Defense budget (minus DoE and Iraq war): $638.9 billion

Cost of Iraq war: $141 billion

Mega lefty Chalmers Johnson on military Keynsianism.

And they don’t care about us. They are playing a game against the ruling classes in China and Russia, fighting over who will control scarce resources in the future. They look like they are going to do this Iran thing. We can’t stop them.

Today I was talking to coworkers, one of whom is a Libertarian. He started complaining about the people in New Orleans who “won’t take a job” because they are getting FEMA money. “Our Money”. I actually just had to get up and walk away before I lost it on the guy.

I don’t like movement conservatives and I am afraid of their authoritarian, subsidize the rich and squash the poor philosophy. But Libertarians make me angry and offended. It is an actual ideology of selfishness. FEMA screwed up. A lot of money was scammed away because FEMA was too incompetent to manage the thing. When I hear that I think it is a shame that FEMA was being run by incompetent political hacks. When a Libertarian hears it they get righteously indignant that anyone got free money from the government. As if hurricane victims deserve what they got. Its a political philosophy built around assuming people with less money are stupider than you.

They really want to do this thing. God, I hope they don’t. I hope the congress can find a way to stop them.

Bush now claims that “the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege”.

Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME? This is an actual assertion that the white house is above the law. Not that they have privilege, but that they are actually, literally above the law. Maybe I am tired, but this is freaking me out, I mean, what is the remedy at this point? If the justice department refuses to enforce the law, how exactly can the White House be made accountable?

Could you please tell me where, exactly, it says in the constitution that employees of the executive branch do not have to testify before congress, when subpoenaed?

My brief research into “Executive Privilege” reveals that the only precedent for this is US v Nixon, where the court compelled the Nixon white house to turn over the watergate tapes. The court agreed that there was some priviledge in the Article III powers of the white house: there was a “valid need for protection of communications between high Government officials and those who advise and assist them in the performance of their manifold duties.” They specifically said in their decision that:

To read the Article II powers of the President as providing an absolute privilege as against a subpoena essential to enforcement of criminal statutes on no more than a generalized claim of the public interest in confidentiality of nonmilitary and nondiplomatic discussions would upset the constitutional balance of ‘a workable government’ and gravely impair the role of the courts under Article II

This is the exact power the Bush white house is asserting–an “absolute privilege”. What I find terrifying however, is that if Bush continues to stonewall this might make it to the supreme court, and I would not be shocked if the Roberts court decided to hand absolute privilege to Bush. Some people are saying this is all a stalling tactic to “run out the clock” so that Bush & co are out of office before any fruit can come from these investigations. I actually think this is not the case. They are asserting this power because they believe that they have it. Cheney has not minced words when he describes the “unitary executive.” This crowd is authoritarian and they think that they have absolute power and discretion.

Yeah, as Vijay mentioned in the comments, Bush pardoned Scooter. Or rather, he just commuted his sentence. The conviction stand so that Scooter won’t have to blab.

• This country is currently holding people without charge, in defiance of the law, the constitution and the Geneva Convention
• US Citizens were arrested and detained, without charge, for YEARS. They were not given access to an attorney.
• Both sets of people were tortured.
• We invaded, unprovoked, a sovereign nation, deposed the government and occupied the country
• the government is filled with incompetent ideologues.
• the government, including the legislature, is completely corrupt. Almost all decisions are made to benefit wealthy donors.
• oh yeah, and wtf

A very thoughtful article in harpers…

Ugly Americans Abroad.