The Nightmare World of Those The Bushes Detain But Don't Charge in Guantamo Bay (Gitmo)

The Washington Post details the terrible struggle being endured by six Algerians who were picked up and popped into Gitmo sometime back by the Bushies and, while charged were dropped or never placed on them, these men cannot get released.

This story is horrible enough. But Gitmo is filled with men like this... people (not all of them adults even) who disappear from their homes or businesses, get through into Guantanamo Bay, and receive nothing but hell (no charges, no release, often no way to talk face to face with lawyers to champion their cases).

This is NOT the American way. And the Supreme Court - one terribly usurped by the Bushies' two miserable assignments of Robers and Alito - says this is not constitutional either. Yet it continues.

Say Hello to...

Is That Legal?

Bush At His "Press" Conference: More "Stay The Course" Nonsense

On the surface, the president and I agree that it would be wrong to abandon the Iraqi citizens. But that's about as much as we agree upon based on his press conference today. If you "missed" it, video is here and text of it here.

Mr. Bush would never, ever acknowledge the grave harm he has perpetrated on the Iraqi people and Iraq as a whole. But what he proposes to do in his "stay the course" rhetoric will only heap more harm on these people. Bush's White House is perhaps the ONLY group anywhere who fails to acknowledge that a civil war isn't just pending in Iraq, it's already waging full force.

So many of Bush-Cheney financial backers have become wealthy beyond all wildest dreams on the "rebuilding" of Iraq - an infrastructure that worked fine until WE leveled it - when they've gotten their money but not delivered their work. I think we have to go after the contractors to give back that money and let Iraq decide how the money should be spent.

Before we arrived, Iraq was the third largest producer of oil. NOW? Now they have to import gas to have it available because of what the Bushies did.

Lebanon Enraged and Scared, U.N. Troubled By Israeli Commando Airstrikes

The leaders of Israel are proving that they - and the Bushies here in the U.S. - do NOT want the cease fire in Lebanon to hold up. The Friday-Saturday raid were bad enough, but the much larger strike(s) today has far more than just Lebanon crying foul. In fact, the U.S. (predictably) is about the only nation besides Israel itself who believes that Israel's actions are fine and dandy.

The BBC discusses this somewhat, complete with the rage being exhibited by the Lebanese and how Lebanon may stop the deployment of its army further to the south if Israel doesn't stop its actions.

Note, however, that this Reuters piece from today talks about what Israel wants and how the UN is worried, but gives zero mention of the fact that Israel has been breaking the truce every day in every way possible.

Advice for Great Britain's Tony Blair

To: Tony Blair, PM of Great Britain, aka Bush's bitch aka Bush's poodle
From: Your "friend" across the Atlantic

Dear Tony (I hesitate to think Mr. Bush's "pet" name for you is
since a name like "Tony" would be so tough both for him to remember as well as
pronounce properly):

I hear you're miffed and feel as if your great friend, George W. Bush, has
"betrayed" you on the issue of Lebanon.

Well, that's the strange thing: you
can't have any contact whatsoever with the village idiot
...um... leader of the free world, Dubya, without feeling betrayed,
marginalized, overbilled, underappreciated, purposely deceived, ridiculed,
ostracized, butt-fucked, and threatened. That seems to be part of the
Bush-Cheney charm

Please, if there is anything else the president can fail to do for
you after you've been his ever-so-compliant bitch, let us know!

Frank Rich: "Fear Finally Strikes Out"

From Rich's column today, courtesy of Rozius (go there to read the entire piece):

The results are in for the White House's latest effort to exploit terrorism for political gain: the era of Americans' fearing fear itself is over.

In each poll released since the foiling of the trans-Atlantic terror plot - Gallup, Newsweek, CBS, Zogby, Pew - George W. Bush's approval rating remains stuck in the 30s, just as it has been with little letup in the year since Katrina stripped the last remaining fig leaf of credibility from his presidency. While the new Middle East promised by Condi Rice remains a delusion, the death rattle of the domestic political order we've lived with since 9/11 can be found everywhere: in Americans' unhysterical reaction to the terror plot, in politicians' and pundits' hysterical overreaction to Joe Lieberman's defeat in Connecticut, even in the ho-hum box-office reaction to Oliver Stone's World Trade Center.

It's not as if the White House didn't pull out all the stops to milk the terror plot to further its politics of fear. One self-congratulatory presidential photo op was held at the National Counterterrorism Center, a dead ringer for the set in '24.' But Mr. Bush's Jack Bauer is no more persuasive than his Tom Cruise of 'Top Gun.' By crying wolf about terrorism way too often, usually when a distraction is needed from bad news in Iraq, he and his administration have long since become comedy fodder, and not just on The Daily Show. June's scenario was particularly choice: as Baghdad imploded, Alberto Gonzales breathlessly unmasked a Miami terror cell plotting a 'full ground war' and the destruction of the Sears Tower, even though the alleged cell had no concrete plans, no contacts with terrorist networks and no equipment, including boots.

What makes the foiled London-Pakistan plot seem more of a serious threat - though not so serious it disrupted Tony Blair's vacation - is that the British vouched for it, not Attorney General Gonzales and his Keystone Kops. This didn't stop Michael Chertoff from grabbing credit in his promotional sprint through last Sunday's talk shows. 'It was as if we had an opportunity to stop 9/11 before it actually was carried out,' he said, insinuating himself into that royal we. But no matter how persistent his invocation of 9/11, our secretary of homeland security is too discredited to impress a public that has been plenty disillusioned since Karl Rove first exhibited the flag-draped remains of a World Trade Center victim in a 2004 campaign commercial. We look at Mr. Chertoff and still see the man who couldn't figure out what was happening in New Orleans when the catastrophe was being broadcast in real time on television.

No matter what the threat at hand, he can't get his story straight. When he said last weekend that the foiling of the London plot revealed a Qaeda in disarray because 'it's been five years since they've been capable of putting together something of this sort,' he didn't seem to realize that he was flatly contradicting the Ashcroft-Gonzales claims for the gravity of all the Qaeda plots they've boasted of stopping in those five years. As recently as last October, Mr. Bush himself announced a list of 10 grisly foiled plots, including one he later described as a Qaeda plan 'already set in motion' to fly a hijacked plane 'into the tallest building on the West Coast.'

Dick Cheney's credibility is also nil: he will always be the man who told us that Iraqis would greet our troops as liberators and that the insurgency was in its last throes in May 2005. His latest and predictable effort to exploit terrorism for election-year fear-mongering - arguing that Ned Lamont's dissent on Iraq gave comfort to 'Al Qaeda types' - has no traction because the public has long since untangled the administration's bogus linkage between the Iraq war and Al Qaeda. That's why, of all the poll findings last week, the most revealing was one in the CBS survey: While the percentage of Americans who chose terrorism as our 'most important problem' increased in the immediate aftermath of the London plot, terrorism still came in second, at only 17 percent, to Iraq, at 28 percent.

The administration's constant refrain that Iraq is the 'central front' in the war on terror is not only false but has now also backfired politically: only 9 percent in the CBS poll felt that our involvement in Iraq was helping decrease terrorism. As its fifth anniversary arrives, 9/11 itself has been dwarfed by the mayhem in Iraq, where more civilians are now killed per month than died in the attack on America. The box-office returns of 'World Trade Center' are a cultural sign of just how much America has moved on. For all the debate about whether it was 'too soon' for such a Hollywood movie, it did better in the Northeast, where such concerns were most prevalent, than in the rest of the country, where, like 'United 93,' it may have arrived too late. Despite wild acclaim from conservatives and an accompanying e-mail campaign, 'World Trade Center' couldn't outdraw 'Step Up,' a teen romance starring a former Abercrombie & Fitch model and playing on 500 fewer screens.

Mr. Lamont's victory in the Connecticut Democratic senatorial primary has been as overhyped as Mr. Stone's movie. As a bellwether of national politics, one August primary in one very blue state is nearly meaningless. Mr. Lieberman's star began to wane in Connecticut well before Iraq became a defining issue. His approval rating at home, as measured by the Quinnipiac poll, had fallen from 80 percent in 2000 to 51 percent in July 2003, and that was before his kamikaze presidential bid turned 'Joementum' into a national joke.

The hyperbole that has greeted the Lamont victory in some quarters is far more revealing than the victory itself. In 2006, the tired Rove strategy of equating any Democratic politician's opposition to the Iraq war with cut-and-run defeatism in the war on terror looks desperate. The Republicans are protesting too much, methinks. A former Greenwich selectman like Mr. Lamont isn't easily slimed as a reincarnation of Abbie Hoffman or an ally of Osama bin Laden. What Republicans really see in Mr. Lieberman's loss is not a defeat in the war on terror but the specter of their own defeat.

Mr. Lamont is but a passing embodiment of a fixed truth: most Americans think the war in Iraq was a mistake and want some plan for a measured withdrawal. That truth would prevail even had Mr. Lamont lost.

While the U.S. Bans Vehicular Traffic in Baghdad to Cut Down on Car Bombs...

snipers then take to rooftops and begin shooting at everything that moves on foot because, of course, all those cars were banned. Great job, Bushies!

Here's more on the stupid car ban. Try banning all vehicular traffic in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, or Dallas and see how well it plays. But, of course, Americans are important while Iraqis are just... well.. brown people. ::muttering expletives::

Afghanistan Violence Keeps Increasing

Some 70 Afghan militants and at least four U.S. soldiers are dead in the latest rash of violence there while those opium poppy fields are just growing larger and more lush with each passing day.

The Myth of Joe Lieberman's Big Lead

Here's one to notice. The minute it looked bad for Joe Lieberman after his defeat in the Connecticut Democratic primary and the total warm-fuzzy embrace of the Republicans for Joe (complete with lots of phone calls from Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman and Bill Frist, et al), and then the distraction of that silly little "terror" plot hatching in Britain, suddenly, all we now here is that Lieberman definitely DOES have Joementum. I mean, even President Bush is saying he'll support Lieberwhiner over the GOP candidate in Connecticut.

But Bush is about as popular as a pair of asphalt bikini undies on a person with a bad case of hemorrhoids. The GOP may be embracing Joe, but I doubt anyone else is. And Joe's just making the case for himself even more dismal everytime he post nasal whines er.. speaks.

"What's Bush Smoking These Days?" OR "Whatever He's Smoking, I Don't Want Any of It!"

Also from Blah3 regarding our befuddled president BushieTwoShoes:

It's getting hard to tell if he's completely delusional or if he just isn't really trying anymore. From today's radio address:

Freedom has brought hope to millions, and it's helped foster the development of young democracies from Baghdad to Beirut.

Yet these young democracies are still fragile, and the forces of terror are seeking to stop liberty's advance and steer newly free nations to the path of radicalism. The terrorists fear the rise of democracy because they know what it means for the future of their hateful ideology.

It is no coincidence that two nations that are building free societies in the heart of the Middle East, Lebanon and Iraq, are also the scenes of the most violent terrorist activity. We will defeat the terrorists by strengthening young democracies across the broader Middle East.

I suppose Hezbollah is the "force of terror" Bush refers to in Lebanon. And yet, Hezbollah never attacked Lebanon, and the last time I looked, they have people who have been elected to the Parliament.
Of course you could claim they've terrorized Israel, but there goes your "fragile young democracy" part of the equation.

And of course we all know the problem in Iraq isn't terrorists--it's civil war. Although people are indeed terrorized by death squads--which in many cases are linked to the Interior Ministry, part of that "fragile young democracy" itself.

No, if Bush really wanted to talk about terrorist activity, he might mention the plan to attack planes flying between Britain and the US. Of course, no young democracies are involved there, and the suspects are British citizens with ties to our ally, Pakistan. Kinda mucks up your fantasy world, donnit George?

China's Energy Bourse

Remember the much-speculated-about Iranian (Oil) Bourse?

Well, Monkeyfister at Blah3 tells us China has opened its own Energy Bourse. This could hurt us because it may hurt Bush and his energy pals.

Inarticulate vs. Unintelligent

Re: my previous post on the Washington Post piece about Scarborough and other pundits asking, "Is Bush dumb?":

I happened to catch some of Scarborough Country that night (four minutes of my life I will never, ever, ever get back) and the point Joe of the "dead woman in my office" infamy was trying to force on us was that the president is not unintelligent but is merely inarticulate. Horse hockey!

Inarticulate is used chiefly to describe someone who understands material he or she is discussing but cannot communicate these ideas or information effectively. For example, I can be quite inarticulate on the phone; it is not a comfortable medium for me so I often become tongue-tied and try to oversimplify matters just to expedite my ability to get off the GD phone.

Bush, however, does not seem to have a grasp of 99.999999999% of what he discusses, even when it's dumb stuff (remember his "fool me once, shame on me..."?). This makes him unintelligent rather than inarticulate. What is worse is that he's clearly wired for sound, meaning he usually wears a device so that someone feeds him information; even with that help aid, Bush still can't get the message across effectively.

WaPo: "Pundits Renounce Bush"

Boo-frickin'-hoo! From today's Washington Post:

For 10 minutes, the talk show host grilled his guests about whether "George Bush's mental weakness is damaging America's credibility at home and abroad." For 10 minutes, the caption across the bottom of the television screen read, "IS BUSH AN 'IDIOT'?"

But the host was no liberal media elitist. It was Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman turned MSNBC political pundit. And his answer to the captioned question was hardly "no." While other presidents have been called stupid, Scarborough said: "I think George Bush is in a league by himself. I don't think he has the intellectual depth as these other people."

These have been tough days politically for President Bush, what with his popularity numbers mired in the 30s and Republican candidates distancing themselves as elections near. He can no longer even rely as much on once-friendly voices in the conservative media to stand by his side, as some columnists and television commentators lose faith in his leadership and lose heart in the war in Iraq.

While most conservative media figures have not abandoned Bush, influential opinion-makers increasingly have raised questions, expressed doubts or attacked the president outright, particularly on foreign policy, on which he has long enjoyed their strongest support. In some cases, they have complained that Bush has drifted away from their shared principles; in other cases, they think it is the implementation that has fallen short. In most instances, Iraq figures prominently.

"Conservatives for a long time were in protective mode, wanting to emphasize the progress in Iraq to contrast what they felt was an unfair attack on the war by the Democrats and media and other sources," Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, said in an interview. "But there's more of a sense now that things are on a downward trajectory, and more of a willingness to acknowledge it and pressure the administration to react to it."

Bush is an idiot. A dangerous one. Scarborough is also an idiot, but probably less dangerous.

Deadly Chutzpah? You Bet

Once again, Israel has broken the terms of the U.N. Security Council's hard-won ceasefire in the battle between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon by continuing strikes against the sovereign nation of Lebanon. They did it Friday and Saturday, and today, they launched a much bigger offensive. Israel is also trying to run the show as they issue orders to the U.N. international peacekeeping force now being assembled as if Israel rules the world and owns the United Nations.

Of course, Israel insists they have every right and justification to do so. But I read the resolution and it does NOT appear Israel has this right.

For those here in the U.S. who feel Israel is justified, consider this: let's say that Canada or Mexico decided that some militia group in Texas was a danger to them. So Canada or Mexico decides to launch airstrikes against Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin because they know some of the militia members live in these cities. Unfortunately, so do hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians who get killed and wounded and the infrastructure destroyed right along with the militia.

There would be quite a fuss, don't you think? After all, what right does some other country have to strike American cities and citizens without due process?

This is what Israel has done in Lebanon, only far worse. And they've done it with the firm approval of the Bushies, which makes it all the more egregious.

The "October Surprise"?

Note that there is a new (additional) poll up near the top right of the sidebar. Vote for what you think - if any - the GOP/Bushies plan for the "October surprise" to tip the election toward the Republicans when so many pundits, operatives, analysts, and Joe citizenry proclaims that the Dems will wipe the floor with the GOP in November's mid-term election.

I remain fairly skeptical that the Dems will pull off a win in November, not the least of which is based on a GOP-owned and operated system of highly questionable electronic voting system which have been proven to be easy to "fix", no matter how many times we see one publication or another show us how simple it is to change vote tabulations on voting machine software and firmware.

I actually believe that 85-90% of voters could cast a Dem-majority ticket in November and STILL have the Republicans win. What's worse is that voters will once again just shrug it off as they did in Ohio in 2004, in the 2002 mid-terms, and back in Florida in 2000. Those "backward" Mexicans, however, are NOT taking questions of vote integrity in last month's presidential election lying down, however. We should perhaps take a page from their book.

How Can The U.S. Military Deny Raping Inmates and Civilians in War When They're Raping Their Own Recruits?

Posted by RJ Eskow at Crooks and Liars:

From the AP:

More than 100 young women who expressed interest in joining the military in the past year were preyed upon sexually by their recruiters. Women were raped on recruiting office couches, assaulted in government cars and groped en route to entrance exams.

The military’s desperately overstretched as a result of this reckless war. With typical Republican logic, they’ve resorted to using unscrupulous bottom-feeders as recruiters and letting them run wild. Military recruiters have always tended to be sleazy, but it’s gotten much worse. They lie, cheat, and manipulate young people - especially disadvantaged young people - to make up for the planning mistakes of their superiors.

Now we’re learning that they rape and abuse recruits, too. It’s not just Abu Ghraib and Gitmo anymore. Like the old country song says, "War Is Hell On The Home Front Too."

Backdoor Draft?

Posted at Hoffmania!

Tony Snowjob will be denying it out his ass to the off-premises press on Monday, but it's true.

Although troops are allowed to leave active duty after a few years of service, they generally still have time left on their contract with the military that is known as "inactive ready reserve" status, or IRR. During that time, they have to let their service know their current address, but they don't train, draw a paycheck or associate in any other way with the military.

But with active duty units already completing multiple tours in Iraq, the Pentagon has employed the rarely used tactic of calling people back from IRR status, a policy sometimes referred to as a "backdoor draft."

According to the U.S. Army Reserve, approximately 14,000 soldiers on IRR status have been called to active duty since March 2003 and about 7,300 have been deployed to Iraq. The Marine Corps has mobilized 4,717 Marines who were classified as inactive ready reserve since Sept. 11, and 1,094 have been deployed to Iraq, according to the Marine Forces Reserve.

This Issue of Pharmacists Refusing to Fill Certain Prescriptions Should Not Be An Issue

Steve at The Carpetbagger Report is right: this should NEVER have been allowed to become an issue. If pharmacists want to refuse, then they're welcome to go into another line of work.

If there's a logical defense for this, I can't think of it.

The New York Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint on Tuesday against three pharmacists in upstate New York claiming that the pharmacists "refused to fill prescriptions for refill doses of emergency contraception," the Associated Press reports. What is particularly striking about this case — as opposed to the run-of-the-mill pharmacists who refuse to fill E.C. — is that the women needed refills.

The pharmacists apparently had no religious or moral objections to E.C. the first time around; it was that second time that proved the women's behavior was "irresponsible" as Andrea Barcomb, a CVS supervisor, put it to the AP. (Actually, it seems to us that taking preventive measures as soon as possible to avoid unwanted pregnancy is the very definition of responsibility.) As Elisabeth Benjamin, director of NYCLU's Reproductive Rights program, told the AP, "these refusals seem to just be based solely on moralistic assumptions of women's sexuality."

I will never, ever understand how this issue became a legitimate controversy. Pharmacists, by virtue of their professional responsibilities, agree to fill prescriptions. Doctors prescribe a remedy, a patient seeks that remedy, a pharmacist provides the remedy. It's a pretty simple system.

If a pharmacist realizes that he or she may be called on to perform tasks with which they're uncomfortable, this person has a choice: do the job or find a different job in which these moral quandaries won't be an issue. In other words, if you don't like filling prescriptions, don't become a pharmacist.

This New York example is particularly egregious because the pharmacists were willing to provide emergency contraception once — everyone, apparently, is entitled to a single mistake — but they took it upon themselves to say twice is too many. Women can prevent one pregnancy, but after that, they're out of luck. These pharmacists created their own one-strike-and-you're-out policy, and they expect it to be a legitimate policy stance.

You Must See This; You Really Must

DailyRead at Trailing Edge Blog provides us with x-ray evidence of the problem(s) with the Bush-Cheney imperial rule.

More on Israel and Lebanon

Let me point out some other important information Juan Cole shares with us:

A majority of Americans wanted the US to be neutral in the Israeli-Lebanon War. Only a third wanted to support Israel to the hilt. But the US Congress and executive acted as part of that third and ignored the majority.

A majority of Israelis in one poll wanted Defense Minister Amir Peretz to resign as a result of the inconclusive war on Lebanon. Some 41 percent wanted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert gone. I saw on cable television that Olmert's approval rating is only 40 percent now, and Peretz stands at 28 percent. The danger is that hardliner Bibi Netanyahu of the Likud Party (who recently openly celebrated the anniversary of the terrorist attack by Zionists in the 40s on civilians in the King David Hotel) has risen in popularity as a result of the debacle. The war could leave us with a strengthened Likud and a politically strengthened Hizbullah-Syria-Iran bloc, a recipe for further disaster.Anyway, that's how you tell who won. ...

Hizbullah has taken the lead in providing aid relief to victims of the Israeli war on Lebanon. This is an important step in the rivalry between Hizbullah and the central government for the allegiance of the average person.

Russia is also helping.

The BBC provides pictures of Lebanese returning to the rubble of their homes in the south, as a result of massive Israeli bombing of the civilian infrastructure. The stench of dead family members, women and children often greets the returnees as they sift through the ruins of their homes.

Returning families and children face severe danger from unexploded ordnance, including cluster bombs. It is estimated that 10 percent of the tens of thousands of bombs dropped on Lebanon by Israel did not explode immediately.