"One dude's quest to save democracy!" Free for All! is a new documentary about the 2004 Ohio election results, which decided the presidential winner. It covers some familiar ground, but also a lot of details you might have missed. You can see it in theaters on October 8, or view it online right now. Here's Roger Ebert's review.
posted on Oct 4, 2008 - View this thread

Worried about social-network data mining? Facebook hires Ted Ullyot, former right-hand man to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, as its general counsel. Tapping Ullyot, who worked on the infamous torture memo and other illustrious projects, is a sign that the burgeoning Scrabble platform "is a little more grown-up," says Facebook public-policy VP Elliot Schrage.
posted on Sep 30, 2008 - View this thread

"60% of men trim their pubes. What, really?"
posted on Sep 15, 2008 - View this thread

Presidential Crimes: Moving on is not an option. "In deciding about legal redress, we need to be clear about the large stakes in our decision. The very multiplicity of the apparent crimes, the sheer array of arguably broken laws, is dizzying. But that multiplicity must be faced, for in it we will see that what got in President Bush’s way was not any one law but the rule of law itself. It is the rule of law that has been put in jeopardy by a project of executive domination; it is the rule of law that will continue to be in peril; and it is only, therefore, by addressing the crimes through legal instruments—through a formal, legal arena, and not simply through the electoral repudiation of bad policy—that the grave and widespread damage stands a chance of being repaired."
posted on Sep 8, 2008 - View this thread

Bob Woodward has a new book released today titled The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008. The Politico has a lengthy review by Mike Allen. Bloomberg also has an early, less flattering, review.
posted on Sep 8, 2008 - View this thread

"On the weekends, he favors two-hour bicycle rides at a Secret Service training facility outside Washington, where he sometimes asks companions and agents to ride behind him so that he can have the illusion of riding alone." With all the focus on the upcoming election, what of George W. Bush?
posted on Aug 31, 2008 - View this thread

In February President Bush issued an Executive Order changing the role & reporting structure of the PFIAB, the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. At the time the order was criticized & analyzed as a move to consolidate power within an organization that was already full of Bush cronies. But it now looks like all the pundits were wrong. The real reason? There was a spy in the PFIAB.
posted on Aug 21, 2008 - View this thread

Cross another item off of President Bush's to-do list before he leaves the White House: hobbling the Endangered Species Act and allowing federal agencies to gauge the environmental impact of their projects for themselves. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said the changes were needed to ensure that the ESA would not be used as a "back door" to regulate greenhouse gases.
posted on Aug 11, 2008 - View this thread

Texas executes Mexican national who was denied consul visit.
posted on Aug 6, 2008 - View this thread

We've discussed what Bush and Batman have in common, but when presented with a list of quotes, can you tell which is by Bush, and which is by Batman (as played by Adam West)? It's Bush or Batman!
posted on Jul 29, 2008 - View this thread

"What kind of lawbreaking has happened on President Bush's watch, among his top and mid-level advisers? What hasn't? Who is implicated and who is not? Despite the lack of oral sex with an intern, the past seven years have yielded an embarrassment of riches when it comes to potentially prosecutable crimes. We have tried to sketch out a map of who did what and when, with links to the evidence that is public and notes about what we may learn from investigations that are still pending." Via Slate
posted on Jul 29, 2008 - View this thread

What Bush and Batman have in common. "A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .Oh, wait a minute. That's not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a "W."
posted on Jul 25, 2008 - View this thread

Is Congress gearing up to hold a new American Truth Commission? What new horrors would they find if they did? The last time we tried this we uncovered MK/ULTRA, plots to kill Castro & Project SHAMROCK. One of the most significant outcomes was a little thing called FISA. After 30 years it may finally be time to wash out our national dirty laundry again.
posted on Jul 23, 2008 - View this thread

The San Francisco Department of Elections has qualified our initiative. The Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco has won its ballot initiative to honor George W. Bush: Should The City And County of San Francsico Rename The Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant the George W Bush Sewage Plant?
posted on Jul 18, 2008 - View this thread

Former White House spokesman Tony Snow developed colon cancer in February 2005 thanks to having suffered from ulcerative colitis for much of his life; he died today from that ailment. Snow was a "Fox News Sunday" anchor, a Fox News Channel political analyst, a guest host for Rush Limbaugh's radio program, the host of Fox News Radio's "The Tony Snow Show", and a NPR commentator. Chief of Staff Josh Bolten told staffers that unless they could commit to staying the full remainder of Bush's term, they should leave by Labor Day 2007, prompting Snow's resignation (due to what he said were financial reasons), where he was succeeded by Dana Perino. He played the guitar, saxophone and flute and was in a band called Beats Workin'. "Bush's wavering conservatism has become an active concern among Republicans, who wish he would stop cowering under the bed and start fighting back against the likes of Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Joe Wilson," said Snow in a column. "The newly passive George Bush has become something of an embarrassment."
posted on Jul 12, 2008 - View this thread

"It's not just the American dollar that's losing value. The Environmental Protection Agency has decided that an American life isn't worth what it used to be. The value of a statistical life is $6.9 million in today's dollars, the [EPA] reckoned in May -- a drop of nearly $1 million from just five years ago."
posted on Jul 10, 2008 - View this thread

What if Al Gore really had won? J. M. Kearns crafts a new, imaginative Bush conspiracy in his new short story, "The Eagle Has Landed."
posted on Jul 10, 2008 - View this thread

Preparing the Battlefield: The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran.
posted on Jun 29, 2008 - View this thread

Bush had Karl Rove. But the original wiretapping President needed brains too. Introducing Kevin Phillips. He predicted the prolonged Republican dominance of Washington 1970-present and advised the Ford and Reagan presidencies. He predicted a more liberal 1990s and when the Bushies killed his party he became uttery disgusted. Recently he spoke about the influence of the christian right, our addiction to oil, and America's debt (public and private) at the University of California Santa Barbara.
posted on Jun 28, 2008 - View this thread

Everybody Dance Now
posted on Jun 13, 2008 - View this thread

Worldwide disdain of Bush used to sell everything from newspapers to marmite to adhesive tape to cars to Scrabble, plus lots of advocacy ads for not-for-profit organizations.
posted on May 13, 2008 - View this thread

Bush interview with Politico: "For the first time, Bush revealed a personal way in which he has tried to acknowledge the sacrifice of soldiers and their families: He has given up golf."
posted on May 13, 2008 - View this thread

Like sea monkeys in your pants! Entomological blogger Bug Girl (previously) debunked a web site touting the benefits of giant Japanese non-biting genital lice as personal "pets" (they just live happily in your underwear. It’s so COOL! They grow, and have families. You can feel em living and crawling around!). She dismissed it as a hoax. So the site's author sent her a sample.
posted on May 7, 2008 - View this thread

"Only Nixon could go to China," and only ex-Republican ex-Senator Lincoln Chafee can explain how George W. Bush set out "to preempt the Congress... on every issue", "turned his back on (his) bedrock campaign pledges", and become simultaneously America's most powerful and least popular President (and why there could never be a "surely this..." moment). NOT just another OMGBUSH commentary, this should be required reading for anybody who honestly wants to know what went wrong.
posted on May 2, 2008 - View this thread

"The United States Lacks a Comprehensive Plan to Destroy the Terrorist Threat and Close the Safe Haven in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas" (PDF). A recent GAO report claims that the Bush administration has failed to prevent Al Qaeda's reemergence in Pakistan, and that we're basically right back where we started in 2001.
posted on Apr 30, 2008 - View this thread

Ars Technica has a fascinating account of the IT "planning" which lead to the loss of 5 million+ emails. Via /.
posted on Apr 30, 2008 - View this thread

Television military analysts are wooed, courted, and privileged by the Pentagon. An in-depth investigative report by the New York Times uncovers logrolling, shilling, touting, back-scratching, and just plain bias on the part of the experts that television networks put on the air to talk about the war. Some of them appear to be as good as owned by the Defense Department. "The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air. Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves."
posted on Apr 19, 2008 - View this thread

“You could almost see their dicks getting hard as they got new ideas." A Vanity Fair reporter investigates the chain of command that tossed out the Geneva Conventions and instituted coercive interrogation techniques -- some might call them torture or even war crimes -- in Bush's Global War on Terror. UC Berkeley law professor John Yoo's now-obsolete 81-page memo to the Pentagon in 2003 [available as PDFs here and here] was crucial, offering a broad range of legal justifications and deniability for disregarding international law in the name of "self-defense." Others say that Yoo was just making "a clear point about the limits of Congress to intrude on the executive branch in its exercise of duties as Commander in Chief." [previously here and here.]
posted on Apr 3, 2008 - View this thread

A very special 'This American Life' about an administration with the endemic belief that laws only apply to the little people, and a limitless refusal to concede on even petty issues, no matter the costs. The highlight is about immigrant widows of US citizens (30:50). The program also discusses the constitutional beliefs of the presidential candidates.
posted on Apr 2, 2008 - View this thread

In honor of the 5-year anniversary of the Iraq War, PBS' Frontline presented a fantastic 2- part special on the issue this past Monday and Tuesday. It is now available in it's entirety online along with interview transcripts from senior officials, a video timeline of the war, and battlefield stories from soldiers. Bush's War
posted on Mar 26, 2008 - View this thread

• Bin Laden by Immortal Technique
• Cowboy (Ode to Dubya) by Peggy Watson
• Good Ol' Jesus by Thom Paine, Woody Guthrie and Kevin Kane
• Georgie Porgie by Linda Finkle
• American Two Step by William Shatner and The Everly Brothers
• Holdin' Out by Strangegirl
• Girly-Man Rag by Steve Zimmerman
• I Don't Like Bush by Brett Eidman
• Great Big Lies by Dumb Presidents

The George W. Bush Presidential Library : visualizations
posted on Mar 4, 2008 - View this thread

Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war.
posted on Mar 3, 2008 - View this thread

Tim Goeglein, director of the White House office of public liaison, is a plagiarist.
... and he actually admits it.

“It is true,” Tim Goeglein wrote to The Journal Gazette in an e-mail. “I am entirely at fault. It was wrong of me. There are no excuses."

Bob Geldof in Rwanda gives Bush his props.. Bob Geldof, who has worked tirelessly to ease the suffering in Africa, has praised President Bush on his policies and efforts in that country. The singer was annoyed that the press had mostly ignored the exuberant reception that Mr. Bush has consistently received during his five-nation tour this week
posted on Feb 21, 2008 - View this thread

The Illustrated President.
posted on Jan 26, 2008 - View this thread

While it may be old news the US was drawn into the Iraq War under false pretenses, a new report by the Center for Public Integrity documents 935 specific falsehoods in public statements by eight white house officials: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, Wolfowitz, Fleischer and McClellan.
posted on Jan 23, 2008 - View this thread

Patriots, countrymen, help out the American economy with Operation: Change For The Better.
posted on Jan 16, 2008 - View this thread

2007 was a year of extreme weather records, and 2008 could be worse, for example an unrelenting southeast drought could be devastating. 2008 will also be Bush's last year, and as the evidence for global warming mounts, Bush's agenda appears to be greening. "If global warming turns out to be a defining issue of this generation, advisers said, Bush does not want to be remembered as a roadblock."
posted on Dec 29, 2007 - View this thread

Secrecy no more? The first major overhaul of the Freedom of Information act in years is awaiting President Bush's signature. It will finally create an "independent" government agency to handle to disputes between records holders and information requesters. The passage of the act comes after, ironically, after an Arizona senator used a "secret hold" to block the bill. He was ferreted out by a group of journalists.
posted on Dec 20, 2007 - View this thread

George W. Bush covers John Lennon's War Is Over (If You Want It) in a collaboration with Wax Audio. Another coverversion of John Lennon's God is included on the B-side of the new limited edition 45. On the other hand, Yoko sez, "Vote Kucinich!" (previously on Mefi)
posted on Dec 12, 2007 - View this thread

CIA destroys videotapes of "advanced interrogations"
posted on Dec 6, 2007 - View this thread

Al Odah v. U.S. and Boumediene v. Bush go before SCOTUS Streaming on C-Span today. The Center for Constitutional Rights (great podcast) will argue before the Supreme Court today:

Immediately after the Supreme Court’s decision in Rasul, The Center for Constitutional Rights and cooperating counsel filed 11 new habeas petitions in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of over 70 detainees. These cases eventually became the consolidated cases of Al Odah v. United Statesand Boumediene v. Bush, the leading cases determining the significance of the Supreme Court’s decision in Rasul, the rights of non-citizens to challenge the legality of their detention in an offshore U.S. military base, and the constitutionality of the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue was an animated drug prevention television special starring many popular cartoon characters from American Saturday morning television. Airing in 1990 and financed by McDonald's, it was simulcast on all three major American television networks. The VHS home video edition of the special also opened with an introduction from then-President George Bush Snr and Barbara Bush. And thanks to the wonders of the interwebs, you can watch the whole thing here. And you really should. After all, where else are you going to get to hear cartoon characters like Garfield and Winnie the Pooh talking about smoking crack and shooting juice?
posted on Dec 3, 2007 - View this thread

The 30-Second Senate Session: In order to prevent President Bush from making recess appointments, the U.S. Senate will technically stay open over the Thanksgiving holiday. The result? A U.S. Senate session that lasts, gavel-to-gavel, exactly 30 seconds.
posted on Nov 21, 2007 - View this thread

The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush. "The next president will have to deal with yet another crippling legacy of George W. Bush: the economy. A Nobel laureate, Joseph E. Stiglitz, sees a generation-long struggle to recoup." [Via Firedoglake.]
posted on Nov 18, 2007 - View this thread

Gallup: Bush 'strongly disapprove' 50% > Nixon 48% Gallup notes that the two ratings are statistically equivalent. A newspaper industry site noted it, and Raw Story, while Uruknet (which is not unbiased) felt the story was under-reported.
posted on Nov 9, 2007 - View this thread

A top immigration official has apologized after awarding 'most original costume' to a Homeland Security Department employee who dressed in prison stripes, dreadlocks and dark makeup for a Halloween gathering at the agency.
posted on Nov 6, 2007 - View this thread

Who knew being metal (or a Texas Longhorns fan) could actually be evil?
posted on Nov 3, 2007 - View this thread

sarkozy, sarkozy, sarkozy.
posted on Oct 23, 2007 - View this thread