For the Record

On the Republican decline

Oh, snap!

George Bush is an idiot

For the record, George Bush is an idiot.   Not just an idiot---the kind you feel sorry for---but a complete and unabashed idiot---the kind you rightly despise.

"My job is a decision-making job. And as a result, I make a lot of decisions," the president said.

He elaborated on that point later.

"I delegate to good people. I always tell Condi Rice, `I want to remind you, Madam Secretary, who has the Ph.D. and who was the C student. And I want to remind you who the adviser is and who the president is.'

I got a lot of Ph.D.-types and smart people around me who come into the Oval Office and say, `Mr. President, here's what's on my mind.' And I listen carefully to their advice. But having gathered the device (sic), I decide, you know, I say, `This is what we're going to do.' And it's `Yes, sir, Mr. President.' And then we get after it, implement policy."

Astonishing.   A complete, unabashed idiot of the magnitude of George Bush is---get this---president of the U.S.  Even ignoring all the destruction and devastation he and his fellow right-wingers have wrought on the U.S. and any country or people in their sights, the fact that---by whatever hook and crook---such a complete, unabashed idiot became president of the U.S. is itself enough to establish that the U.S. has entered its period of ultimate decline and fall.

And who are the compliciters saying "Yes, sir, Mr. President" to this complete, unabashed idiot?

Where did all the good people go?

How it works

Apropos of my recent post on what the pardon of Libby indicates, I bring you the brilliant James Adomian as Bush.

Here's a partial transcript... really, a tragic poem for our times.

[gives the finger]

My fellow America, welcome to the future.

I know a lot of you are pissed off about me computing Scooter Libby's sentence
I know a lot of you thought I let a good friend off the hook
because he was covering up my crimes.

That's stupid.  Why would I do that?
I commit crimes all the time out in the open
and nobody does anything.

I start wars for no good reason
against all kinds of laws.
I torture people.

I torture people.

Torture!

Nothin' happened.

That's why I computed Scooter Libby
Not to cover up for me
Just to torture you folks a little bit
Just to piss ya off

Cause I know I could get away with it

That's what you need to start learning.

Listen, I could walk outside of the White House right now
and shoot a kid!

Who would do anything about it?
TV?
heh heh.  I don't think so.

You see, I decide.
I'm the executive branch
and as far as I'm concerned, that's the only branch that exists

What else you have?
Ya got the Supreme Court.
I appoint them.
Ya got the, eh, whatever branch Dick Cheney is.
I picked him.

What else is there?
House?  House branch?
Run by a woman.  A girl.
That don't scare me too much.

So all you bloggers out there in blogland
need to quit whining and squitching and squawking
about impeachment, censure, and all that.

We all know that ain't gonna happen.

I can get away with whatever I want to.

All you complainers, all I gotta say to you folks is Fuck you.
Fuck you hard.

I ain't gonna do nothing I can't get away with.

You may think you're so much different than TV or radio
Let me tell you.    TV and radio print whatever I tell them to print.

You're not that much different.
You may be a little bit off the beaten track
But I still, I still got ya where I want ya.

MoveOn.org?
Guess what, MoveOn
I'm still here.

People like me and Scooter Libby's always going to be here.

And guess what?
We're gonna pardon each other
and we're gonna make each other rich
and we're gonna control shit.

That's the way it fucking works.

Watch your back, bitches.

Waking up to power

Here is a brilliant commentary by Keith Olbermann on Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence.  The comparison with the trajectory of Watergate---where Nixon's injudicious firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox was the final straw leading to Nixon's resignation---indicates how the political landscape has, since then, hardened into a seemingly impermeable crust of criminality and corruption.

At issue now as then, Olbermann suggests, is Cox's question of whether we are to be a nation of men, not laws.  I agree, but on the other hand it has always been persons, and more specifically certain of their virtues---their integrity, their compassion, their desire to do good, their desire to avoid shame---that have ultimately kept us safe from the abuses of those in positions of great political power.  What has happened since Nixon had the decency to resign is that right-wingers have woken up precisely to the fact that it wasn't laws that were preventing them from achieving their nefarious purposes; that if they ditched their scruples and shamelessly went for the gusto, nothing in particular would stop them.  The real question now, as then, is whether we are to be a nation of law-abiding persons, not criminals.  And what's different now is the answer given by those even at the highest stations of government: yeah, we're criminals; so what?

This right-wing strategy has succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams thanks not just to the opposition's still playing by the old rules and assumptions, but also because almost no one has been able to admit to themselves or anyone else that criminals have been installed as the leaders of the U.S., much less take appropriate action to put them behind bars or at least out of office.  Human virtues are also the ultimate ground of the laws' being enforced, and here too things have evidently taken a turn for the worse.

The true measure of power

The true measure of power is how much you can get away with, which makes the gangsters running the U.S. effectively all-powerful.

A new declaration of independence

Last week, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology recommended to those drafting the 2007 Voluntary Voting Systems Guidelines (also at NIST) that voting systems be required to be "software independent".  Officially, that's a system such that "a previously undetected change or error in its software [assuming it has such] cannot cause an undetectable change or error in an election outcome".  Unofficially, that's a system with a voter-verified paper trail.

The take-home line from the report, concerning software-dependent Direct Record Electronic systems:

Potentially, a single programmer could “rig” a major election.

The problem is not just that DRE systems are presently insecure, but that there is no feasible way of making them secure:

[V]oting systems in general are not developed according to rigorous models of secure code development nor tested with the rigor of other security-critical applications. Experts reject that even these measures would be sufficient for reliably detecting all errors or malicious code hidden in a voting systems.

Hence the need for a software-independent audit trail.   Of claims that software independence isn't necessary since "there is no evidence of intentionally-introduced malicious code or fraud in voting systems" and "election procedures are effective at keeping voting systems free of intentionally introduced fraud", the writers note

[These claims] do not hold up against the enormous evidence of computer fraud that has occurred in other areas of IT and that has or is likely to occur in voting systems, given the billions spent on elections as well as the rich history of electoral fraud.

Moreover, claims that everything is A-OK are suspect, given that there isn't any way, independent of the system being tested, to check the results.  As Barbara Samorajczyk put it, after conceding a House of Delegates seat to her marginally-ahead opponent, "there wasn't any meaningful way to do a recount [...] we cannot recount the machine".  (Exit polls can do some work here, of course, but their results are approximate and subject to manipulation.)

The committee in charge of drafting the VVSG 2007 guidelines rejected a proposal adopting the recommendation that all systems be required to be software independent; however, they later unanimously accepted a revised proposal which required that future systems be so.  Existing systems are to be "grandfathered in"; one hopes this doesn't mean Jenna for Prez.

Overall this strikes me as very good news, even though VVSG 2007 is still at the draft stage, and even though these guidelines (hence "requirements") are voluntary.  When word gets out about the need for software independence those forced to vote on DRE machines will rightfully raise hell with their state election officials and representatives, and U.S.ers will slowly but surely free themselves from this new form of tyranny.

Answer: apparently not

Nice and concise from Nick Burbules:

Let's review. Bush steals one, probably both elections through vote fraud, but the Democrats won't make an issue of it because that would undermine faith in the democratic process. Bush fails to react to copious pre-9/11 warnings, before the attack, but the Democrats won't make an issue of it because that would undermine national unity at a time when we need to pull together. Bush makes a decision to go to war, then lies repeatedly to fool the country into supporting it, but the Democrats won't make an issue of it because that would undermine our troops and war effort. Secret Bush policies condone and cover-up prisoner torture, but the Democrats won't make an issue of it because they suspect that people basically don't mind torture (really) as long as the victims "deserve it" and it is in the service of "protecting" us. The Bush gang hands them the biggest gift imaginable in the Plame scandal, but the Democrats won't make an issue of it because they don't want the investigation to appear "partisan." Bush breaks the law, illegally eavesdrops on innocent Americans, then says openly that he thinks its just fine and plans to keep doing it, but the Democrats won't make an issue of it because they are afraid of appearing "soft" on national security. Bush appoints a Supreme Court nominee who is openly supportive of the worst of these Executive policies, and who is explicitly committed to overturning abortion rights, but the Democrats won't make an issue of it because they are afraid of a fight over the filibuster. Congressional Republicans have created the biggest corruption scandal in decades, but the Democrats won't make an issue of it because a couple of them might be caught up in the net. Do these people WANT to win?

Kerry himself believes the election was stolen

Not that the guy's a dummy or anything:

New York University professor and author Mark Crispin Miller says in an interview on Democracy Now!: “[Kerry] told me he now thinks the election was stolen. He says he doesn't believe he is the person that can be out in front because of the sour grapes question. But he said he believes it was stolen. He says he argues with his democratic colleagues on the hill. He said he had a fight with Christopher Dodd because he said there's questions about the voting machines and Dodd was angry.”

Check out the GAO report, while you're at it.

A million emails to Conyers

John Conyers is pressing for Judiciary Ctee hearings on the election. Help him get his million emails here. -- Benj

What happened to the Arnebeck/AfD lawsuit?

Find out here (a detailed summary of the way the election was stolen in Ohio).

Check out also this account of GOP violence against recount activists. -- Benj