A proposed postcard for the Bush Presidential Library Bookstore by Tobycards, used by permission. Toby asks for suggestions for what really should go in the Bush Presidential Library?

A list of titles documenting and exposing the evil, scum-bag duplicity and machinations of the shameless coven known as the Bush administration, with regards to both domestic policy and the war in Iraq, surely goes on and on and on, and I will humbly accept additions and corrections to my scant and totally un-researched bibliography.

Leave responses to that query at his place, open thread for everything else here.

On tonight's Countdown, Keith Olbermann talks with Sy Hersh of The New Yorker Magazine about the intensifying sabre rattling from the Bush administration toward Iran. Hersh claims his sources are telling him that Bush is not only changing targets in Iran, but also the reasons for attacking. Hersh also asserts the intelligence community is very concerned about the threat of asymmetrical warfare in the aftermath of any sort of strategic strike within Iran, and that the Bush administration has been made aware of those concerns.

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Keith touches on today's White House press briefing where Press Secretary Dana Perino smugly dismisses Hersch's latest claims, repeatedly stating the president's desire to pursue diplomatic options with Iran. You can see the full video of that presser below.

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Q This weekend the New Yorker magazine came out with an article claiming that this summer the President, or at least the White House in general, asked the Joint Chiefs to redraw plans to attack Iran. Is that true?

MS. PERINO: Look, you know, I'm glad you brought it up. Every two months or so, Sy Hersh writes an article in The New Yorker magazine, and CNN provides him a forum in which to talk about his article and all the anonymous sources that are quoted in it. Read more of the transcript...

Note the non-denial denial, all questioning Hersh and not the content of his story. It's deja vu, all over again.

This video was produced by Witness in partnership with a Burmese justice group, The Peace Foundation: Burma Issues. It is one small but rare view inside Burma - shot by Burmese residents who are on the run from the military dictatorship. Witness is a remarkable organization which provides cameras and equipment to grassroots activists around the world so they can document their own experiences and struggles and speak to us in their own words or as they write:

"WITNESS uses video and online technologies to open the eyes of the world to human rights violations. We empower people to transform personal stories of abuse into powerful tools for justice, promoting public engagement and policy change."

And the story inside Burma as the monks try to lead a movement for change is one we cannot close our eyes to. One of Ko Htike's readers posted this horrific account today at his blog, Prosaic Collection:

We just got phone call with our sister living in Yangon about a few hours ago.

We saw on BBC world, saying that 200 monks were arrested. The true picture is far worse!!!!!!!!!

For one instance, the monastery at an obscure neighborhood of Yangon, called Ngwe Kyar Yan (on Wei-za-yan-tar Road, Yangon) had been raided early this morning.

A troop of lone-tein (riot police comprised of paid thugs) protected by the military trucks, raided the monastery with 200 studying monks. They systematically ordered all the monks to line up and banged and crushed each one's head against the brick wall of the monastery. One by one, the peaceful, non resisting monks, fell to the ground, screaming in pain. Then, they tore off the red robes and threw them all in the military trucks (like rice bags) and took the bodies away.

The head monk of the monastery, was tied up in the middle of the monastery, tortured , bludgeoned, and later died the same day, today. Tens of thousands of people gathered outside the monastery, warded off by troops with bayoneted rifles, unable to help their helpless monks being slaughtered inside the monastery. Their every try to forge ahead was met with the bayonets.

When all is done, only 10 out of 200 remained alive, hiding in the monastery. Blood stained everywhere on the walls and floors of the monastery.

Please tell your audience of the full extent of the fate of the monks please please !!!!!!!!!!!!

'Arrested' is not enough expression. They have been bludgeoned to death !!!!!!

Even with this brutal treatment, the people of Burma are trying to keep fighting for their rights and Ko reported two attempted demonstrations in Yangon (Rangoon) today as well as word that 500 additional monks are being held at a detention center. The monks refuse to accept food from their military jailors. Please sign the global petition at Avaaz.org and support the efforts listed at the Burma Campaign Facebook group such as today's email campaign calling on companies to end their investments in Burma.

Tomorrow, Congress will consider a bipartisan resolution, HR200 supporting Human Rights in Burma - make sure your representative knows that you want their Yea vote: 1-800-828-0498.

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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was interviewed on 60 Minutes yesterday to promote his book, My Grandfather's Son, and he had some just odd things to say about his critics. When asked why there was so much controversy about his nomination to the highest court in the land, his answer: abortion. Huh? While he is correct that there was an overriding concern amongst Democrats of the time that a conservative majority would result in the overturning of Roe v. Wade, I think it's a vast oversimplification to put the focus solely on that.

But then again, Thomas has a habit of making strange oversimplifications and assertions. As Marty Kaplan recounts:

But no less an authority than arch-conservative fellow Associate Justice Antonin Scalia told Thomas' biographer, Ken Foskett, that Thomas "doesn't believe in stare decisis, period." If you think nutcase is too strong a word to summarize that view, listen again to Scalia, as quoted in this Terry Gross interview with Jeff Toobin about his new Supreme Court book, The Nine:

TOOBIN: Clarence Thomas is not just the most conservative member of the Rehnquist court or the Roberts court. He's the most conservative justice to serve on the court since the 1930s. If you take what Thomas says seriously, if you read his opinions, particularly about issues like the scope of the federal government, he basically thinks that the entire work of the New Deal is unconstitutional. He really believes in a conception of the federal government that hasn't been supported by the justices since Franklin Roosevelt made his appointments to the court. You know, I went to a speech that Justice Scalia gave at a synagogue here in New York a couple of years ago, and someone asked him, `What's the difference between your judicial philosophy and Justice Thomas?' I thought a very good question. And Scalia talked for a while and he said, `Look, I'm a conservative. I'm a texturalist. I'm an originalist. But I'm not a nut.'

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will hold a hearing tomorrow on Blackwater’s activities in Iraq, and by all indications, lawmakers will have plenty to talk about.

Guards working in Iraq for Blackwater USA have shot innocent Iraqi civilians and have sought to cover up the incidents, sometimes with the help of the State Department, a report prepared for a Congressional committee said today.

The report, based largely on internal Blackwater e-mail messages and State Department documents, depicts the security contractor as being staffed with reckless, shoot-first guards who were not always sober and did not always stop to see who or what was hit by their bullets.

In one incident, the State Department and Blackwater agreed to pay $15,000 to the family of a man killed by “a drunken Blackwater contractor,” the report said. As a State Department official wrote, “We would like to help them resolve this so we can continue with our protective mission.”

And when it comes to alleged Blackwater malfeasance, that’s really just scratching the surface.

Also note, Republicans want Waxman to postpone the hearing, and despite the scandals, Blackwater keeps getting lucrative contracts.

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Colbert skewers the White House and their propaganda arm, FOX News in their push to demonize Iran and scare US citizens into another war.

Well that is completely unfair, everyone knows that Cheney's pipe dream is driving a bulldozer into the New York Times while drinking crude oil out of Keith Olbermann's skull.

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Harry Reid came down on Rush Limbaugh today over his "phony soldier" troop rant. I want to know why there are no left talkers on Armed Forces radio? Tom Harkin tried to get Ed Schultz on and then?....The Republican led Congress did nothing of course because they know how to play their games....Just look at this garbage from Rep.Kingston: "Rep. Kingston Introduces Resolution ‘Commending’ Rush Limbaugh."

Reid: “Yet Rush Limbaugh took it upon himself to attack the courage and character of those fighting and dying for him and for all of us. Rush Limbaugh got himself a deferment from serving when he was a young man. He never served in uniform. He never saw in person the extreme difficulty of maintaining peace in a foreign country engaged in civil war. Ye he thinks that his opinion on the war is worth more than those who are on the front lines.

Jane wants Limbaugh pulled off Armed Forces radio...

What is the Senate’s business, however, is that Rush Limbaugh is on Armed Forces Radio Network. His show is broadcast daily to nearly a million troops in 177 countries. In a poll conducted earlier this year, only 35% of service members said they approved of George Bush’s handling of the war while 42% disapprove, and 41% say the US is not very or not at all likely to succeed. A full 37% say the US should never have gone to war. It’s their network, too.

It’s past the time for empty gestures. Senate Democrats should never have let the Cornyn bill onto the floor. Now it’s done, you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. Take Rush off the air. Really, Senators, protecting the troops from this kind of abuse actually is your job.

Transcript below the fold

Continue reading »

It ain't pretty, folks.

The top five: Limbaugh, Coulter, Malkin, Mark Steyn, and Newt?

And whoa: George W. Bush got more votes than Hannity and O'Reilly combined. Why didn't Hannity get Katherine Harris to do the vote tally for him?

A big hat tip to Liberal Values, who has more details here.

Remember his arrest at the Petraeus hearing?

CREW:

Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr., president of the Hip Hop Caucus and peace activist, announced today that the D.C. Superior Court dismissed charges against him of assaulting a Capitol Police officer while in line to attend a hearing in the House of Representatives. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) represents Rev. Yearwood in his case.

Net neutrality, anyone? What an incredibly slippery slope we're now hurtling down...

Scholars&Rogues:

Slashdot broke the news on Saturday that AT&T's updated terms of service for its high-speed Internet packages essentially forbid you from criticizing the company on pain of cancellation. The full terms of service are here, and here's the offending passage highlighted, courtesy of Ars Technica:

AT&T may immediately terminate or suspend all or a portion of your Service, any Member ID, electronic mail address, IP address, Universal Resource Locator or domain name used by you, without notice, for conduct that AT&T believes (a) violates the Acceptable Use Policy; (b) constitutes a violation of any law, regulation or tariff (including, without limitation, copyright and intellectual property laws) or a violation of these TOS, or any applicable policies or guidelines, or (c) tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries.

This is the exact kind of overbroad legalese that gets companies in trouble in ways they probably never thought of. If I am an AT&T subscriber, for example, and I post derogatory comments about AT&T on a site they own, does this give them leave to terminate my service? What if I post or send a complaint about AT&T to a complaint site or consumer news site, like ConsumerAffairs.Com (whom I write for), and they publish said complaint? Am I liable if I was using my AT&T ISP while writing said complaint? What if I did so while using my laptop at a Wi-Fi hotspot? The mind boggles.

Martin at S&R continues on with other egregious acts that AT&T has committed in the last few years, from cooperating with the Bush Administration on domestic wiretapping to blocking NARAL's text messages. And while Verizon's Terms of Service are no better, this kind of corporate fascism is truly disturbing. Tim Karr has more.  Thankfully, I don't use AT&T or Verizon for my service, so I feel comfortable quoting William O. Douglas to them:

Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.

Remember that.