Daylily uprising

As you come around the East side of the LipsYard house, you spot the garage wall of Daylilies (Hemerocallis.) The word Hemerocallis is derived from two Greek words meaning "beauty" and "day," referring to the fact that each flower lasts only one day. To make up for this, there are many flower buds on each daylily flower stalk, and many stalks in each clump of plants, so, the flowering period of a clump is usually several weeks long. And, many cultivars have more than one flowering period.


There are five varieties here, three that are in bloom right now (Little Winecup, Stellad'oro, Happy Returns,) and two more (Pardon Me, Minnie Pearl,) about to pop.

This is a closeup of the Little Winecup.

Along with the five Daylilis uprising, there's also an uprising over the detention of prisoners at Gitmo and who's responsible for the treatment they've been given.

Investigations, led by Sen. Carl Levin, into the harsh treatment (torture) of these detainees has discovered that the framework under which they were imprisoned for years without charges at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and in many cases abused in Afghanistan wasn't the product of U.S. military policy or the fault of a few rogue soldiers.

It was largely the work of five White House, Pentagon and Justice Department lawyers who, following the orders of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, reinterpreted or tossed out U.S. and international laws that govern treatment of prisoners in wartime, according to former U.S. defense and Bush administration officials.

The Supreme Court has struck down many of those legal interpretations, ruling last week that preventing detainees from challenging their detention in federal courts was unconstitutional.

The five lawyers, who called themselves the "War Council," drafted legal opinions that circumvented the military's code of justice, the federal court system and international treaties to prevent anyone — from soldiers on the ground to the president — from being held accountable for activities that at other times have been considered war crimes.

Only one of the five War Council lawyers remains in office: David Addington, the longtime legal adviser and now chief of staff to Cheney. Addington's primary motive, according to several former administration and defense officials, was to push for an expansion of presidential power that Congress or the courts couldn't check.

Alberto Gonzales, first the White House counsel and then the attorney general, resigned last August amid allegations of perjury related to congressional hearings about the firings of U.S. attorneys.

The Defense Department in February abruptly announced the resignation of William Haynes, the former Pentagon general counsel, amid public criticism by military lawyers that he failed to ensure a just system of detainee trials at Guantánamo.

Even some conservatives have condemned former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo for what many called sloppy legal work in drafting key memorandums about detention policy. He is now a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

The last and least-known member of the group, Timothy Flanigan, a former deputy to Gonzales, withdrew his nomination to be deputy attorney general in 2005 amid mounting questions in the Senate about his role in drafting the administration's legal definition of torture and other issues.

This is just the beginning of the unraveling of a giant ball of lies from this administration.