"In this weekend's Presidential YouTube address, President Obama discussed his goal of making government more efficient and controlling spending, ....

Hillary Clinton made a surprise visit to Iraq today, saying that the United States will not abandon the country and that the drawdown of U.S. forces will be done in a "responsible and careful way." She told a town hall meeting at the U.S. Embassy: "Let me assure you and repeat what President Obama said, we are committed to Iraq, we want to see a stable, sovereign, self-reliant Iraq."...."

I'm beginning to have more appreciation for LBJ. At least he promised a Great Society and a War on Poverty. With these two we are promised fiscal austerity at home but war is still the free lunch.

Wait a minute! First the GOP were trying to scare people buy saying we are becoming like France, now they are saying we are not even as good as France.

When did this fear and loathing of Europe begin?

Porter Goss is just a John Bolton wannabe.  BTW, Porter, nice job hiring Dusty Foggo.  How'd that work out?

In related news, torture-memo author and now federal appeals-court judge Jay Bybee is the author of a Ninth-Circuit Court ruling issued last Wednesday.  In the ruling in the case of USA v. Park Place Associates, the appeals court overturned a $94M civil judgement against the U.S.

The excuse was sovereign immunity.  (Sound about right?)  Here's Bybee's opening paragraph:

The events at issue span twenty years, resulted in congressional hearings, and involve litigation in three circuits.  We are not sure if the appropriate literary metaphor belongs to Tolstoy or to Kafka, but we are going to set forth the history of this case in some detail.

It's kinda startling to see Bybee citing Tolstoy.  Kafka, though, not so much.  I mean, Kafka has to be on the required-reading list for Torture-Memo Authoring 101.

Thank goodness we have Porter Goss speaking out against the politicization on the intelligence community. And we also have Dick Cheney fighting for transparency in government and asking for the declassification of torture documents. And we have Karl Rove denouncing the partisanship and vindictiveness of the Obama administration. What amazes me the most is that I've managed to type this all out with clenched fists and intense rage permeating my body.

wait. did goss just suggest that the government has to be able to keep our illegal activity secret, or else the american people (among others) will know that the government is breaking the law? does he realize how asinine that is?

the attorney-client privilege is one of the most (if not THE most) sacred "secrecies" in jurisprudence. but there is something called the "crime-fraud exception," meaning that communications made in furtherance of a crime are not privileged. it's sort of an obvious exception from a public policy perspective. these memos are not entitled to that sacred confidentiality, because they were drafted to facilitate a crime. period.

okay, maybe it's not the "sanctity" of the secrecy, i.e., maybe the concern is more "practical" than some general, theoretical "sanctity of secrecy." maybe it's that we don't want the bad guys to know what we are and aren't allowed to do, because that will allow them to somehow anticipate our interrogation procedures and somehow more effectively withstand them. well, i guess we should start by getting out of this whole geneva conventions thingamabob, 'cause that is (or used to be) pretty clear vis-a-vis what a captor could and couldn't do legally. i mean, everybody from osama bin laden to lindsey lohan has access to the text of the conventions and could read the black and white of what's allowed. so burn those things post haste.

if this is the problem (that is, that interrogation is ineffective where the captor understands what the captor may and may not do under the law), i guess goss and his ilk would also suggest keeping the constitution and its jurisprudence secret from the american public, because we don't want potential domestic defendants to know what a cop can and can't do (in effect, then, taking the leash off the cops, as well)???? wow, that's not too ... despotic.

seriously, when asshats like goss spout this garbage, their bottom line is really this: the united states doesn't work. the constitution doesn't work. the founding fathers were wrong. the "experiment" failed. will somebody remind me again which party it is that is made up of america-haters?

what a bunch of tools.

i swear, the balls that these republicans/criminals have to make the arguments they're making is unbelievable. another one i like -- The Cheney Defense -- is: "hey, it might be a crime, but it worked. thus, it's not a crime." if it weren't so horrifying, it would be hilarious.

um, DICK, the issue/problem/question isn't whether it works or not; the problem is that it's ILLEGAL, period; and you covered that with your first premise (i.e, "maybe it's a crime, but ..."). killing your wife is a very effective means of halting her adulterous behavior, it's still murder, and you still go to prison. if you're horny, kidnapping and raping a woman is a pretty effective way to satiate your sexual urge, but it's still kidnapping and rape, and you're still going to prison. get it, dick? the end doesn't justify the means. i thought that was a pretty simple concept that most of us learned as adolescents, and perfected as teens or 20-somethings.

they're either so stupid, or so morally corrupt, that they don't even realize how stupid and evil they sound.

yuck.

Not eligible to join the EU? Yay! That means we can keep the dollar as our currency.

These GOP'ers are a confused bunch. During the campaign they praised the French and the use of Nuclear power there. Now they say Obama is putting America behind France in energy.

Seriously. Do these people have proof readers or do they just say yeah go with it every time and see if it sticks.

"We can't have a secret intelligence service if we keep giving away all the secrets. Americans have to decide now."

Okay, I'm deciding to right now to tell Porter Goss to suck it.

I'm pretty sure most of our quite firmly decided that we really want a country of laws and not a country of torturers and would-be dictators. That's why we voted those assholes out of power. Damn good decision making, America!

Get a clue, Goss. Americans decided in November.

note to lamar alexander:

most of the EU countries themselves (including france) are not currently in compliance with the EU's stability and growth pact. has something to do with the global economic crisis. perhaps you've heard of it...

the US began exceeding the 3% deficit to gdp ratio under bush, not obama.

since 1969 the US deficit has exceeded 3% of gdp in 16 out of 38 years - all but one of those years were under republican presidents (reagan being 'responsible' for 7 of those years). bush's deficit exceeded 3% of gdp in 3 of his 8 years, including - most importantly - last year.

the US also began exceeding the 60% debt to gdp ratio under bush, not obama.

debt to gdp exceeded 60% at the end of hw bush's term, clinton's first term, and BOTH of w bush's terms. while clinton and carter both presided over reductions to the debt to gdp ratio by the end of each of their terms, nixon was the last republican president to not preside over increases to the debt to gdp ratio by the end of his term.

please spare us this fantasy of republican fiscal conservatism.

hey Porter Goss you fucking asshole we croosed the red line when we tortured not when we exposed it.