We'll get a few 'bad apples' ...

And the authors of the torture regime will go free:

...

Attorney General Eric Holder today confirmed what has been suspected for many weeks: he has ordered what he calls "a preliminary review into whether federal laws were violated in connection with the interrogation of specific detainees at overseas locations." Holder's decision does not amount to the appointment of a Special Prosecutor, since a preliminary review is used, as he emphasized, "to gather information to determine whether there is sufficient predication to warrant a full investigation of a matter." More important, the scope of the "review" is limited at the outset to those who failed to "act in good faith and within the scope of legal guidance" -- meaning only those interrogators and other officials who exceeded the torture limits which John Yoo and Jay Bybee approved. Those who, with good faith, tortured within the limits of the OLC memos will "be protected from legal jeopardy" (the full Holder statement is here). [em and link in orig]

...

I'm thoroughly disgusted. This just accepts as legal the precepts laid down by Yoo and those in Cheney's office who seemed to regard torture the way I regard lesbian porn. It's Yoo, Addington, and the rest who should be the first up against the wall. Instead we'll have the equivalent of sergeants and privates taking the fall again while that little twat goes on fucking up the next generation at Bazerkley.

What the fuck? Who's in charge around here?

Good blogging day, just not here...

I spent my blogging time today following up on yesterday's post over at Fixer & Gordon. Fun gearhead stuff. Go see.

See yas tomorrow.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

LOS ANGELES: THOUSANDS SHOW UP TO RECEIVE FREE HEALTH CARE
And complain about socialism.

Bernanke Sees Light at End of Tunnel
But not sure which end

Obama Makes First Appointments to Death Panels
Names Lex Luthor, Cruella De Vil, Darth Vader, Ming the Merciless, Dr. No.

Baby Boomers Still Getting High
But now it's under a doctor's supervision.

Demonstrators Show Up at Obama Health Care Events
Protesting takeover of government by unarmed voters in last election.

Ironic Times is extra good today. Too many to quote. Go see.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging On Sunday

Nice slide show that I think Fixer will like.

Emmylou Harris and The Band ~ Evangeline

Thanks to Jumadurski, Brazil.

Me and Mrs. G are jet-settin' all over the place this weekend. Yesterday we rode up to Loyalton to visit our friends Pat and Rob (sounds like a mugging technique. Heh). Interestingly, Pat is from East Islip NY and filled me in on Brentwood. Nothing I didn't know...

Today we're off to Portola Railroad Days to see our friends the Storz Performance Trials Demo Team (scroll down a little). Last year, they put on their show in the front yard of the local cop shop. This year it's raining a little so I hope it's inside, but then I'm a brat. Heh. Then Mexican food and home.

I'm taking my new video camera and hope to get some good YouTube material. Look for it as soon as my desktop gets outta the shop with a new power supply.

See yas.

Quote of the Day

Comrade Misfit:

...

Intimidating people as a political tool is not democracy. It is fascism. And more to the point of this post, if you feel the need to show up at a political or public [event] while ostentatiously carrying weapons, then you are both a whiny ass crybaby with a gun and you are a disgrace to the the concepts of freedom and democracy.

Dan of Steel ...

Steely Dan - Babylon Sister

Have a good evening!

Dear Mexico,

Would you like Texas back? We'll even pay to move the fence.

Regards,

Fixer

Go back, Jack ...

Do it again. D-cap to President Obama:

...

In reality, despite the incredible heat you will take - your best alternative is to call for a mulligan. Throw in the towel and start again sometime down the road, with a better, simpler, more organized and consistent plan. Anyone with half a brain knows that anything passed after this debacle will simply be a piece of legislation to allow you to save face. It will be watered down, ineffective, half-assed and probably end up doing more harm than good. You have always stuck me as a man who can admit mistakes and move on. Now is your chance to admit this was a very big one and begin again. You called the Gates-Crowley mess a learning experience, now lets learn something from the Death Panel/Keep Your Hands off Medicare disaster. [my em]

...

The next time, do it without the fucking Republicans.

Quote of the Day

The real war is not between the left and the right. It is between the average American and the ruling class. If we come together on this single issue, everything else will resolve itself. It's time we took back our government from those who would make us their slaves.

Go see who said this. Also see Henry Kissinger's description of us.

Goin' ridin'. See yas later.

Hello, McFly ...

It was the best $3 billion ever spent in the last decade and we're gonna discontinue it. What a country! We should throw another $2 billion at the program instead of cutting it off.

...

The “Cash for Clunkers” program has also met a similar fate, with the government announcing the plan would end on Monday after dealers reported that the plan had exceeded their wildest expectations ...

And a word to the whiny, bitchy car dealers:

... Dealers had also been grousing that they hadn’t been paid by the government for the $4,500 outlays they’d made on about 80 percent of the cars. (A company pissed off because IT has to wait for a rebate… The irony is so thick, it’s delicious.) ...

Dickheads, the U.S. government pays every ninety days. As the son of a man who made his money as a defense contractor during the Vietnam war, I learned this when I was 3. Shut up, your money will get there. Got a problem with cash flow? Get a short term loan on your sales for the past 6 weeks. Good God, I gotta explain everything?

Friday Night Neo-Classical Music Blogging ...

Haven't posted one from the Bond Girls in a long time. Enjoy.

Bond - Allegretto

Convictions ...

How come former Bush administration members only develop a conscience long after it would be meaningful? If you're gonna get in touch with your convictions, you can't wait until it's politically comfortable.

...

So we have Powell, Ashcroft and Ridge all understanding the lawlessness of the Bush-Cheney Administration but choosing to wait until after the 2004 election to announce their resignations, when they were simply replaced with more "trusted" Bush insiders. Had these three individuals resigned before the election and disclosed their differences with the criminal policy that was being carried out, it's hard to imagine how Bush could have been re-elected.

...

Hope you can sleep well at night, fellas. I wonder if you all realize how much blood is on your hands. If you do, a loaded revolver would settle things. Ask the Japanese how that works.

Update:

The Rude One says it plainly:

...

So it wasn't important enough for Tom Ridge to tell Americans that the White House was going to scare them into doubling down on George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. No, that didn't matter, like it didn't matter to Colin Powell or any of dozens of craven cunts who polluted the nation. It didn't matter to Tom Ridge that he could have ended the presidency of someone who actually wanted to lie to us that we were on the verge of attack in order to maintain power. That's actual evil, motherfuckers. Ridge didn't resign until February 2005, distant enough from the election so that the Bush administration could fully consolidate its power (until God, tired of waiting for an honorable person to turn on the White House, decided to fuck that up in August of that year*).

...

*That would be Hurricane Katrina, for those with short memories.

Update Zwei:

Walt:

...

But, as Burke opined, "The only thing needed for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing," and such was the case. Robert* [Richard] Clarke notified the President and others in the national security apparatus that Osama bina Badboy was planning on striking us, but it was blown off in exchange for fantasies about how bad Saddam Hussein was.

With predictable results.

...

*Unbeknownst to Walt, Robert Clarke is a character in my novels (the President of the United States); also a former player for the Philadelphia Flyers enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Richard Clarke was the guy "running around with his hair on fire" in August of 2001.

Past The Point Of Rescue

This goes out to President Obama and the rapidly slipping away wraith of Health Care Reform.

Mary Black & Hal Ketchum ~ Past The Point Of Rescue

Thanks to Sportymike, Eire.

Obama’s Trust Problem

Paul Krugman hits the nail right on the head. A 'must read'.

According to news reports, the Obama administration — which seemed, over the weekend, to be backing away from the “public option” for health insurance — is shocked and surprised at the furious reaction from progressives.

Well, I’m shocked and surprised at their shock and surprise.

A backlash in the progressive base — which pushed President Obama over the top in the Democratic primary and played a major role in his general election victory — has been building for months. The fight over the public option involves real policy substance, but it’s also a proxy for broader questions about the president’s priorities and overall approach.

And let’s be clear: the supposed alternative, nonprofit co-ops, is a sham. [...]

Meanwhile, on such fraught questions as torture and indefinite detention, the president has dismayed progressives with his reluctance to challenge or change Bush administration policy.

And then there’s the matter of the banks.

So there’s a growing sense among progressives that they have, as my colleague Frank Rich suggests, been punked. And that’s why the mixed signals on the public option created such an uproar.

But there’s a point at which realism shades over into weakness, and progressives increasingly feel that the administration is on the wrong side of that line. [...]

It’s hard to avoid the sense that Mr. Obama has wasted months trying to appease people who can’t be appeased, and who take every concession as a sign that he can be rolled.

Indeed, no sooner were there reports that the administration might accept co-ops as an alternative to the public option than G.O.P. leaders announced that co-ops, too, were unacceptable.

So progressives are now in revolt. Mr. Obama took their trust for granted, and in the process lost it. And now he needs to win it back.

Can he do it? I think so, but he'd better get hot on it. We will see.

Right-wingers are the same everywhere

Fact-free and fucked up. From The Rude One:

That's President Barack Obama there, made to look like Yasser Arafat, thus demonstrating that Photoshop is available to any right wing tool anywhere, in this case Israel, don't you know, from a Monday protest. Man, between Hitler and Arafat, that Obama must be licking his chops to get the gold in Rahm Emanuel's teeth.

The teensy-weensiest hint that there might some day be a little bit of criticism of right-wing Israeli human rights abuses is enough to set these crackpots off. They're just like our wingtards. Some things are universal. What a comforting thought. Oy.

Steele commits gaffe, offers good advice

Think Progress

Yesterday, RNC Chairman Michael Steele attended a roundtable discussion on health care in Little Rock, AR. Mustering as much bravado as he could, Steele dared President Obama and Democrats to pass health care reform through budget reconciliation. “Get it to the floor — up or down, baby,” Steele said as he pounded the desk. “Put it on the table.”

Steele then denied that Republicans have been an obstacle to passing health reform:

Don’t come up in my face talking about, I’m an obstacle, and we’re blocking this process. You got the votes, Mr. President. Pass the bill!

I wonder if he'll claim the credit for the Repugs if a good bill passes and is successful?

Quote of the Day

Maru (in toto):

Criminal scumbag Tom DeLay wants to see Prez Obama's birth certificate.

Furious blogger wants to see Tom DeLay in prison. 'Dancing' with a huge-ass lib inmate.

Late for work ...

The Fringe ...

Remember when everything we (bloggers, people with their eyes open) said was supposed to be crazy talk? Going into Iraq? The fact Bush/Cheney manipulated the 'terror alerts' for their own political benefit? You know, all the things about which we were proven correct? Yeah, well, we're still crazy people.

...

But that is how our political culture works. Throughout the Bush years, those who said demonstrably true things were continuously dismissed as fringe, conspiracy-driven leftist-losers: those who questioned whether Saddam really had WMDs; those who argued that the invasion of Iraq would lead to long-term military bases in that country; those who worried that warrantless eavesdropping and Patriot Act powers would lead to abuses; those who opposed the war in Afghanistan on the ground that it would be drag on for years with no resolution, etc. etc.

Having been proven right about all of those things hasn't changed perceptions any at all. As Ambinder's comments today reflect, the paramount unchangeable Beltway Truth is that those who distrust government claims are unSerious Fringe Leftist Losers. Even when they turn out to be right, they're still that. And no matter how many times journalists like Ambinder are proven wrong in "giv[ing] the government the benefit of some doubt, even having learned lessons about giving the government that benefit," they still continue to do it and believe it is the right and responsible thing to do.

...

You know, in a proper world, those of us who saw reality through the tons of manure shoveled on us during the Bush years would be lauded as prophets or sages at the very least, and our collective opinion would be sought out when considering matters of import to the nation. In this world, they're still ready to fit us for straitjackets. I'm wondering what we have to do to change that; stand on our heads and make sparks shoot out our collective ass, perhaps?

You know ...

If you believe what conservatives teabaggers insurance shills those people say about 'socialized medicine', people must be dropping like flies in England, and Canada, and Germany, and France, and Holland, and ... what? They're not?

What If Liberals Packed Heat At A Tea Party?

Why, we'd be arrested or have to use them in self-defense, of course. Shit, the Repugs had people arrested for wearing anti-Bush T-shirts for fuck's sake.

Air America with video.

But why would citizens exercise this somewhat outmoded Constitutional right to carry loaded guns (or unloaded guns) at a political event these days? We say it's plain old bully behavior using dogma as a stick.

That's it in a nutshell. Repugs are fucking bullies. Period.

You know that assclown who started this 'strapped' shit in New Hampshire? The guy was a fuckin' idiot. First, he had his firearm in a rig straight out of some special ops/tactical cop catalog that was so far down his leg he might have had to bend down to unholster it, and second, he was carrying his stupid-ass "tree of liberty" sign in his gun hand!

I could have had that pistol up his ass before he could have even touched it. Or broken his wrist and let him try. Probly would have been arrested for showing a phony 'patriot' what a fool he was being, too.

"Open carry" guns are visible and known. You can keep your eyes on those people and be ready for them. "Concealed carry" weapons are far more dangerous simply because their presence goes undetected until it's time to shoot someone.

This alarming trend toward carrying firearms to political events is just a stupid wingtard statement. I think the statement is "I brought my gun so Libruls wouldn't laugh at my funny little wingtard dick".

Note to the pencil-dick Repug fake pistoleros: It didn't work. My sides hurt...