scoreboard: the beginning of the end.

earlier this week, the 'president' signed the new terror suspect prosecution law.

as you may already know, the legislation allows for, among other measures - and i'll just copy the verbiage used in the times article i linked to above:

- authorizing Mr. Bush to issue an executive order clarifying the rules for questioning high-level detainees
- stripping the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear petitions from noncitizens for writs of habeas corpus, effectively preventing detainees from going to court to challenge their confinement
(More than 500 habeas suits are pending in federal court, and Justice Department officials said Tuesday that they would move swiftly to dismiss them under the new law.)
- a system of military commissions for trying terrorism suspects that would allow evidence to be withheld from defendants in certain instances.

ladies and gentlemen, america has left the building.

now, forget about the fact that this bill is little more than a brazen and blatant attempt by the repugnantcans to distract voters from the fact that the country is going down the tubes under their watch, by playing on fears of terrorism (“It is a rare occasion when a president can sign a bill he knows will save American lives,” Mr. Bush said at a ceremony in the East Room of the White House; The president said he was signing the measure “in memory of the victims of September the 11th.”).

(btw, a good drinking game would be to drink every time a republidon says '9.11,' and by good, i mean that it would get you blackout drunk within minutes.)

the fact that these bastards are fond of taking people's rights away (gay marriage, anyone?) just when people start to realize the full majesty of their collective incompetence is one thing. but right now i want to focus on the law itself, specifically juxtaposed with another statement bush made, that i read in the post:

"One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of america. He didn't get his wish," the prez said.

oh really? he didnt get his wish? let's review.

america- as i understand it, and pls. tell me if im crazy - was founded by men who were fed up with being ruled by a goverment that placed inordinate power in the hands of one man - king george 3.0 - right? the founding papas wanted to correct that problem in their new nation, right?

they also wanted to make sure that the citizens of their new country would enjoy certain inalienable rights, like habeus corpus, right? and the right for a defendant to see, and therefore respond to, the evidence being used against him, right? the constitution and all?

do i have all this fairly correct?

cuz if i do, id say the terrorist indeed got his wish. i mean, this year christmas came early for that dude, no? as i see it, and tell me if im trippin something fierce here, BUSH JUST ESTABLISHED A LAW THAT DEFEATS SEVERAL KEY PRINCIPLES THAT 'AMERICA' WAS FOUNDED ON! id say 'the beginning of the end of america' just happened.

let's call the prez king george 7.0.

(dont even get me started on senator john mccain, a former POW himself, who, after some posturing to the contrary, tacitly went along with this new bill. i dont know if he's suffering from some kind of delayed stockholm syndrome, or what, but suffice it to say, the man is diced. then again, at least it's obvious he's aware he's diced:

from the times:

Leading Republican lawmakers, among them Senators John W. Warner of Virginia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who balked at the initial White House version of the bill and forced a much-publicized compromise, were also on hand [at the signing]. But the third leader of that Republican rebellion, Senator John McCain of Arizona, was noticeably absent.

Mr. McCain, a likely presidential contender in 2008, skipped the ceremony to go to Wisconsin to campaign for a Republican House candidate, John Gard, and was later headed to Sioux Falls, S.D., to address the Chamber of Commerce. A spokeswoman said the senator’s absence was “purely an issue of scheduling.”

i hope, for mccain's own sake as a human being with a heart, that it was more "purely an issue of suspecting he might be the saddest hypocrite on the planet, selling his soul to his '08 presidential ambitions." i mean, if mccain is anyone's answer for '08, they need to change the question.)

anyway, back to the pt of the post. i know i make a lot of noise about the terrorists winning, but i really do feel that they had a good week - at least scoring a pt, if not a victory - and i hereby acknowledge as much, with a new blasilica feature, the terrorism scoreboard. i will update it on an as-needed basis. hopefully i wont need to update it too often, and hopefully we'll score some pts eventually. but after this week, it's clear we are gonna be playing catch-up:

we need a better team; vote democratic in november.