"Mother‽ I've turned the cooling units back on! Mother... ?"

[elfs]

Bush rescinds authority of executive espionage oversight board.

Almost 32 years to the day after President Ford created an independent Intelligence Oversight Board made up of private citizens with top-level clearances to ferret out illegal spying activities, President Bush issued an executive order that stripped the board of much of its authority. ...

Under the old rules, whenever the oversight board learned of intelligence activity that it believed might be "unlawful or contrary to executive order," it had a duty to notify both the president and the attorney general. But Bush's order deleted the board's authority to refer matters to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation, and the new order said the board should notify the president only if other officials are not already "adequately" addressing the problem. ...

Bush's order also terminated the board's authority to oversee each intelligence agency's general counsel and inspector general, and it erased a requirement that each inspector general file a report with the board every three months. Now only the agency directors will decide whether to report any potential lawbreaking to the panel, and they have no schedule for checking in. ...

Executive orders were once widely understood to be binding unless a president revoked them, an act that would notify Congress that the rules had changed. But the administration has decided that Bush is free to secretly authorize spies to ignore executive orders - including one that restricts surveillance on US citizens traveling overseas - without rescinding them.

Comments

[shunra.livejournal.com]

I had to double-check if that link was legitimate. Alas, it looks legit.

So... Bush doesn't want anyone (but himself) to know about unlawful intelligence activity? Doesn't that mean that he's covering up apparent spying activity?

[ionotter.livejournal.com]

I find this all VASTLY amusing, really?

I mean, what do you suppose is going to happen when President Obama gets ahold of these sorts of powers? Or President Hillary Clinton? Or McCain?

Out of all of those choices, I want to believe that Obama would eliminate them and turn back the tide of damage that's been done, and perhaps McCain would do a little in that regard as well. But if Hillary were to have that kind of power, I'd be very afraid.

But then, the first people to be black bagged would be the previous administration, along with Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Anne Coulter, so I'm torn as to whether it would be all that bad in the end?

Or course, this is all assuming that President Bush even steps down...

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Is Bush on drugs?

I mean, seriously: his own generals are telling him that Iraq has mestasized into an ugly, simmering civil conflict with no end in sight; the war in Afghanistan is going badly; the dollar is dying and a recession seems to be well underway; we've lost all moral authority (we can't even waggle a finger at China, for Isis' sake! because of our use of waterboarding and mistreatment of prisoners); the stock market seems to be going insane; there are tent cities going up (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnnOOo6tRs8) in urban areas (link to BBC news video; why do we never see this in US media, hmm?); the Fed is debasing the dollar to keep the system from cracking; his own Vice President has filed a brief opposing the administration's position on gun laws (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/30410.html) and was recently heard to say "Iraq is going well" even as 35 people were killed just a few miles away.

And yet, he's smiling, he's laughing, the world is his oyster, apparently, and he's eaten it raw. What the fuck is wrong with that man?

[shunra.livejournal.com]

The scary thing is that we, um, own him. It's not just that he's crazy, it's that the society we are in has made such rules as to enable his ascent to power and his service as a figurehead of power.

About the Fed's virtual printing-press extravaganza: Boingboing mentioned that moneychangers in Amsterdam aren't willing to change dollars for Euro because the rate changes too fast. Echoes of my teens in Israel - prices used to be changed several times a day, and things that couldn't be priced thus (rents, legal fees, etc.) were stated in dollars - the local currency had lost all credibility (and most of its value). The only conceivable good news in that is that our mortgages are likely to be a heck of a lot easier to pay off, really soon. Other than that, the currency dismantling is bad for everyone, I think.

[sirfox.livejournal.com]

It seems like he's doing everything he can to emulate Nixon, from tight control of what limited press conferences are held to secret spying and abuses of power. One can only hope that he carries it to its natural conclusion and fucks up so very publicly, so very badly, that it can't possibly be covered up or handwaved away, and has to step down. Not that the alternative would be much better, grant you.

[damiana-swan.livejournal.com]

I've heard a few theories. Unfortunately, most of them sound like tinfoil hat stuff ... until you realize that by any reasonable standard (which assumes that he's using the same set of facts we are and has approximately the same goals) what he/they have been doing and saying does not qualify as sane.

--First theory is, of course, that Bush is not sane. Or rather, that he has a diagnosable disfunction. The theories I've heard range from severe Fetal Alcohol Syndrome to Narcissism.

--Second theory is, he's the front man (conscious or unconscious) for a group that are, in all seriousness, trying to trigger the prophesied Apocalypse. (This group does exist and they are tied to the administration. How much Bush's actions are tied to their goals is questionable.)

--Third theory is, there's a reason so many of their tactics resemble the fascist regimes of the '30's and '40's, and that he said, way back when, that "things would be a lot easier if this was a dictatorship" and he was the dictator. That is, in large part, what they've managed to accomplish--the democratic republic UI that's left is getting pretty damned thin.