A week ago we learned about new evidence confirming that Richard Cheney directed the Bush administration's disclosure of Valerie Plame's covert CIA status…..

A document filed in federal court this week by the Justice Department offers new evidence that former vice president Richard B. Cheney helped steer the Bush administration's public response to the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson's employment by the CIA and that he was at the center of many related administration deliberations.

The administration's discussion of Wilson's link to the CIA was meant to undermine criticism by her husband of administration allegations that Iraq attempted to acquire uranium, a matter that her husband had probed for the CIA, according to testimony presented in a 2007 trial.

A list of at least seven related conversations involving Cheney appears in a new court filing approved by Obama appointees at the Justice Department.

…..

The declaration also said Cheney had helped resolve disputes about "whether to declassify certain information," including portions of a National Intelligence Estimate related to Iraqi weapons programs that Libby leaked to then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

And now today, the NY Times headlines this…"Cheney Is Linked to Concealment of CIA Project"

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

…..

The disclosure about Mr. Cheney’s role in the unidentified C.I.A. program comes a day after an inspector general’s report underscored the central role of the former vice president’s office in restricting to a small circle of officials knowledge of the National Security Agency’s program of eavesdropping without warrants, a degree of secrecy that the report concluded had hurt the effectiveness of the counterterrorism surveillance effort.

Taking a wild guess……doesn't it look like when it comes to illegal and potentially illegal behavior coming out of the Bush White House that The Dick is in the center of all of it?

It's being said that the "secret counterterrorism program", knowledge of which was kept from Congress by Cheney for 8 years, was an Assassination program, which, if true, would be yet another illegal and secret program either planned or perpetrated by the Terror Twins.

I know that nothing will come of any of this information. Nancy Pelosi tipped us off early about the extent of the rot on Capitol Hill when she said repeatedly during the Bush regime, "impeachment is off the table." The "change" president, Barack Obama, is doing everything in his power to help conceal Bush/Cheney crimes…so we can all look "forward" rather than backward.

At this point, I don't believe that any forthcoming evidence would make a bit of difference. The skeletons of Bush and Cheney's neighbors could be found in their closets with signed confessions by the Terror Twins attached to the rib cages……and no criminal investigation or criminal charges would result.

We're at a dangerous crossroads in American history. Similar events during the Nixon administration led to a presidential resignation to avoid prosecution. That was a different time. Yes, we had partisanship then too….but there were Congressional representatives that possessed character and integrity.

It is truly bizarre to see the amount of evidence now out in the open that indicts Bush and Cheney….and yet not one move by anyone to hold these two very obvious criminals to account for their actions.

If you don't read Glenn Greenwald's blog at Salon.com regularly…..I highly recommend doing so. I have been reading Greenwald for a few years. He is a constitutional lawyer with a razor sharp writing style that's easy for laypeople, like me, to follow. Of all print media, Greenwald's blog ranks 9th in a list of the most widely read publications.

This morning Greenwald blogs about yesterday's released Inspector General's report on former president Bush's NSA activities.

If you recall, Bush started a secret and illegal program immediately after 9-11 that he eventually called the "Terrorist Surveillance Program"(TSP). Bush's new program directly violated existing wiretapping laws as set forward in the FISA laws passed in 1978.

Let's review….

Bush's secret and illegal program wiretapping Americans without FISA warrants came up for "renewal" in 2004. That was when the whole late night hospital room visit to then Attorney General, John Ashcroft, took place. Andrew Card and Abu Gonzlaes were dispatched to Ashcroft's room to pressure the heavily medicated AG to sign off on Bush's "programs."

The IG report informs us that it was Bush, himself, who badgered Mrs. Ashcroft on the hospital phone insisting that her husband must meet with Card and Gonzales. The reason for this frantic Soprano-like scene was because acting AG, James Comey, would not sign-off renewing the "programs."

Why not?

Conservative Bushies, James Comey, Jack Goldsmith and eventually, even Ashcroft, himself, threatened to resign rather than sign-off on the renewal of the president's illegal "programs."

From the IG report….

"On March 12, 2004 an interagency working group led by OLC (Office of Legal Counsel) was convened reanalyzing the legality of the PSP. In the days that followed, Goldsmith continued to express doubt that a viable legal rationale could be found for some of the Other Intelligence Activities being conducted under the PSP.

On March 16, 2004 Comey drafted a memorandum to White House Counsel Gonzales setting out his advice to the President. According to the memorandum, Comey advised that DOJ remained unable to find a legal basis to support certain Other Intelligence Activities that had been authorized as part of the program and that such activities should be discontinued immediately."

There's no question here that even loyal Bushies thought the President had violated law.

Here's Gonzales responding on the evening of March 16….

"Your memorandum appears to have been based on a misunderstanding of the President's expectations regarding the conduct of the Department of Justice. While the President was, and remains, interested in any thoughts the DOJ may have on alternative ways to achieve effectively the goals of the activities authorized by the presdiential Authorization of March 11, 2004, the president has addressed definitively for the Executive branch in the Presidential Authorization the interpretation of the law."

You see….Bush didn't care whether his own Justice Department had concluded that the "activities" were illegal and needed to be stopped, "immediately." Bush, alone, had already determined the proper "interpretation" of the law. Bush, through Gonzales, was telling his own supporters in the DOJ to f*ck off…..just sign the renewal like I told you to, nobody asked for your legal opinions.

Even though the illegal wiretapping program was eventually signed off on….the "Other Intelligence Activities" were dropped by Bush. We can only speculate on the nature of these "other", apparently, extremely illegal, "activities." The IG report doesn't tell us anything about them.

Now imagine…loyal conservative Bushies, Comey, Goldsmith, Ashcroft, were willing to resign over the "other activities", rather than sign-off giving their approval.

Just how rogue was the Bush White House?

We'll never know.

I've been frustrated with President Obama's resistance to investigate and prosecute the numerous war crimes and disgraceful violations of national and international law by the Bush/Cheney administration. Obama's "looking forward" justification for this resistance, however, is akin to looking straight ahead after running over a person in the street. Wouldn't want to "look back"…..simply too messy.

There's no question now that Obama is pro-actively working to protect the Bush/Cheney criminal syndicate from any and all accountability. If Obama's administration continues down this path, and there's no reason to think otherwise, then Obama, himself, will be complicit in the obstruction of justice coverup of the Bush/Cheney crimewave.

Even though it doesn't matter……I understand why Obama is willing to be a co-conspirator with the criminal Bushies. If Obama didn't actively block the release of all the devastating evidence of Bush/Cheney crimes….the public outrage over the sum total of the Bush administration's illegal behavior would undoubtedly lead to a national call for a thorough investigation, and eventual prosecution, of all the co-conspirators.

If you think I'm overstating the case…..spend some time over at Glenn Greenwald's blog site to grasp the full depravity of a lawless American regime.
The evidence against Bush and Cheney is simply overwhelming.

A Watergate-style investigation of the Bushies' blatantly illegal actions would, as they say, suck all the national oxygen out of the Obama agenda. If the rule of law were followed and a full investigation initiated, without doubt, the nation would be riveted by the mountain of criminal evidence revealed daily on our teevee screens and in our newpapers. Obama's first term would be eclipsed and defined by the shocking revelations of criminality by the past administration.

I'm sympathetic to Obama….to a point. Movement conservatism, with the assistance of corporate Democrats, over the past 30 years has led to national catastrophies everywhere we turn. Health care, banking, jobs, energy, climate change, our international stature…..all of the "can't wait to be addressed" issues would have to take a backseat, if the rule of law concerning Bush/Cheney was respected and honored.

In other words….justice is being sacrificed for the sake of a president's political agenda. That isn't change. That's exactly what our country experienced over the last 8 years.

The more that Obama's team covers-up for Bush/Cheney….the more that Obama obstructs and ignores the rule of law pertaining to the Bush/Cheney administration…..the more Obama's administration will become just like the lawless one that preceded him.

It's already beginning to happen.

Take for one example this testimony yesterday by Obama's Attorney General, Eric Holder…..

Holder is so frightened by the implications of calling something that was so obviously illegal what it was…..the widespread, illegal, Bush-era wiretapping of American citizens without judicial warrants or FISA Court approval…..he can't even muster enough courage to use the word, illegal….even though he did so before he became the AG.

Obama's Justice Department, much like Bush's Justice Department, is dishonoring the rule of law and eroding it's own credibility, all for the sake of a political agenda that would be delayed, or diminished by doing what is right.

Take yet another example of the rot that is starting to form on the Obama administration. Rather than expose the crimes done in secret by the previous administration, and there are many…..Obama's administration is expanding executive branch secrecy.

Yes, Obama released the OLC torture memos, but not because he wanted to be transparent. He was compelled by a judge to release them. On every other transparency situation, from detainee abuse to warrantless wiretapping, Obama has sought to block the release of incriminating-to-Bush information.

The release of detainee abuse photographs was blocked by Obama with the excuse that military commanders told him it would endanger our troops. Sounds identical to Bush. Not to be confused with openness or transparency, something touted loudly and repeatedly while Obama campaigned.

If basic principles are compromised, in this case government transparency, it leads directly and quickly to stuff like this…

Pentagon wavers on release of report on Afghan attack

WASHINGTON — Defense Department officials are debating whether to ignore an earlier promise and squelch the release of an investigation into a U.S. airstrike last month, out of fear that its findings would further enrage the Afghan public, Pentagon officials told McClatchy Monday.
……

Pentagon leaders are divided about whether releasing the report would reflect a renewed push for openness and transparency about civilian casualties or whether it would only fan Afghan outrage and become a Taliban recruiting tool just as Army Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal takes command of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Never mind that the existence of a couple hundred thousand U.S. military personnel and dozens of U.S military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan are an ongoing recruitment tool for the Taliban and are daily fanning Afghan outrage…..never mind all that….now, even releasing a Pentagon report of military wrongdoing must be kept secret.

Maybe every American media source should be restricted from reporting on the fact that we even have troops inside Iraq and Afghanistan….you know, that revealed fact might fan the flames of Muslim and Arab outrage and be used as a recruitment tool by al-Qaida and the Taliban. I mean, is our military really inside those countries if no one knows about it?

America voted for change. Sadly, what we are getting is more of the same.

Updated below

While Mr. Cheney held the office of the vice presidency, about the only time I can recall him being on the teevee was during the fraud-up leading to the U.S. act of aggression against the formerly sovereign nation of Iraq. Mr. Cheney appeared several times on American teevee telling obvious lies about the awful, terrible, cataclysmic threat of Mushroom Cloud Saddam and His Al-Qaeda Buddies Backup Band.

But I don't think I saw much of Mr. Cheney after that time.

Now that Mr. Cheney is out of office, I'm seeing him, like, all the time on my teevee. What's up with that?

Before answering that question, I must first dispense with this burr in my saddle about media.

I keep hearing similar statements from the media elite personnel, which, to me, sound odd. I'm no behind-the-scenes expert about how teevee programs are put together, but I keep hearing phrases like this…."Cheney keeps grabbing the headlines"….."Former VP Cheney dominating torture discussion"….."Cheney grabs national microphone"…."Cheney leading charge in media against Obama's no-torture policy."

Do you suppose that Dick Cheney has a secret commando team working for him enabling him to, at a moment's notice, swoop in and commandeer NBC or ABC headquarters? Think that's possible? I mean, he's a radical guy…….a coward, to be sure, but a radical coward.

To hear Villagers like MSNBC's Chris Matthews tell it…..Cheney must break into Washington Post and New York Times offices with his Dick Army, point guns at publishers' heads, and threaten them with the waterboard,….or something,….if those publishers won't allow the former VP to "grab the headlines."

"George W. Bush seems happy to be back in civilian life, but Cheney has taken the fight to the Obama White House like a man who wouldn’t have minded campaigning for a third Bush-Cheney term," said the NY Times Ross Douthat on April 28th.

How does Cheney go about, "tak(ing) the fight to the Obama White House?" Cheney has no news to break to the American people…what he's been saying is what he and his minions have been saying for years, i.e., 'be scared', 'be very scared', and 'be scared all the time.'
Why, exactly, does the main media allow Cheney to commandeer their "news" programs, if, indeed, he doesn't have anything new or worthwhile to tell us?

Or, could it be that Dick Cheney is STILL the vice president? Cheney didn't believe his office fell under the jurisdiction of the executive or the legislative branch while he "served" his 8 years…..so, perhaps, it's arguable whether or not he's still the vice-president. Cheney, you might remember, picked himself to be W's vice-president. And Cheney did serve a president who considered the Constitution as " a goddamn piece of paper", so, who really knows for sure whether Cheney isn't entitled to the vice-presidency for life, you know, like a federal judge.

When a nation jettisons the rule of law, as America has obviously done, who can say what's legal or just? Maybe there's a "one percent" chance that Cheney is still the U.S. vice-president. Like with American torture…..this Cheney-is-still-the-vice-president-suggestion may just be a "policy difference", or the answer simply too "murky", "not clear", "no one can say for sure."

Setting all that aside for now…..because, like with the question of who won the Coleman-Franken senate election……we may never know the answer.

Using my untrained, unexpertise blogging brain, I've concluded that the reason Dick Cheney has been so visible and so vocal the last three months is because he's a criminal, guilty of numerous war crimes and treason,…..he knows it….and he's trying to save his own tired ass by stirring up a controversy in the national media, which he hopes, will pressure the powers-that-be to forget all about it.

Why, you might ask, would the Village media go along with Dick's plan?

If you've been paying close attention, you will have noticed that from the New York Times to Fox "News", Village idiots are virtually unanimous in calling for no prosections of the American war criminals, Bush, Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld and their mob-lawyers, Yoo, Bradbury and Bybee. Prosecutions of, now, self-confessed war criminals would only be ugly actions of "retribution" and "scalp hunting" over "policy disagreements." The Village longs to "look forward," and prosecuting crimes of the past is so backward looking. On this topic, President Obama is firmly inside the Village.

There's one even larger picture answer to why The Dick has been so visible lately and the Village has been calling, in unison, for no prosecutions for pre-meditated and savage war crimes.

They're all guilty.

Village media, from Cokie to Broder, from Brooks to Friedman, from O'Reilly to Stephanopolous, from NPR to FOX, from Judith Miller of the NY Times to Matt Cooper of Time…..the Village media was actively complicit in stovepiping the war criminals propaganda directly to the American people. The Village did the bidding of the most criminal administration in American history. They held back damaging material they had in their possession implicating the war criminals and they obediently transmitted the war criminals' lies and propaganda like a flock of droid stenographers.

And now that same Village is granting the biggest war criminal of all, Richard Cheney, a standing-offer platform from which he can work, insidiously, in a conspiratorial attempt to protect himself from war crimes' prosecution while simultaneously protecting the Village from the embarrassment of their own complicity.

Update proving my point about the Village:

Here are the line-ups for the Sunday talk shows this weekend:

• ABC, This Week: Gen. David Petraeus, Commander of CENTCOM; Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

• CBS, Face The Nation: Former Vice President Dick Cheney.

• CNN, State Of The Union: Gen. David Petraeus, Commander of CENTCOM.

• Fox News Sunday: Gen. David Petraeus, Commander of CENTCOM; former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA).

• NBC, Meet The Press: Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan; Asif Ali Zardari, President of Pakistan.

Did the November election even happen?

1) President Obama had a busy day yesterday.

From Dana Priest of the Washington Post….

The military's Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, facility, where the rights of habeas corpus and due process had been denied detainees, will close, and the CIA is now prohibited from maintaining its own overseas prisons. And in a broad swipe at the Bush administration's lawyers, Obama nullified every legal order and opinion on interrogations issued by any lawyer in the executive branch after Sept. 11, 2001.

Elections have consequences. In the case of Obama's presidency following Bush's……elections have significant consequences. Obama did the right thing in closing American gulags and sh*tcanning "every legal order and opinion on interrogations issued by any lawyer in the executive branch after Sept. 11, 2001".
Every order and opinion on interrogations since 9-11. That's a big wow.

2) jimmy james mentioned recently in a comment that perennial Villager Peggy Noonan, columnist for the Washington Post, and former speechwriter for Mr. Ronald Reagan, didn't think Barack Obama's Inaugural address was overly critical toward the outgoing George W. Bush. Here's part of jimmy's tongue in cheek comment…

"Rev, you are way off base here. I just heard Peggy Noonan say on The Television Machine that Obama's speech was not a repudiation of Bush." Link

From a New York Times column by Peter Baker reprinted in today's AB Journal….first, whining from Karen Hughes, George Bush's surrogate mother….

"There were a few sharp elbows that really rankled and I felt were not as magnanimous as the occasion called for," Karen Hughes, a longtime Bush confidant, said in an interview. "He really missed an opportunity to be as big as the occasion was and, frankly, as gracious as President Bush was as he left office."

Then this….

Dan Bartlett, another top adviser, used similar language. "It was a missed opportunity to bring some of the president's loyal supporters into the fold," he said. Marc Thiessen, the chief White House speechwriter until this week, added: "It was an ungracious inaugural. It was pretty clear he was taking shots." Link

"Pretty clear he was taking shots"…….shots Peggy Noonan did not hear nor recognize. The most loyal Bushies thought Obama's address was "ungracious", "a missed opportunity", Obama guilty of "taking shots" at the former president. The closest of Bush's confidants agree that The Reverend had it right all along.

3) For years I have been blogging about the extensive crimes of the Bush-Cheney administration, but specifically their blanket violation of the 4th amendment which protects Americans from government's spying on them without judicial approval.

It isn't news to me that the Bush administration had ordered the construction of a "mirror" AT&T communications hub in San Francisco years ago through which ALL American communications were being monitored. Not just, you know, Islamofascists…..like we were told….but ALL Americans…..and ALL communications. The worst part is that it all started BEFORE 9-11. Please consider this piece from last night's Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC…..

Former NSA agent, Russell Tice, whom the Bush people have been stalking for awhile now, came out publicly Wednesday night on MSNBC's Countdown, followed by a second appearance last night. Those appearances can be seen here and here.

Tice gives firsthand information that the Bush administration, through the NSA's ongoing program of vacuuming up all American communications without judicial approval and in violation of FISA laws, specifically TARGETED U.S. news organizations and journalists.

This extensive criminal-spying behavior, when found out about in 2004 by Bush's own employees at the FBI and the Justice Department, resulted in threats of resignation by those same high level employees if the criminality wasn't stopped.

Enraged by all this, Bush went after whistleblower Thomas Tamm, the Justice Department lawyer who told the New York Times' James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, who subsequently told Americans about Bush's illegal spying program. The NY Times and the journalists in question were, undoubtedly according to Tice's new revelation, already being targeted by the very Bush program the two journalists were blowing the whistle on.

This is only the beginning of what's sure to be an avalanche of details-to-come revealing the numerous and extensive crimes of the past administration.

Ever work someplace where you had to take inventory periodically? Methods of taking inventory have changed dramatically over the last 30 years with the explosion of digital communications….but back in the day, I did it the old fashioned way….hand counting and tallying on a clipboard. One aspect of taking inventory, however, will never change. The purpose. The purpose of taking inventory is to get an accurate count of where a company currently stands.

Let's take inventory of America, shall we?

What products are proudly displayed on the shelves in American government 'stores' now that are basically new products, even though they have always been available, you know, out the back door?

1) America now offers a 'new and improved formula' of torture cleanser. When a spot of Judeo-Christian brand righteous indignation gets on our national security clothing, we can torture it out now by applying the newly patented formula of 'interrogation techniques'. Sold by our media salespeople under both "harsh" and "enhanced" labels, the torture cleanser doesn't actually work well, as many experts agree, but it does a helluva clean-up job on those pesky vengeance spots occasionally found on our collective consciences.

Although often found in the contents of 'blackbag' operators throughout our god-ordained government's history, I can't remember ever seeing torture wrapped in such attractive and patriotic media packaging before. I can't remember our Great and Serious Leader Salesforce ever boldly placing this up-til-now prohibited product in front window displays before.

Jot it down on your clipboard. Torture is now one of America's new products. Sure, we've hired some new salespeople recently, touting that our new torture product is a bit defective, but what could Inexperienced, Unserious, Newbees know about the wide array of benefits flowing from new product branding? That's right….not much. The 'proof' that our new torture product has staying power is that America hasn't been attacked since 9-11….well….except for the anthrax attacks….and those obviously don't count….simply an aberration in the data.

2) Sometimes, while taking inventory, one notices an outdated product resurrected under a new name. Take retro-jeans, for example. Back in the silly, silly days of protesting flagrant civil rights inequalities and wars waged for the sake of military-industrialists, young American men took to wearing old jeans with holes in them. Now we can simply buy them that way.

Spying, unconstitutionally, on Americans has become like retro-jeans. It's all the rage. Back in the days following Richard Nixon's police-state captivity of Americans, the silly, silly Church Committee led to the retro-product, nostalgically known as the FISA laws. Meant to address the epidemic of Nixon-inspired 4th amendment violations regarding search and seizure, as well as the use of the NSA and CIA against political critics, FISA law products were used successfully, and without objections, by both Republican and Democratic CEO salesmen for 3 decades.

But after 9-11, everything changed. A brand new product, though sold as a retro, was introduced in 2001. No longer, we were told in 2001, need we be afraid of rogue presidents ordering unlawful activities. No longer need we fear the NSA or CIA violating our constitutional rights. We need only fear a stateless, faceless, ragtag group of Muslims armed with primitive, you could call them retro, weapons.

'Unitary executive' decisions were made to vacuum up each and every American's e-mails, financial transactions, and phone calls. All done without FISA warrants…all in direct violation of the Constitution and all done in secrecy. Military members were instructed to infiltrate political groups critical of the 'unitary executive'. Just like during the good-ole' Nixon retro days.

When the extremely-non-patriotic New York Times decided to announce our Glorious New Retro Product of spying on Americans, you know, ahead of schedule….they were rightly villified by Non-Silly, Patriotic Sales Reps. The evidence that this new and improved spying product should be included on our inventory clipboard is the fact that the New York Times whistleblower is being prosecuted for giving up proprietary secrets. More evidence that our bright and shiny new spying product is a big success is the Very, Deeply, Serious Congress' dismissal of the silly, silly idea that the original Nixonian product was defective.

Don't forget to include 'spying on Americans' on your American inventory clipboard.

3) The newest, and most sophisticated, product, found proudly displayed in our largest media-outlet stores, has been ingeniously labeled, 'the minority should rule'. This new product, often heard about from behind the very conservative doors of our Highly Moral and Patriotic national salesforce, was rolled out to rousing success immediately after the Very Unserious American Voters decided to put French-like salespeople in the majority in 2006. Those silly, silly consumers.

The Deeply Serious new minority have patriotically kept us in Iraq, against the wishes of silly, majority voters. This new 'minority rules' product has been ever-so-instrumental in marketing and maintaining our other new inventoried products, numbers 1 and 2 above. What could an Unwashed and Unserious majority know about selling new products that are good for us, anyway?

As the new sales-year begins, I am seeing more and more evidence of 'minority rule' marketing. And rightfully so. Here's but one example. Why should America foolishly stimulate a depressed economy, as the Unqualified Majority suggests, when the Much More Patriotic and Wise Minority, so successful when in majority status, have 41 Seasoned Experts in the senate salesforce whose Patriotic Wisdom and Righteous Record in Sales, is unmatched?

The Minority Should Rule product, The Reverend predicts, will be the new X-Box. Everyone in sales will be astonished at the Patriotic Brilliance of this new product line.

Mark down, Minority Should Rule, on your clipboard. It will be on the shelves for a long time.