Even More

* Chilling fact of the night: “Texas uses fourth grade reading scores to project the number of prison cells they’re going to need 10 years later.”

* LGM has your Wisconsin pre-postmortem.

* Robert Reich is teasing an imminent Obamacare ruling, claiming Roberts wants to uphold the law.

* Even Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Won’t Say The Affordable Care Act Is Unconstitutional.

* How Wes Anderson Soundtracks His Movies. Another Wes Anderson interview.

* And tonight’s dystopia: Behold the London Olympics’ Creepy ‘Brand Exclusion Zone.’

The most carefully policed Brand Exclusion Zone will be around the Olympic Park, and extend up to 1km beyond its perimeter, for up to 35 days. Within this area, officially called an Advertising and Street Trade Restrictions venue restriction zone, no advertising for brands designated as competing with those of the official Olympic sponsors will be allowed. (Originally, as detailed here, only official sponsors were allowed to advertise, but leftover sites are now available). This will be supported by preventing spectators from wearing clothing prominently displaying competing brands, or from entering the exclusion zone with unofficial snack and beverage choices. Within the Zone, the world’s biggest McDonald’s will be the only branded food outlet, and Visa will be the only payment card accepted.

I Don’t Recall

Does faking amnesia permanently distort your memory?

Monday Morning

Monday morning.

* Following up on this post from Sunday: Rahm Emanuel says there will be no Bush-era prosecutions. OpenLeft wants to know whether Eric Holder is “a Gonzales-like lackey” in light of his apparent willingness to allow political judgments to influence DoJ policy.

* And speaking of political judgments influencing DoJ policy, this Rep. Harman story is pretty unbelievable, even for the Bush administration.

There are a lot of hairy details on this one. But the gist is that an NSA wiretap recorded Harman in a conversation with a “suspected Israeli agent” in which Harman allegedly agreed to use her influence with the DOJ to get them to drop the AIPAC spy case in exchange for help lobbying then-Speaker-in-waiting Nancy Pelosi to make Harman chair of the House Intelligence Committee — a position she ended up not getting.

…

The story suggests that the tapes show Harman crossed the line. And the gears were in motion to open a full blown investigation. But then Alberto Gonzales intervened and shutdown the whole thing.

Why? Here’s where it gets into the realm of bad novel writing: because Gonzales (and the White House) needed Harman to go to bat for them on the warrantless wiretaping story that the New York Times was then on the brink of publishing.

Find me one honest Congressperson.

* The Hollywood Reporter says the chances of a Dollhouse renewal are 50/50. That’s actually a lot better than I thought.

* Tuna projected to be wiped out by 2012.

* Maps from the recession.

All Is Quiet on New Year’s Day

All is quiet on New Year’s Day.

* As the Bush administration blessedly draws to a close, it’s important to remember the casualties of the War of Terror, people like Alberto Gonzales. (via)

* More people get their news from the Internet than from newspapers. More importantly:

The percentage of people younger than 30 citing television as a main news source has declined from 68% in September 2007 to 59% currently.

That’s good, good news.

* Howard Dean, Vermonter of the Year. Maybe next year, Ben and Jerry.

* Batman casting rumors you can believe in: Philip Seymour Hoffman as the Penguin.

* It’s the future, and Microsoft still sucks.

* Top 10 space stories of 2008. A different 10.

* Top 10 cryptozoology stories of 2008.

* James Howard Kunstler’s predictions for 2009. Prediction: Pain. Via MetaFilter.

* Thank god for philosophy grad students, the only graduate demographic upon Lit students can look down.

Cheney Indicted

A South Texas grand jury has returned multi-count indictments against Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on charges related to the alleged abuse of prisoners in Willacy County’s federal detention centers.

Understanding Bush

Slate has a helpful Venn diagram tracing the network of major Bush administration illegality, and surprisingly it’s Alberto Gonzales and not Dick Cheney who emerges as the Worst of a Very Bad Bunch.

Meanwhile, via MeFi, Salon asks whether or not Congress might pursue a Church-Committee-style truth commission in the wake of the criminality of the last eight years.

That question was answered in the seven-page memo. “The rise of the ‘surveillance state’ driven by new technologies and the demands of counter-terrorism did not begin with this Administration,” the author wrote. Even though he acknowledged in interviews with Salon that the scope of abuse under George W. Bush would likely be an order of magnitude greater than under preceding presidents, he recommended in the memo that any new investigation follow the precedent of the Church Committee and investigate the origins of Bush’s programs, going as far back as the Reagan administration.

The proposal has emerged in a political climate reminiscent of the Watergate era. The Church Committee was formed in 1975 in the wake of media reports about illegal spying against American antiwar activists and civil rights leaders, CIA assassination squads, and other dubious activities under Nixon and his predecessors. Chaired by Sen. Frank Church of Idaho, the committee interviewed more than 800 officials and held 21 public hearings. As a result of its work, Congress in 1978 passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which required warrants and court supervision for domestic wiretaps, and created intelligence oversight committees in the House and Senate.

…Some see a brighter prospect in Barack Obama, should he be elected. The plus with Obama, says the former Church Committee staffer, is that as a proponent of open government, he could order the executive branch to be more cooperative with Congress, rolling back the obsessive secrecy and stonewalling of the Bush White House. That could open the door to greater congressional scrutiny and oversight of the intelligence community, since the legislative branch lacked any real teeth under Bush. (Obama’s spokesman on national security, Ben Rhodes, did not reply to telephone calls and e-mails seeking comment.)

But even that may be a lofty hope. “It may be the last thing a new president would want to do,” said a participant in the ongoing discussions. Unfortunately, he said, “some people see the Church Committee ideas as a substitute for prosecutions that should already have happened.”