SharedThought

From Huffington Post:

Yet the creeping truth must frighten them late at night: there is no currency left to buy the big lies.

There is no more money left to loan or borrow the big lies or to sell them. No more money left to pay off the debt, the wreckage in the wake. The orgy of excess has drained every bottle, smashed the furniture and left the cupboards bare. All that\'s left is derivative debts — bets between liars and lies. Trillions of dollars. Turned capitalism into a Ponzi scheme for trading worthless paper. No real value anywhere. No matter how much money Ben Bernanke prints.

Here’s a great cartoon from the Globe and Mail by Graham Roumieu. Via Boing Boing.

The LA Times is reporting that Vice-President Cheney’s office pressured EPA officials to alter their testimony related to the impacts of global warming. The upshot appears to be that states will use Cheney’s interference as proof that EPA’s relaxed emissions standards should be set aside, and that states should be allowed to impose more stringent emissions limits for themselves.

Consortium News reports that the Reagan administration carried out a domestic propaganda campaign supported by the NSC and the CIA. It was uncovered by a congressional committee investigating the Reagan era covert operation, but not revealed as part of a compromise to get Republican votes for the committee’s final report.

Back when the September 11, 2001 attacks were still fresh in the public’s conscience, President Bush stated publicly that Osama bin Laden was public enemy number one and that he was wanted “dead or alive.” According to a New York Times article published Monday, the Pentagon has been facing resistance from other agencies in Washington, including the White House, in its efforts to put together a Special Forces unit to target areas in Pakistan where bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders are suspected of hiding. Pathetic.

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.  Benjamin Franklin

In an Op-Ed piece in today’s Boston Globe, Laurence Tribe discusses the Fourth Amendment.  Tribe notes that in a 2001 case dealing with a the Fourth Amendment issue, the Supreme Court – in a decision penned by Scalia – invalidated a search that used thermal heat imaging because to do otherwise would leave the people “at the mercy of advancing technology.”  As Tribe points out:

the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment shield for ”the right of the people to be secure” from ”unreasonable searches” is a shield for all seasons, one that a lawless president, a spineless Congress, and a complacent majority of citizens — who are conditioned to a government operating under a shroud of secrecy while individuals live out their lives in fishbowls — cannot be permitted to destroy, for the rest of us and our children.

It’s amazing what almost six years in office can do to a President.  Clinton had an affair, and Bush has discovered nuance!  If you look for it, it’s everywhere.  “No, the government is not eavesdropping on phone calls of innocent Americans,” he says.  Of course this does not answer the charge that the NSA is scouring everyone’s phone records and then conducting warrantless wiretaps of those the government deems non-innocent.  Or how about on immigration?  How does a President satisfy the rabid zenophobes of his party, and at the same time provide cover for the big-business wing of the party who wants greater access to cheap immigrant labor?  Why you use a litte nuance, of course!  You send troops to the border to crack down on illegal immigration and agree to build a bad-ass wall to keep Mexicans out.  At the same time you support legislation that would give illegal immigrants already in the country a path to citizenship.  And to think Bush used to treat nuance like it was a dirty word!

Media Matters (see sidebar) has a great article running down the loose ends of another warrantless NSA spying program that was disclosed this week in USA Today. The USA Today article reported that the NSA has been collecting telephone records from phone companies without a search warrant. The Media Matters article also shows how this new program is tied in with the earlier-reported warrantless domestic eavesdropping program also conducted by NSA. Evidently, the practice has been to cull through the telephone records to determine which specific phone should be tapped without a warrant. Pure Orwell if you ask me.

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Benjamin Franklin

An unbelievable poll today shows that most Americans support NSA’s program to collect information on domestic phone calls. It appears that even if most Americans do not approve of President Bush’s job performance, they have adopted the administration’s assertion that we are in a state of perpetual war against terrorism. If Americans continue to accept that assertion, there will be no end to the curtailment of Liberty sought by Bush and company. How far are Americans willing to go?

Another comparison today between Bush and Clinton. In my mind, one of Clinton’s more annoying traits was his constant focus on his legacy – at least prior to the Lewinsky debacle. I think Clinton’s focus on his legacy may have been a case of narcissism blended with excessivie introspection. On the other hand, George Bush can not be said to suffer from excessive introspection. In fact, I think he spends very little time thinking big thoughts about anything. It is nonetheless surprising that he thinks the best moment of his presidency was “when [he] caught a seven-and-a-half pound large mouth bass on my lake.”

The Carpetbagger Report puts it well:

Oddly enough, this was a softball question. It was a slow, hanging curve, giving Bush a chance to highlight anything he wanted — his joy at watching the Saddam statue fall, signing one of his tax-cut measures into law, one of his inaugural addresses, a productive meeting with Tony Blair or another head of state, something of substance. Instead, the moment that comes to mind is a 7 1/2-pound largemouth bass.