Atrios and Josh explore the nutbird landscape inhabited by young GOP functionaries like George Deutsch. Deutsch himself contents that the scientists he was trying to censor have ties “all the way up to the top of the Democratic party” and were obsessed with embarrassing the president. The even scarier bit is in the second piece linked by Atrios:

The coalition government relied heavily on a revolving door of diplomats and other personnel who would leave just as they had begun to develop local knowledge and ties, and on a large cadre of eager young neophytes whose brashness often gave offense in a very age- and status-conscious society. One young political appointee (a 24-year-old Ivy League graduate) argued that Iraq should not enshrine judicial review in its constitution because it might lead to the legalization of abortion.

The DOJ has opined twice in the last four years that the domestic spying program was probably illegal.

Why is this okay? Why do we permit American companies to be complicit in oppression and evil abroad? We think, perhaps, that American companies ought to have to honor the values of America no matter where they operate. If this makes it hard to expand into dictatorial countries, well, we’re pretty sure that’s a feature, not a bug.

Insight is reporting that Plame-outing turd Karl Rove has threatened GOP senators with blacklisting from all White House aid if they vote against Bush in Judiciary Committee proceedings in re: the illegal wiretapping program.

This is what “scared” looks like.

The FISA law Bush has been violating for years was passed in 1978 in response to Nixon’s abuse of power, so it wasn’t operative for Roosevelt or Lincoln or whomever else they’re trotting out.

There’s a great rundown on FISA here — as well as on the arguments brought by the DOJ — if you’re interested.

Watch the Beltway dynamics closely, and you’ll see he’s thrown in with McCain over Obama. Just just the aisle and be done with it, Joe.

Yeah, he resigned. It seems he’s been lying about graduating from A&M.

Read this to find out. Here’s a tidbit I didn’t know: many if not most are there on scant real evidence, as they were turned over to US forces by rival Afghanis with little or no documentation. Don’t like your neighbor? Tell the Yanks he works for Osama!

No, really. More here. Short version: he’s trying to bully Obama, and Obama is schooling him. Whatever he once was, he’s become just another tool of the Administration; clearly, he’s either forgotten who they are, or he no longer cares because he wants that office for himself.

By now, everyone who’s paying attention is aware of the NASA story wherein a 24-year-old political hack tried to get references to Intelligent Design inserted into discussions of the Big Bang, and further attempted to change all references to said Bang to “Big Bang Theory,” etc.

We’ll just point out that it came as no surprise to us to learn that said jackass is an Aggie.

Either that, or he’s a principle-free hack who cares nothing about his country and everything about his party staying in power.

We know this because of this story, which opens with:

WASHINGTON — CIA Director Porter Goss said Thursday that the disclosure of President Bush’s eavesdropping-without-warrants program and other once-secret projects had undermined U.S. intelligence-gathering abilities. “The damage has been very severe to our capabilities to carry out our mission,” Goss told the Senate Intelligence Committee. He said a federal grand jury should be empaneled to determine “who is leaking this information.”

Um, Porter? What makes you think AQ doesn’t suspect we’re listening in? Isn’t it pretty much a given than communications would be intercepted in wartime? Don’t they, as a matter of course, have to assume that we might be listening, especially given the very-prosecution-friendly character of the FISA courts illegally circumvented by this Administration? How, exactly, has disclosure of this program damaged our intelligence gathering capability? We see clearly how it’s damaging to your boss, to whom you are indebted politically, and to others involved in the clearly felonious affair, of course. Maybe that’s what you meant to say.

Alas, he continues:

Goss complained that leaks to the news media about the surveillance program and activities such as reported CIA secret prisons abroad had damaged his own agency’s work.

Emphasis ours. Sweet God in Heaven, this hack is whining about the fact that people now know the CIA maintains a gulag system.

But he’s still not done.

“I also believe that there has been an erosion of the culture of secrecy and we’re trying to reinstall that,” Goss said.

An erosion? This Administration is the most secrecy-addicted one in recent memory. They want everything locked up, and everybody in the dark, so that no one can tell what laws they’re breaking. They view oversight as a problem, and behave accordingly; that’s the whole point behind the domestic spying issue — there exists a court to oversee these sorts of surveillance operations, but Bush & Co. decided not to bother with it. The culture of secrecy is the problem, Porter. And you are part of that problem.

(Thanks to Triple-F for the tip!)

And in re: more serious matters than a blowjob, too.

In January, he testified before Congress and under oath that “it is not the policy or the agenda of this president to authorize actions that would be in contravention of our criminal statutes.” By that point, however, he had already approved the warrantless domestic spying plan in direct violation of US law. Q.E.D.

Russ Feingold’s letter prompted the normally lapdog Post to cover this. Let’s see if it goes anywhere. We do, however, wonder just how far these people will have to go before the media actually wakes up and realizes the degree of contempt the Administration has for the rule of law, checks and balances, and the principle on which this country was founded.

Via ThinkProgress.

From NYT via Captain Telescope:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 — The Bush administration is rebuffing requests from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for its classified legal opinions on President Bush’s domestic spying program, setting up a confrontation in advance of a hearing scheduled for next week, administration and Congressional officials said Wednesday.

As RN put it, “it’s legal because we say so, and for reasons we can’t tell you.” Er, no.

Quiet Agent, an online job search firm, gives us this gem.

Remember how Bush said all that about reducing our dependence on foreign oil in the SOTU?

Yeah, he didn’t mean it:

Administration backs off Bush’s vow to reduce Mideast oil imports
By Kevin G. Hall
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON – One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America’s dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn’t mean it literally.

Fitz thinks they’re holding back on email evidence in re: the Plame affair. Does this remind anybody else of certain gaps in certain tapes?

No, really.

In a talk at Duke Law School, Ben Ginsberg, who was Chief Counsel for both Bush campaigns, said:

Just like, really, with the Voting Rights Act, Republicans have some fundamental philosophical difficulties with the whole notion of Equal Protection.

There’s video. Via MeFi.

Ever notice that the pro-life folks also tend to go apo-goddamn-plectic when we talk about easy access to contraception? Doesn’t make much sense, does it? Just go read this.