Sunday, January 14, 2007

Olbermann: "a Presidency of Cliff Notes"

* DK:
"The Administration has already done virtually everything possible to deny detainees any hope of justice. Encouraging boycotts of the law firms representing detainees is an effort to close off any last chance that the detainees will be treated in accordance with Anglo-American legal standards.

Each of us will mark our own low point of the Bush presidency. This is on my short list."

* DK:
"The top FBI official for San Diego, on the firing of U.S. Attorney Carol Lam: "I guarantee politics is involved."

It's just stunning to have a FBI agent blast the Department of Justice and the White House like this.

Lam prosecuted the Duke Cunningham case and is in charge of other high-profile public corruption cases involving Republicans."

* josh:
"There's our first hint of what happening.

From the NYT: "A recent series of American raids against Iranians in Iraq was authorized under an order that President Bush decided to issue several months ago to undertake a broad military offensive against Iranian operatives in the country, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday.""

* larisa:
"This is getting worse by the day. Apparently Secretary Rice felt comfortable enough to mention the attacks on the Iranian consulate were authorized MONTHS AGO by the President. I wonder why she neglected to mention this while meeting with Congress? And what else does this order say? Well, I think we can all speculate, but that will not solve much as there is no way, yet, to confirm what the full order states."

* laura in Prospect:
"Some Congressional officials are concerned that the Pentagon might, for instance, send Special Operations troops into Iran, perhaps for intelligence collection purposes, without reporting it to Congress. The administration could conceivably justify this by defining such action as falling under the category of “preparing the battlefield for global war.” The involvement of the military rather than the CIA might be decisive. “I am worried that the administration could take a different view of what constitutes a covert action when it involves the U.S. military,” one Hill staff source commented."

* Olbermann: "a Presidency of Cliff Notes" - go watch.

1 comment:

«—U®Anu§—» said...

While it's theoretically true we can't stand two more years of this any better than we've stood the last six, the fumbling way Bushco is trying to provoke war with Syria and Iran, and anyone else who'll come to the party, and the way they're suddenly in a bigger hurry makes me think maybe it won't be as bad as it appears. I'm beginning to think Bush and Cheney lack the basic common sense to get the broader war going, or they'd have done it by now. It's like those mysterious domestic detention centers. The Bush administration, and republicans in general, think anyone who isn't punished by execution belongs behind bars and guard towers, and if they had any snap at all, we'd all be there and the country would be deserted. Bush believed he could become a dictator by force of will but, like everything else, it turned out to be harder than he thought. More war, and Congressional democrats don't plan to defund it? Republicans and democrats need to realize they must pull the plug on Bush's war ventures for many reasons, not the least of which is to fail to do it sets a disastrous precedent at home.