connecting*the*dots

I had stopped shooting once I came across the funnel cake (luckily for my arteries, I didn’t have any cash), but then I turned to check out the parade and low and behold, there was an effigy of George W. Bush in a make-shift jail cell float, pulled by a United For Peace truck with a sign that read, “Impeach Bush for his Crimes Against Humanity.”

That received the loudest cheer of the day — even more than the HS girls doing the tootsie roll.

Great catch, Kevin.

Add your vote to the mix, people!

(originally uploaded by tgbusill)

The Mercury News
Senate reports say Saddam rejected cooperating with terrorists
by Warren P. Strobel and Margaret Talev

WASHINGTON - Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein rejected pleas for assistance from Osama bin Laden and tried to capture terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi when he was in Iraq, a Senate Intelligence Committee report released Friday found, casting further doubt on the Bush administration’s rationale for invading Iraq.

President Bush and other administration officials repeatedly cited Saddam’s alleged ties to radical Islamic terrorists before the March 2003 invasion as one reason to take military action against Iraq.

The 150-page report said the administration’s claims were untrue. “Postwar findings indicate that Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qaida to provide material or operational support,” the report said.

The report was released along with a second one that said false information from the exile group Iraqi National Congress, led by Ahmad Chalabi, was widely distributed in prewar intelligence reports and used to support intelligence assessments about Iraq’s weapons and links to terrorism. Intelligence officials repeatedly warned that the INC was unreliable, but White House and Pentagon officials ignored the warnings.

The reports are part of a five-report study that the Senate Intelligence Committee has undertaken into the Bush administration’s use of intelligence before the invasion of Iraq.

The study has left the committee badly divided. Three reports remain classified, including one comparing prewar statements by Bush administration officials to intelligence available at the time. Democrats have accused Republicans of delaying the reports until after the November congressional elections.

[…]

Ain’t it grand that it took the Senate Intelligence Committee only 3.5 years, close to 3,000 dead US soldiers, more than 50,000 dead Iraqi civilians and upwards of $500 billion dollars floating in the wind to confirm what mid-east experts have been saying since 2003? Everyone and their mother knew that Saddam wanted nothing to do with al Qaeda; I mean, even Hardball scooped these jokers a year ago.

Alright, so it’s official. Now, which Senator is going to put country ahead of political aspirations and make a eloquent, yet vociferous call for the arrest of both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney?

People get locked up in America every day for the dumbest of reasons, all the while this administration knowingly schemed to wage war under false pretenses, which directly caused the deaths of upwards of a hundred thousand people… and there’s no chance of accountability.

I’m dead serious; which of these elected representatives is going to step up and make a passionate call for accountability? I mean, after the mid-term elections of course…

And people ask me why I’m so cynical. Now excuse me while I go throw up my dinner.

All that we the people ask is that warrants are issued before tapping phone lines. That’s all the law asks as well.

Read Judge Anna Diggs Taylor’s ruling for yourself.

If the Democrats win back the house this November, they’d better apply some accountability to this executive branch.

ABC News: Judge orders halt to NSA wiretap program
Hammer of Truth: Freedom Wins a Round
Salon: The Bush doctrine under surveillance
The Discerning Texan: Runaway Judge attempts Coup d’Etat over Bush Wirtetaps

You think?

Joby Warrick, The Washington Post
Lacking Biolabs, Trailers Carried Case for War
Administration Pushed Notion of Banned Iraqi Weapons Despite Evidence to Contrary

On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile “biological laboratories.” He declared, “We have found the weapons of mass destruction.”

The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true.

A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq — not made public until now — had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president’s statement.

The three-page field report and a 122-page final report three weeks later were stamped “secret” and shelved. Meanwhile, for nearly a year, administration and intelligence officials continued to publicly assert that the trailers were weapons factories.

The authors of the reports were nine U.S. and British civilian experts — scientists and engineers with extensive experience in all the technical fields involved in making bioweapons — who were dispatched to Baghdad by the Defense Intelligence Agency for an analysis of the trailers. Their actions and findings were described to a Washington Post reporter in interviews with six government officials and weapons experts who participated in the mission or had direct knowledge of it.

None would consent to being identified by name because of fear that their jobs would be jeopardized. Their accounts were verified by other current and former government officials knowledgeable about the mission. The contents of the final report, “Final Technical Engineering Exploitation Report on Iraqi Suspected Biological Weapons-Associated Trailers,” remain classified. But interviews reveal that the technical team was unequivocal in its conclusion that the trailers were not intended to manufacture biological weapons. Those interviewed took care not to discuss the classified portions of their work.

“There was no connection to anything biological,” said one expert who studied the trailers. Another recalled an epithet that came to be associated with the trailers: “the biggest sand toilets in the world.”

[…]

Here’s the thing: we all know Bush lied. We all know that Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush drooled over the prospect of invading Iraq from the moment the first plane hit the WTC. Unfortunately, we also know that we have to continue this charade of shock in order to pressure Congress to do their jobs and impeach this bastard.

It’s amazing to me how this man is able to consistently spin out of any degree of accountability. And while his legacy is already sealed as the most incompetent president of all-time, I often wonder how history will treat us — the men and women that allowed him to run rampant.

Photo by Emily Geoff

Associated Press (Newsvine)
Papers: Cheney Aide Says Bush OK’d Leak

WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney’s former top aide told prosecutors President Bush authorized the leak of sensitive intelligence information about Iraq, according to court papers filed by prosecutors in the CIA leak case.

Before his indictment, I. Lewis Libby testified to the grand jury investigating the CIA leak that Cheney told him to pass on information and that it was Bush who authorized the disclosure, the court papers say. According to the documents, the authorization led to the July 8, 2003, conversation between Libby and New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

There was no indication in the filing that either Bush or Cheney authorized Libby to disclose Valerie Plame’s CIA identity.

But the disclosure in documents filed Wednesday means that the president and the vice president put Libby in play as a secret provider of information to reporters about prewar intelligence on Iraq.

Bush’s political foes jumped on the revelation about Libby’s testimony.

“The fact that the president was willing to reveal classified information for political gain and put interests of his political party ahead of Americas security shows that he can no longer be trusted to keep America safe,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said.

Libby’s testimony also puts the president and the vice president in the awkward position of authorizing leaks — a practice both men have long said they abhor, so much so that the administration has put in motion criminal investigations to hunt down leakers.

The most recent instance is the administration’s launching of a probe into who disclosed to The New York Times the existence of the warrantless domestic surveillance program authorized by Bush shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The authorization involving intelligence information came as the Bush administration faced mounting criticism about its failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the main reason the president and his aides had given for going to war.

If this weren’t such blatent and reckless disregard for our National Security, I’d be fun to watch the right try to spin this bombshell into obscurity.

Bush and Cheney consistently play to the American voter’s fear of a National Security breech, creating a hardline image of them being the “protectors” of leaking classified information to the media.

So when someone else leaks classified information (regarding the NSA warrantless wiretapping program authorized by the President of the United States) they launch a criminal investigation. Fair enough. They wanna play hardball and they have the Justice Department in their pocket to do so.

But I do hope they fully realize that they’ve now set a precedent. If they go after the “leaker” of the NSA program with any degree of vigor, they had better damn well be ready to accept accountability for this authorized leak of classified information.

The difference between the two?

This leak didn’t lead to the uncovering of a questionable government wiretapping program; it directly fed the propaganda machine that greased the skids for launching the war in Iraq.

All I want for Christmas is an article of impeachment.

UPDATE: It looks like the administration is going to argue that when the president tells someone to leak information, the process of declassifying the information is automatic and understood. Or some bullshit like that.

Guardian Unlimited
Tape: Bush, Chertoff Warned Before Katrina

[…]

Six days of footage and transcripts obtained by The Associated Press show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster.

Linked by secure video, Bush’s bravado on Aug. 29 starkly contrasts with the dire warnings his disaster chief and a cacophony of federal, state and local officials provided during the four days before the storm.

A top hurricane expert voiced “grave concerns” about the levees and then-Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown told the president and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that he feared there weren’t enough disaster teams to help evacuees at the Superdome.

“I’m concerned about … their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe,” Brown told his bosses the afternoon before Katrina made landfall.

Some of the footage conflicts with the defenses that federal, state and local officials have made in trying to deflect blame and minimize the political fallout from the failed Katrina response:

-Homeland Security officials have said the “fog of war” blinded them early on to the magnitude of the disaster. But the video and transcripts show federal and local officials discussed threats clearly, reviewed long-made plans and understood Katrina would wreak devastation of historic proportions. “I’m sure it will be the top 10 or 15 when all is said and done,” National Hurricane Center’s Max Mayfield warned the day Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast.

“I don’t buy the `fog of war’ defense,” Brown told the AP in an interview Wednesday. “It was a fog of bureaucracy.”

-Bush declared four days after the storm, “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees” that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility - and Bush was worried too.

Just in case you didn’t catch that deceitful declaration, here it is:

Forget the lies surrounding the Iraqi War.

Forget the illegal wiretapping of American citizens.

President Bush’s complete lack of leadership, responsiveness, honesty, hell, simple caring… regarding Katrina is more than enough grounds for impeachment.

At least on moral grounds.

(via The News Blog)

Have you been getting little sleep? Worried about the state of our republic? Think George Bush is running wild without checks and balances?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you must read this post from “The News Blog.”

Great stuff.

Jan 6, 2006

Representative Howard Coble
United States House of Representatives
2468 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-0001

Representative Coble,

As an American, I look to leadership to represent my best interests through local representation. In divisive times—times of national crisis—I look for intelligent decision-making and when possible, for bridges to be built, not destroyed.

I lived in Brooklyn, NY on 9/11 and worked just blocks from the WTC. What happened that day shook me just as hard as my neighbors, my fellow Americans and the rest of humanity. The initial response of President Bush to go after al Qaeda in Afghanistan was a decision I 100% supported, but somewhere along the line, Osama bin Laden became an afterthought. The man responsible for thousands of homicides became lost in a decision to go battle an ideological war, against an enemy of Osama bin Laden.

The moment President Bush lost sight of the criminal act; I began to lose confidence in his leadership capabilities. Simultaneously, the rest of the world began to lose respect for us as a nation.

President Bush and his administration lied to Congress, and the people of the world, regarding the justifications for going to war in Iraq. The original Niger investigation came about through proven, falsified documents. Joe Wilson’s eventual investigative report, which disproved the threat of Iraq obtaining yellowcake, was then completely disregarded before reporting results to Congress and the UN. To top it off, a CIA covert op—Joe Wilson’s wife—was casually outed, as if our administration were passing loose gossip in high school.

And now it’s been revealed that President Bush, like Nixon three decades ago, has carried out an illegal wiretapping program against citizens of this country. I’m sorry, but this President does not represent the America I pledged allegiance to for 12 years as an impressionable child.

Is our Constitution not worth anything?

These are serious offenses, which constitute High Crimes and Misdemeanors. I urge you to support impeachment immediately.

As a recently established resident of Greensboro, I’m looking forward to us building an open dialog moving forward.

Sincerely,

Sean Coon

damn! straight…
away
the wind blew in today
weeks past
jazz…
blues…
the funk
y
the skunk
of the streets
ripped out between
heartbeats
the skipped hearts
beat the shit out of me
you still think indivisible is them with us?
when they pry away your child to get on the bus
don’t make a fuss.
you’ve a bunch of sand people left to plug
you’ve a bunch of poor, old, black people left to shrug
away
into the streets of decay…
today
yesterday
cronyism in full effect
a flag of death on the errect
pole…
are eyes
blind to the killers?
deaf to the ’cause?…
i want you!
american people, where you at?
when enough is a black cat?
when enough is a black cat?
deja vu
do you in your home?
with two shots straight to the dome?
no one at home?
get behind the wheel
the cause?
we need
we demand
we take
leadership repeal!