's the Kool-Aid. This is awful, awful policy for our country—and the people know it. The public already understands this. And the longer the debate goes on, the more the public understands that they're going to end up paying more and that they're going to get lower quality health care. But politically, if the nation can survive it, it will be a political windfall for Republicans."

Fresh Questions About the CIA’s Interrogation Tapes

By GottaLaff

Via BuzzFlash linkage, take a look at this new Newsweek piece by Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball:

Despite Obama's assurances, a Justice Department special counsel is quietly ratcheting up his probe into a closely related subject: the CIA's destruction of hundreds of hours of videotape showing the waterboarding of two high-value Qaeda suspects. At the same time, a Senate panel is planning the first public hearing dealing with CIA interrogations, including testimony from a star witness: Ali Soufan, the former FBI agent who vigorously protested the questioning of one of the detainees, terror suspect Abu Zubaydah.

In recent weeks, prosecutor John Durham has summoned CIA operatives back from overseas to testify before a federal grand jury, according to three legal sources familiar with the case who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters. The sources said Durham is also seeking testimony from agency lawyers who gave advice relating to the November 2005 decision by Jose Rodriguez, then chief of the CIA's operations directorate, to destroy the tapes. [...] Durham, who declined to comment, might simply be tying up loose ends in a closely watched case. But one continuing point of inquiry could spell trouble for the agency: allegations that CIA officials may have made false statements or obstructed justice in the case of convicted Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui.

Durham was appointed by former attorney general Michael Mukasey shortly after the December 2007 revelation about Rodriguez's decision. [...]

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a top backer of a "truth commission" on torture, is taking matters into his own hands, starting with a May 13 hearing of a judiciary subcommittee he chairs. Along with Soufan, he also plans to call former State Department official Philip Zelikow, another internal critic. According to a Senate Democratic aide, who also asked for anonymity, Whitehouse wants to keep a public spotlight on the issue until the next bombshell: an internal Justice Department ethics report on the lawyers who wrote the interrogation memos, which could be released within the next month.

My original post on Zelikow here.

Don't. Stop.

Sen. Jim DeMint at CPAC: Pres. Obama is "the world’s best salesman of socialism... take to the streets"

By GottaLaff

They've lost all sense of reality. Check that. They've lost all sense, period:

DeMint, a fierce opponent of government expansion, told the CPAC crowd that conservatives might have to “take to the streets to stop America’s slide into socialism.”

His remarks comes a day after Mike Huckabee told the conference of conservative activists that “the Union of American Socialist Republics is being born” with the president’s stimulus package.

“Lenin and Stalin would love this stuff,” Huckabee said of the government bailing out financial institutions.

Republicans are obstructionists, yes. But even worse, they are also destructionists. They care nothing about their own country, and are irrationally giving this kind of dangerous spew way to much momentum. They have to be stopped.

RNC Chair Candidate Blackwell: GOP Must Defeat Job-Creating Stimulus Because It Will Ruin GOP’s Election Chances

By GottaLaff

Country first!

In an article published on Townhall today, RNC Chairman candidate and former Ohio governor Ken Blackwell urges congressional conservatives to oppose the reinvestment and recovery stimulus plan promoted by President-elect Obama. Though he offers standard conservative arguments against the plan — including a screed against the growth of “big government” — Blackwell seemed most concerned about the political benefit Democrats might see from successfully boosting the economy. [...]

While only a few details are known, one overlooked issue is that it could create a major electoral advantage for Democrats at taxpayer expense. That would be unacceptable for what is being touted as a nonpartisan measure, and gives Republicans yet another reason to oppose it if not restructured. […]

But most federal employees, that are not political appointees, vote Democrat. Since Washington, DC is the seat of government, whenever new federal bureaucrats are created many live in Maryland and Virginia. In 2008, Virginia went Democrat for the first time since 1964, and Mr. Obama won it by 130,000 votes. Creating 600,000 new jobs might help cement Virginia in the Democrat column, making it harder for Republicans to retake the White House.

It's good to know that Republicans care more about themselves than they do about repairing the nearly irreparable damage that their abysmal failure of a president has done to America.

The bottom line is that, in an economy that lost 1.2 million jobs last year, Blackwell’s biggest concern is to block the creation of new jobs because those newly-employed Americans might vote Democratic.

How Rovian of him... meaning about as self-servingly corrosive to what's left of this country as one would expect of someone aiming for RNC chair.

Guilt by hunch

By GottaLaff

How many times has this happened? It doesn't matter whether it's during campaign season, or if it's just easier to blame someone for a crime in order to appease a nervous nation, or even protect the actual guilty party.

Here's the headline on the New York Times website:

Portrait Emerges of Anthrax Suspect’s Troubled Life

The anthrax investigation yielded nothing more than a strong hunch that Dr. Bruce E. Ivins was the perpetrator, a Times examination found.

Guilt by hunch. Destruction of lives, reputations and credibility. Spread the rumors and misinformation, then retract when nobody is listening. That's what we've become.

Numbers don't lie: Devastator-in-Chief Bush 2008

By GottaLaff

Cold statistics make it a little tougher for BushCo to squirm their way out of the devastation they've inflicted on this country:

To mark the passing of Bush’s last full year in office, ThinkProgress rounded up statistics on some of the most significant effects of Bush rule in 2008:

– Number Of U.S. Troops Killed in Iraq: 322.
– Number Of U.S. Troops Killed in Afghanistan: 151.
– Number Of Jobs Lost: 1.9 million.
– Number Of Banks Federal Government Now Owns Stock In: 206.
– Number Of Uninsured Americans: 47.5 million.

– Change In Housing Prices: declined 18 percent.
– Change In Health Insurance Premiums: increased 5 percent.
– Change In Number Of Delinquent Mortgages: increased 75 percent.
– Change In Use Of Food Stamps: increased 17 percent.
– Change In Dow Jones Industrial Average: declined 35 percent.
– Change In Bush Approval Rating: declined 9 percent to 29 percent.

Of course, this is all Bill Clinton's fault. And in about 3 weeks, it will become all Barack Obama's fault. Bush had nothing to do with it. It was out of his control. All he could do was stand by and watch it unfold.

Poor guy. I hope it doesn't affect his twinkly, unblemished legacy.

"Hard Work" Bush is proud of his accomplishments

By GottaLaff

It's "hard work" screwing up an entire country planet. And the really ironic part is, the Chimpenfuhrer still believes that people trust him:

President Bush in his New Year’s message to the nation vowed to keep working hard in the less than three weeks that he remains in office.

Bush, who has held several interviews in recent weeks that looked back at his presidency, used his last New Year’s message to “thank the American people for trusting me with the honor of serving our great country.

“It has been a tremendous privilege, and together we have accomplished a great deal,” he stated.

Oh-h yeah, he's responsible for a "great deal", alright. Among those accomplishments:

• Patient neglect at Walter Reed Army Hospital
• US Attorney firings
• Outing a CIA agent
• Iraq war (occupation)
• Iran saber rattling
• The War on Terror (failure to capture Osama bin Laden, dubious allies)
• Military Commissions Act (torture, kangaroo courts, indefinite detention, and loss of habeas corpus)
• Hurricane Katrina and the drowning of New Orleans
• NSA warrantless wiretapping
• Black sites and rendition
• Cheney Energy Task Force (and hiding info about it)
• Tax cuts for the richest of the rich, Subprime mortgage bubble
• Global warming (denial and stalling)
• Budget deficits and a greatly increased national debt
• Stacking of the Supreme Court (Roberts and Alito)
• Healthcare general mess
• Preventive war doctrine
• Loss of US prestige
• Karl Rove
• No Child Left Behind (an uneducated President’s predictable approach to education)
• White House email on RNC servers (in contravention of White House Records Act)
• Inaction on Israeli-Palestinian peace process
• Signing statements
• Unilateral Executive
• Abuse of the National Guard, Breaking the Army
• Patriot Act and its Extension
• War on Science, Vetoing stem cell research
• False military reporting (Pat Tillman, Jessica Lynch)

Many, many more here. That's some big ol' legacy.

“Among other things, we have advanced the cause of human freedom; we have strengthened our military and our Nation's security; we have empowered parents to demand educational excellence for their children; and we have revolutionized the fight against poverty, corruption, and the scourge of disease around the world.”

Bush also stressed that he was not yet done working.

Good for him! Keep up that momentum! Nose to that environmentally-destroyed grindstone! Continue your great work! It's not as if you haven't already indelibly and malodorously stained everyone and everything with your stench-laden, toxic Bush-infested waste matter.

Be proud.

The ugly Bush stain: Comprehensive list edition

By GottaLaff

I've been posting about the malodorous BushCo's intentional, last-minute ambush, using an onslaught of New Rules as their most recent, desperate weapon against their own "homeland" (let's lose that word forever, please). The residual effects will leave a stubborn stain on this country, but hopefully, not an indelible one. However, some of the stench emanating from this bunch of thugs may be harder to eradicate than we think.

Here's a partial list, via Huffington Post:

• EPA would not regulate a contaminant in drinking water (Kool-Aid from our government to us)
• Mining permits near Grand Canyon and other national parks (blasts from the past)
• Gut the Endangered Species Act (the hell with biodiversity or consideration for creation's creatures. Shoot 'em.)
• Power plants could be exempted from installing pollution controls, allowing an added 70 million tons to be released into our air (what's a little cough among friends and who needs to see anyway?)
• EPA narrows the definition of solid waste (now there is a regulation to savor)
• Less reporting on animal pollution proposed
• Rules for dumping mine debris erased
• EPA lowers air quality standards for lead
• Fisheries rule calls for less public input (the czars had a way with public input, too.)
• Loaded guns possible in National Parks( not if the Park rangers have anything to say about it)
• Public lands may be leased for the development of oil shale (public, not to be confused with proprietary)
• Interior Department rules could limit public environmental comments (so much for the First Amendment)
• EPA lets factory farms decide if they need a permit to discharge animal waste into waterways (or large concentrations of dung dumped into our rivers and streams) [...]

It is hard to imagine the state of mind in our officials that produces this kind of malice. [...]

There are remedies. One, of course, is the will of the new administration to override this treachery and destructiveness. The other is the Congressional Review Act. Items published in the Federal Register before Nov 21st take effect 60 days from that date.
House and Senate leadership has already stipulated that they will use the Review Act in a similar way that a Bush administration action used it to undo a Clinton regulation in 2001. Reversal probably cannot take place without scrupulous effort, but we should all encourage the new administration and Congress to do everything they can to defeat these ruinous regulations. [...]

To write midnight regulations that sabotage human health is to see Charles Dickens scribing away by candlelight, as one of his most rapacious and vile villains rises from the candle flame and defiles humanity and its landscape.

Sanitizing sewage of this magnitude won't be easy. Thank you, BushCo, for relieving yourselves publicly all over a country that has tried to maintain some sense of cleanliness, beauty, and pride, despite your relentless maneuvers. You've done your level best to vulgarize it.

We will now unite to collectively scrub America clean until it sparkles again.

H/t: Chris