Impeachment! What a novel idea...

You mean you can get rid of an elected official without a revolution?...

British and American diplomats are attempting to find an exit for Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, a staunch western ally, before he is dragged through a humiliating impeachment process.

Rumours that Musharraf is set to quit have been circulating in Pakistan for several days. He has suffered a collapse in support as three of Pakistan's four provincial parliaments have passed resolutions, with overwhelming backing, declaring him unfit for office. The fourth province is expected to follow soon.

The provincial votes were symbolic, but the formal process will begin early next week with an impeachment motion in the national parliament. It is clear that the ruling coalition now has the two-thirds majority needed to impeach him.

Government insiders said that if Musharraf wants to quit, he must do so before the impeachment proceedings begin, leaving him with only a few days.

His spokesman has rebutted any suggestion that he will step down.

Look at that. Pakistan is showing the world how to get rid of corrupt incompetent leaders democratically. You know.. Democracy?: (my bold)

de·moc·ra·cy /dɪˈmɒkrəsi/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[di-mok-ruh-see]
–noun, plural -cies.
1. government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.
2. a state having such a form of government: The United States and Canada are democracies.
3. a state of society characterized by formal equality of rights and privileges.
4. political or social equality; democratic spirit.
5. the common people of a community as distinguished from any privileged class; the common people with respect to their political power.

We really should try it sometime. Then the elected officials might think twice before brazenly breaking laws and ignoring the Constitution. There might be cause and effect. Justice served. Prevention of future crimes. Removal of truly incompetent people.



Stuff like that.

Nancy? Over to you....

crossposted at Rants from the Rookery

Congress passed a law, I tell you! It's not my fault!

Watch how Bush immediately goes into a semantics game to explain Abu Ghraib. Apparently asking this question means you are slandering America....

GEORGE W. BUSH: This was a law passed, Adam. We passed a law. Bypassing the Constitution means that we did something outside the bounds of the Constitution. We went to the Congress and got a piece of legislation passed.

REPORTER: Which is now being struck down, I think.

GEORGE W. BUSH: It is, and I accept what the Supreme Court did, and I necessarily don't have to agree with it. My only point to you is, is that yes, I mean, we certainly wish Abu Ghraib hadn't happened, but that should not reflect America. This was the actions of some soldiers.

The question unanswered is this, Georgie. WHY did you get Congress to pass a law bypassing the Constitution? WHY was there this odd need to torture? WHY?



Shorter Bush: We wanted to torture so we changed the meaning of the word so it wasn't called torture so we didn't torture so we could watch the tapes of ... uh ... it was the soldiers that did it!

crossposted at Rants from the Rookery

Incurious George

Focuses on the important things...

Why was it obvious to everyone else but you?

Poor faithful Scottie:

"'The media won't let go of these ridiculous cocaine rumors,' I heard Bush say. 'You know, the truth is I honestly don't remember whether I tried it or not. We had some pretty wild parties back in the day, and I just don't remember.'"

Let's break it to him gently:

Think pretzels and convenient biking accidents:



Think vacations:



Think the confusion of world leaders as they look at Bush:



Or don't look at him:





Think about the lack of appreciation for education because of the wild partying that went on:







The inability to make sense:





I think it's been pretty obvious:



crossposted at Rants from the Rookery

If you are reading this, you're probably on the list

To be rounded up. Pack a toothbrush:

Govt. May Have Massive Surveillance Program For Use In ‘National Emergency,’ 8 Million ‘Potential Suspects’

Last year, former deputy attorney general James Comey revealed that in 2004, he refused to “certify” the legality of certain aspects of the National Security Agency (NSA) spy program. Comey witnessed Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card try to force a bed-ridden John Ashcroft to approve the program. Comey, however, did not publicly give specifics as to what program he opposed.

CAP’s Peter Swire wrote on ThinkProgress at the time that Comey’s testimony implied that “other programs exist for domestic spying” outside of the NSA program. Radar’s Christopher Ketcham suggests that another spy program does exist: “Main Core,” a program that authorizes “computer searches through massive [unspecified] electronic databases” in order to discover “potential threats” in the event of a “national emergency”:

According to a senior government official…”There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.” … One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.

Remember the ten easy steps to fascism:

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
2. Create a gulag
3. Develop a thug caste
4. Set up an internal surveillance system
5. Harass citizens' groups
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
7. Target key individuals
8. Control the press
9. Dissent equals treason
10. Suspend the rule of law

This explains all those secret private prisons around the country, the odd obsession that Cheney and Rumsfeld had about playing shadow government games, Cheney's claim that the Vice President was outside the law and the Constitution, the indifference to foreign workers, the ICE raids, Blackwater mercenaries, Gitmo, Tasers being issued to police and being scrubbed from autopsy reports, identifying every crime and misdemeanor as terrorism, and the officious arrogance of the airport security, doesn't it?

These loyal Bushies must have been promised really neat uniforms and high glossy black boots so they could shock and awe their craven neighbors. Is that why they gutted the treasury? To create a depression that would make Americans desperate to support a fascist regime? It might have worked when Georgie's grandfather Prescott Bush tried to start a coup against FDR.

Are they hoping another terrorist strike will do the trick?


crossposted at Rants from the Rookery

Giving up golf really really hurts, you know.

Sitting in the Dock of the Hague

With groveling apologies to Otis Redding and a shaking fist at Steve Bates who got the song and the idea stuck in my head....



Sittin' in the mornin' sun
I'll be sittin' when the evenin' come
Watching the lawyers roll in
And then I watch 'em roll away again, yeah

I'm sittin' in the dock of the Hague
Watching my poll numbers slide away
Ooo, I'm just sittin' in the dock of the Hague
Wastin' time

I left my home in Texas
Headed for the Capitol Hill
'Cause I've had preznitshal elections
And everything wuz gonna come my way

But I'm just gonna sit in the dock of the Hague
Watching evidence pile day by day
Ooo, I'm sittin' in the dock of the Hague
Wastin' time

Look like nothing's gonna change
Everything still remains the same
I can't do what ten people tell me to do
So I guess I'll remain the same, yes

Sittin' here resting my bones
And this loneliness won't leave me alone
It's three or four countries I bombed
Just to make this dock my home

Now, I'm just gonna sit in the dock of the Hague
Watching my life roll away
Oooo-wee, sittin' in the dock of the Hague
Wastin' time



crossposted at Rants from the Rookery

Update: It needs this picture:

Use them up and throw them out

AMY GOODMAN: Maybe we have a clip. Maybe we have a clip of what Dick Cheney had to say. Let’s give it a try. I think this is from our headlines today. This is the Vice President, Dick Cheney.

VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: The President carries the biggest burden, obviously. He’s the one who has to make the decision to commit young Americans, but we are fortunate to have a group of men and women, an all-volunteer force, who voluntarily put on the uniform and go in harm’s way for the rest of us.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Dick Cheney. Tomas Young, was that the quote you would like to address?

TOMAS YOUNG: Absolutely. From one of those soldiers who volunteered to go to Afghanistan after September 11th, which was where the evidence said we needed to go, to the master of the college deferment in Vietnam, the last conflict we didn’t go into voluntarily, many of us volunteered with patriotic feelings in our heart, only to see them subverted and bastardized by the administration and sent into the wrong country. Yes, we volunteered, but we didn’t volunteer where you sent us to go. And I realize that we don’t choose where we get to go, but we at least should be sent in the right places to defend the Constitution, just as we volunteered to do. That’s all.

Bill Moyers talks to Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro about the making of Body of War.

Body of War

Winter soldiers:

The name comes from a quote from Thomas Paine, the revolutionary who rallied George Washington’s troops at Valley Forge, saying: “These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

Paine was trying to keep Washington’s army from deserting in the face of a bitter winter and mounting defeats at the hands of the British. Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War say the same type of courage is needed to confront the evils unleashed by the U.S. occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Lawless Atmosphere

"The problem that we face in Iraq is that policymakers in leadership have set a precedent of lawlessness where we don't abide by the rule of law, we don't respect international treaties, argued former U.S. Army Sergeant Logan Laituri, who served a tour in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 before being discharged as a conscientious objector. “So when that atmosphere exists it lends itself to criminal activity."

The movie: Leading to War, How did the US government lead its people to war?

Bush's War on Frontline on PBS.

The endorsement by the Deciderer

Comes with its own requirements.





crossposted at Rants from the Rookery

Happy Valentine's Day

In his own words

Beware of praise from Bush

That means your program/job/office is going to be cut/found redundant/closed:

24 Hours After Touting Clean Coal In SOTU, White House Drops Ambitious Clean Coal Project

Just how many times has he done this? Read this wonderfully written Molly Ivins article, so to the point:

On the few occasions when Bush does directly encounter the down-and-out, he seems to empathize. But then, in what is becoming a recurring, almost nightmare-type scenario, the minute he visits some constructive program and praises it (AmeriCorps, the Boys and Girls Club, job training), he turns around and cuts the budget for it. It's the kiss of death if the president comes to praise your program. During the presidential debate in Boston in 2000, Bush said, "First and foremost, we've got to make sure we fully fund LIHEAP [the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program], which is a way to help low-income folks, particularly here in the East, pay their high fuel bills." He then sliced $300 million out of that sucker, even as people were dying of hypothermia, or, to put it bluntly, freezing to death.

She wrote this in 2003. Bless you, Molly.



crossposted at Rants from the Rookery

Out of time, out of gas, and out of here

And none too soon. Froomkin of the Washington Post gives an overview of Bush's STFU speech to the nation and the media's reactions. The shorter version? Nobody is listening anymore:

There it was last night, for all the world to see: A presidency running on empty.

In his final State of the Union address, President Bush had almost nothing to say. Certainly nothing new and significant. Nothing remotely memorable.

It's a safe bet that nothing he said last night will amount to much. Nothing he said will help bring the country together, or undo the damage he has done to American interests abroad. Nothing he said will help him win back the trust or support of the American people, both which he lost a long time ago.

On the traditional State of the Union litany of subjects, his repetition of familiar and sometimes delusional talking points conveyed a clear, though unintended message: That those looking for meaningful progress on the key issues facing our nation and our world today will have to wait for the next president.

(Picture from here.)

Update: Dear God, he's doing it again! Tengrain of Mock, Paper, Scissors has the pic.
crossposted at Rants from the Rookery.

Dancin' Dave has the blow by blow of the SOTU 'speech'.

Bush's Legacy needs a bit more polish

Dan Froomkin's article for the Washington Post has caused the halo to tarnish a bit:

With time running short on his presidency -- and on the eve of a trip to the Middle East -- President Bush seems to have overcome his aversion to talking about his legacy and is now speaking fervently about how he expects to be remembered.

As it turns out, the president sees himself as quite the heroic figure.

"I can predict that the historians will say that George W. Bush recognized the threats of the 21st century, clearly defined them, and had great faith in the capacity of liberty to transform hopelessness to hope, and laid the foundation for peace by making some awfully difficult decisions," Bush told Yonit Levi of Israel's Channel 2 News. Bush held several interviews with Middle Eastern journalists last week in anticipation of his trip to the region, which starts tomorrow.

[snip]

Bush's self-image contrasts sharply with his image among his fellow Americans. More than 60 percent of Americans disapprove of the job is doing, and a CNN poll in November found that 58 percent of Americans rated Bush either a poor president, a very poor president, or the worst president ever.

I'll go with the worst president ever.


(cross-posted at Rants from the Rookery)