The photo above was taken on Jan 20th, 2009. President Obama has since signed an Executive Order calling for the closure of Gitmo within a year.

If I hear one more Bush Legacy con-artist --- or worse, supposed Progressives who brainlessly buy into the masterstroke of propaganda --- state that "Bush kept us safe" or "There have been no terror attacks on American soil since 9/11," I think I may shoot someone, or poison them with anthrax --- just to keep them safe.

To be clear, there were deadly terror attacks --- and on American soil! --- since 9/11.

5 people were killed and 17 other were injured in the 2001 anthrax attacks in what was the most deadly use of lethal bioterrorism on American soil in this nation's history. Many of those multiple terror attacks included notes intended to signal that they were attacks by supporters of Islamic jihadists.

Additionally, in October 2002, for three weeks, D.C. and environs were ground to a panicked stand-still as sniper attacks by a terrorist from the Nation of Islam went on for three weeks, killing 10 people and injuring 3 at 15 different sites throughout the Beltway.

Both the Anthrax Attacks and the Beltway Sniper Attacks were terrorist attacks on Americans, on American soil, following 9/11.

As to Bush having kept us safe beyond the 15 killed and 20 injured in the dozens of terror attacks on American soil since 9/11 as mentioned above, to date 4,230 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq. Additionally, 172 American civilian contractors were also killed in the unnecessary, optional war on a country which had nothing to do with 9/11. Moreover, tens of thousands of U.S. troops were permanently injured in the conflict.

The number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq, under Bush's optional deployment, far exceeds, by more than one thousand, the number of American citizens killed on 9/11.

Counting only the dead (and only the American dead, in this case, since estimates of violent Iraqi civilian fatalities during the war are currently estimated to be anywhere from a conservative 150,000 to more than 1,000,000) that totals 4,245 Americans killed by terrorists, or in optional conflicts with terrorists, since 9/11.

"Bush kept us safe"?

Since 9/11, we could have had 14 different massive domestic terrorist bombings, in 14 different major U.S. cities, kill 300 Americans in each attack, and still had fewer Americans killed by terrorists since 9/11 than we have under the bold and courageous leadership of George W. Bush.

None of the above refers to the likely millions of individuals across the world now far more interested in bringing us harm than they were prior to 9/11, but other than that, yeah, "Bush kept us safe".

Idiots.

Though the clemency granted by George W. Bush to the criminal I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, for his part in illegally covering up the investigation into the unprecedented White House outing of a covert CIA asset, was reprehensible, Bush showed admirable restraint in his issuing of Presidential pardons on his way out the door.

There! Never let it be said we couldn't come up with something positive to say about his reign! Took us eight years, but there ya go. Even a broken clock is right at least once every eight years.

By way of underscoring his nearly once-in-a-lifetime apparently (accidentally?) good judgment, it's worth noting that many of Bush's supporters (such that there still are any) are pissed off that he hadn't issued a full pardon for Libby before leaving:

Waytago, Decider! You finally did something right!

As we've been predicting for some weeks ago, the flood of revelations that would be flowing forth after Obama was sworn in would likely make what we currently know about Bush Era illegalities and incompetence seem like barely the tip of the iceberg.

Just one day after the Inauguration, Russell Tice, the NSA whistleblower who originally participated in that agency's illegal warrantless wiretapping program, and revealed details of same to the New York Times' back in late 2005, has now come forward with more details that he had been disinclined to release previously (he had been, after all, hounded by the FBI, subpoenaed by a grand jury, etc. after his original, heroic revelations.)

He spoke yesterday on MSNBC, revealing that American journalists were targeted by Bush's program which "had access to all Americans' communications." Please watch the remarkable video interview at right. Both that, and the text below, is from RAW STORY's coverage last night...

At the end of the MSNBC interview, Olbermann asked Tice to appear again this evening (Thursday) for more discussion on this issue.

End of the night: Some of our favorite pictures from today...

More photos, videos, news, songs, observations and historical documentation throughout the day follows below, newest to oldest...

...It goes like this:

(As Obama finishes taking his oath...)

OBAMA: ...and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me God...

JUSTICE ROBERTS: Congratulations, Mr. President.

OBAMA: Thank you.

(The 44th President of the United States then turns, and points to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, both sitting near him on the dais...)

OBAMA: Mr. Attorney General, arrest those two men.

Her words are more impressive when read, than when seen in the video, I think. Nonetheless, both seem to reveal a Pelosi at a bit of a crossroads. Perhaps. Could the woman who took impeachment "off the table" be ready to now move in a different direction?

The words that impress me most there: "You look at each item and see what is a violation of law and do we even have a right to ignore it."

UPDATE: Jason Leopold has more at Public Record...

David Letterman's good riddance montage(s) of his "Great Moments in Presidential Speeches"...

Last week, President-elect Barack Obama said he was open to "good ideas" from anyone, even from the New York Times' Paul Krugman. (Video here.)

"If Paul Krugman has a good idea...then we're gonna do it," said Obama. He was speaking about "good ideas" for his economic stimulus package at the time, but we'd written that we hoped the sentiments might extend to good ideas on any important issue that his administration might face, including some good ideas of our own that we'd offered to his transition team, who had consulted with us, as they are working on review of the dreadfully-failed U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC).

Well, as it turns out, the New York Times' Paul Krugman does have some very good ideas, as noted in an op-ed yesterday, this time on why the Obama administration must bring accountability for the crimes of the Bush Era. The must-read column, headlined "Forgive and Forget?" begins this way...

September 21, 2001...

January 15, 2009...

And if you think he looks bad, imagine how our country looks. Thanks to him, unfortunately, thousands of Americans won't get to take that look.

And no, he didn't "keep us safe," no matter how many times they keep repeating it...

TV and Radio flim-flam artist and Bush-era dinosaur Bill O'Reilly told listeners of his radio show today that his role in the next few years will be "to be Paul Revere." (Audio clip at end of article.)

O'Reilly had little explanation for his new-found patriotism and why he had decided, over the last eight years, to be a front line general for "the British" instead.

During much of this morning's Radio Factor w/ Bill O'Reilly, which he will soon be leaving for good, he chided so-called "Bush haters" who believe in accountability for the soon-to-be-former "President," for their unwillingness to simply "move ahead" and ignore the myriad crimes of the outgoing Administration.

The phrase, oft-repeated this morning by the wanna-be-patriot O'Reilly, was reminiscent of similar "get over it, move on" admonitions proffered by his ilk when Bush was awarded the Presidency by the Supreme Court in late 2000 despite his opponent, Al Gore, having received more votes in Florida [PDF] and across the entire nation.

"Move on" then, "move ahead" now, warns the new Paul Revere who has previously noticed no British either coming nor going...

Okay. Holder gets our vote. Courtesy of David Swanson:

If he's confirmed, Attorney General nominee Eric Holder told the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee during confirmation hearings today, he'll review the Bush U.S. Attorney's decision to not prosecute former DoJ Civil Rights attorney Bradley Schlozman for his grotesque bastardization and politicization of the department as we detailed earlier this week. Schlozman, the DoJ's Inspector General found, broke federal law and custom vis a vis his hiring practices of only fellow whack-a-doodle wingnuts, and further went on to lie to Congress about during hearings (which is also a federal crime).

Said Holder during questioning by Sen. Dianne Feinstein...

I've had this picture in my mind lately, an editorial cartoon-like drawing, of a dam about to break and someone (Obama?) leaning hard up against it in futile hopes of keeping it from bursting forth. The dam and its contents, in my mind's eye, are labeled "Bush Administration Crimes and Failures." I've been pondering, over the last several days, how we're soon likely to learn that everything we think we already know about the historically-unparalleled failures, crimes and cover-ups of the Bush administration, will likely prove to be barely the tip of the iceberg as the Bushies lose their power, and "the files" are finally opened for all to see.

It's likely to take years, after President Obama is sworn in next week, to unearth the entire breadth of the degradation, filth, corruption and dismantling of federal law and U.S. Constitution under the current administration, and to piece together all of the unshredded and likely-shredded evidence both, and to take in the information likely to pour forth from officials and former officials who finally find the courage to tell the world just how bad it all really was and is (even if many of them would now be doing so only to salvage their own hide.)

One hint of what will be found beyond the tip of that iceberg, or inside that near-to-bursting dam (take your metaphorical pick) comes in today's remarkable report [PDF] from the DoJ Inspector General on the illegal politicization of the hiring practices at the DoJ's Civil Rights Division and "other improper personnel actions" in the division.

It's remarkable on several fronts. Not only because it describes the politicization of the department under the Bushies, their strictly illegal hiring practices; their determined dismantling of a core of career attorneys devoted to years of legal-processes in the fight for civil rights; as well as perjury and out-and-out lying to Congress, but also because the report itself --- in one last classic stroke of corrupt Bush Administration gaming of the system --- was completed last July, prior to the election, but held for release until today, just 7 days before the criminals (or at least those who won't be still-embedded like cancer cells within the federal buearocracy for years to come) take their leave.

And, as if all of that isn't bad enough, with the out-and-out finding of criminal wrongdoing in the report (such as illegal hiring practices and lying about them to Congress), the Bush Administration's own DoJ has decided that no prosecutions should be brought against the Bush Administration's own DoJ for the Bush Administration's own DoJ's now-well-documented actions in breaking federal law.

The bastardization of the DoJ Civil Rights division is a topic which we've covered closely over the years here at The BRAD BLOG, and even played a part in helping to expose, for example, when the head of the Voting Section in that division, John Tanner, was forced to resign from his post, not long after we'd video-taped and published controversial (and inaccurate) comments he made at a 2007 conference in Los Angeles declaring that disenfranchising Photo ID restrictions at the polling place were more of a concern for the elderly than for African-Americans because "minorities don't become elderly the way white people do. They die first."

(See our now-infamous video, shot by our own Alan Breslauer, at right.)

As today's (actually July's) report reveals, that wouldn't be the only unfortunate --- and one might say, "ironic", given his position --- derogatory remark made about African-Americans by Tanner. But the bulk of the report, it seems, is devoted to one Bradley Schlozman, who insidiously twisted the mission of the Civil Rights division, brought political prosecutions in order to try and affect the outcome of elections, in violation of written DoJ policy, and attempted (and arguably succeeded) in helping to engineer an outright illegal, and ideological purge --- an ethical cleansing, if you will --- at the department, in an attempt to stack it with far rightwing brethren from the Federalist Society, or "right thinking Americans" (RTAs), as he referred to them among friends...

The following email invitation arrived today, from reader "Karen"...

The BRAD BLOG welcomes any other insider tips on rooms planned for the library, but not yet listed above...