Election day tomorrow in Argentina

voting in argentina, btw, is mandatory for all those over 18...

Voters will elect representatives for half of the Argentine lower Chamber of Deputies and a third of the Senate. [...] Campaigning ended on Friday, and no more rallies or polls are allowed before voting day.

the elections have also provided a bit of good news for yours truly although not for argentines converting to u.s. dollars...

Pre-election jitters yesterday weakened the peso, which closed at three to the US dollar, a level last seen in December 2004. Apart from local conditions, traders said that investors retreating from emerging markets also had an impact on the local foreign exchange market.

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How about they ALL resign...

[O]ne White House official, noting that Bush's senior staff is tired of the long hours and increasing pressure, has told colleagues it might be best if everyone closest to the president resign and clear the way for new blood and fresh perspectives.

(thanks AGAIN to patriot daily...)

ok... here we go... i've been pushing this since katrina... i think the whole damn lot of 'em should hit the street... some of the key players are at camp david as i type this, chewing over what the hell they're gonna do... imho, they should chew on this... drum roll, please...

BUSH, CHENEY AND THE ENTIRE CABINET MUST SUBMIT THEIR RESIGNATIONS... IMMEDIATELY...

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The American Conservative on Iraq: "catastrophic imperial venture"

the rats seem to be falling all over each other in the rush to jump off bush's ship of fools... headline of the article: Money for Nothing...

The United States invaded Iraq with a high-minded mission: destroy dangerous weapons, bring democracy, and trigger a wave of reform across the Middle East. None of these have happened.

When the final page is written on America’s catastrophic imperial venture, one word will dominate the explanation of U.S. failure—corruption.

(thanks to patriot daily...)

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Saturday photoblogging - Neos Marmaras, Greece

i spent the greek orthodox easter weekend, 2004, in neos marmaras, a little town on the second finger of the halkidiki peninsula, near thessaloniki, greece, on the aegean sea... as for the two-masted sailboat... i've always dreamed about living onboard and, were it ever to happen, i would want the boat to be just like this one...



Looking northwest across the Cassandra
Gulf toward Neo Moudania



Looking across Neos Marmaras harbor



Sunset on the Cassandra Gulf

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"A Category 6 hurricane is threatening our shores - it's the federal budget deficit."

so says the comptroller of the United States, David M. Walker... is anybody paying attention...?

"There is not much courage out there," said Brian M. Riedl of the Heritage Foundation . . . "Like an alcoholic, the first thing you have to do is admit you have a problem. The flip side of it is, Americans are vehemently opposed to every possible solution."

americans may be "vehemently opposed" but that's why we have elected leaders... or so i was led to believe...

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Karen Hughes: Crony incompetence goes global

you're doin' a heckuva job, karen...

Bush administration envoy Karen Hughes visited Indonesia on Friday as part of her campaign to repair U.S. standing with the world's Muslims and defended the invasion of Iraq by telling skeptical students that deposed president Saddam Hussein had gassed hundreds of thousands of his own people.

[...]

State Department officials later acknowledged that Hughes, tapped by President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to set the record straight on U.S. policies in the Muslim world, had misreported history.

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GM, sticking it to your employees, and the case for national health insurance

oh, man... it just keeps on comin'... clueless, self-absorbed management runs a company into the ground, threatens bankruptcy, and holds its unions and employees hostage to gain cost concessions... odds are good that bankruptcy will be declared anyway which will very likely spell the death of the union, if not outright, certainly as any effective counter-balance to management... the unions and the employees, naturally, are terrified about losing their jobs altogether... and, of course, ford looks across town and says, "hey, me too...!"

The union agreed to this desperation deal to help keep GM alive. The once-dominant auto-maker posted a record $1.1 billion loss in the third quarter; and its former parts division, Delphi, with 34,000 union jobs, has just gone into bankruptcy. If and when it emerges, Delphi's $26-an-hour workers will be cut to something like $12. That gets your attention.

The union leadership was so eager to help GM survive that the UAW filed an unusual suit intended to block its own union retirees from challenging the negotiated health-benefit cuts. Now Ford has just reported a $284 million third-quarter loss, and wants the same kind of deal the UAW gave GM.

[...]

So GM's biggest problem is not labor costs; it's that except for its profitable SUVs (which are becoming white elephants as gas prices rise), too few consumers are buying GM's products. When management makes dumb decisions about design, quality, or marketing, autoworkers end up paying the price.

GM spends also $5.6 billion a year on healthcare -- more than it spends on steel. Its foreign competitors spend nothing on healthcare. So GM and the UAW are common victims of America's failure to have national health insurance.

let's bring in grover norquist to 'splain why everything should be in the hands of private enterprise... i'm sure we'd all feel better...

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A potentially explosive development in Plamegate

sherlock google at kos has the run-down...

Rep. Maurice Hinchey led 40 Democrats in asking Fitz to expand his investigation to the Niger forgeries, sending a letter that outlined the crime of lying to Congress and the statutes that were broken by George W. Bush. By law, the GJ is required to hear any such request--especially one signed by 40 members of Congress.

If this is true Harwood of the WSJ said it would be an "earthquake" in Washington.

September 15, 2005

United States Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald

Justice Department

950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20530

Re: Request To Expand Investigation


Dear United States Attorney Fitzgerald:

We hereby request that you expand your investigation regarding who in the Bush Administration revealed to the press that Valerie Wilson, the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was an undercover agent for the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.). We believe that expansion should include investigating the Administration's false and fraudulent claims in January 2003 that Iraq had sought uranium for a nuclear weapon, which the Administration offered as one of the key grounds to justify the war against Iraq.

there's a lot more... go read the rest...

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Southwest Airlines going into Denver

there goes another united hub down the drain... it ain't gonna help frontier either...

Southwest Airlines Co. will resume service in Denver next year. . . , likely triggering lower fares yet posing fresh problems for airlines already struggling with higher fuel prices.

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Scowcroft joins Wilkerson in "breaking ranks..."

yep, the wheels are definitely coming off bushco's wagon... scowcroft was bush I's top man right up there with james baker... i met him briefly once right after 9/11 when i was handling security at dulles... not that this has anything to do with anything but i was surprised to see how short he is...

(steve clemons - again - has the scoop on scowcroft's upcoming new yorker article...)

The article will outline what decisions and events have built up to turn Brent Scowcroft against this Bush administration. Yes, that's right. . ."turned Brent Scowcroft against this Bush administration."

Jeffrey Goldberg, the author of the piece, has pulled off a stunning coup by not only getting Brent Scowcroft to talk -- but also getting some incredibly juicy commentary from President George H.W. Bush on the performance of his son's national security team.

I don't have the full piece yet -- but I know it will be a blockbuster.

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Keller at the NYT talking about Judith Miller

(thanks to poynter online via atrios...)

[I]f I had known the details of Judy’s entanglement with Libby, I’d have been more careful in how the paper articulated its defense, and perhaps more willing than I had been to support efforts aimed at exploring compromises.

Dick Stevenson has expressed the larger lesson here in an e-mail that strikes me as just right: “I think there is, or should be, a contract between the paper and its reporters. The contract holds that the paper will go to the mat to back them up institutionally -- but only to the degree that the reporter has lived up to his or her end of the bargain, specifically to have conducted him or herself in a way consistent with our legal, ethical and journalistic standards, to have been open and candid with the paper about sources, mistakes, conflicts and the like, and generally to deserve having the reputations of all of us put behind him or her. In that way, everybody knows going into a battle exactly what the situation is, what we’re fighting for, the degree to which the facts might counsel compromise or not, and the degree to which our collective credibility should be put on the line.”

bill, bill, bill... it ain't a 50-50 "contract..." judy had 100% of the responsibility for being straight with you and you had 100% of the responsibility for making sure she was...

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Fitzgerald's web site

joe at americablog is all a-flutter... :)

Patrick J. Fitzgerald
Special Counsel

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Friday morning funnies: Rove and Libby "cleared..."

newsmax, usually good for a laugh, doesn't disappoint...

(the actual headline reads: NY Times: Karl Rove, Lewis Libby Likely Cleared on Leakgate Charges...)

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has likely decided not to indict top White House aides Karl Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby based on allegations they "outed" CIA employee Valerie Plame, lawyers close to Fitzgerald's Leakgate investigation have told the New York Times

.
if you go back and read the nyt article (which, of course, they don't provide a link to), you'll see it says nothing of the kind... what it DOES say is this...

The possible violations under consideration by Mr. Fitzgerald are peripheral to the issue he was appointed in December 2003 to investigate.

sometimes, finding good news is really hard work but i guess it's all in how you look at it...

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Movie premieres - Hollywood goes faith-based

and, if this does well, i suppose we will have churches hosting entire first runs...

"Left Behind: World at War," the third movie based on the Left Behind series of novels about Armageddon and the Second Coming of Jesus, will open tonight on 3,200 screens across the country. But it will . . . be shown . . . exclusively in churches.

Marketing executives say the decision is part of a major trend. The entertainment industry has discovered there is power, power, product-moving power in selling movies, books and music through churches -- particularly the suburban megachurches that draw thousands of well-heeled worshipers.

[...]

Rev. Richard Edgar expects to draw 300 viewers, twice his regular membership. Like most pastors across the nation, Edgar will not charge admission but will ask for an offering.

"We want to show Hollywood that there are enough people in the churches to support good, wholesome entertainment without all the blood and guts and sex and vile language," he said.

when it hits theaters, will attendance be restricted to "christians only...?"

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Schadenfreude and frog-marching...

Normally, Schadenfreude is exceedingly hard to resist in such circumstances. But it is harder still to allow oneself any joy at the misfortune of others, when the focus needs to be placed on the huge damage already done to our country, its values, and its reputation.

whatever pleasure i might derive from the possible coming indictments springs directly from a longed-for sense of relief and a faint glimmer of hope that the unparalleled trashing of everything that's good about this country may be brought to a halt - or at least slowed down...

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Rove and Libby in "serious jeopardy... " An-ti-ci-pay-shun, an-ti-ci-pay-ay-shun, is keepin' me way-ay-ay-itin'...

As he weighs whether to bring criminal charges in the C.I.A. leak case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel, is focusing on whether Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, and I. Lewis Libby Jr., chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, sought to conceal their actions and mislead prosecutors, lawyers involved in the case said Thursday.

Among the charges that Mr. Fitzgerald is considering are perjury, obstruction of justice and false statement - counts that suggest the prosecutor may believe the evidence presented in a 22-month grand jury inquiry shows that the two White House aides sought to cover up their actions, the lawyers said.

Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby have been advised that they may be in serious legal jeopardy, the lawyers said, but only this week has Mr. Fitzgerald begun to narrow the possible charges. The prosecutor has said he will not make up his mind about any charges until next week, government officials say.

With the term of the grand jury expiring in one week, though, some lawyers in the case said they were persuaded that Mr. Fitzgerald had all but made up his mind to seek indictments..

i hope rove isn't sleeping well..

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Shielding the firearms industry

why doesn't the fbi crack down on THIS kind of obscenity...?

Congress gave the gun lobby its top legislative priority Thursday, passing a bill that would protect the firearms industry from massive lawsuits brought by crime victims. The White House says President Bush will sign it into law.

of COURSE he'll sign it...

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James Moore, co-author of Bush's Brain, lays it out and it spells R-O-V-E

i've read "bush's brain," the definitive book on rove, and it made a huge impact... james moore, the book's co-author, writing in the huffington post, lays it out...

Patrick Fitzgerald has before him the most important criminal case in American history. Watergate, by comparison, was a random burglary in an age of innocence. The investigator’s prosecutorial authority in this present case is not constrained by any regulation. If he finds a thread connecting the leak to something greater, Fitzgerald has the legal power to follow it to the web in search of the spider. It seems unlikely, then, that he would simply go after the leakers and the people who sought to cover up the leak when it was merely a secondary consequence of the much greater crime of forging evidence to foment war. Fitzgerald did not earn his reputation as an Irish alligator by going after the little guy. Presumably, he is trying to find evidence that Karl Rove launched a covert operation to create the forged documents and then conspired to out Valerie Plame when he learned the fraud was being uncovered by Plame’s husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson. As much as this sounds like the plot of a John le Carre novel, it also comports with the profile of the Karl Rove I have known, watched, traveled with and written about for the past 25 years.

[...]

I have seen the spawn of Rove’s tortured mind and watched a hundred of his political scams unfold and I am confident I know how this one played out. Rove might have brought it up with his fellow big brains in the White House Iraq Group, a propaganda organization set up to disseminate information supporting the war. There was likely a consensus to move the plan to smack down Wilson out of the White House. Rove always keeps a layer of operatives between himself and the person he gets to pull the trigger. Libby was probably told to manage it out of the VP’s office to protect the president because Karl always takes care of his most prized assets. Libby then likely ordered John Hannah and possibly David Wurmser to call the ever-friendly Judy Miller at the New York Times and columnist Robert Novak to give them Valerie Plame’s identity. Rove knew that Miller would call Libby of Aspen for confirmation and his old friend Novak was certain to call Rove who, as an unidentified senior White House official, would confirm the identity on background only. Because Novak is a partisan gunslinger, he wrote more quickly than Miller and when she saw the firestorm his story created, she backed off and has since been trying to cover for herself and Libby. Miller’s later claim that she cannot remember who gave her the “Valerie Flame” name is as much dissembling as Rove’s unconvincing argument that he “forgot” he met with Time reporter Matt Cooper. Karl Rove can remember precinct results from 19th century presidential elections. He neither forgets nor forgives.

James Moore is an Emmy-winning former television news correspondent and the co-author of the bestselling, Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential.

i've always maintained that rove is satan's doppelganger...

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Kleptocracy update: Refco

yet another sordid instance of bankruptcy as the new business strategy...

In the year before Refco sold shares to the public and then promptly made the fourth-largest bankruptcy filing in United States history, insiders at the firm received more than $1 billion in cash, according to the firm's financial statements.

And one insider, Robert Trosten, received $45 million when he left his post as chief financial officer a year ago, according to testimony at an arbitration hearing earlier this year.

ONE BILLION friggin' dollars...! truly obscene greed... any mention of the employees who were put on the street...? funny you should ask... no...

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The Buenos Aires Herald laments Argentina's corruption

So little has Argentina’s standing within the Transparency International (TI) corruption index improved since last year — still ranked 97th out of 159 countries with its rating up to 2.8 from 2.5 marks out of 10 — that not even the government’s most zealous spin doctors in the last week before Sunday’s elections were inspired to headlines such as: “Argentina one of the 100 most honest countries in the world” or “Argentina making headway against corruption.” Whether 2.5 or 2.8, any mark below three is a resounding failure in TI’s eyes, on a par with Madagascar and Mozambique.

numbers one, two and three, respectively, are iceland, finland and new zealand... the u.s. is number 17...

sunday is election day in argentina...

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Anti-gay in the first person

alternet has a good post up today with a few first-person accounts of anti-gay vehemence, taken in the heat of the battle to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in texas... a sample...

"The bible is very clear -- homosexuality is an abomination, and I do think homosexual marriage should be illegal. This is not just my opinion. This is God's opinion. [...] [S]in is sin. We're not animals. We're people, and I do not believe that you're born homosexual. They only have two signs over at the hospital: blue ones for the boys and pink ones for the girls. God knows when we're born what we're supposed to be."

many cited statistics...

[She] rattled off numbers that come from widely discredited reports by Paul Cameron. The chairman of a right-wing outfit called the Family Research Institute, Cameron was dropped from membership in the American Psychological Association in 1983 for lack of cooperation with the Committee on Scientific and Professional Ethics and Conduct.

i've always wondered why, if being gay is a choice, would anyone in his or her right mind consciously CHOOSE a way of life so filled with potential misery...

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Rove the weenie

ah, it's come to this... saving your own ass trumps everything else...

White House adviser Karl Rove told the grand jury in the CIA leak case that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, MAY [emphasis mine] have told him that CIA operative Valerie Plame worked for the intelligence agency before her identity was revealed, a source familiar with Rove's account said yesterday.

karl, you miserable slime-ball... not that we didn't know that already but, geeez... funny what you can remember and what you can't... what a weenie...

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"Diva" politics in Argentina - Sunday's election day, so how about a feather boa...!

hey... it's been a long day of serious news... let's look at something a trifle less heavy...

sunday is election day in argentina, a country long beset by governmental ups and downs... the administration of president nestor kirchner has been fervently electioneering to gain and maintain a majority in the national legislature... there's been the usual election year flurry of activity, not the least of which has been the customary ploy of every government around the world trying to stay in power - fixing up the parks and repairing the roads... now, a la monty python, for something completely different...

At the Broadway Theater one recent evening, the 56-year-old cabaret star shook through a steamy dance routine and cracked a few equally uninhibited jokes about Argentine politicians. Then Nito Artaza, a co-star in her comic song and dance revue, turned to the crowd and gestured toward Casan.

"She's going to be among our representatives in Congress?" he asked in mock horror.

"Absolutely," replied Casan, posing dramatically. "There, I will be the diva."

If Casan is elected to Congress on Sunday, as recent polls suggest might happen, Argentine politics will get both a strong shot of sequined glitz and a voluble dose of anti-political rhetoric.

"I don't have a political discourse, and I don't believe politicians," Casan said during a recent interview. "I believe the people need someone who will work for them without so much 'blah blah blah.' "

imho, a better alternative than mr. california beefcake, ah-nuld...

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Diebold's voting machines far from hack-proof

well... i certainly feel reassured NOW...

Ion Sancho wants to get things right this time. As supervisor of elections for Leon County, Florida, he stood at the epicenter of the election fiasco of 2000. Voter confidence, he realizes, is paramount. That's why he's let a computer hacker have a go at one of his new machines.

The apparatus in question is the Accuvote 2000 Optical Scan, a boxlike computer that reads ballots as they are inserted. The data is collected and stored on a memory card that's later uploaded into a central tabulator. Diebold, the machine's Canton-based manufacturer, claims that the memory cards cannot be altered to influence votes. Sancho figured he'd find out for himself.

In May, he gave Dr. Herbert Thompson access to an Accuvote 2000. As hackers go, Thompson doesn't quite fit the mold of a pasty-faced kid playing Warcraft in Mom's basement: He's the chief strategist at Security Innovation, a Florida tester of online security for IBM, Microsoft, Google, and other large businesses and government agencies. If anyone can uncover a problem, it's this guy.

But not even Thompson could have expected this: He was able to manipulate a memory card using homemade devices. When he inserted it into the Diebold machine, 10,000 votes were awarded to one candidate, and the Accuvote detected no sign of fraud.

In a later test coordinated by Sancho, another security expert was also able to manipulate results, this time with flair: He programmed the Leon County computer's LCD screen to read: "Are We Having Fun Yet?", an homage to the 1983 hacker movie WarGames.

(thanks to raw story...)

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Rove and Libby conferred prior to Plame outing

interesting-er and interesting-er...

Top White House aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby discussed their contacts with reporters about an undercover CIA officer in the days before her identity was published, the first known intersection between two central figures in the criminal leak investigation.

[...]

The Rove-Libby contacts were confirmed to The Associated Press by people directly familiar with testimony the two witnesses gave before the grand jury. All spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the proceedings.

does anyone else besides me think that the entire house of cards is ready to come down...?

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Send a little love to AMERICAblog

john's trying to make a living off of his site and, to make matters more interesting, he's run blogger out of capacity and, as we know, server space ain't cheap when you're talking high volume...

(send your love... $$ would be welcome too...!)

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Judith Miller as Armstrong Williams

like i posted earlier, judy miller was virtually a member of the white house staff...

Besides Rove and Libby, the [White House Iraq Group] included senior White House aides Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin, James Wilkinson, Nicholas Calio, Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley. WHIG also was doing more than just public relations, said a second former intel officer.

"They were funneling information to [New York Times reporter] Judy Miller. Judy was a charter member," the source said.

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Former State Dept Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson puts the cards on the table

an absolutely riveting video clip courtesy of steve clemons, from a speech given today, in which larry wilkerson talks about the "Secretive Cabal Running American Foreign Policy" that is "Undermining American Democracy..." wilkerson's speech comprises approximately the first 45 minutes of the hour and a half video... EXTREMELY worthwhile, not only for the perspective on foreign policy decision-making but also for the perspective on prisoner abuse...


Larry Wilkerson

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Not so amazingly, WaPo parrots R's talking points

an editorial in today's edition reads like it was written by bill kristol...

WaPo

Nonetheless, it's astonishing to see many in the journalism establishment, and in the media trade press, turn on Ms. Miller not just for questions surrounding the waiver but also for refusing now to identify all of her sources, turn over all of her notes and otherwise lay bare her reporting.

could it be that she wasn't "reporting..." could it be that she was working in service to the bush administration in its efforts to sell an illegal war...?

Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald may have evidence that they [administration officials] did [reveal Plame's undercover status]; there is a still a great deal that is not publicly known. But so far, in the accounts given by reporters about their conversations with administration officials, no such crime has been described. What has been depicted is an administration effort to refute the allegations of a critic (some of which did in fact prove to be untrue) and to undermine his credibility, including by suggesting that nepotism rather than qualifications led to his selection.

Bill Kristol

In today's Washington, as has been true for decades, classified information is leaked by many different players in any given policy fight in the government. The Bush administration has been replete with leaks of presumably classified information. Is the identity of Valerie Plame the most consequential leak of the last four years?

last i checked, there was a substantial difference between a "leak" and a "crime..." if we criminalize leaks, we got a problem... if we decriminalize crime, we got a bigger problem...

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Iran and Syria - the drums of war continue to sound

waves of deja vu...

Rice said the United States was using diplomatic means to urge a change in the behavior of both countries [Syria and Iran] — but she stopped short of ruling out military force. "I'm not going to get into what the president's options might be," Rice said. "I don't think the president ever takes any of his options off the table concerning anything to do with military force."

if past is prologue, "anything to do with military force" seems to be one of the first options...

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Bunnatine Greenhouse

the wapo has a well-written profile on bunny greenhouse, the corps of engineers whistleblower...

This past summer, when she prepared to testify before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee -- the only congressional body that has expressed interest in her charges (though the committee has no oversight power) -- Greenhouse's superiors told her it would not be in her "best interests" to do so.

She thought about that over the weekend. She thought about the lessons her parents imparted to her, a half-century ago, in another time, another place.

Then she testified: "I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career."

It was stunning in its confrontational nature, its moral conviction, its assurance -- and, one might observe, in its full-blown career suicide.

The Corps kicked her out of her job weeks later.

In Greenhouse's dismissal letter, Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock said her removal was "based on her performance and not in retaliation for any disclosures of alleged improprieties she may have made." She was moved to a lesser post in the civil works division.

whether it was for performance or for retaliation, you would think that someone could have paid more attention to the timing so at least it wouldn't LOOK like retaliation...

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"One possible justification" for the outing of Plame: "the order of the President"

stratfor (strategic forecasting inc.) is a highly-regarded newsletter covering major developments of interest to those working in the global environment... in a recent stratfor emailing, george friedman took an in-depth look at why the violation of noc (non-official cover) status of a cia agent is such a serious matter and why, under any circumstances save possibly one, it is illegal...

(the full text is posted on kos...)

But even if we regard the press as unethical by our standards, their actions were not illegal. On the other hand, if Rove and Libby even mentioned the name of Valerie Plame in the context of being a CIA employee -- NOC or not -- on an unsecured line to a person without a security clearance or need to know, while the nation was waging war, that is the end of the story. It really doesn't matter why or whether there was a plan or anything. The minimal story -- that they talked about Plame with a reporter -- is the end of the matter.

We can think of only one possible justification for this action: That it was done on the order of the president. The president has the authority to suspend or change security regulations if required by the national interest. The Plame affair would be cleared up if it turns out Rove and Libby were ordered to act as they did by the president. Perhaps the president is prevented by circumstances from coming forward and lifting the burden from Rove and Libby. If that is the case, it could cost him his right-hand man. But absent that explanation, it is difficult to justify the actions that were taken.

© Copyright 2005 Strategic Forecasting Inc. All rights reserved. This report may be distributed or republished with attribution to Strategic Forecasting, Inc. at www.stratfor.com.

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Rove: the end justifies the means

"Karl is fighting for his life," the official added, "but anything he did was done to help George W. Bush. The President knows that and appreciates that."

and that makes everything ok...? i submit that george w. bush was the perceived star that rove hitched his wagon to nearly 30 years ago out of a belief that, with george and by doing whatever it took, no matter how unscrupulous, he would rise to the lofty corridors of near absolute power... and, by golly, it worked...

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Rove - Who's distancing from whom...?

the less seen of his satanic majesty, the better...

Rove canceled plans to attend two Republican fund-raisers, the national party confirmed Tuesday. And he did not give his scheduled speech to the conservative Hudson Institute think tank on Oct. 11.

Republican National Committee spokesman Brian Jones said scheduling conflicts kept Rove from an RNC fund-raiser Monday night in Greenwich, Conn., and a Virginia Republican Party fund-raiser Saturday.

yeah... right... whatever... can you say r-a-d-i-o-a-c-t-i-v-e...?

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Rumors of Cheney's exit

Sparked by today's Washington Post story that suggests Vice President Cheney's office is involved in the Plame-CIA spy link investigation, government officials and advisers passed around rumors that the vice president might step aside and that President Bush would elevate Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

awwww, c'mon... george needs to go too and his whole damn cabinet with him... and none of 'em should let the screen door hit 'em in the ass on their way out...

(thanks to think progress...)

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Robert Parry: Judith Miller - journalist or White House staff member...

robert parry picks up on miller's perception of her own role...

Miller is quoted as saying that she hoped she would eventually return to the newsroom and resume covering “the same thing I’ve always covered – threats to our country.”

To describe one’s “beat” as covering “threats to our country” amounts to another repudiation of a core journalistic principle – objectivity – the concept of a reporter setting aside his or her personal views so the facts can be researched and presented to the reader in as fair and balanced a way as possible.

Rather than insist on a separation between government and journalism, Miller appears to see little distinction between the two. Her comments suggest that she views her job as defending the security interests of the United States, rather than giving the public the unvarnished facts.

if (and i would suggest it's nearly a certainty) miller presented her role to senior administration officials as she describes it above, it would easily explain why she was granted such easy high-level access... they saw her as one of "them..."

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Bush going to Argentina and taking 2,500 security officers with him

bush will attend the summit of the americas, scheduled for november 4-5 in mar del plata, argentina, after all...

For months there has been speculation that Bush would possibly cancel his visit to South America at the last minute, largely because of security concerns but also because differences have reportedly arisen between the Argentine and US governments over the wording of the final statement of the summit.

But the White House confirmed two weeks ago that Bush will attend the summit scheduled for November 4-5 in the city of Mar del Plata, located 400 kilometres south of Buenos Aires on the South Atlantic coast.

Gutiérrez said yesterday that Bush will be accompanied by "a large group" including aides and security staff. "I don’t have the exact number of people but it will be quite a large group," said the ambassador. Reports have said the US government is expected to fly 2,500 security officers to guard Bush in Mar del Plata.

i had no idea a security contingent of that size was required for a presidential junket... good lord... the expense... the disruption to people's daily routines... the expense...

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CEO compensation, investments and the stock market - not to our benefit

it's about time the truth about ceo compensation, investments and the stock market hit the public eye... it's ALWAYS been a scam, a huge myth perpetrated by the have-a-lot's to insure they become the have-a-lot-more's... devilstower at kos is always a reliable source of solid information and his recent diary there is no exception... i would encourage a visit to kos to read all of it...

Is it any surprise to you that CEO pay has grown faster than that of workers? Are you shocked that money managers are making more off the stock market than average investors? As you troubled to hear that most mutual fund managers are not really very good?

How about this: would you be shocked to know that you've been played for a fool, that the entire modern stock market is little more than a con game designed to part you from your cash faster than a slot machine in Vegas, and that the "ownership society" was a complete illusion set up to give the vast bulk of your savings over to the people who were supposed to be taking care of it?

Who would make such communist, anti-market statements? How about John Bogel, the man who founded Vanguard Investments and a lifelong conservative Republican.

(The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism by John C. Bogle...)

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Bush, the conservative "imposter..."

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha...

Bruce Bartlett, a Republican commentator who has been increasingly critical of the White House, was dismissed on Monday as a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative research group based in Dallas.

In a statement, the organization said the decision was made after Mr. Bartlett supplied its president, John C. Goodman, with the manuscript of his forthcoming book, "The Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy."

[...]

In his next column, to be published on Wednesday, Mr. Bartlett wrote that it is dawning on many conservatives "that George W. Bush is not one of them and never has been," citing the administration's positions on education, campaign finance, immigration, government spending and regulation. The choice "of a patently unqualified crony for a critical position on the Supreme Court was the final straw," he wrote.

well, he managed to pull it off for quite a while... next revelation: the imposter president...

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"Breaking free" from Rove's manipulation and hate-mongering

and if his satanic majesty is indicted, what then...?

For four years, the White House believed it would need an army to install President Bush's choices on the Supreme Court, and it set about building one. Political committees were formed, millions of dollars raised, coalitions of allied groups assembled, action plans mapped out, media campaigns scripted. . . . [Now,] the apparatus constructed largely by Bush strategist Karl Rove and deployed effectively on behalf of recently confirmed Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has splintered over Miers and broken free from its commander.

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Shielding gun manufacturers obscene...?

you're goddam right it is...

The House of Representatives, in callow disregard of cause and effect in the nation's harrowing gun carnage, is about to [vote on] what is expected to be final approval of a bill to grant assault-proof protection from damage suits to the gun industry, from manufacturers to dealers.

[...]

With all the critical issues on the national agenda, from the Iraq war to hurricane recovery, the House's eagerness is obscene as the gun lobby herds lawmakers from both parties behind a bill to deny victimized families their fair day in court. The bill goes beyond barring lawsuits to shielding black-market dealers from administrative loss of their licenses without near impossible burdens of proof.

President Bush talked favorably about the assault weapons ban as a candidate but was notoriously mute when the Republican Congress let the ban expire last year. Surely he would not compound the nation's gun scourge by signing the immunity bill.

oh, SURELY NOT...! just like he SURELY WOULD sign the bill containing provisions against torturing prisoners... bush is gonna do what's right - for those who are paying his bills plus whatever else it takes to maintain and consolidate maximum power in the hands of the executive...

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Some valuable background on "extraordinary rendition..."

If there are two men in the world who know about “extraordinary renditions” then they are Michael Scheuer, the CIA chief who invented the programme, and Craig Murray, the UK ambassador to Uzbekistan who saw first-hand the devastating consequences for British intelligence of using renditions.

In exclusive interviews with the Sunday Herald they blew apart any justification for the rendition system, saying the US government deliberately refused to opt for a legal alternative to renditions which was presented to the President by the CIA and that the programme undermined Western democracy, damaged the prosecution of the war on terror and “contaminated British and US intelligence”.

the herald presents us with very informative background both historically and contextually... "rendition" has only been in the public eye for a relatively short time and it's enlightening to have an insider's perspective... once again, we shouldn't have to be getting it from non-u.s. news sources...

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White House stoolie...?

raw story reports...

The New York Daily News is set to report in Tuesday editions that a well-placed source interviewed by the newspaper believes a senior White House official has flipped and may be helping the prosecutor in the case...

[...]

The Daily News will reveal that a top source believes that based on the questioning of Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and his other contacts with the investigation, someone in the White House has turned.

oh, my... how exciting...!!

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Fujimori, the fugitive President, attempts to orchestrate his comeback in Peru

when fujimori was elected in 1990, it was widely seen as a step toward victory over the "sendero luminoso," the "shining path" maoist guerilla movement, that had held large areas of peru hostage to its terrorist attacks from the late 60's until the capture of its leader, abimael guzmán in 1992...

immediately upon election, fujimori began an extensive process of privatization, selling off hundreds of state-owned enterprises, making sweeping changes to national laws to encourage foreign investment in extractive oil, gas and mining sectors, giving new powers to agencies that oversee mining and oil projects, and lifting prohibitions on developing energy in protected areas, such as national parks, in the andean highlands and the amazon region...

unfortunately, to achieve the defeat of terrorist cells in various towns and cities, fujimori allowed the peruvian military to engage in widespread human rights abuses where the vast majority of the victims were poor highland campesinos caught in the crossfire between military and the insurgents... that and other authoritarian tendencies contributed to his flight into exile in japan in 2000 from where he faxed in his resignation... now, he wants to make a comeback...

Former president Alberto Fujimori's announcement that he plans to present his candidacy for the April 2006 presidential elections in Peru highlights the futility of nearly five years of attempts by the government of Alejandro Toledo to secure his extradition from Japan.

Although Congress barred him from holding public office until 2010 and the Constitutional Court upheld a decision disqualifying him from running for the presidency, the former president (1990-2000) stated on his web site, where he posts daily messages from Japan, that he will return to Lima "on a date that will surprise everyone."

How does Fujimori plan to return if every Interpol (international police) office around the world has a warrant for his arrest issued by Peru? The fugitive from justice has provided no explanation, but simply says he will show up in Lima, and will win the elections.

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No leadership before Katrina, no leadership during Katrina, no leadership after Katrina

"after promising..." now there's two words that can serve as bush's epitaph...

Almost two months after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast and a month after promising in a nationally televised speech to help rebuild the region "quickly," President Bush has settled on a cautious, piecemeal approach that even many members of his own party fear will stall reconstruction and sow economic disarray.

[...]

"With all due respect to the president, things are not going to bubble up from the bottom," said Jack Kemp, who was Housing and Urban Development secretary under President George H.W. Bush. "There has to be some federal leadership here."

no problem, jack... there will be... soon after pigs learn to fly...

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The U.N.'s working... Whaddaya know...!

this ain't gonna make bolton happy...

Confounding conventional wisdom, a major new report reveals that all forms of political violence, except international terrorism, have declined worldwide since the early 1990s. . . . [T]errorism is currently the gravest threat to international security . . . [T]he UN played a critically important role in spearheading a huge upsurge of international conflict prevention, peacekeeping and peace building activities.

(. . . the Human Security Report is the most comprehensive annual survey of trends in warfare, genocide, and human rights abuses [and is] produced by the Human Security Centre at the University of British Columbia . . .)

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John Fund on Miers

besides the already thoroughly reported and blogged revelation about the october 3d conference call, wherein two judges allegedly confirmed miers' intention to vote to overturn roe v. wade, john fund shares this...

Should she survive the hearings, liberal groups may demand that Democrats filibuster her. Republican senators, already hesitant to back Ms. Miers after heavy blowback from their conservative base, would likely lack the will to trigger the so-called nuclear option. "The nomination is in real trouble," one GOP senator told me. "Not one senator wants to go through the agony of those hearings, even those who want to vote for her." Even if Ms. Miers avoids a filibuster, it's possible Democrats would join with dissident Republicans to defeat her outright.

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Fitz takes a look at Uncle Dick

A special counsel is focusing on whether Vice President Dick Cheney played a role in leaking a covert CIA agent's name...

~unhooks leash~ go get 'im, boy...

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An "invisible army of cheap labor" for Iraq

alternet provides some interesting background on iraq...

[H]ordes of low-wage workers . . . travel to Iraq from more than three dozen countries. They are lured by jobs with companies working on projects led by Halliburton and other major U.S.-funded contractors hired to provide support services to the military and reconstruction efforts.

Called "third country nationals" (TCN) in contractor's parlance, they hail largely from impoverished Asian countries such as the Philippines, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Pakistan, as well as from Turkey and countries in the Middle East. Once in Iraq, TCNs earn monthly salaries between $200 to $1,000 [rough average: $7380 annual] as truck drivers, construction workers, carpenters, warehousemen, laundry workers, cooks, accountants, beauticians, and similar blue-collar jobs.

compare that to the $80-$100,000 annual salaries paid to u.s. workers in iraq...

Tens of thousands of such TNC laborers have helped set new records for the largest civilian workforce ever hired in support of a U.S. war. They are employed through complex layers of companies working in Iraq. At the top of the pyramid-shaped system is the U.S. government which assigned over $24 billion in contracts over the last two years. Just below that layer are the prime contractors like Halliburton and Bechtel. Below them are dozens of smaller subcontracting companies -- largely based in the Middle East -- including PPI, First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting and Alargan Trading of Kuwait, Gulf Catering, Saudi Trading & Construction Company of Saudi Arabia. Such companies, which recruit and employ the bulk of the foreign workers in Iraq, have experienced explosive growth since the invasion of Iraq by providing labor and services to the more high-profile prime contractors.

This layered system not only cuts costs for the prime contractors, but also creates an untraceable trail of contracts that clouds the liability of companies and hinders comprehensive oversight by U.S. contract auditors. In April, the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of the U.S. Congress concluded that it is impossible to accurately estimate the total number of U.S. or foreign nationals working in Iraq.

here are my questions... what is the amount budgeted for manpower in the contracts awarded by the u.s. to the prime contractors...? is it based on u.s. manpower rates or tcn rates - or both...? what is the manpower budget allotted to the sub-contractors by the primes...? in turn, what do the subs budget for manpower...? how does the total of actual manpower expenses compare with the total allotted by the u.s. in the original primes' contracts...? if there is a difference, positive or negative, why...? if it's positive, where does it go...?

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DeLay's reelection prospects - hoisted with his own petard

not only is delay having to scramble for voters in his 2006 reelection bid, he's having to do it in a district that isn't the same as it was in his last campaign - thanks to the gerrymandering redistricting efforts of the texas r's...

DeLay is scrambling for more than just beating two indictments related to allegedly illegal campaign activities and returning to his plush leadership office in the Capitol: He's fighting for his political life in next year's congressional election.

And he has only himself to blame for it.

DeLay's bold plan to redraw Texas' congressional districts was a ringing success for Republicans. But it came with a mean bite for its architect. Creating more Republican districts meant watering down the GOP vote in any one district, including his own.

[...]

Because of the redistricting plan pushed by DeLay, his district is one-third new to him and decidedly more Democratic. In the 2006 election, he's set to face a former congressman with a score to settle: Democrat Nick Lampson, who was bounced from office last year as a direct result of the new electoral map and moved into DeLay's district this year specifically to take him on.

go, nick, go... make sure it's that s.o.b.'s last congressional campaign...

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Stem cells... Why is science working against George Bush...?

Scientists have perfected a way of making embryonic stem cells without destroying the embryos from which they derive, a breakthrough that will challenge George Bush's opposition to the research.

in spite of bushco's anti-science, anti-truth, anti-rational, anti-health policies, the advancement of knowledge through solid science marches on...

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Meanwhile... Check out the deficit...

hey... bush can claim the top three...

The budget deficit for fiscal 2005 was the third largest in dollar terms. Here are the five largest deficits on record:

2004 — $413 billion

2003 — $378 billion

2005 — $319 billion

1992 — $290 billion

1993 — $255 billion

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John at AMERICAblog: R's are the party of treason

i'm glad somebody can put two and two together and come up with four...

On numerous news shows today, Republican surrogates, their talking points ready, issued variations of the following concerning White House chief of staff Karl Rove's outing of a covert CIA agent as part of a political vendetta:

- It's the criminalization of politics
- Is this 'minor' leak really worth all this?
- Political payback is common and should not be criminalized
- Mis-speaking or mis-remembering is not a crime

Yes, the Republicans are now making light of an intentional effort to expose an undercover CIA agent, working on weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, no less, while we are at war in the Middle East on that very issue.

The GOP has become the party of treason.

there's more...


i haven't trotted this out in a few weeks... perhaps it's time...

BUSH, CHENEY AND THE ENTIRE CABINET MUST SUBMIT THEIR RESIGNATIONS... IMMEDIATELY...

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The Guardian's Steve Bell on the Nobel Prize

steve bell is one of my very favorite political cartoonists...

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Kristol: Rove, Libby will be indicted

think progress reports on bill kristol's fox news sunday appearance...

KRISTOL: I believe, if I had to predict – and I don’t know more about this than anybody else reading the papers – that both Libby and Rove will be indicted, not for what the original referral was about but for some combination of disclosing classified information or perhaps failing to be fully candid with federal investigators or with the grand jury.

boy, the spinners are working overtime... first rove lets bush off the hook about firing him by "graciously" offering to resign so he can fight the bogus charges and now kristol tries to pass off the spin that rove's and libby's indictments won't be for the original charge... wtf...! as think progress further notes...

Kristol talks to people close to Libby and Rove, then claims he knows nothing more than anybody else. He goes on to predict the two of them will be indicted “not for what the original referral was.” But Kristol then says Rove and Libby will be indicted for, among other crimes, “disclosing classified information” – which is exactly what the CIA referral was about.

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Bush's support evaporating - among R's

The government's tepid response to Hurricane Katrina and a summer-long spike in gasoline prices also have helped drive Bush's job-approval rating down to 33 percent in the state, the lowest point among Illinois surveys involving his administration. A similar poll in May showed Bush's approval rating at 41 percent.

Support for Bush has dropped 14 points in the last year among Republicans, and GOP officials fear that could complicate their efforts in next year's races for Congress and governor. For the first time in his presidency, half the voters in Chicago's Republican-rich collar counties disapprove of Bush's job performance, a departure from last fall when he carried all five suburban counties.

let me indulge in a little wishful thinking... if multiple indictments hit bush's inner circle, completely discrediting his administration, he may be forced to resign... wouldn't it be loverly...?

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Rove "simply didn't recall..."

rove may be facing perjury charges, time reports via raw story, and, along with libby, if indicted, will resign... time also claims that fitzgerald knows who the leaker was and maintains that it didn't come from the white house...

Severing his White House ties would allow Rove to fight aggressively “any bull_ charges,” says a source close to Rove, like allegations that he was part of a broad conspiracy to discredit Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson. Rove’s defense: whatever he did fell far short of that. Fitzgerald appears to be seriously weighing a perjury charge for Rove’s failure to tell grand jurors that he talked to TIME correspondent Matt Cooper about Plame, according to a person close to Rove. Rove corrected himself in a later grand jury session. If charged with perjury, he will maintain his line: he simply didn’t recall the conversation with Cooper, and told Fitzgerald as soon as he did, TIME reports.

These strategies are being shaped absent any real knowledge of what Fitzgerald might do before the grand jury’s dissolution on Oct. 28. “If he played his cards any closer to the vest they’d be in his underwear,” says a lawyer who’s a friend of the White House. But Fitzgerald’s intentions aren’t the only mystery. Another character in the drama remains unnamed: the original source for columnist Robert Novak, who wrote the first piece naming Plame. Fitzgerald, says a lawyer in the case, “knows who it is—and it’s not someone at the White House,” TIME reports.

maybe this week we're gonna find out...

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Fire Judith Miller...? NYT apologize...?

greg mitchell at editor and publisher makes his views clear...

Miller should be fired if for nothing more than this: After her paper promised a full accounting, and her full cooperation, in its probe, it reported Saturday, “Miller generally would not discuss her interactions with editors, elaborate on the written account of her grand jury testimony or allow reporters to review her notes.”

As for Keller’s apology (or more), consider just one of a dozen humbling sentences from the Times story: “Interviews show that the paper’s leadership, in taking what they considered to be a principled stand, ultimately left the major decisions in the case up to Ms. Miller, an intrepid reporter whom editors found hard to control.”

Longtime Times reporter Todd Purdum testifies that many on the staff were "troubled and puzzled by Judy's seeming ability to operate outside of conventional reportorial channels and managerial controls."

At another point, Keller reveals that he ordered Miller off WMD coverage after he became editor (surely, a no-brainer), but he admits “she kept kind of drifting on her own back into the national security realm.” Does he anywhere take responsibility for this, or anything else? Not that I can see.

what's missing here is the very distinct possibility that ms. miller was consciously serving as a shill for the administration's rush to war in iraq, that her bosses knew of the connections she had within the administration, and, for that reason alone, were hesitant to rein her in...

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