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From this Friday evening's Real Time With Bill Maher, a reminder during Bill's New Rules segment of just what we get to look forward to if we're unfortunate enough to find ourselves with a President Mitt Romney in the coming weeks -- a return to the days of Terry Schiavo, Congressmen heading committees that don't believe in science and as Maher called them, "a fresh can of nuts" with free reign under a Romney administration.

I've got to say, I completely agree with him here. This election has been feeling like George W. Bush redux for some time now. A vote for Romney is going to be a vote for a third Bush term.

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Amy Goodman:

The private military firm Blackwater has hired former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft as the company’s new "ethics" chief. In a statement, Blackwater said Ashcroft will serve as "independent director,” tasked with overseeing accountability and promoting ethics and professionalism. Blackwater is currently under investigation for its involvement in a 2007 shooting massacre in Baghdad that left 17 civilians dead and more than 20 wounded. The firm has also been accused of falsifying documents to acquire unauthorized weapons, defrauding the government, and endemic use of steroids and cocaine. Ashcroft served as Attorney General during President George W. Bush’s first term. Blackwater now goes by the name Xe Services.

And here's more from Spencer Ackerman -- Blackwater’s New Ethics Chief: John Ashcroft:

The consortium in charge of restructuring the world’s most infamous private-security firm just added a new chief in charge of keeping the company on the straight and narrow. Yes, John Ashcroft, the former U.S. attorney general, is now an “independent director” of Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater.

Ashcroft will head Xe’s new “subcommittee on governance,” its backers announced early Wednesday in a statement. The subcommittee is designed to “maximize governance, compliance and accountability” and “promote the highest degrees of ethics and professionalism within the private-security industry.”

In other words, no more shooting civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, no more signing for weapons its guards aren’t authorized to carry in war zones, no more impersonations of cartoon characters to acquire said weaponry, and no more ‘roids and coke on the job.

Ashcroft’s arrival at Xe is yet another clear signal it’s not giving up the quest for lucrative government security contracts now that it’s no longer owned by founder Erik Prince, even as it emphasizes the side of its business that trains law enforcement officers. In September, it won part of a $10 billion State Department contract to protect diplomats, starting with the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem.

Ashcroft, a U.S. senator before becoming attorney general in the Bush administration, is a very known quantity to the federal officials that Xe will pitch. Even if he’s not lobbying for Blackwater, Ashcroft’s addition on the board is meant to inspire confidence in government officials of its newfound rectitude.

Read on...

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It looks like Tom Ridge's lastest revelations in his book have given Keith a chance to say he was correct when he did his series on the Nexus of Politics and Terror. John Dean weighs in on the criminality of what Ridge has admitted to in his book. He thinks Ridge gave himself some wiggle room since he said he only believed the terrorist threat level was being manipulated for political reasons, and did not say he knew it to be a fact.

It's so nice to see all the dirty f@%#king hippies were right about this, huh? It will be interesting to watch the Villagers try to explain why they didn't report on something as plain as the noses on their faces back when this was going on. Other than Keith, I don't recall any of them speaking out about it other than to repeat the government propaganda. I'd also like someone to ask Tom Ridge why he didn't resign when he first knew this was happening.

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From Countdown:

A new internal government report reveals that President George W. Bush played a direct role in instructing Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card to go to former Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital bed and urge him to personally approve warrantless wiretapping on Americans.

From James Risen and Eric Lichblau's article at the New York Times:

While the Bush administration had defended its program of wiretapping without warrants as a vital tool that saved lives, a new government review released Friday said the program’s effectiveness in fighting terrorism was unclear.

The report, mandated by Congress last year and produced by the inspectors general of five federal agencies, found that other intelligence tools used in assessing security threats posed by terrorists provided more timely and detailed information.

Most intelligence officials interviewed “had difficulty citing specific instances” when the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program contributed to successes against terrorists, the report said.

While the program obtained information that “had value in some counterterrorism investigations, it generally played a limited role in the F.B.I.’s overall counterterrorism efforts,” the report concluded. The Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence branches also viewed the program, which allowed eavesdropping without warrants on the international communications of Americans, as a useful tool but could not link it directly to counterterrorism successes, presumably arrests or thwarted plots.

So much for that talking point that all that spying kept us safe from another terrorist attack.