Nobody Did Nothin' - Not Yoo, Not Me, Not.... By-Bee

John Yoo and Jay Bybee have been cleared by Obama's DoJ of accusations that they violated professional standards in their advice to the Bush administration on matters of torture. This is particularly odd, since in December 2008, H, Marshall Jarrett, head of the Office of Professional Responsibility, came to the opposite conclusion in the same matter. From the above-linked article by Jason Leopold,

But as I reported last April, Obama's Justice Department appointees began to  water down those previous conclusions in early 2009 after OPR received responses on the report's conclusions from Yoo and Bybee, who both worked in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC):

Legal sources familiar with the internal debate about the draft report say OPR is in the process of "watering"- down the criticism of legal opinions by [OLC] lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee in 2002 and 2003 and by [OLC acting head Steven Bradbury], who in 2005 reinstated some of the Yoo-Bybee opinions after they had been withdrawn by Assistant Attorney General Jack Goldsmith when he headed the OLC in 2003 and 2004.

...

File under "things that make you go 'hmmm'" ... or maybe things that make you go 'holy shit, they're getting away with it!'"

Very Early Friday Guardian And Observer Blogging

Samantha guards Stella's cane, and keeps an eye on some of her other essential possessions...

 

Samantha takes guard duty very seriously. She understands what happens if Stella cannot bring her food and litter. Come to think of it, I'm doing a fair amount of cat-feeding and human meal preparation these days. It isn't easy feeding a household of two disabled humans and one lively cat!

Stella and I are in reasonably good spirits considering our physical status. It does grieve me to see how much Stella aches when she walks. But we are told she will experience only 4-6 weeks of this discomfort. (4-6 weeks? Aaaaaaaugggghhh!)

The President's Hit List Of American Citizens

Read emptywheel or Greenwald on Dana Priest's revelation of the existence of a list, two lists actually, of American citizens whom President Obama claims the right to target for assassination. This is so far outside the bounds of the Constitution's role for the Executive branch as to render Barack Obama not materially different from George W. Bush when it comes to matters of basic due process in accusations of criminal behavior. I admit I am easily spooked (ahem) on such issues, but this is the scariest thing I've seen since the Bush administration. And that's a strong statement.

Ho-Hum

I may not have been inspired; it's not easy to inspire me these days. But I was reminded... and it's a damned good thing... what would have happened to America if McCain had been elected, or if GeeDubya had stuck around past the end of his term. (Hey, I still believe that could have happened.) For all of Obama's shortcomings... for all that he is an Eisenhower Republican... we might have ended up with far, far worse in that office. OK, I've said it, but don't expect me to repeat it. There are, after all, all those civil liberties issues he declined to address... don't get me started.

Obama and I may resume "speaking" if he fires Rahm Emanuel. But nobody... nobody... calls me a "fucking retard," over a mere policy issue, without consequences. It's up to you now, President O.

Krugman: Obama Liq... Obama Does WHAT To Himself? - UPDATED

Paul Krugman, on his blog:

A spending freeze? That’s the brilliant response of the Obama team to their first serious political setback?

It’s appalling on every level.

It’s bad economics, depressing demand when the economy is still suffering from mass unemployment. ...

It’s bad long-run fiscal policy, shifting attention away from the essential need to reform health care and focusing on small change instead.

And it’s a betrayal of everything Obama’s supporters thought they were working for. Just like that, Obama has embraced and validated the Republican world-view —

Sigh. Why did I ever allow Obama to deceive me? Please read the whole Krugman post.

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UPDATE:  Blue Texan offers Rachel Maddow about Obama's progress... and then his concession... on the state of the economy. Maddow also interviews UT economist James Galbraith.

Obama: Stupid, Desperate, Both, Or Misreported? - UPDATED 3x

If this really happens as leaked... always a big "if" with people like Rahm and Rove in the world... I see nothing to stop the Democratic Party's slide straight to the bottom of the hill (Hill, if you prefer):

Obama Announcing Three-Year Discretionary Spending Freeze
By: David Dayen Monday January 25, 2010 5:39 pm

Breaking tonight, the President will propose a discretionary, non-security spending freeze for three years starting in FY 2011 as part of his State of the Union address.

The move, intended to blunt the populist backlash against Obama’s $787 billion stimulus and an era of trillion-dollar deficits — and to quell Democratic anxiety over last Tuesday’s Massachusetts Senate election — is projected to save $250 billion, the Democrats said.

The freeze would not apply to defense spending or spending on intelligence, homeland security or veterans.

The proposal is in line with a plan floated by Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), a fiscal hawk, who told Bloomberg’s Al Hunt last week that there was a “fighting chance” Obama would propose a freeze in most discretionary spending by the federal government as part of his address.

I [David Dayen] have to head out the door here in a moment, so more on this tomorrow. But Obama is basically saying that the stimulus fixed the economy, that there will be no further government support measures and that he’ll govern like a hybrid of John McCain and Herbert Hoover for the rest of his term to curry favor with the deficit maniacs.

...

[Steve again...]

Jesus Christ on a crutch in a crap-heap. They're all nuts. How was I deceived by this man and by this Party for so long? Was it always thus, or is this new behavior (my instinct says the latter, for the party at least)? And is there even the faintest hope that we will not have a repeat of the late 1930s? FDR learned his lesson; is Obama bright enough... no, he is that; the question is, is he sane enough... to learn from history?

[Face-palm]

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Afterthought: Dayen quotes Matt Yglesias saying in essence that the whole thing could be a head-fake by the administration to draw the ire of progressive blogs, and that the real speech and announced policies may not even resemble the leaks. Who knows. We live in interesting times.

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UPDATE: Apparently, House Democrats have told Obama uh-uh, no way, fuggedaboutit. So... is Obama intimidated, and how quickly can he rewrite the speech to contain different lies?

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UPDATE 2: In the video attached to the above-linked article, Rachel Maddow interviews Jared Bernstein (advisor to VP Biden). Bernstein lists many things in the coming SOTU that the President may freeze if he wishes under the general freeze to be announced; indeed, it sounds as if Obama has in mind a rewrite-after-the-fact of a congressionally passed budget. Forgive me for reminding everyone that in 1996, Congress and President Bill Clinton discovered the hard way that presidential line item vetoes are unconstitutional.

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UPDATE 3: I'm not sure this is directly related, but it seems to fit: Congress just defeated the Conrad-Gregg Commission, which would have established in legislation a congressional commission to propose tax cuts and spending reductions that would have required Congress to vote on them up-or-down, with no debate and no amendments. (Can Congress regulate itself that way?) Of course, Obama can still establish such a commission by executive order, but it would not have the up-or-down, no-amendments requirement. This is nuts. Perhaps it is conservative to render government spending not merely difficult but impossible; if so, conservatism is even more crack-brained stupid than I thought.

Our Two-Cripple Household

What's newly broken around our house?

Stella's patella.

She didn't want me to post a pic of her bandage, or of the scrape on her nose, so you'll have to imagine both. Somewhere in the Texas Medical Center, a well-intended but rushed person, attempting to pass Stella on the sidewalk, knocked her into a fault in the pavement... and down she went.

Given that I usually depend on her to compensate for my mobility limitations, it could be a while before we attempt to imitate Gomez and Morticia's tango... it takes two, they say, and right now, if you're counting people with working legs and feet, we have zero. Wish us a speedy recovery; this is a real pain in the knee and/or foot.

Seeing The World Through Bankers' Eyes

That's Bernanke, according to Krugman. Please read. Here's a tiny excerpt:

What happened here? My sense is that Mr. Bernanke, like so many people who work closely with the financial sector, has ended up seeing the world through bankers’ eyes. The same can be said about Timothy Geithner, the Treasury secretary, and Larry Summers, the Obama administration’s top economist. But they’re not up before the Senate, while Mr. Bernanke is.

Still, Krugman advocates Bernanke's reappointment on this basis: anyone else could be worse, and anyone worse could be disastrous for us all. OK. My understanding was that things were already disastrous for us all...

Samantha's Diner

It's not much, says Samantha, but at least I have a roof over my head while I'm eating...

Samantha's shelves are convenient for her humans, and sometimes for her when she feels like "defending" her food: she crawls around behind it, facing outward from the wall, surveying all her bowls and anything going on in the kitchen. I tried hard to get a pic of her in that position, but unfortunately for me, her Noncooperation Clause kicked in at that moment... she had already cooperated with me for as many minutes as her contract required on that day... and I had to make do with this shot.

Does anyone else have cats who manufacture their own wet food? Samantha scoops her prescription dry pellets (who knows how they taste) out of the food bowl and, to the extent possible, into the water bowl (or else she splashes water on the pellets on the floor). I had never seen anything like it before she came along. She prefers commercial wet food (shown above), of course, but her resourcefulness is pretty amazing when she doesn't get the canned stuff.

The Left - UPDATED

UPDATE: Jane Hamsher expands on the blame-the-progressives mentality specifically in the healthcare reform context. This is well worth a read.

Original post follows.

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Your Left... your Left... you always start out on your Left...

Greenwald reflects on the degree and frequency with which everyone... the Obama administration, his enthusiastic supporters, the Party regulars, you name it... blames 'The Left' for everything that has gone wrong since at least the middle of this administration, and often enough since before.

Excuuuuse me?

I am always amazed to find myself listed as part of that Left. I mean, in high school, I won the D.A.R. Anti-Communist Essay Contest, and read the essay aloud before wildly cheering crowds at a high school that was, in retrospect, far right-of-center. If I am part of "The Left," that's news to me. But it's news that a lot of pundits and a few blog trolls seem intent on repeating until it's widely believed.

Leftist? Huh?

And yet, if one insists that the comparison is with the genuine nut-cases... the Tea-Baggers, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, etc. etc., well, yes, I suppose I am to the left of those people... after all, who isn't.

But make no mistake: the Democratic Party abandoned me, not the other way around. And I was their base. I had been a Democrat in fact for about 40 years, and a Democrat in registration (and contributions) for about 30. What did it profit them to insult me to the point that I stopped claiming membership?

I am at a point of abandoning party politics altogether. The fact that I, who once called himself The Yellow Doggerel Democrat, am about to abandon ship should give some people pause to think. But nobody within the Obama administration, no one among the Blue Dogs, etc., will pause for a moment if I leave the party I've advocated for the last three decades. Why should I stay? Right: I shouldn't.

The Tea-Baggers, unrequested, added me to their mailing list, apparently perceiving statements like the one above as a reversal of political outlook. Sorry, folks; fuck that shit. I am, indeed, The Left, compared to today's formally constituted Democratic Party. And I don't like that one bit. I'm where I am because I have nowhere else to go.

Read Greenwald, as linked above. And contemplate whether you have any place to go. I do not like being party-less. But I have no intention of once again, for the dozenth time, being dragged kicking and screaming along with people like Rahm Emanuel into a party that has not, for a decade or so, represented my real political positions. Enough is enough. Call me part of The Left if you must... I don't give a fuck.

Follow-Up: Supremes Rule Corporations May Own Politicians

That's the effective message: corporate free speech (!?) is violated by a part of the McCain-Feingold law, which is therefore unconstitutional, which means corp's can dump effectively unrestricted amounts of money into, say, congressional campaigns. We're cooked.

TPM:

...
The long-awaited 5-4 ruling, in the Citizens United v. FEC case, presents advocates of regulation with a major challenge in limiting the flow of corporate money into campaigns, and potentially opens the door for unrestricted amounts of corporate money to flow into American politics.

In the case at issue, Citizens United (CU), a conservative advocacy group, was challenging a ruling by the FEC that barred it from airing a negative movie about Hillary Clinton. CU received corporate donations and the movie advocated the defeat of a political candidate within 60 days of an election. CU argued that the FEC ruling violated its freedom of speech, and that the relevant provision of McCain-Feingold was unconstitutional.
...

I don't see any remaining avenues for individuals who are not wealthy to participate meaningfully in choosing our leaders, even to the limited extent we did before. We simply can't compete with corporations; few if any individuals have the money. And if you don't think money is the determining factor in the vast majority of election outcomes, spend a little time browsing Open Secrets, the campaign finance information web site.

Any notion that America is a representative democracy died today, murdered by a 5-4 Supreme Court decision along expected lines. It's all over, folks.We hope you enjoyed your ride...

The Aftermath, Or Rather, The AfterSocialStudies

About two hours after the networks called it for Brown, Stella, previously closeted back in the office, walked into the den, where I was scouring the web for clues and finding nothing satisfying.

"We're screwed, aren't we?" she moaned. Unlike me, Stella still considers herself a Democrat, and I allow her among all people to refer to me as if I were one. Hence, "we're screwed."

There are a lot of aspects to that question, and as many answers as there are (former) Democrats. Are "we" screwed? Probably so, if "we" are talking about implementing the rest of Obama's presented agenda within the rest of his (almost certainly only) term. On the other hand, I think it is likely that some sort of healthcare reform may be easier to implement now that there is no 60-vote threshold to worry about: Dems will be forced to use reconciliation, or abandon the effort altogether. Maybe a better bill will result. Maybe. What is certain, and what entered my mind immediately after the results were announced, is this: Joe LIEberman woke up with a lot less power this morning than he had yesterday morning. That's no bad thing.

Jane Hamsher and Jon Walker of FDL had several interesting things to say about the future of the Democratic Party and of progressives within it. I recommend both entire posts, but here are a couple of quotes that struck me:

Joe Lieberman was personally responsible for killing the public option/Medicare expansion in the Senate bill.

The good news? Nobody needs Lieberman’s vote to pass either one any more. The non-budgetary “fixes” like banning the exclusion of those with pre-existing conditions have already passed the Senate. A public option — or an expansion of Medicare — can be added through reconciliation, which takes 51 votes. The Republicans certainly had no fear of using reconciliation when George Bush was in office. ...

- JH

The party out of power can always run on stopping what the party in power is trying to do. That is often part of their job as the opposition party. Letting the Republicans obstruct, or claiming that Republicans have obstructed the Democrats’ ability to govern only makes the GOP look better organized and more powerful.

,,,

The party in power must run on their accomplishments and point to those accomplishments as a down payment on other promises they will fullfill if they are allowed to stay in power. You must deliver something to the voters and hope they like it. If Democrats can’t run on their record of passing legislation that makes positive change in people’s lives, they will suffer terribly in 2010.

 - JW

Well, golly gee whiz... old-fashioned political due diligence. Who'd a thunk it.

OK, Democrats, quit yer bellyachin'. OK, Somethings, it's time to shoulder the load Democrats seem to have found too heavy. Forget bipartisanship. Indeed, fuck bipartisanship. It's time to get some work done. If people wanted a free comedy show, they'd watch broadcast TV, not your sorry, chaotic farce in Congress. It's time to stop pretending you have an audience and start doing your jobs.

Meet Your New Senator From Massachusetts

Enjoy, straight women...and gay men, but especially straight women... I've read that MA's new Senator would withhold contraceptives from rape victims.

(Democrats, there's no need to rush to blame; there's plenty to go around. And I don't know if Ted Kennedy turned in his grave, but I'd swear I heard my father AND mother turn in their urns in the living room.)

Anti-Progressive Rhetoric By Rahm & Co.

I just read News Writer's excellent post Doomsday, on today's nailbiter of a special election between Martha Coakley (D-MA) and Scott Brown (R-Hell) in Massachusetts. News Writer makes a classic argument that I've made on this site many times back when the blog name was a bit different, basically an argument in favor of strategic voting in tough times, particularly urging progressives to throw their lot in with that of the "centrist" Democrats who run the show (well, actually, the GOP runs the show, doesn't it) as a strategy for avoiding the worst. There's the usual implication that progressives should simply stop being obstructionist and put aside their principles just this one time... just this once, only for a short while... to allow the Good Guys to win in a tight spot. Please read the post; I don't want to misrepresent what NW has said. But it did get me to thinking about the path that has led the DP to its current sorry status of losing even when it wins. Here's the comment I left on Newsie's site; it's a passable statement of my relationship to today's Democratic Party:

Newswriter, I’ve made that argument for over three decades. I’ve strategically voted for Democrats because the alternatives were allegedly so much worse. And I’ve proactively urged others to do the same, in an attempt to stave off national disaster in our post-Reagan world.

Now, for my troubles, Rahm Emanuel has placed the heel of his boot against my face, just to make sure his aim was true, drawn back his foot and kicked as hard as he could. He and his cohort are certain they don’t need progressives, either their policy positions or their votes, to win elections, and their rejection of the likes of me is not merely passive.

Well and good. For at least 30 years I’ve compromised on one issue after another, one candidate after another, block-walking and phone-banking and contributing money to candidates some of whom made me choke when I contemplated their positions and records. And for at least 30 years I’ve watched the Democratic Party first drift, then run, to the right. What, exactly, has all this strategic compromise bought me?

I’m available for reconciliation (pun intended) with the DP. But first, after 30 years, I want to see at least the slightest, tiniest indication that any policy position I’ve ever espoused will be supported, or at least not casually opposed, by the DP.

And I want Rahm’s boot out of my face. Immediately and unconditionally.

 Any questions?

Praise The Lord, OR Pass The Ammunition?

Jeebus H. ... oh, never mind. Just read a little of what Justin Elliott of TPM has to say:

Despite Extensive Online Discussions, Military Denies Knowledge Of Rifle Scope Bible Verses

Justin Elliott | January 18, 2010, 6:20PM

Responding to the revelation that rifle sights used by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan are inscribed with Bible citations, a Marine Corps spokesman told TPMmuckraker today that the branch simply didn't know about the inscriptions until inquiries were made last week.

But posts on gun enthusiast forums from as early as 2006 and Youtube videos watched thousands of times extensively discuss the Bible verses on the Trijicon rifle sights, casting doubt on the military's claim that it was unaware of what was apparently a poorly kept secret.

At issue here are citations of various New Testament verses (e.g. John 8:12 -- "When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.'") that are inscribed in abbreviated form (JN8:12) on sights made by Trijicon, a major supplier for the Army and Marines. The inscriptions, which are visible with the naked eye, typically follow the serial number on Trijicon's scopes (see examples here).

...

I kid you not: the First Amendment is dead. Now we have an army pointing their explicitly Christian rifles at people many of whom are Muslim, all the while pretending to advance "freedom and democracy."

I give up. Wake me from the dead when this is over...

The Thirty-Seven Second Men

I seem to have been added simultaneously to the bulk mail lists of the teabaggers and the Minutemen (the border nuts, not the original patriots; I don't think anyone has resurrected them and taught them to use email). Both lists come from the same list server, as evidenced by a quick examination of the message sources. Neither org appears to be any more coherent in its email prose than in speech (if one may dignify their oral sounds with that term).

I haven't the faintest idea why I'm on their list. Perhaps it's my occasional vocal dissatisfaction with Obama? Perhaps I used the word "b*or*der^w^all" in some long-ago post. Or maybe these nuts are mailing to all bloggers, or all bloggers in states bordering Mexico or Canada. For a while, I'll let 'em ramble on. Hey, we've already learned that teabaggers are connected to minutemen. Is anyone surprised?

Wired-Fi

I'm blogging from the den, sitting with the ancient laptop in the big easy chair, Samantha sitting near me (oops, she moved; I think noncooperation is part of her license agreement)... what scene could be more pleasant?

Well, for example, the wireless router, the wifi card in this laptop, and the wireless driver in Win XP SP3 could all actually work together. When M$ installed XP SP3 a couple years ago, they broke my wifi connection. Three subsequent exhaustive (and exhausting) web searches revealed no fix for this problem, just a lot of people asking the question.

Tonight I took the bull by the shit the horns, dug an ancient 100' Cat 5 cable out of the garage and strung it along baseboards from the office to the den. Yes, it's kind of ugly; I'll spare you a picture of it. But it does enable me to blog from the most comfortable seat in the house, and that's worth something. I could have waited another 3 or 4 years until Mr. Gate$ decided to order the problem fixed, but hey, I could be dead long before he does that...

Saturday Sign

It's sort of like kindergarten...

... but for baby pandas, to teach them the basics, such as stripping eucalyptus leaves bamboo [h/t Anya for the correction] with their non-thumb, looking terminally cute to humans, etc. (Seriously, it's a decent Chinese restaurant; we used to go there occasionally before we grew afraid of eating food imported from China.)

Uh-Oh... Actually, A Whole Decade of Uh-Ohs

Terrance Heath of Campaign for America's Future provides us a list of "The Uh-Ohs: A Decade of Conservative Failure." And what a list it is. If that wasn't the worst decade America has ever suffered, I can't imagine what was. Read Heath's list; it is long, relentless, and pretty much incontrovertibly true, item for item. America has survived a lot over the past two centuries. Can it survive this? I doubt I'll live to find out, but if you're young, you may want to start planning to counteract everything Bush did (and Cheney obviously continues to do), or your golden years may feel leaden. Good luck.

Late Friday Samantha Blogging

Samantha shares Stella's colorful kitty holiday blanket...

Until moments before I took this pic, Samantha was comfortably snoozing away under the blanket, Stella equally comfortably sitting beside her. Once in a while, the household scene is just perfect.