In an 1816 letter, Thomas Jefferson declared his hope to “crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

This skepticism was enshrined in law in the early 20th century when the nation adopted strict rules banning corporations from contributing to political campaigns.

Today that ban is in danger from the Supreme Court, which hears arguments next month in a little-noticed case that could open the floodgates to corporate money in politics.

The court has gone to extraordinary lengths to hear the case. And there are worrying signs that there may well be five votes to rule that the ban on corporate contributions violates the First Amendment…

The court’s conservative majority has been aggressively championing the rights of corporations, but overturning the contributions ban would take it to a new level. Corporations have enormous treasuries, and there are a lot of things they want from government, many of which clash with the public interest.

If the ban is struck down, corporations may soon be writing large checks to the same elected officials whom they are asking to give them bailouts or to remove health-and-safety regulations from their factories or to insert customized loopholes into the tax code.

If the conservative justices strike down the ban, they would be doing many things they disavow. They would be substituting their own views for the will of the people, expressed through Congress. They would be reading rights into the Constitution that are not expressly there, since the Constitution never mentions corporations or their right to speak. And they would be overturning the court’s own precedents.

The only hope is that the court is listening to Americans.

HAHAHAHAHA.
“Listening to Americans”. The new York Times is precioius. Chief Justice Roberts lied when he said he had respect for precendent.

I predict the ban will be overturned. Our court, like so many of our public institutions, has become hopelessly and irretrievably corrupt. End of empire…

Spencer Ackerman yesterday attended a Senate hearing at which the DOD’s General Counsel, Jeh Johnson, testified. As Ackerman highlighted, Johnson actually said that even for those detainees to whom the Obama administration deigns to give a real trial in a real court, the President has the power to continue to imprison them indefinitely even if they are acquitted at their trial. About this assertion of “presidential post-acquittal detention power” — an Orwellian term (and a Kafka-esque concept) that should send shivers down the spine of anyone who cares at all about the most basic liberties — Ackerman wrote, with some understatement, that it “moved the Obama administration into new territory from a civil liberties perspective.” Law professor Jonathan Turley was more blunt: “The Obama Administration continues its retention and expansion of abusive Bush policies — now clearly Obama policies on indefinite detention.”

In June, Robert Gibbs was repeatedly asked by ABC News’ Jake Tapper whether accused Terrorists who were given a trial and were acquitted would be released as a result of the acquittal, but Gibbs — amazingly — refused to make that commitment. But this is the first time an Obama official has affirmatively stated that they have the “post-acquittal detention” power (and, to my knowledge, the Bush administration never claimed the power to detain someone even if they were acquitted)….

Whatever else is true, even talking about imprisoning people based on accusations of which they have been exonerated is a truly grotesque perversion of everything that our justice system and Constitution are supposed to guarantee. That’s one of those propositions that ought to be too self-evident to need stating.

J’accuse Barack Obama. Those civil liberties are inalienable rights: they are not yours to suspend or take away. You, sir, are no better than Mussolini or Stalin. And I will fight you and your policies from now on.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

As read by keith Olbermann

Note: the “two magnificent parts” are his chippy’s glass eye and her prosthetic leg.

In a series of high-level meetings in 2002, without a single dissent from cabinet members or lawmakers, the United States for the first time officially embraced the brutal methods of interrogation it had always condemned.

This extraordinary consensus was possible, an examination by The New York Times shows, largely because no one involved — not the top two C.I.A. officials who were pushing the program, not the senior aides to President George W. Bush, not the leaders of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees — investigated the gruesome origins of the techniques they were approving with little debate.

According to several former top officials involved in the discussions seven years ago, they did not know that the military training program, called SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, had been created decades earlier to give American pilots and soldiers a sample of the torture methods used by Communists in the Korean War, methods that had wrung false confessions from Americans.

Even George J. Tenet, the C.I.A. director who insisted that the agency had thoroughly researched its proposal and pressed it on other officials, did not examine the history of the most shocking method, the near-drowning technique known as waterboarding.

The top officials he briefed did not learn that waterboarding had been prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II and was a well-documented favorite of despotic governments since the Spanish Inquisition; one waterboard used under Pol Pot was even on display at the genocide museum in Cambodia.

They did not know that some veteran trainers from the SERE program itself had warned in internal memorandums that, morality aside, the methods were ineffective. Nor were most of the officials aware that the former military psychologist who played a central role in persuading C.I.A. officials to use the harsh methods had never conducted a real interrogation, or that the Justice Department lawyer most responsible for declaring the methods legal had idiosyncratic ideas that even the Bush Justice Department would later renounce.

The process was “a perfect storm of ignorance and enthusiasm,” a former C.I.A. official said.

C+ Augustus indeed.

Torquemada Jay Bybee
Oh my.
Jay Bybee’s fluff profile in Meridian magazine:

On the day the U.S. Senate confirmed Jay S. Bybee’s nomination to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the largest appellate court in the country, this new judge went home to celebrate in his usual unaffected way—by helping his kids with their homework and washing the dishes. This ability to balance priorities in his personal life is a reflection of the balance and perspective that Bybee brings to the law, which leads friends, colleagues and law school students to respect him for his fair-mindedness, scholarship, and decency.

Sworn in last March by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Bybee is a legal scholar who is rapidly becoming “one of the finest constitutional lawyers in America,” according to Judge Lloyd D. George of the U.S. District Court of Nevada. “No matter where you stand politically,” George said, “Jay is universally respected for his intellect, honesty, and ability to articulate the issues, plus he is not a compromiser of principles.”

During Bybee’s confirmation process, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada), Sen. John Ensign (R-Nevada), Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-New York) spoke publicly on his behalf. At the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas where Bybee was a founding member of the faculty, Dean Richard Morgan called him a “nice, humble, and decent human being, who was also a highly intelligent and accomplished lawyer and teacher.” Morgan added that “in a world of big egos and attitudes, Bybee was a breath of fresh air.”

Unless of course you were in guantanamo, shut up in a box with no air and CIA interrogators torturing you with Bybee’s express blessing (warning pdf):

I was then put into the tall black box for what I think was about one and a half to two hours. The box was totally black on the inside as well as the outside. It had a bucket inside to use as a toilet and had water to drink provided in a bottle. They put a cloth or cover over the outside of the box to cut out the light and restrict my air supply. It was difficult to breathe. When I was let out of the box, I saw that one of the walls of the room had been covered with plywood sheeting. From now on it was against this wall that I was then smashed with the towel around my neck. I think that the plywood was put there to provide some absorption of the impact of my body…

After the beating, I was then placed in the small box. They placed a cloth or cover over the box to cut out all light and restrict my air supply. As it was not high enough even to sit upright, I had to crouch down. It was very difficult because of my wounds. The stress on my legs held in this position meant my wounds both in the leg and the stomach became very painful. I think this occurred about 3 months after my last operation. It was always cold in the room, but when the cover was placed over the box it made it hot and sweaty inside. I don’t know how long I remained in the small box, I think I may have slept of fainted.

That’s exactly what Jay Bybee, who is “universally respected for his intellect, honesty, and ability to articulate the issues, plus he is not a compromiser of principles” signed off on:

More from Meridian:

He became interested in the Constitution as a child when a teacher taught him that “the people are truly in charge, that this is a government of the people, not a government of the leaders.”

Except of course when you’re signing off on secret memos authorizing torture.

Bybee said that unlike the common law, the Constitution is a written document and the text must be consulted. His analysis of the Constitution is that it provides two things. First it provides a process to create laws, with rules about how to make additional rules. An example is that although the Constitution says nothing about the environment per se, it nevertheless provides a process for creating rules about the environment. Second, the Constitution provides some actual rules, as it does with the First Amendment.

Jay must have missed Article VI, which dictates that the treaties we sign are the “supreme law of the land”. Like treaties against torture. Which we’ve signed.

Regarding the law itself, Bybee said he appreciates the role of law in a society which must ask the fundamental question, “How are we going to conduct ourselves?” He explained that there is a system of rules and standards in the law as well as in our personal lives. In his own home, for example, a standard is, “Be nice,” and a rule to encourage that is, “Don’t hit.” He also pointed out that standards are always harder to enforce because it is difficult to define exactly what the standard is. “How do you define honesty,” he asked, “and who is applying the definition?”

Let's be fair: Bybee did not authorize hitting. Oh wait, yes he did. And slamming people's heads into walls. And waterboarding them. The line about "enforcing standards" and "defining honesty" is particularly precious, especially in light of "who is applying the definition". I have a question for Jay Bybee: is it honest to write secret memos that authorize torture in direct contravention to our treaties and constitution? Just askin'.

“I will enforce a law even if I wouldn’t have voted for the law itself had I been a legislator, and I will apply the law unless it crosses the contours of the Constitution.”

I am currently laughing to keep from crying. WHAT PART OF “TORTURE IS ILLEGAL” DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND, JAY? But there’s more. Here’s the piece de la resistance:

An Old Testament Scholar

It’s no surprise that Bybee’s interest in the rule of law extends to a study of ancient law, notably in Old Testament times.

The Old Testament, as we all know, predates jesus Christ’s gospel of love and forgiveness. The Old Testament is, in fact, a testament to torture, retribution, and revenge.

As the Gospel Doctrine teacher in his ward, he saw parallels in the way people interpreted and applied ancient law to the way many individuals do so today.

Indeed. Like torture. Can you imagine this guy teaching Sunday school?

“People in the Old Testament were absolutely devoted to the law of Moses and required exact obedience to it,” he explained. “Their main concern was that they not find themselves on the wrong side of the law, and they spent their lives trying to bring themselves and each other into conformity with it. While we should admire their zeal to follow the rule of law, we nevertheless have to recognize that without understanding the spirit or purpose of the law, there aren’t enough rules in the world to make a person be good.”

‘“Their main concern was that they not find themselves on the wrong side of the law”: give the guy credit, he’s consistent. In the age of Moses, lawbreakers were stoned, crucified, and brutally tortured (before being executed). In other words, treated by the same Old Testament standards Jay signed off on at Guantanamo!

Honestly, it’s disgusting to read Jay Bybee expound on jesus’s gospel of love and reconciliation, as he goes on to do. The hypocrisy is so glaringly enraging, I almost want to claw my own eyes out:

“In the fifth chapter of Matthew it says that before a man can offer gifts to God, he must first ‘be reconciled to his brother’.” Bybee referred to respected Biblical scholar Hugh Nibley who says the word reconcile comes from the Latin, meaning to be seated with, or to be invited back to the table. Bybee said this analogy of an erring person being welcomed back into full fellowship applies not only to the atonement but also to people who have disagreements.

“What a great image that is,” he said, “of everyone being brought back to the table, included once more in an intimate setting among friends.”

Jay, you pious, pontificating hypocrite.

Next, we get to Jay’s supporters in DC. I think some of the names will be awfully familiar:

Among those in the legal and political community who voiced their respect for Bybee’s approach to the law during his confirmation process were both Nevada Senators—Sen. Reid, a democrat, and Sen. Ensign, a Republican….

During the proceedings, Sen. Reid spoke about Bybee’s extensive writings which are often on controversial subjects, and Sen. Ensign called Bybee “a leader and a gentleman” that he expected to “consistently and carefully consider the arguments on both sides of a legal question with an open mind.” Sen. Craig of Idaho remarked on the unique bipartisan support for the candidate, made possible he said, by the “uniqueness” of Bybee himself.

Following the 74-19 Senate confirmation vote, Sen. Ensign remarked that “the fact that Jay Bybee was confirmed during one of the most contentious periods in the history of the United States Senate in terms of judicial nominees is a credit to his experience and integrity.” Reid added that Bybee’s nomination demonstrates “how the process can work when both sides of the aisle work together.”

Good old Senator Harry Reid, who pals around with torturers! Good for you Harry, good for you. Schmuck.

And finally:

Bybee says he is honored by his new judicial appointment, but feels the tremendous responsibility of his new position. “Talk is cheap,” he says. “There’s a difference between the theoretical discussion of the law and its practice. I take very seriously the fact that I have people’s economic interests, liberty, and very lives in my hands.”

And what kind of judge will he be? Only half in jest, Judge Bybee adds, “I would like my headstone to read, ‘He always tried to do the right thing.’”

Really jay? REALLY? You “always tried to do the right thing”?

Even Jesus Christ himself wouldn’t forgive what you did, but hey maybe Satan will give you a pass on that one.

Impeach Jay Bybee.

Jane Hamsher is right. Jay Bybee, who signed off on this:

… you [the CIA] have informed us [the Office of Legal Counsel] that he [Abu Zubaydah] would spend at most two hours in this box. You have informed us that your purpose in using these boxes is not to interfere with his senses or his personality, but to cause him physical discomfort that will encourage him to disclose critical information. Moreover, your imposition of time limitations on either of the boxes indicates that the use of the boxes is not designed or calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality. For the larger box, in which he can both stand and sit, he may be placed in this box for up to eighteen hours at a time, while you have informed us that he will never spend more than an hour at a time in the smaller box. These time limits further ensure that no profound disruption of the senses or personality, were it even possible, would result….

[Y]ou would also like to introduce an insect into one of the boxes with Zubaydah. As we understand it, you plan to inform Zubaydah that you are going to place a stinging insect into the box, but you will actually place a harmless insect in the box, such as a caterpillar. If you do so, to ensure you are outside the predicate death requirement, you must inform him that the insects will not have a sting that would produce death or severe pain. If, however, you were to place the insect in the box without informing him that you are doing so, you should not affirmatively lead him to believe that any insect is present which has a sting that could produce severe pain or suffering or even cause his death.

… has no business on the bench, deciding what is and what isn’t constitutional. He should resign, since he obviously doesn’t understand or respect several provisions of the constitution.

Bybee’s justice

The United States is looking at negotiating with “reconciliable” members of the Taliban in Afghanistan prepared to give up violence and respect the Afghan constitution, a US official said Tuesday.

“We are clearly, as I said, under the strategic review, trying to see if our engagement with any reconcilable elements makes sense,” the State Department official told reporters on the condition of anonymity.

“If people are willing to renounce violence, give up their arms … it makes sense,” said the official.

Talks could take place, he added, if they “give up their arms, renounce violence, pledge allegiance to the Afghanistan constitution and become part of the political process instead of getting in the way of the political process.”

The official was confirming a report in the Wall Street Journal which said the United States is considering taking part in talks with elements of the Taliban in a sharp change in tactics in Afghanistan.

This is followed by lots of qualifiers and administration officials making mushy, ambiguous statements about why they’re skeptical that this might work, but let’s be clear: this is a proposal that came from Bush’s state department. Here’s Dana “Pig Missile” Perino:

“We remain skeptical that there are some Taliban that would actually renounce violence, and renounce extremism, and work for the greater good of Afghanistan,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters.

“So we’ll let the Afghanis come forward with their ideas, we have our strategic review underway as well, but we do recognize the need to try to reconcile with some of these elements, and we’ve been able to do that in other parts of the world,” she said.

Whatever, Neville. Why does the Bush Administration appease America’s enemies? Or more to the point, why does the Bush Administration hate America?

What a shitty day.

I’m honestly not sure who started it, but according to Jerome a Paris (a frequent kos writer) Georgia’s president Saakashvili is a neocon and has been provoking Russia for years, as has the Bush Adminsitration:

What changed in the past few years was the series of “color revolutions” in former Soviet republics, started in Ukraine (the orange revolution) and continued in Georgia (the rose one). These have often been profoundly misunderstood, and have been turned into a simplistic “brave democrats fighting to choke off the grip by the evil Putin on their country” narrative, which, oh so conveniently supplemented an extremely aggressive policy by Washington against Moscow.

No longer was Putin an ally or someone that could be worked with, he was evil incarnate. Whether this has anything to do with the fact that he prevented Yukos from merging with a US oil major, or blocked the construction of an oil pipeline and export terminal project to Murmansk that would not have been controlled by the State-owned pipeline monopoly, we’ll never know. But the fact remains that the steady policies of encirclement of Russia by bringing former Warsaw Pact countries into NATO, and then former Soviet Republics, and setting up massive military bases there continued and accelerated, despite earlier promises to Russia not to do that. And the rhetoric about Russia’s “energy weapon” suddenly turned strident in 2006 as the UK, the neocons’s faithful lapdog, suddenly realised it no longer had enough gas and had to find someone to blame for that state of fact rather than its insane ‘let the markets provide’ policies.

jerome believes our options are highly limited thanks to BushCo’s incompetence, which explains the Adminsitration’s concrete statements earlier this week about not getting involved:

After telling us how Russia was behaving aggressively, threatening democracy in various countires bordering it, and how it was vital that we support these countries, including my military means (isn’t that what Georgia joining NATO was about – about “attacking one is attacking all”?), they tell us that we don’t want war with Russia?

Is it because Russia, after telling us what would be considered a casus belli by them, actually acted on such announcements, called Saakashvili’s bluff and responded with overwhelming force, kicking his ass, and by proxy, that of his gung-ho advisors in the WSJ and other neocon nests?

We don’t have to approve Russia’s policies to note that it has been consistent and unsurprising for anyone who bothered to listen to them (something neocons don’t seem to do, except to find proofs of hostility to justify their own macho posturing).

Even granting that Russia has conducted an aggessive, outward bound foreign policy (as opposed to the kinder version that says they are simply reacting to Western provocations) towards the former Soviet Republics and beyond, this whole episode should disqualify the neocons from ever speaking about foreign policy again – they claimed the need for strength, the need to call Russia on its imperialism, the need to beef up the military of the threatened countries and to support them with the full force of the alliance of democracies – and they dumped Georgia at the first opportunity, after Russia showed it was actually serious about fighting when it got under way?

We get the worst of both worlds: military build up, diplomatic tensions and deep mistrust within (former?) allies in the West, and defeat when the inevitable confrontation happens.

However, it’s never a good sign when Dead Eye Dick makes an appearance:

On Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney said that “Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States.”

The crisis over South Ossetia appeared to ebb as Georgian troops began retreating and honoring a cease-fire, a claim Russia disputed. U.S. officials said Moscow was only broadening its retaliation against Georgia for trying to take control of the region.

The sheer scope of Russia’s military response has the Bush administration deeply worried. Russia on Sunday expanded its bombing blitz in areas of Georgia not central to the fighting.

Cheney spoke Sunday afternoon with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, Cheney press secretary Lee Ann McBride said. “The vice president expressed the United States’ solidarity with the Georgian people and their democratically elected government in the face of this threat to Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” McBride said.

Asked to explain Cheney’s phrase “must not go unanswered,” White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said, “It means it must not stand.” White House officials refused to indicate what recourse the United States might have if the military onslaught continues.

Right now, our so-called ally is getting their ass handed to them by the Russians (shades of his father in that one). Our military is bogged down in Iraq. Afghanistan is collapsing. The president is a despised lame duck.

What’s Dick gonna do?

The President responded All right, you’ve covered your ass now

“All right, you’ve covered your ass now.”


“All right, you’ve covered your ass now.”


“All right, you’ve covered your ass now.”

I remember walking through the subways in New York mere days after the attacks, and seeing signs posted everywhere for people missing in the explosion. Everywhere I went there were people who looked sad and who would often just start spontaneously crying. I stood on the docks across the East River in Brooklyn, looking at a pile of charred spreadsheets: it was a month after the buildings came down and you could still smell the burning. And all because this lazy asshole:

…didn’t do fucking SHIT when he had a chance.
So “Happy Determined to Strike” Day everyone. And while we’re thinking of murdered civilians, let’s also remember Hiroshima Day.