20 Most Corrupt Members of Congress

* josh:

"Why do we think President Bush would send troops into Pakistan to get bin Laden without permission when he wouldn't keep troops in Afghanistan (a country then wholly under American occupation) when we had bin Laden cornered at Tora Bora? The Bush-Cheney campaign was able to bamboozle its way through that net in 2004. But all the information that's come up over the last two years has confirmed as tightly as it ever can be confirmed that US intelligence knew bin Laden was at Tora Bora trying to make his escape into Pakistan but that President Bush didn't commit the necessary US manpower to the search because he was shifting priorities and resources to Iraq.

Then, now, before 9/11, it's always been about Iraq. bin Laden was just a way to get in."

* crew:

"Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) released its second annual report on the most corrupt members of Congress entitled Beyond DeLay: The 20 Most Corrupt Members of Congress (and five to watch). This encyclopedic report on corruption in the 109th Congress documents the egregious, unethical and possibly illegal activities of the most tainted members of Congress. CREW has compiled the members’ transgressions and analyzed them in light of federal laws and congressional rules."

* drum:

"Apparently, 14% of voters approve of their own congressman's job but nonetheless don't think he or she deserves reelection. Now that's a crowd in a nasty mood."

* Raimondo:

"Which brings me to the utter disconnect between what Bush says and what his actions accomplish in the real world. He claims to champion the forces of "moderation," while launching a "global revolution" that rivals the dreams of Alexander, Napoleon, and Lenin all rolled into one. He claims to be fighting terrorism, even as his foreign policy – indeed, his every pronouncement on the subject – does more to recruit for the terrorist cause than all the propaganda put out by al-Qaeda since its founding. Without the invasion of Iraq, the occupation of Afghanistan, the blind support for Israel's rape of Lebanon, and the posturing, threats, and swaggering declarations of unremitting hostility aimed at Iran and Syria, al-Qaeda would be a small worldwide network of sociopathic ideologues, isolated from and largely hated by their Muslim brethren. Instead, bin Laden is a hero to millions of misguided people, due largely to George W. Bush's foreign policy of unrelenting aggression."

* jon stewart takes on novakula

* craig murray:

The final verdict of the INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION OF INQUIRY ON CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY COMMITTED BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION OF THE UNITED STATES has now been published and can be downloaded from here

An extract from the introduction is posted below:
The extraordinary Commission of Inquiry convened to consider charges that the President George W. Bush and his administration have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity has now reached a verdict: Guilty.

On wars of aggression, illegal detention and torture, suppression of science and catastrophic policies on global warming, potentially genocidal abstinence-only policies imposed on HIV/AIDS prevention programs in the Third World, and the abandonment of New Orleans before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina, President George W. Bush and his administration have been found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

This verdict comes at crucial moment. As Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, emphasized at the Commission hearings: “We want this trial to be a step in the building of mass resistance to war, to torture, to the destruction of earth and its people. It’s a serious moment. . . . We still have a chance, an opportunity to stop this slide into chaos. But it is up to us. We must not sit with our arms folded, and we must be as radical as the reality we are facing.”

Acts of the Bush Administration have continued to reinforce this assessment. The crimes cited in the indictments have continued. We have witnessed a continuing onslaught of horrors in Iraq from the massacres in Haditha and Mahmudiya to the exposure of rapes and murders by U.S. forces. Torture continues at secret overseas sites. New Orleans still lies in ruins, much of its Black population “resettled.” New evidence concerning the deadly impact of U.S. AIDS policy in Africa has come to light. New crimes have been committed such as the destruction of Lebanon with U.S. weapons and backing. And now even more serious crimes loom with open threats to launch a new war of aggression on Iran. This administration has flouted and defied the Geneva Conventions. It has arrogated to itself the right to suspend habeas corpus, engage in mass warrantless searches, and defines the powers of the “commander-in-chief” to be above the law. Bush’s Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, has sought to legitimize torture and exempt those who employ torture from prosecution.

(official site here)