10.30.2006 Spotted on 10/19, by an eagle-eyed Wonkette reader: The Mid-Atlantic Shredding Services truck making its way up to the Cheney compound at the Naval Observatory.

10.19.2006 Judge orders Cheney visitor logs opened

"You better get crackin’, Dick — that evidence won’t destroy itself!" (Here)

The federal government's "no sex without marriage" message isn't just for kids anymore.

Now the government is targeting unmarried adults up to age 29 as part of its abstinence-only programs, which include millions of dollars in federal money that will be available to the states under revised federal grant guidelines for 2007.

The government says the change is a clarification. But critics say it's a clear signal of a more directed policy targeting the sexual behavior of adults.

"They've stepped over the line of common sense," said James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit that supports sex education. "To be preaching abstinence when 90% of people are having sex is in essence to lose touch with reality. It's an ideological campaign. It has nothing to do with public health."

The agency shuts down five public libraries full of environmental data, and employees and activists question the Bush administration's motives.

But scientists have discovered that the carbon dioxide we're spewing into the air doesn't just heat up the atmosphere and lead to rising seas. Much of that carbon is absorbed by the oceans, and there it produces carbonic acid -- the same stuff found in soda pop.

That makes oceans a bit more acidic, impairing the ability of certain shellfish to produce shells, which, like coral reefs, are made of calcium carbonate. A recent article in Scientific American explained the indignity of being a dissolving mollusk in an acidic ocean: ''Drop a piece of chalk (calcium carbonate) into a glass of vinegar (a mild acid) if you need a demonstration of the general worry: the chalk will begin dissolving immediately.''

10.30.2006 "U.S. Is Said to Fail in Tracking Arms for Iraqis"

Billmon: "This reads like something from the script of Abbott and Costello Join the Army"

Coming soon: the big auto sell-off
Bursting Bubble Blues, Paul Krugman, the housing bust

Halliburton spokeswoman Cathy Mann, in an e-mail, said ... that "KBR has included proprietary markings on the majority of its data and property in support of its government contracts for the U.S. Army for at least the last decade."

You mean, since around 1995, when Dick Cheney became CEO of Halliburton?

Nationwide, more than 300,000 properties entered foreclosure during the 3rd quarter — up 43 percent from a year ago.

We can fight over Medicare and hate crime laws another time. But habeas corpus, war, torture and basic fiscal responsibility are the issues now. I will join happily with any liberal, any leftist, any conservative, any Christian, any Muslim, any Jew - to fight for these basic principles. I don't care about these labels as much as I care about this country. And it needs saving right now from the thugs and incompetents who are running it.

• 1-Vote, vote, vote...and get everyone you know to vote as well
• 2-Write your congressmen and senators and demand uniformity and federal standards for the election process. Demand an end to electronic voting machines unless there's a viable paper trail. Demand paper ballots instead. Ask that election day be declared a national holiday
• 3-Bombard the media with letters and calls that demand coverage of election fraud
• 4-Organize demonstrations
• 5-Go armed to the polls next month with 1-866-OUR-VOTE and call it immediately to report any fraudulent and/or suspicious activity

But now the federal government is extending the frontiers of terror with the Military Commissions Act of 2006, legalizing torture and suspending habeas corpus and constructing a loose web of law by which you and I could be hung by our ankles in a meat locker for as long as somebody deems necessary. "Any person is punishable ..." the law states, "who knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States" and when it comes to deciding what "knowingly and intentionally" might mean or who is the enemy, that's for a military commission to decide in secret, with or without you present. No 5th Amendment, hearsay evidence admissible, no judicial review.

Now spending is out of control. Rather than rolling back government, we have a new $1.2 trillion Medicare prescription drug benefit, and non-defense discretionary spending is growing twice as fast as it had in the Clinton administration. Meanwhile, Social Security is collapsing while rogue nations are going nuclear and the Middle East is more combustible than ever. Yet Republican lawmakers have taken up such issues as flag burning, Terri Schiavo and same-sex marriage.They're fooling only themselves.

In a radio interview Tuesday, US Vice President Dick Cheney confirmed that US interrogators have used a controversial technique know as waterboarding to interrogate senior Al Qaeda suspects. McClatchy's Washington bureau reports that Mr. Cheney said the White House does not see the practice as torture, and allows the CIA to use it. Cheney said use of waterboarding was a "no-brainer for him."
...
Waterboarding involves holding "a person's head under water or pouring water on cloth or cellophane placed over the nose and mouth to simulate drowning until the subject agrees to talk or confess. ABCNews reported last year that it began as a practice in the 1500s during the Italian Inquisition. Soldiers who had used it during US conflicts in the 20th century have been court-martialed. It was declared illegal by US generals during the Vietnam War.

Jonathan Turley, George Washington University Constitutional Law Professor, was Olbermann's guest. Olbermann asked him, "Does this mean that under this law, ultimately the only thing keeping you, I, or the viewer out of Gitmo is the sanity and honesty of the president of the United States?"

Turley responded, "It does. And it's a huge sea change for our democracy. The framers created a system where we did not have to rely on the good graces or good mood of the president…People have no idea how significant this is. What, really a time of shame this is for the American system. What the Congress did and what the president signed today essentially revokes over 200 years of American principles and values."
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The U.S. mainstream press doesn't have to be coerced by a government Press Law to avoid publicly opposing Bush's most egregious policies. Television news networks, in particular, have voluntarily held back serious scrutiny. They have not only failed to discuss the recent Military Commissions Act at length, but in the run-up to the Iraq war, liberal talk show host Phil Donahue and comedian Bill Maher were fired for challenging the White House spin about Iraq and the 9/11 attacks.
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Among things Congress and the media should challenge is George W. Bush's false claim that the United States does not torture. In an article published at the CommonDreams.org site, journalist Molly Ivins reports that in one case of death from torture by Americans, the military at first said the prisoner's death was caused by a heart attack. Ivins adds that the coroner later said the heart attack occurred after the prisoner "had been beaten so often on his legs that they had 'basically been pulpified.'" Read it all (Here)

No, I'm not thrilled over Jeffrey Skilling getting 24 years in prison for his role in the Enron scandal. While he and fellow Enron honcho Kenneth Lay were clearly guilty as charged, the handling of this case by the Bush Justice Department is a functional coverup of the Bush family's role in enabling these crimes.
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Why were the dots between the Enron swindlers and their government sponsors never connected by a Bush Justice Department that seemed more interested in containing the damage than exploring the true ramifications of this case? Getting to the bottom of this story is one compelling reason to hope that the Democrats gain control in this election of at least one branch of Congress, thus permitting a serious investigation of the political machinations behind the Enron swindle.

Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.

Somehow this is tolerated.

Somehow nobody is accountable for this.
...
Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat’s birthday.

Now, with a highly secretive contract awarded by the US State Department, First Kuwaiti is in the midst of building the most expensive and heavily fortified US embassy in the world. Scheduled to open in 2007, the sprawling complex near the Tigris River will equal Vatican City in size.

But Owen says that working on the project proved to be one of the worst jobs he has ever had in his 27 years of construction work.

Not one of the five different US embassy sites Owen had worked on around the world previously compared to the mess he describes. Armenia, Bulgaria, Angola, Cameroon and Cambodia all had their share of dictators, violence and economic disruption, but the companies building the embassies were always fair and professional, he says. First Kuwaiti is the exception. Brutal and inhumane, he says "I've never seen a project more fucked up. Every US labor law was broken."

10.22.2006 Keith Olberman interviews JONATHAN TURLEY, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROFESSOR (Here)

10.19.2006 Judge orders Cheney visitor logs opened

The Secret Service had no comment on the ruling Thursday. In court documents, government attorneys said releasing the documents would infringe on Cheney's ability to seek advice.

"This case is about protecting the effective functioning of the vice presidency under the Constitution," attorneys wrote.

10.18.2006 A True Story of Lies by the CIA, and Abuse of Power by Federal Prosecutors Who Will Do Whatever it Takes By Brian Tamanaha

I am able to recount the details of this event because the assistant federal public defender was me, handling the case in the mid-1980s. To recap the hard-to-believe basics of the situation: in the middle of a trial, I was charged with three criminal offenses on the grounds that the questions I asked in open court prompted the witnesses to disclose classified information. At the time of these supposed offenses, the prosecutors objected neither to the questions nor the answers, and neither they nor the judge gave any indication of a problem until the moment the charges were lodged against me. So there I was, still handling the ongoing trial, but now also facing my own trial to begin 30 days after the current trial was over. Despite my compromised position, I was not allowed by the judge to withdraw as defense counsel, and our request for a mistrial in the ongoing case was denied. I continued to examine witnesses from the CIA, but now with pending criminal charges hanging over my head, and a real prospect of more to come.