The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson

When I first opened my eyes and looked at the LaCross clock and temperature gauge Tuesday morning, it was 24-degrees outside in the Pinson Valley campsite. The local weather guys and gals on TeeVee say it was the coldest night of the winter so far.

Outside, the water in the bird bath is frozen, but the cardinals, finches and chickadees keep warm by flying back and forth between limbs in the dogwood tree, taking turns at the feeder.

The cold doesn’t bother me so much anymore, as long as there is a warm sleeping bag by a heater or a fire. The heat of summer is more annoying these days, perhaps because I have spent most of my life in the Sun Belt.

What annoys me more than heat or cold is ignorance.

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We Can Change

The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson

How many stories does it take to make us understand and change?

Jesus and his disciples tried to warn people 2,000 years ago, but they could not understand.

People still do not get the message, although they worship him like a god, even George W. Bush.

The story of how human selfishness and greed threatens the survival of the species and the planet have been told for thousands of years, long before there was a Jesus, by word of mouth, on scrolls and carvings on rocks.

But now, armed with far more sophisticated knowledge of the planet and the human species and our behavior patterns, our psychology and sociology, the medium of our time is the film.

Inspired by everything they know about the universe, the earth and human kind, a number of film makers have tried to warn us. But for most of us, a movie is just another form of entertainment to go with our buttered popcorn and Coca-Cola. Interesting viewing, but unreal, with nothing important to say about us, our times or our future. Just another fantasy or fairy tale. And that is a mistake.

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by Glynn Wilson

It is high time George W. Bush faced a real investigation into his war crimes during his disastrous two terms as president of the United States.

In light of Bush’s admission of authorizing waterboarding in an interview on NBC this week, the American Civil Liberties Union urged Attorney General Eric Holder to ask Assistant U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate whether former President Bush violated the federal statute prohibiting torture.

The request, made in a letter sent to Holder, comes on the heels of the release of Bush’s plagiarized memoir in which he admits directly authorized the use of waterboarding. The U.S. Department of Justice policy is that waterboarding is torture and, as such, it is a crime under the federal anti-torture statute.

“In light of the admission by the former president, and the legally correct determination by the Department of Justice that waterboarding is a crime, you should ensure that Mr. Durham’s current investigation into detainee interrogations encompasses the conduct and decisions of former President Bush,” ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero says in the letter. “The former president’s acknowledgement that he authorized torture is absolutely without parallel in American history. The admission cannot be ignored. In our system, no one is above the law or beyond its reach, not even a former president.”

The letter also points out that failure to investigate President Bush’s role in violating the torture statute would severely compromise America’s ability to advocate for human rights in other countries.

“A nation committed to the rule of law … cannot simply ignore evidence that its most senior leaders authorized torture,” the letter concludes.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr., the Michigan Democrat, joined the call for an investigation this week and questioned the Obama Justice Department’s decision not to bring charges related to the destruction of CIA videotapes.

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What Did He Learn After Eight Years As President?

George W. Bush provides fascinating hindsight on the Mission Accomplished banner, the only mistake he admits, then defends waterboarding (while many wonder why he’s not in jail for it), and goes on to legally justify not sending in troops to save lives after Hurricane Katrina. And in a truly “who cares” moment, he forgives Kanye West for calling Bush a racist, in one of the most useless and ridiculous love fests ever broadcast on network television. But of course Jon Stewart is there is give us the funniest and most intelligent response possible.

A Hard Lesson in Why Elections Matter

Analysis:
by Glynn Wilson

The arch-conservative University of Alabama Law School, with an active Federalist Society chapter, was the perfectly sympathetic setting this week for what most American legal experts would consider shockingly inappropriate political remarks by the Chief Justice of the United State Supreme Court.

While the University of Alabama national championship football team was being honored at the White House by President Barack Obama this week, Chief Justice John Roberts traveled to Tuscaloosa to deliver an incredibly boring academic speech, which wasn’t the point of his visit. Not one news organization quoted from it in their report.

Roberts knew full well he would be asked about the still stinging controversy between the conservative wing of the court and the president over a recent ruling favoring corporations in funding political campaigns, and remarks from the president during his first State of the Union address. And he knew he would have a sympathetic crowd with no protesters, since Alabama is a conservative state about as deeply enmeshed in the corrupt politicization of justice as any in the country.

The nation’s high court issued a 5 to 4 ruling in January that overturned a century of precedent on the ability of Congress to limit corporate contributions to political campaigns, a precedent that dates to the time of muckraking journalists and President Theodore Roosevelt’s Trust Busting days against the powerful influence of early monopoly corporations such as Standard Oil.

The Roberts court, or really the Bush court since President George W. Bush appointed two of the most conservative members, including Roberts, ruled that corporations and unions have a First Amendment right to use their general treasuries and profits to spend freely on political ads for and against specific candidates. That ruling overturned previous Supreme Court precedents and well established federal law.

While the decision was hailed by conservatives, libertarians and a few liberals as a victory for free political speech, Obama denounced it in the State of the Union address, saying it overturned a century of established legal precedent and would lead to the bankrolling of elections “by America’s most powerful interests.”

It was a powerful moment when the president said it looking down at the members of the Supreme Court, required by tradition to be present for the address, sitting right in the front row of the House chamber.

But the controversy didn’t end there. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., another Bush appointee, violated judicial custom, according to experts, by silently mouthing “not true” when the president made the remark about it overturning a century of precedent.

When Roberts was asked about the moment by a law student at Alabama, he said anybody can criticize the Supreme Court “without any qualm.”

“Some people, I think, have an obligation to criticize what we do, given their office,” he said, “if they think we’ve done something wrong.”

But Roberts didn’t stop there.

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Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge Of The Sith Part 10

They say hindsight is 20-20, but somehow we have to remember these lessons from history and use them to NOT repeat our mistakes. What if some smart Democrat activist had thought to make a TV commercial out of this scene from popular culture against George W. Bush in 2004?

I doubt if any amount of election theft could have helped him get re-elected. Imagine turning the country against him on the line, “you are either with me or against me.”

That is what an insane king, a dictator or a dark lord would say — not the leader of the world’s supposedly greatest democracy…

Former President Apologizes for Saving the World from Depression

Yeah, let’s go back to the brand of run amok corporate capitalism that nearly collapsed the world economy, totally unregulated greed. Some frat boy dunderheads never fucking learn…

by Glynn Wilson

We have known all along that the smoking gun was hiding somewhere, nestled down in between the cracks of all the ongoing probes of the Bush Justice Department. In fact we have known that there are way more than one smoking gun hiding in the bushes behind the misdeeds of George W. Bush’s White House — and that Karl Rove’s fingerprints are, without a doubt, all over them.

There are a few more smoking guns to chase down before we are through, all of us dedicated to disclosing the worst crimes of the Bush administration, that is, before the cowboys all ride into the sunset back to Texas.

There are still e-mail servers to chase and hidden documents to go after, material no one’s even thought to stick their noses into, yet.

But if you look closely at a couple of largely ignored reports from two of the hardest working investigative reporters digging into these stories, one of the smoking guns is right in front of our faces.

Jason Leopold with his fairly new investigative reporting site The Public Record has unearthed one of the guns, while Wayne Madsen on his proprietary Wayne Madsen Report is handling the smoke (no link available).

Leopold is now reporting that the chief of staff to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Kyle Sampson, has been cooperating with special prosecutor Nora Dannehy by providing “damaging information” on meetings and conversations between Gonzalez and former Bush political adviser Karl Rove showing direct political involvement in the decisions to fire U.S. attorneys around the country.

Sampson is said to have provided Dannehy with an important piece of evidence that bolstered her case against Gonzales: the former Attorney General was aware of and helped create a list of federal prosecutors to fire.

The list is the gun.

Gonzales testified under oath before Congress in April 2007 that he played no role in creating such a list, telling Jeff Sessions, Alabama’s junior Republican senator:

“I have searched my memory. I have no recollection of the meeting…. I don’t remember the contents of this meeting.”

But according to multiple legal sources, Leopold writes:

Sampson is said to have told Dannehy that Gonzales met regularly with White House officials in the Office of Political Affairs, headed by George W. Bush’s former senior adviser Karl Rove, about the identities of the federal prosecutors that should be placed on the list and subsequently fired.

If that turns out to be true, then it’s enough of a smoking gun to bring both Gonzalez and Rove up on charges of a criminal conspiracy. Although there are indications Ms. Dannehy is looking for a way to let them off the hook by dancing around the issue of a direct “intent” to commit a crime, and on whether the firings were indeed specifically intended to thwart public corruption cases.

Before we get to the motivation for why Ms. Dannehy might not want to pursue criminal charges against anybody from the Bush White house, there’s more.

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White House

Bush takes final advice from hot tub pal Condi Rice

We Say Good Riddance

by Glynn Wilson

Perhaps the most unpopular president in American history, yet in denial about his failures to the very end, President George W. Bush came before the nation on TV one last time Thursday night in a final public relations moment — to try and convince the 26 percent of the people who still care that he is not a complete screw up.

Leaving office with the highest disapproval rating since Richard Nixon, yet clinging to the one moment when he had the nation’s attention after the 9/11 attacks, Bush offered up more boilerplate rhetoric, saying the United States will “never tire, never falter and never fail.” Right.

“You may not agree with some tough decisions I have made, but I hope you can agree that I was willing to make the tough decisions,” Bush said, seeming to beg for our sympathy, if not asking for our forgiveness. He also did not appeal for the forgiveness of the God he claimed to worship back when he was running for president.

His time in history will always be bookended by the worst terrorist attack on American soil on his watch near the outset, followed by botching the handling of the worst natural disaster in American history in the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans, then two wars, one of them a failure in Iraq, along with the worst recession in this country since the Great Depression.

While the brief speech from the East Room offered this president one last chance to try and defend his presidency and craft a first draft of his legacy for historians before he leaves office, the effort seemed strained at best and there was nothing of style or substance that will save his legacy from the scrap heap of history.

It was his final public appearance until he greets President-elect Barack Obama on the North Portico Inauguration Day, and he indicated in an interview earlier in the week that he planned to step off the national stage and head back to the ranch. Good.

Bush was markedly gracious to Obama, the first African American president, and called his election and inauguration a “moment of hope and pride” for America.

“Standing on the steps of the Capitol will be a man whose story reflects the enduring promise of our land,” he said.

An audience of about 200 people was assembled to listen to the speech at the White House, including 45 people chosen for their personal stories, a practice normally reserved for a State of the Union address, according to the Associated Press. Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan both gave farewell addresses from the Oval Office with no audience. Bush’s father, President George H.W. Bush, gave no final address.

“Like all who have held this office before me, I have experienced setbacks,” Bush said, couching his failures in the least objectionable light. “There are things I would do differently if given the chance. Yet I have always acted with the best interests of our country in mind. I have followed my conscience and done what I thought was right.” The key word being “thought.” He “believed,” but still doesn’t seem to “know” how badly he screwed up the country.

He issued more clap trap about “good and evil.”

“This has made some uncomfortable,” he said. “But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two there can be no compromise.”

Hmmm. When he looks in the mirror, does he not see evil staring back at him? Bush and the corporate capitalists he represents are the biggest evil facing the planet.

While he trumpeted his administration’s efforts to equip the nation with new tools to monitor terrorists, freeze their finances and foil their plots, he tried to sweep under the rug his policies on torture, along with his illegal domestic spying program that is without a doubt the most intrusive violation of civil liberties in world history.

“There is legitimate debate about many of these decisions, but there can be little debate about the results,” Bush claimed, but we suspect about three-quarters of the people in this country would argue with that assessment.

While there has been no major attack here, the number of terrorist acts around the world has gone up markedly, while Iran has gained influence in the Mideast, North Korea still hasn’t verifiably ended its nuclear program, anti-Americanism abroad has emboldened extremists’ recruitment efforts and a safe haven for terrorists remains along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

“As the years passed, most Americans were able to return to life much as it had been before 9/11, but I never did,” Bush said. “Every morning, I received a briefing on the threats to our nation. And I vowed to do everything in my power to keep us safe.”

Bush is not alone in having his life changed on 9/11. It changed my life significantly. Tens of thousands of people’s lives were far more seriously changed than his, a fact that still seems lost on this dumbest of frat boys to ever occupy the White House.

Bush bragged about higher standards in public schools, although most teachers will tell you the unfunded No Child Left Behind Act left many, many children behind. He passed a bureaucratic new Medicare prescription drug plan, but most of the benefits went to private, GOP friendly insurance companies, while the elderly worried about the “donut hole” — forcing them to pay full price for drugs for parts of the year.

He bragged about lower income taxes, something I suppose the rich are still cheering, but hardly anyone else. He did get to appoint two more justices to the Supreme Court, but time will tell whether that works out for him, or for us.

“With the courage of our people and confidence in our ideals, this great nation will never tire, never falter, and never fail,” Bush claimed, as if we are in this global struggle alone.

It is notable that while the neo-cons who pulled Bush’s strings wanted the Iraq War not only for oil but to remake and stabilize the Mideast, Bush will leave office with Israel in an all out war with Hamas in the streets of Gaza.

Here’s to hoping Barack Obama has more of a global plan to reverse ALL of Bush policies, every signing statement — and get this country back on course environmentally and economically.

And Here’s to never having to wake up in the morning to a Bush speech from the Rose Garden ever again. What a complete lying fuck up! Good riddance…