The Bush administration is pushing for retroactive immnunity for all telcos in this whole illegal wiretapping thing. If you haven’t been keeping up, this means they’re saying (a) you can’t sue over this, because to do so will expose state secrets and now (b) and you can’t sue over this because the telcos are immune to such claims because they’re helping the government.

WTF?

Of the 10, only one (Rudy) doesn’t want Roe v. Wade overturned, none want to get out of Iraq, and three dismiss evolution.

The American public’s desires to keep Roe alive and to escape the quagmire in Iraq are well documented. Sadly, the candidates probably fared better than the general populace on the evolution question.

Bush maintains his contempt for laws in this backpedaling over FISA:

Senior Bush administration officials told Congress on Tuesday that they could not pledge that the administration would continue to seek warrants from a secret court for a domestic wiretapping program, as it agreed to do in January.

Rather, they argued that the president had the constitutional authority to decide for himself whether to conduct surveillance without warrants.

As a result of the January agreement, the administration said that the National Security Agency’s domestic spying program has been brought under the legal structure laid out in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court-approved warrants for the wiretapping of American citizens and others inside the United States.

But on Tuesday, the senior officials, including Michael McConnell, the new director of national intelligence, said they believed that the president still had the authority under Article II of the Constitution to once again order the N.S.A. to conduct surveillance inside the country without warrants.

Needless to say, every non-hack non-idiot lawyer and judge in the country disagrees with Bush’s interpretation here. In fact, Bush has admitted ON TELEVISION that he’s a multiple felon, since every act of wiretapping without a FISA warrant is a crime. For some reason, his craven party is untroubled by this, and the Dems lack the cohesion of message to make the case publicly. This doesn’t change the facts, though: Bush is an admitted criminal, still sitting in the Oval Office, and still insisting he need not submit to any checks on executive power even when black letter law says otherwise.

They make it clear that all kooks aren’t Southern:

Utah County Republicans ended their convention on Saturday by debating Satan’s influence on illegal immigrants.

The group was unable to take official action because not enough members stuck around long enough to vote, despite the pleadings of party officials. The convention was held at Canyon View Junior High School.

Don Larsen, chairman of legislative District 65 for the Utah County Republican Party, had submitted a resolution warning that Satan’s minions want to eliminate national borders and do away with sovereignty.

In a speech at the convention, Larsen told those gathered that illegal immigrants “hate American people” and “are determined to destroy this country, and there is nothing they won’t do.”

Illegal aliens are in control of the media, and working in tandem with Democrats, are trying to “destroy Christian America” and replace it with “a godless new world order — and that is not extremism, that is fact,” Larsen said.

At the end of his speech, Larsen began to cry, saying illegal immigrants were trying to bring about the destruction of the U.S. “by self invasion.”

Republican officials then allowed speakers to defend and refute the resolution. One speaker, who was identified as “Joe,” said illegal immigrants were Marxist and under the influence of the devil. Another, who declined to give her name to the Daily Herald, said illegal immigrants should not be allowed because “they are not going to become Republicans and stop flying the flag upside down. … If they want to be Americans, they should learn to speak English and fly their flag like we do.”

There does, however, seem to be a definite Republican trend toward ‘batshit insane.’

(via Rob)

In an age in which we rightly fear being inaccurately quoted or misinterpreted, it would seem that Bill-O’s real anger and real fear rests in the dread that someone is quoting him correctly.

A Bush administration official in charge of AIDS policy — who’s been pushing the bullshit “abstinence and no condom” plan — has resigned for patronizing a DC brothel.

Take a look at this graph of the US Debt over the years, and note well who was driving during the most dramatic red-ink spending.

Prior to the Neo-Conservative take over of the Republican Party there was not much difference between the two parties debt philosophy, they both worked together to minimize it. However the debt has been on a steady incline ever since the Reagan Presidency. The only exception to the steep increase over the last 25 years was during the Clinton Presidency, where he brought spending under control and the debt growth down to almost zero.

Comparing the borrowing habits of the two parties since 1981, when the Neo-Conservative movement really took hold and government spending really has gone out of control, it is extremely obvious that the big spenders in Washington are Republican Presidents. Looking at the only Democratic President since 1981, Mr. Clinton, who raised the national debt an average of 4.3% per year; the Republican Presidents (Reagan, Bush, and Bush) raised the debt an average of 10.8% per year. That is, for every dollar a Democratic President has raised the national debt in the past 25 years Republican Presidents have raised the debt by $2.59. Any way you look at it Conservative Republican Presidents can not control government spending, yet as the graph above clearly shows, President Clinton did.

Josh Marshall’s analysis of why we’re still in Iraq is a must-read:

This is the key point: right near the beginning of this nightmare it was clear the sole remaining premise for the war was false: that is, the idea that the Iraqis would freely choose a government that would align itself with the US and its goals in the region. As the occupation continued, anti-American sentiment — both toward the occupation and America’s role in the world — has only grown.

I would submit that virtually everything we’ve done in Iraq since mid-late 2003 has been an effort to obscure this fact. And our policy has been one of continuing the occupation to create the illusion that this reality was not in fact reality. In short, it was a policy of denial.

It’s often been noted that we’ve had a difficult time explaining or figuring out just who we’re fighting in Iraq. Is it the Sunni irreconcilables? Or is it Iran and its Shi’a proxies? Or is it al Qaida? The confusion is not incidental but fundamental. We can’t explain who we’re fighting because this isn’t a war, like most, where the existence of a particular enemy or specific danger dictates your need to fight. We’re occupying Iraq because continuing to do so allows us to pretend that the initial plan wasn’t completely misguided and a mistake.

The WSJ is reporting Bush’s approval rating at 28%, an all-time low.

Slacktivist does.

TED KOPPEL (Off Camera): Well, it’s a, I think you’ll agree, this is a much bigger project than any that’s been talked about. Indeed, I understand that more money is expected to be spent on this than was spent on the entire Marshall Plan for the rebuilding of Europe after World War II.

ANDREW NATSIOS: No, no. This doesn’t even compare remotely with the size of the Marshall Plan.

TED KOPPEL (Off Camera): The Marshall Plan was $97 billion.

ANDREW NATSIOS: This is $1.7 billion.

TED KOPPEL (Off Camera): All right, this is the first. I mean, when you talk about 1.7, you’re not suggesting that the rebuilding of Iraq is gonna be done for $1.7 billion?

ANDREW NATSIOS: Well, in terms of the American taxpayers contribution, I do, this is it for the US. The rest of the rebuilding of Iraq will be done by other countries who have already made pledges, Britain, Germany, Norway, Japan, Canada, and Iraqi oil revenues, eventually in several years, when it’s up and running and there’s a new government that’s been democratically elected, will finish the job with their own revenues. They’re going to get in $20 billion a year in oil revenues. But the American part of this will be 1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this.

Since then, “the American taxpayers” have spent at least half a trillion dollars — at least five times the total cost of the Marshall Plan. Chunks of money several times greater than Natsios’ figure have simply gone missing and the monthly cost to the U.S. is more than $8 billion.

In 2006, President Bush appointed Andrew Natsios as the administration’s special envoy to Darfur.

This time, he tears Rudy a new one for his “vote GOP or die” bullshit. Thank God for Keith. Seriously.

This story is all over the web today, but it’s worth your time. Bush is on the way out, but the work we’ll need to do to repair the damage he and his ilk have done to our republic is just beginning.

The 10, for those too lazy to click:

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
2. Create a gulag
3. Develop a thug caste
4. Set up an internal surveillance system
5. Harass citizens’ groups
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
7. Target key individuals
8. Stifle the free press
9. Insist dissent equals treason
10. Suspend the rule of law

People think we’re safe because we’re the US, but in reality we’re only as safe as we make ourselves. This means holding our leaders accountable for their actions, and insisting that they follow the principles upon which our nation was founded. Bush fails by every measure, and much of our populace fails with him for going along for the ride.