I think the Israelis have lost it

if they want the title of most hated country, they're well on their way...

Palestinians witnesses said two missiles fired by attack helicopters hit the Gaza City office of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas early Sunday, slightly injuring a bystander and setting the empty building on fire.

Inspecting his burning office, Haniyeh called the attack senseless.

"They have targeted a symbol for the Palestinian people," he said.

of course, israeli intelligence knew the building was empty but they just wanted to toss out a little "shock and awe..." an eye for an eye, in the best tradition of the old testament... i once had hopes of seeing this nightmare ended in my lifetime...

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Administration desperation taints the 4th's celebration

frank rich doesn't shrink from pointing out the painfully obvious...

The assault on a free press during our own wartime should be recognized for what it is: another desperate ploy by officials trying to hide their own lethal mistakes in the shadows. It's the antithesis of everything we celebrate with the blazing lights of Independence Day.

a FABRICATED wartime, i hasten to add...

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Pre 9/11 spying...? Are we surprised...?

no, not in the least... in fact, i think it's been going on for quite some time, well BEFORE bush...

The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimed June 23 in court papers filed in New York federal court.

[...]

"The Bush Administration asserted this became necessary after 9/11," plaintiff's lawyer Carl Mayer said in a telephone interview. "This undermines that assertion."

if what we've been hearing about so far is just the tip of the iceberg, as i maintain it is, just imagine the size of the REST of that puppy...!

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No good deed goes unpunished

the military attorney who challenged the dictatorial powers of the president may be job hunting soon... or not... he's probably got offers already pouring in...

"He's doing a fantastic job," said Swift's current boss at the Office of Military Commissions (tribunals), Marine Col. Dwight Sullivan.

Sullivan spoke of the crucial importance of the case decided Thursday by the Supreme Court. "It's a fundamental constitutional question about the powers of the president," Sullivan said. Asked about Swift's aggressive legal challenge of the commander in chief, Sullivan saluted Swift's "moral courage."

"He has been absolutely fearless is pursuing his client's interests. And also he has exhibited an extraordinary level of legal skill. His legal strategy has been brilliant.

"We all take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and he has certainly done that, literally."

Swift spoke Friday about his "immense pride" in the military justice system. "I don't feel that because you join the military you should lose rights. If there is anyone who deserves the protection of those rights, it's the people who are willing to lay down their lives for it."

his performance is so outstanding and his moral courage so exemplary that he probably won't be promoted and will have to leave the military... maybe george tenet will let swift touch HIS medal of freedom should their paths ever cross...

Swift's future in the Navy now rests with another promotion board that is expected to render its decision in the next couple of weeks. Under the military's system, officers need to be promoted at regularly scheduled intervals or their service careers are essentially over.

"The way it works, the die was cast some months ago," he said. "The decision has been made. I don't know what it is yet." But he thinks his chances are slim.

in the opposite world of bushco, no good deed goes unpunished...

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A joint LATimes/NYT editorial

spot on... three cheers...

Thirty-five years ago yesterday, in the Supreme Court ruling that stopped the government from suppressing the secret Vietnam War history called the Pentagon Papers, Justice Hugo Black wrote: "The government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the people."

[...]

Our job, especially in times like these, is to bring our readers information that will enable them to judge how well their elected leaders are fighting on their behalf, and at what price.

i am unable to discern the "fighting" that has been done on my behalf... since the legal acknowledgment of the coup d'etat on 12 december 2000, i have watched the fundamental values of my country that i previously believed were etched in the hardest of stone, chipped away until i no longer recognize them... and the price...? incalculable...

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Punish the poor, the elderly, and the incapacitated - business as usual

the new law requiring people to produce proof of citizenship to be eligible for medicaid takes effect today... it's just another example of the punish-the-poor, the vulnerable, and the elderly, socially-darwinian, drown-the-government-in-grover-norquist's- bathtub attempts to nullify any explicit or implied social contract... (also, note the way the article insures that, instead of using the generic term "people," the vast pool of potential medicaid recipients are instead gingerly referred to as "americans...")

[T]he biggest risk is that, rather than preventing fraud, the provision will result in the denial of benefits to eligible Americans who can't come up with the required proof. After all, the typical Medicaid recipient doesn't have a passport, the preferred form of proof. Also, many elderly African Americans were born at home and were never issued birth certificates.

Under the administration's guidance for state Medicaid agencies, states can't extend coverage to new applicants while they scramble to obtain documentation. Impoverished senior citizens and people with disabilities who already receive Supplemental Security Income benefits -- and have therefore already had their citizenship verified by the Social Security Administration -- aren't automatically eligible. There aren't any exceptions for those who need immediate care; who are too incapacitated to produce documents (Alzheimer's patients, for example); or who are victims of natural disasters.

besides being mean-spirited, it's just plain unneccesary...

[T]here's scant evidence of widespread fraud under the current system. In all but four states, Medicaid applicants attest, under penalty of perjury, that they are citizens, and officials can ask for documentation if there is reason for suspicion. As Mark B. McClellan, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, wrote in response to an inspector general's examination of the issue last year, "The report does not find particular problems regarding false allegations of citizenship, nor are we aware of any."

did i mention mean-spirited...?

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R's trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

it all depends on how you look at it... characterizing it as a defeat when it's truly a victory for the u.s. people and our cherised constitutional guarantees only shows the pathetic effects of brainwashing on otherwise intelligent people...

Republicans yesterday looked to wrest a political victory from a legal defeat in the Supreme Court, serving notice to Democrats that they must back President Bush on how to try suspects at Guantanamo Bay or risk being branded as weak on terrorism.

give the rovian talking points ("weak on terrorism," "cut-and-run," "white flag of surrender") a rest, guys... they're becoming increasingly lame by the day to say nothing of the fact that they're plain lies...

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New China-Tibet railway

check out the altitude on the route...



the highest point is 5072m (16640ft), if you can imagine...

some facts...

QINGHAI-TIBET RAILWAY

• Connects Lhasa to existing China rail network
• New 1,140km stretch cost $4.2bn
• World's highest railway, reaching 5,072m
• Oxygen to be pumped into each carriage
• Restaurant car's rice cooked in pressure cookers, to mitigate effects of high altitude
• Beijing to Lhasa to take 48 hours, cost $50-$160 one way
• In parts, the train line has been built on bridges elevated above the most unstable permafrost. Elsewhere, cooling pipes have been sunk into the ground to ensure it remains frozen to stabilise the tracks.
• The train carriages have windows with ultra-violet filters to keep out the sun's glare, as well as carefully regulated oxygen levels with spare supplies to combat the thin air.

amazing...

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Mexicans go to the polls on Sunday - high stakes for two countries

...

using 20/20 hindsight, i now see that at least one of the major reasons for the u.s. having pushed so hard for nafta was to make sure mexico stayed firmly within the economic stranglehold of the u.s... it should have been perfectly obvious to me at the time (1992-94), but i was a lot more naive then and still believed in my country's basic goodness... i've since had that crap kicked right out of me...

[W]hoever gains the upper hand in voting on 2 July, Mexico is now so economically intertwined with the US that its scope for unilateral action is severely limited.

During the 12 years since Mexico joined the US and Canada in founding the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), Mexico's trade with its northern neighbours has shown a threefold increase.

Nearly 85% of Mexican exports now go to the US.

Mexico also thrives on remittances from workers who have left the country to find jobs in the US. Last year, Mexican migrants sent home a record $20bn, according to the central bank, giving the nation its biggest source of foreign income after oil exports.

and that's precisely the way we like it... now, if only amlo doesn't get elected and try to screw the whole thing up by doing really stupid things like trying to raise ordinary mexicans out of poverty...

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Israel is totally out of control

who in the ever-loving hell do they think they are...?

Israel last night threatened to assassinate Palestinian Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh if Hamas militants did not release a captured Israeli soldier unharmed.

The unprecedented warning was delivered to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a letter as Israel debated a deal offered by Hamas to free Corporal Gilad Shalit.

[...]

Hamas's Gaza-based political leaders, including Mr Haniyeh, had already gone into hiding.

But last night's direct threat to kill Mr Haniyeh, a democratically elected head of state, sharply raised the stakes.

yes, the hamas militants need to either stop or be stopped, but put this in a different context... what if our forces in iraq captured an imam (which they recently did) and the iraqi government threatened to assassinate bush if the imam wasn't released...? we would be screaming our outrage around the globe... israel is pissing away whatever precious little credibility they had left in the international community by resorting to this kind of criminal threat... next they'll be threatening gaza with nukes...

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Not under an ad hoc system

bushco, the adhocracy (and the corporatocracy, and the oligarchy, and the patriarchy, and the megalopoly, and the plutocracy, and the...etc, etc)

LT. CMDR. CHARLES SWIFT, SALIM AHMED HAMDAN‘S LAWYER: What the court did was say that even the president has to follow the law. And that if we‘re going to try people, we‘re going to do it under the law, not under an ad hoc system.

not unreasonable, wouldn't you agree...?

(thanks to crooks and liars...)

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No-heart Huckabee, opposed to loving homes for kids who need them

a fine example of how the extreme religious right is trying to control government and social policy in this country... stay tuned for more talk about "them evil 'activist' judges..."

Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Friday he hopes the Legislature considers reimposing a ban on gay foster parents, struck down a day earlier by the state Supreme Court.

"I'm very disappointed that the court seems more interested in what's good for gay couples than what's good for children needing foster care," Huckabee said through his spokeswoman Alice Stewart.

you'd think, instead of challenging the ruling and being disappointed, the good guv'nor would celebrate the opportunity to offer loving homes to more kids starving emotionally while waiting for them... but, no... increasing the opportunities to share love are clearly not on the poor man's priority list... he just don't get it, do he...?

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Seriously awry - the greatest of nations and the leader of the free world

america after mylai... america now...

(arthur quotes m. scott peck...)

Once again we are confronted with our all-too-human laziness and narcissism. Basically, it was just too much trouble. We all had our lives to lead--doing our day-to-day jobs, buying new cars, painting our houses, sending our kids to college. As the majority of members of any group are content to let the leadership be exercised by the few, so as a citizenry we were content to let the government "do its thing." It was [Lyndon] Johnson's job to lead, ours to follow. The citizenry was simply too lethargic to become aroused. Besides, we shared with Johnson his enormous large-as-Texas narcissism. Surely our national attitudes and policies couldn't be wrong. Surely our government had to know what it was doing; after all, we'd elected them, hadn't we? And surely they had to be good and honest men, for they were products of our wonderful democratic system, which certainly couldn't go seriously awry. And surely whatever type of regime our rulers and experts and government specialists thought was right for Vietnam must be right, for weren't we the greatest of nations and the leader of the free world?

By allowing ourselves to be easily and blatantly defrauded, we as a whole people participated in the evil of the Johnson administration. The evil--the years of lying and manipulation--of the Johnson administration was directly conducive to the whole atmosphere of lying and manipulation and evil that pervaded our presence in Vietnam during those years. It was in this atmosphere that MyLai occurred in March 1968. Task Force Barker was hardly even aware that it had run amok that day, but, then, America was not significantly aware either in early 1968 that it too had almost unredeemably lost its bearings.

(thanks to arthur via crooks and liars...)

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Why is the WSJ tossing stones at its own glass house...?

one, it wasn't a secret... two, the wsj printed the story too, and the fact that they weren't asked not to is a response so laughable that it verges on the surreal...

Perhaps Mr. Keller has been listening to his boss, Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who in a recent commencement address apologized to the graduates because his generation "had seen the horrors and futility of war and smelled the stench of corruption in government.

"Our children, we vowed, would never know that. So, well, sorry. It wasn't supposed to be this way," the publisher continued. "You weren't supposed to be graduating into an America fighting a misbegotten war in a foreign land. You weren't supposed to be graduating into a world where we are still fighting for fundamental human rights," and so on.

Forgive us if we conclude that a newspaper led by someone who speaks this way to college seniors has as a major goal not winning the war on terror but obstructing it.

forgive me if i conclude that the wsj operates as a bought and paid for propaganda organ of the bush administration while turning a blind eye to the illegal war in iraq and the systematic destruction of the constitutional guarantees that have long served as the foundation of this country, guarantees, may i remind you, that include freedom of the press...

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Astounding: a blogging former President of the United States

as i was falling asleep last night, it suddenly dawned on me that earlier in the day i had actually read a diary on daily kos posted by a FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES... it just didn't sink in at the time i read it how incredible it really is that a FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES would take the time to personally post a weblog diary, to say nothing of using that diary to answer questions from commenters to a post he had made on monday...

i've become accustomed to seeing posts on daily kos from senators and congressmen but a FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES...? yes, i understand that it's so patently absurd that i could be accused of being seriously mentally deranged, but can you imagine how it would totally change the face of people's relationship with their president if a SITTING president were to take a few minutes from his/or her hectic day to make an occasional weblog post...? clearly not with THIS president, but do you suppose that could ever happen...?

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Argentina goes home

...vs...

Argentina 3, Germany 5, on penalty kicks after two 15-minute overtime sessions left them still tied at 1-1... < sigh > what a shame... with the high emotional stakes argentines place in both their country and in their futbol, you can bet that about 32M people are feeling pretty low right about now...

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Fighter planes for Pakistan

WTF... i've posted several times (here, here, and here, among others) on the startlingly high levels of arms sales and defense materiel within the past year or so to both pakistan and india... given the history of hostilities between the two countries, reaching all the way back to pakistan's separation from india, it would seem that we're just increasing their ability to seriously damage each other if conflict flares again (as it probably will)...

The Bush administration's nuclear accord with India seems on track to easy passage in Congress, as the White House also proceeds with plans to equip Pakistan with F-16 fighter jets.

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Calling all wingnuts...

a six-word headline... read it...

A SECRET THE TERRORISTS
ALREADY KNEW

and, while you're at it, note the authors...

Richard A. Clarke and Roger W. Cressey, counterterrorism officials on the National Security Council under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, are security consultants.

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A victory from SCOTUS...? Maybe so, maybe no, and god help us in November...

the ruling certainly SEEMS to be a reaffirmation of the constitution...

The 5 to 3 decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld will be controversial; indeed, legal scholars will debate its many components for years to come. In practical terms, however, it is a huge victory for fundamental American values -- and one that will dramatically aid in putting the war against terrorism on a sound legal basis.

but, heaven forbid that a mere supreme court ruling will keep bushco from business criminality as usual...

"If they rule against the government, I don't see how that is going to affect us," the commander, Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris [Guantánamo's commander], said Tuesday evening as he sat in a conference room in his headquarters. "From my perspective, I think the direct impact will be negligible."

The Defense Department repeated that view on Thursday, asserting that the court's sweeping ruling against the tribunals did not undermine the government's argument that it can hold foreign suspects indefinitely and without charge, as "enemy combatants" in its declared war on terror.

Privately, though, some administration officials involved in detention policy — along with many critics of that policy — were skeptical that Guantánamo could or would go about its business as before. "It appears to be about as broad a holding as you could imagine," said one administration lawyer, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the ruling. "It's very broad, it's very significant, and it's a slam."

and robert parry reminds of us the INCREDIBLY HIGH STAKES this november...

The narrow margin of the U.S. Supreme Court’s rebuke to George W. Bush on military tribunals highlights the stakes on the table for the November 2006 congressional elections – nothing short of the survival of a meaningful constitutional system in the United States.

The majority opinion, which stopped Bush from proceeding with a kangaroo court that stripped Guantanamo Bay detainees of basic legal protections and mocked the Geneva Conventions, carried a profound secondary message – that the Court was not prepared to endorse Bush’s vision of his “war powers” as limitless and beyond challenge.

But it was equally noteworthy that only five of the nine justices believed that the rule of law and constitutional limits on Bush’s powers should prevail. Four justices – Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and John Roberts – have made clear that they are prepared to rubber-stamp any judgment that Bush makes.

yes, november could well seal the fate of the united states as a bona fide dictatorship... may god have mercy on our souls...

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Argentina and Bolivia cut a deal on natural gas

...

morales is acting quickly to put a halt to the historical exploitation of his country's resources... while this is definitely a good thing, it's too bad it has to fall on a neighboring country which hasn't fully recovered from its 2001 economic collapse and is still dealing with the subsequent skyrocketing poverty, unemployment, and, last year, nearly 12% inflation... the good news is that the argentine economy has been growing at better than 9% for over three years... nonetheless, there are many (and i know some of them), who are already being hit hard by rising prices... this won't help...

The government agreed yesterday to pay almost 50 percent more for the natural gas it imports from Bolivia, which has sought to end a tradition of supplying its neighbours with energy at below-market prices.

Presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia and Nestor Kirchner of Argentina signed the agreement at a rally in front of thousands of Argentines and Bolivian immigrants in the northwestern [Buenos Aires] suburban district of Hurlingham.

The pact raises the price to US$5 per million British thermal units (BTU) from US$3.40 per million.

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"It's sincere, it's heartfelt, but after today, it's wrong."

it was very, very wrong BEFORE today as well...

[T]he Supreme Court has struck at the core of [Bush's] presidency and dismissed the notion that the president alone can determine how to defend the country. In rejecting Bush's military tribunals for terrorism suspects, the high court ruled that even a wartime commander in chief must govern within constitutional confines significantly tighter than this president has believed appropriate.

[...]

"There is a strain of legal reasoning in this administration that believes in a time of war the other two branches have a diminished role or no role," Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who has resisted the administration's philosophy, said in an interview. "It's sincere, it's heartfelt, but after today, it's wrong."

i do not believe for one second it was either sincere or heartfelt... i believe it has been, from the very beginning (and by that i mean from the day bush took office), a naked power grab... 9/11 was a terrific excuse to pull out all the stops and pull out all the stops they have... moreover, in my heart of hearts, i don't think this scotus decision is going to call a halt to it...

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The NEW, SAFER America

(thanks to open your mind's eye and project for the old american century...)

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Argentina vs. Germany

...vs...

i need to make something clear... i am NOT a sports fan but, living part-time in argentina, i tend to get sucked in... i also tend to really get behind honest, healthy competition, particularly when it's a country that's weathered such a nightmare as argentina's 2001 economic collapse... having friends there doesn't hurt either... be sure to watch, tomorrow, if you can, or get the play-by-play live online here... 1700 CEDT, 1200 ART, 1100 EDT, 0800 PDT...

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Mexico - July 2 is almost here

i'm almost as anxious about this as i am about seeing argentina play germany tomorrow in the fifa world cup...

Less than three days remain before Mexican voters go to the polls, and a neck-and-neck presidential race is set to determine whether the wave of electoral victories for Latin American progressives will wash ashore far enough to lap at the toes of Texas.

and the u.s. is fully supportive of free, fair, open, and democratic elections...

S-U-U-U-URE we are...

The White House maintains an official policy of not intervening in other countries’ elections. Of course, this rule has often been violated in the past, especially with regard to our southern neighbors. During El Salvador’s last presidential election, U.S. officials went so far as to suggest that voting for a change away from “free trade” governance could endanger the flow of remittances—needed money sent back to El Salvador from family members who have immigrated to the United States. The threat sent a chill through the populace, and the right-wing candidate went on to score a decisive win.

but we wouldn't interfere in mexico's election, now would we...? well, maybe, just a little bit, and only from THIS side of the border...

The reliably rabid opinion page of the Wall Street Journal published a column in March arguing that AMLO’s opposition to President Vicente Fox’s pro-corporate economic policy signals “a worrying authoritarianism with moralistic overtones” and suggested that an alternative path for development would qualify as “wild populist experimentation.” Political advisor and Fox News commentator Dick Morris published a column in The New York Post with madcap accusations that AMLO’s campaign is being bankrolled by Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. Envisioning an elaborate conspiracy, he wrote: “Chavez is a firm ally of Cuba's Fidel Castro. Lopez Obrador could be the final piece in their grand plan to bring the United States to its knees before the newly resurgent Latin left.”

or maybe we just pay for consultants to go there to "help out" and teach them all the nasties that karl rove carries around in his bottomless bag of scum...

U.S. political consultants helped to introduce inflammatory charges into the Mexican campaigns. Coached by Morris’ ilk, AMLO’s rivals, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa of the right-wing Partido Acción Nacional (the party of current president Vicente Fox) and Roberto Madrazo Pintado of the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), produced a barrage of negative ads in recent months. The U.S.-style mudslinging set a new standard in Mexican politics. The Federal Electoral Institute had to step in to censure activity that went beyond the pale. It barred a series of ads that declared the candidate “a danger to Mexico” and that likened AMLO to Chávez. And it criticized Fox for violating the legal prohibition against the outgoing president campaigning while in office.

and, even though it may have backfired somewhat, the negativity tactic seems to have succeeded in dragging the level of political debate down into the same sewer the u.s. currently occupies... ah, well... i'm still rooting for amlo...

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Another fine plan from Dear Leader falls flat on its face

but, damn, it sure made for one hell of a photo-op...

The Bush administration has been unable to muster even half of the 2,500 National Guardsmen it planned to have on the Mexican border by the end of June.

[...]

President Bush's plan called for all 50 states to send troops. But only 10 states - including the four border states - have signed commitments.

Some state officials have argued that they cannot free up Guardsmen because of flooding in the East, wildfires in the West or the prospect of hurricanes in the South.

"It's not a combat priority. It is a volunteer mission," said Kristine Munn, spokeswoman for the National Guard Bureau, an arm of the Pentagon, "so it's a question of balancing the needs of the Border Patrol with the needs of 54 states and territories, and all those balls roll in different directions."

at the risk of being crude, this guy could screw up a wet dream...

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This is just plain wrong

go back and read my david sirota post from the other day if you need a refresher...

A US bankruptcy judge on Thursday granted Northwest Airlines the right to reject its flight attendants' contract and impose terms that would give the carrier USD$195 million in annual savings.

Judge Allan Gropper in New York's federal bankruptcy court said in his order that "the process of negotiation cannot drag on indefinitely," but he delayed the order for two weeks to give the airline and the flight attendants union more time to negotiate.

If Northwest and the Professional Flight Attendants Association fail to reach a deal in that time, Gropper said Northwest may impose the terms of a contract the workers rejected earlier this month.

can you say u-n-i-o-n b-u-s-t-i-n-g...? i wonder what the executive pension liability at nwa is...? any guesses...?

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No more... It has to stop... NOW...!

this CANNOT continue... it's absolutely unacceptable... NO MORE...!

WILL MSNBC WELCOME BACK MELANIE MORGAN AFTER SHE SAID SHE'D HAVE "NO PROBLEM" IF BILL KELLER WERE SENT TO "GAS CHAMBER"?

OK, let's see what MSNBC says about this. As I noted below, this morning's San Francisco Chronicle quoted conservative talk show host Melanie Morgan of KSFO-FM saying she'd have no problem if Bill Keller were executed for publishing the big Times piece on the U.S.'s secret financial surveillance program.

As per the Chronicle, Morgan said: "If he were to be tried and convicted of treason, yes, I would have no problem with him being sent to the gas chamber."

Morgan is a sometime guest on MSNBC's Hardball. So I contacted Hardball spokesperson Leslie Schwartz to ask Morgan would still be welcome on the show despite having said she'd countenance the slow and agonizing execution (which gas chambers specialize in) of a fellow journalist. Schwartz, who was very polite and professional, said she'd get back to me.

- Greg Sargent at The American Prospect

bush, cheney, rove, and their sock puppets have deliberately been tossing red meat out to the flaming wingnuts and look what they've managed to stir up... this kind of stuff CANNOT be countenanced any longer...

(thanks to atrios...)

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Liar, liar, pants on fire... Absolutely jaw-dropping...!

he must be smokin' that funny stuff again...

SNOW: I don’t think it’s ever been the goal of the administration to expand executive authority. In a time of war, the president has tried to act in a way that meets the needs and obligations of a commander in chief against a dispersed and highly unique kind of enemy.

tony, tony, tony... go have a chat with david addington... or dick cheney... or alberto gonazles... or john yoo... or karl rove... or justice roberts... or justice scalia... or justice thomas... or the republican leadership in congress... or the boston globe... or the wapo... or the nyt... or the la times... or keith olbermann... or jon stewart... or stephen colbert... better yet, ask the man on the street... even better, don't stand there and tell bald-faced lies...

(thanks to think progress...)

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You don't like the Palestinian government...? Arrest 'em...

[UPDATE AND ANOTHER BUMP!]

[UPDATE AND BUMP]

we preach democracy and then implicitly condone this kind of action on the part of israel...

Israel arrested one-third of the Hamas-led Palestinian cabinet on Thursday in what the Islamist group called a bid to topple its government, as the Israeli army prepared to expand a Gaza offensive to free an abducted soldier.

outrageous...

[UPDATE I]

(from juan cole...)

The ministers detained are members of a freely and democratically elected government. I can't imagine under what legal authority the Israelis have arrested them. But everyone in the Middle East can see exactly what "elections" and "democracy" amount to. Bush's promises have never seemed so hollow.

[UPDATE II]

from steve clemons at the washington note...)

Israel is demonstrating profound immaturity with its behavior, though I support the importance of negotiating and even pursuing its kidnapped soldier. However, despite its regional superpower status, Israel is showing that it tilts too easily towards responses far disproportionate to any sane or reasonable action. While Israel radicalizes Palestininans and many Arabs in the region with this behavior, it needs to know that it is eroding American support for its behavior and position.

Lines must be drawn -- and Israel is way over the line now.

agreed...

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Checks and balances clinging to life... Military war crimes trials...? NO...!

[UPDATE AND BUMP]

(doin' a lot o'bumpin' today...!)

an extremely welcome dollop of sanity is splashed into the bushco mental institution... let's hope the inmates patients don't treat it as yet another "signing statement"-type opportunity...

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees. The ruling, a rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies, was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and international Geneva conventions.

FINALLY, a belated demo that checks and balances are still alive... comatose and nearly brain-dead, but, yes, still alive...

[UPDATE]

glenn greenwald weighs in with the same concern i voiced above...

My quick take is that it's certainly an important symbolic victory, but this administration's contempt for the law, the constitution, and the balance/separation of powers that our system rests on isn't going to be very affected by what 5 people in black robes say. They've ignored Congress and they'll ignore the Court too, leaving our mainstream media with more time to deal with the impending threat of blogofascism.

(thanks to atrios...)

and, while the media is busily bashing the blogosphere, the administration will be busy behind the scenes plotting how to shut the blogosphere down... don't doubt it for a moment...

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The ruling cabal of the coup d'etat seeks to consolidate power

make no mistake...

[T]he larger significance of the Times bashing is that it marks the opening of a decisive phase in the Bush administration’s long campaign to lock in a revised version of the American constitutional system, in effect putting Bush’s national security judgments beyond question and outside any meaningful oversight.

The Republicans are now looking toward November with increasing hope that the elections will consolidate GOP control of Congress and thus put Bush in position to stack the U.S. Supreme Court with right-wing jurists before the end of his second term. The court would then almost certainly endorse Bush’s claims to broad authoritarian powers.

In essence, Bush has asserted that for the duration of the indefinite “war on terror,” he or another President can assert the “plenary” – or unlimited – powers of commander in chief and thus negate all other powers granted to Congress, the courts or the people.

media-bashing also serves as a magnificent distraction from the constitutional destruction taking place before our very eyes... we should be marching in the streets but, no... it's daily life as usual... the plan is working... soon our cherised system of government will be history - if it's not already...

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The polarizer-in-chief - Bush or Rove...?

bush...

"There's a group in the opposition party who are willing to retreat before the mission is done," he said. "They're willing to wave the white flag of surrender. And if they succeed, the United States will be worse off, and the world will be worse off."

but wait...

[H]e said directly that some Democrats want to surrender, adopting the more cutting approach of his senior political adviser, Karl Rove.

let's be clear... bush may call himself the decider but karl is the polarizer-in-chief...

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"The war in Iraq broke our back"

if the bush administration rejects the opinion of top climate research scientists that global warming is related to human activity, you can be sure they will reject the opinions of terrorism and national security experts saying we are losing the war on terror... anything that doesn't fit in with their ironclad and purely magical belief system is automatically demonized as worthless junk...

The United States is losing its fight against terrorism and the Iraq war is the biggest reason why, more than eight of ten American terrorism and national security experts concluded in a poll released Wednesday.

One participant in the survey, a former CIA official who described himself as a conservative Republican, said the war in Iraq has provided global terrorist groups with a recruiting bonanza, a valuable training ground and a strategic beach head at the crossroads of the oil-rich Persian Gulf and Turkey, the traditional land bridge linking the Middle East to Europe.

"The war in Iraq broke our back in the war on terror," said the former official, Michael Scheuer, the author of "Imperial Hubris," a popular book highly critical of the Bush administration's anti-terrorism efforts. "It has made everything more difficult and the threat more existential."

in keeping with my deeply cynical frame of mind today, let me offer this... i do not believe the bush administration has any desire whatsoever to win the war on terror... terrorists are this administration's best friends... always having terrorists in the picture ensures that there will be no end of opportunities to keep fear levels high which, in turn, makes it that much easier to continue to amass unobstructed power and ignore the checks and balances provided for in the u.s. constitution...

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Gandhi in Palestine...?

this from juan cole...

On Tuesday evening, [the Saudi ambassador to the US] openly called on the Palestinians to give up all violence to and wage their struggle for self-determination using Gandhian principles of nonviolent peaceful resistance.

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Insurgents to U.S. - set a deadline and we'll stop

ain't THIS interestin'...?

Eleven Sunni insurgent groups have offered an immediate halt to all attacks -- including those on American troops -- if the United States agrees to withdraw foreign forces from Iraq in two years, insurgent and government officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday. Withdrawal is the centerpiece of a set of demands from the groups, which operate north of Baghdad in the heavily Sunni Arab provinces of Salahuddin and Diyala. Although much of the fighting has been to the west, those provinces are increasingly violent and attacks there have crippled oil and commerce routes.

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The REAL reason behind the corporate war on employee pension plans

david sirota throws some light on a very dark corner of the corporatocracy...

• Benefits for executives now account for a significant share of pension obligations in the U.S., an average of 8% at the companies above. Sometimes a company's obligation for a single executive's pension approaches $100 million.

• [M]any of the big companies that are slashing workers' pension are using the savings to add to executives' pension plans.

• [D]eferred compensation schemes are a key factor in "creating huge and typically unfunded corporate liabilities" - liabilities that are then used to justify more cuts to workers' pensions.

so, why aren't we hearing about it...? three guesses and the first two don't count...

[M]ost reporters give the public a he-said-she-said account of the burgeoning retirement security crisis, leading us to believe that massive pension cutbacks are just a force of nature that cannot be stopped, rather than the unsurprising outcome of specific policy choices by greedy executives and the politicians in their back pocket.

[...]

The more such information gets out, the more we really see what's going on: a vicious class war being waged by elites in government and business who are doing everything they can to bleed America dry.

legalized thievery... disgusting...

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More diversion, more muzzling, more wasting time, more b.s.

it's simply flabbergasting to me how much time and energy is expended sucking up to george bush, pandering to the wingnut base, and playing along with karl rove's crafted-in-hell talking points...

House Republican leaders are expected to introduce a resolution today condemning The New York Times for publishing a story last week that exposed government monitoring of banking records.

look, you morons, freedom of the press is and has always been one of the key foundations upon which this country was built... leave it the hell alone... besides, there's simply no rational basis for it...

“Under no circumstances would we revoke anyone’s credentials simply because a government official is unhappy with what that correspondent’s newspaper has written,” said Susan Milligan, a reporter for the Boston Globe, which is owned by the Times, who also serves the standing chairwoman of the Standing Committee of Correspondents. “The rules say nothing about the stories a newspaper chooses to pursue, or the reaction those stories provoke. The Times clearly meets our standards for credentials.”

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Pay no attention to those American citizens dying of criminal negligence and illegal war

now, what were we talking about before we were so rudely interrupted...? oh, yes, how our elected representatives in washington have very important things to talk about...

(david sirota in daily kos...)

Consider this - the U.S. Congress and cynical pundits and political operatives in Washington are polluting our country's political discourse with a debate over flag burning at the very same time that:

- The American Journal of Public Health reports more than 1,700 African Americans die each week because they don't have the same access to health care as other Americans.

- The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports 110 workers die each week in workplace fatalities - many of which could be prevented by better enforcement of basic workplace laws by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (which is being gutted by budget cuts).

- The Pentagon reports roughly 15 American soldiers die each week in Iraq.

- The Institute of Medicine reports 346 Americans die each week because they lack health insurance.

- The Environmental Working Group reports that 192 Americans die each week because of exposure to asbestos.

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Post-Zarqawi - a dark and cynical perspective

juan cole has an article up on salon... (you'll either have to be a salon subscriber or suffer through a short advertisement to access the full article...)

Whatever the meaning of the killing of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi by a U.S. airstrike earlier this month, it has not lessened Iraq's violent nightmare, or calmed tensions in the Middle East. Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri called him "the prince of martyrs" and vowed revenge on the U.S. Some reports suggest that the two U.S. soldiers captured at Yusufiyah were tortured and killed by Zarqawi's shadowy successor. The three weeks after his death have witnessed daily bombings with dozens of casualties throughout Iraq. And Zarqawi's demise has stirred up trouble throughout the region, as controversies on how to respond to it have erupted among secularists and fundamentalists, Sunnis and Shiites.

i have a terrible and growing suspicion... it started with my post of several days ago where ezra klein speculated that the reason bush has no iraq exit strategy is because he doesn't WANT one... so, here ya go...

we've got our military bases there... we have them more or less secured... we more or less have access to iraqi oil... we now have a key strategic position in the very center of the islamic countries and the middle east oil region... we are within easy striking distance of the various " 'stans" (kazakhstan, uzbekistan, etc.) and their energy resources... trying to think like bushco, tell me, why do we need to do anything more in iraq other than keep our bases and the green zone secure...? what does it matter that the insurgents keep slaughtering their own people...? sure, we have to LOOK like we're trying to create a stable iraq and, yeah, we need to occasionally do something like capture a zarqawi, and, sure, that means we're going to lose some of our troops now and then but, basically, don't we already have what we went there for...?

told ya it was cynical...

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Treason: the NYT diversionary tactic

the nyt responds in typical, measured fashion...

From our side of the news-opinion wall, the Swift story looks like part of an alarming pattern. Ever since Sept. 11, the Bush administration has taken the necessity of heightened vigilance against terrorism and turned it into a rationale for an extraordinarily powerful executive branch, exempt from the normal checks and balances of our system of government. It has created powerful new tools of surveillance and refused, almost as a matter of principle, to use normal procedures that would acknowledge that either Congress or the courts have an oversight role.

it is certainly NOT the nyt that's the story here but, thanks to karl rove, it is... what the story should REALLY be about is the "extraordinarily powerful executive branch, exempt from the normal checks and balances..."

ya gotta hand it to rove... now we're going to consume mega-gallons of printers' ink and terabytes of bandwidth to talk about what shouldn't be an issue in the first place - freedom of the press - and ignore the fact that we have a presidential administration using the constitution of the united states as toilet paper...

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Israel cuts water and power to 1.3M people in Gaza

1.3 million people without water and power... how many of those people are elderly...? women...? children...? disabled...? one hell of a lot more, i'd guess, than hamas militants... does israel care...? highly doubtful...

Israel kept up the pressure on Palestinian militants to release a captive Israeli soldier Wednesday, sending its warplanes to bomb a Hamas training camp after knocking out electricity and water supplies for most of the 1.3 million residents of the Gaza Strip. Palestinians dug in behind walls and embankments, preparing for a major strike after Israel sent in troops and tanks, and bombarded bridges and a power station.

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Another non-issue bites the dust

making sure our elected representatives spend their time on things that really matter...

A constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration died in a Senate cliffhanger Tuesday, a single vote short of the support needed to send it to the states for ratification and four months before voters elect a new Congress.

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AYIDTIP Podcast

for anyone out there wondering why the And, yes, I DO take it personally weekly podcast wasn't available yesterday as usual, the podcast host, ourmedia.org, has had website problems but, thankfully, is now back up and running, so here ya go...

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"Congress abdicated its oversight duties and gave the President cover to break the law with impunity"

(shayana kadidal at the huffpo and the center for constitutional rights...)

President Bush is violating our constitutional rights, and congressional apologists would rather change the law than confront the lawbreaker.

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Muzzling the press... Is this a point of no return...?

things are escalating fast and any half-way rational individual can see where this is taking us...

(from the nro online...)

The New York Times is a recidivist offender in what has become a relentless effort to undermine the intelligence-gathering without which a war against embedded terrorists cannot be won. And it is an unrepentant offender. In a letter published over the weekend, Keller once again defended the newspaper’s editorial decision to run its TFTP story. Without any trace of perceiving the danger inherent in public officials’ compromising of national-security information (a matter that the Times frothed over when it came to the comparative trifle of Valerie Plame’s status as a CIA employee), Keller indicated that the Times would continue revealing such matters whenever it unilaterally decided that doing so was in the public interest.

The president should match this morning’s tough talk with concrete action. Publications such as the Times, which act irresponsibly when given access to secrets on which national security depends, should have their access to government reduced. Their press credentials should be withdrawn. Reporting is surely a right, but press credentials are a privilege. This kind of conduct ought not be rewarded with privileged access.

playing this out logically, with an endless war on terror in which a commander-in-chief-in-perpetuity can decide, in the best traditions of a fascist state, what the citizens of a formerly free republic get to know and what they don't, bushco will have achieved what it has sought all along - unfettered power to do precisely as it pleases... the united states has been in a constitutional crisis since the coup d'etat was formalized by the supreme court on 12 december 2000... we are now rapidly approaching the point of no return...

(thanks to raw story...)

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Michelle supports the cause

(thanks to media needle...)

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Listen up... Pay very close attention... Danger ahead...

atrios...

Left wing bloggers on the internets complain about the media and they get ignored and accused of "blogofascism." Conservatives call for the New York Times to be blown up and their reporters and editors jailed and they get treated seriously on MSNBC's flagship political talk show.

There's a problem here. You've been playing this game for years, letting these people control the terms of the debate. This is where it has brought you. Congratulations.

john at americablog...

Listen to Atrios. The Bush team is trying to silence the media. They want to charge reporters and newpapers with treason. That's beyond Nixonian. It's Stalinist.

[...]

It's more than very annoying to watch television reporters treat this issue like it's just another story...or worse, like it's some kind of political competition between the Bush administration and the New York Times. This is way more serious. It's dangerous. Treat it that way.

blogs and the internet will be next... count on it...

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More on looming vigilante justice and repression of the free flow of information

glenn greenwald promised us this post yesterday and he's made good... here's just a sample...

The clear rationale underlying the arguments of Bush supporters needs to be highlighted. They believe that the Bush administration ought to be allowed to act in complete secrecy, with no oversight of any kind. George Bush is Good and the administration wants nothing other than to stop The Terrorists from killing us. There is no need for oversight over what they are doing because we can trust our political officials to do good on their own. We don't need any courts or any Congress or any media serving as a "watchdog" over the Bush administration. There is no reason to distrust what they do. We should -- and must -- let them act in total secrecy for our own good, for our protection. And anyone who prevents them from acting in total secrecy is not merely an enemy of the Bush administration, but of the United States, i.e., is a traitor.

glenn, in his usual highly articulate and comprehensive fashion, crafts the definitive response... the key bullet points...

(1) There is not a single sentence in the Times banking report that could even arguably "help the terrorists."
[...]
(2) The reason there is "no evidence of abuse" is precisely because the administration exercises these powers in total secrecy.
[...]
(3) The Founders unequivocally opted for excess disclosures by the media over excess government secrecy and restraints on the press.
[...]
(4) How can any rational person believe that the reporters and editors of The New York Times want to help terrorists attack the U.S.?
[...]
All of this is truly the stuff of hysterical, deranged, hateful lynch mobs -- not of rational discussions -- and yet it is driving radical changes in how our country functions.

we must absolutely keep in mind that the driver for these "radical changes" is coming squarely from the top... one cannot read the pronouncements of bush, cheney, and snow over the past several days without coming to the inescapable conclusion that they are actively seeking this kind of reaction and will use it to further clamp down on the free flow of information in this country...

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An ideological basis for endless war

robert parry's view on cheney's 1% doctrine...

[I]f Bush seeks to eradicate a succession of one-percent threats, he could well find himself trapped within a growing web of interrelated consequences, each pulling in their own entangling complexities. The end result could leave the United States in a much worse predicament than when the process began.

clearly that's the case, and we've also seen the following used to great effect...

[W]hether or not to invoke the one-percent doctrine gives them [Bush and Cheney] the ultimate debate-stopping argument.

imho, one key element that parry overlooks is that, if any threat perceived to be over 1% must be responded to as a certainty, we now can see with stunning clarity the ideological basis for an endless war on terror...

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"A FUBU foreign policy: For Us, By Us"

sure looks that way, doesn't it...?

[T]he checks and balances provided by an educated electorate have all but disappeared from American governance.

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Do we have a functioning code of federal laws?

under president george w. bush...? no...

Rather than give Congress the opportunity to override a veto with a two-thirds majority in each house, he has issued hundreds of signing statements invoking his right to interpret the law on everything from whistleblower protections to how Congress oversees the USA Patriot Act.

let's get really, really real... this is a president out of control... when bush can assert that, in a time of war (which, apparently, will be for the rest of our natural lives and very likely those of our children as well), he can, as commander-in-chief and in the name of national security, override any and all laws on the books, we are in extremely deep shit as a country...

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Cheney unleashes hate and vigilante justice

this is what you get when you start accusing our once-free press of treasonous acts... (and don't think for one second this response wasn't foreseen...)

"Sic the AG on the NYT!!!!!"

"Can we have a class action lawsuit against the Slimes [sic] for endangering American lives?"

"Whoever it is, needs to spend the rest of his pathetic life in the slammer."

"Indictments, arrests and imprisonments are very much in order here. Not to put too fine a point on it, but just how much treason is our president prepared to tolerate?"

"I can only hope I get to see the video of Sulzberger's beheading! :)"

"If the government won't act, perhaps some private citizens will."

"Tar, feathers? You are the very definition of the term 'restraint'. I was thinking more along the lines of the Muslim solution."

"String em up, right next to Murtha's sad carcass."

"They need to hang for this, but it's not PC for me to type this in RESPONSE to their treason."

"The Slimes [sic] and its puppets in the MSM ARE THE ENEMY. They simply hate America as it is. They want a socialist-homosexual utopia. Thus, they are simply aiding and abetting their faithful followers abroad and here. They are giving intel to their friends of gee-had. They are the enemy. Problem is, many Americans simply do not know or care."

"Any retired snipers out there?"

"They are, without a doubt our enemy. We need to treat them as such."

"I think it will be dangerous for a Slimes [sic] reporter to step foot out of Manhattan."

it's a sad, sad day in america when the free flow of information is greeted by this kind of response...

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Democrats are brilliant at thinking up policies, but...

barbara o'brien in glenn greenwald's blog, unclaimed territory, puts together a terrific perspective on where, how, and why the dems have blown it...

Today Democrats are angry because, after days listening to their Iraq withdrawal proposal derided as "cut and run," they learn that the White House has a similar proposal under consideration. The plot of this movie is too familiar; somehow, enabled by media, Republicans will spin the Republican cut and run propsal as principled and the Democrats' as cowardly, even though you might have trouble working dental floss between the two.

But they get away with it because the GOP has invested years in telling the story of the noble Republicans who stand strong against our enemies while the cowardly Democrats snivel in the corner and badmouth the troops. And I'm sure you've heard the part about how Democrats are appeasers because they don't realize evil people can't be trusted. But Republicans, the story goes, understand that evil people are evil and won't let them get away with squat.

Just like Ronald Reagan, who was strong, and who squared his shoulders and sat tall in the saddle, even as he looked the other way when Saddam Hussein gassed the Kurds.

And no matter how big a mess the Republicans make of national security, at least some voters will still vote Republican because they believe the story, even though its a fairy tale.

Democrats are brilliant at thinking up policies, complete with earnest executive summaries and lots of bulleted lists. But they don't know how to tell stories, which is why they're a minority party now. And it's a shame, because the Dems wouldn't have had to rely on fantasy; there are plenty of facts that can be dredged out of the memory hole that would make wonderful stories.

With not much else to run on, Republicans will spin their national security tale any way they can from now until the November elections. Let's hope cognitive dissonance can only stretch so far.

it's definitely worth reading the whole thing...

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Oh, Karl...! Could your nose get any browner...?

satan's right-hand man, the rover, has an article up in time on theodore roosevelt... guess what...? tr and bush have absolutely NOTHING in common, karl, my man...

A spirited clash of ideas is not only inevitable in politics, but helpful. T.R. didn't just love ideas, he loved to debate them as long as it was fair and straight. The "healthy combativeness" of politics clarified differences and choices. The rough-and-tumble of the political arena didn't bother him. "If a man has a very decided character, has a strongly accentuated career," Roosevelt said, "it is normally the case of course that he makes ardent friends and bitter enemies." T.R. had both. So did F.D.R. So did Lincoln. So did Reagan. So do all consequential leaders.

if disastrous is consequential (and i'm sure it must be), george will be one of the most consequential presidents in the country's history...

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The Vice President in the library with the candlestick

this interchange between Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) and Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, says it all...

JONES: [W]here along the way – how did these people so early on get so much power that they had more influence in those in the administration to make decisions than you the professionals?

WILKERSON: Let me try to answer you first. Let me say right off the bat I’m glad to see you here.

JONES: Thank you sir.

WILKERSON: As a Republican, I’m somewhat embarrassed by the fact that you’re the only member of my party here.

JONES: I agree.

WILKERSON: But I understand it. I’d answer you with two words. Let me put the article in there and make it three. The Vice President.

(thanks to think progress...)

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Domestic surveillance is outta control

as if we didn't already know that...

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the Department of Defense has released documents that show wider surveillance of student organizations than previously reported, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network has reported.

[...]

The documents released today indicate that e-mails sent by various student groups were intercepted and monitored by the government and that the government collected reports from seemingly undercover agents who attended at least one student protest at Southern Connecticut State University. None of the reports in the documentation, however, indicated any terrorist activity by the students who were monitored.

there is every reason to believe that, as i've repeatedly stated, ALL of our electronic communication is being filtered and sniffed... these bits and pieces that keep popping up are just the tip of the iceberg, i'm convinced...

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God forbid we should know that our government is spying on us

[UPDATE AND BUMP]

the fear-mongering and media intimidation takes on a higher level of stridency...

Tony Snow: [T]he New York Times and other news organizations ought to think long and hard about whether a public’s right to know in some cases might override somebody’s right to live, and whether in fact the publications of these could place in jeopardy the safety of fellow Americans.

disgusting, and that dank, putrid odor wafting from the quote is the distinctive smell of karl rove...

i don't care how many times george, dick, or anyone else in the robotized talking-points choir say we shouldn't know what our government is doing, they're wrong... for one thing, the surveillance of money transfers has been common knowledge for a long time and, even then, it's not like terrorists couldn't figure it out for themselves (and probably DID years ago)... tracking bank accounts and money flow was one of the first things the government announced it would do following 9/11... but that still misses the point... attempting to intimidate the media into keeping information - important information - from the american people violates every principle on which this country was founded...

President Bush on Monday sharply condemned the disclosure of a program to secretly monitor the financial transactions of suspected terrorists. "The disclosure of this program is disgraceful," he said.

"For people to leak that program and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America," Bush said, jabbing his finger for emphasis. He said the disclosure of the program "makes it harder to win this war on terror."

engendering fear in the populace and waging an endless war on terror in order to continue to have the president serving in the all-powerful position of commander-in-chief has become thin cover for the creation of a fascist state...

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Peter Daou throws in with Hillary

too bad...

I have been offered – and accepted – what I believe is a unique opportunity to help close the triangle: joining Senator Clinton’s team as a blog advisor to facilitate and expand her relationship with the netroots.

i'm sure he will add great value to hillary's efforts, but she is very far from my idea of a principled democratic candidate... in fact, she's rather far from my idea of a principled democrat, period... imho, peter's considerable talents could be better used elsewhere... he ain't gonna improve her relationship with THIS netroot...

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We don't want an exit strategy for Iraq

the conclusion is inescapable...

The Bush administration is actively working against the wishes of the elected Iraqi government and the expressed preferences of the American public to pursue an indefinite occupation of Iraq. This is a perpetual deployment on behalf of no stated goals, no wish-list of accomplishments, and no obvious purpose. I can't say whether we want the military bases, the oil, the regional foothold, or anything else; but invading a country, overthrowing their government, and then remaining against the wishes of the elected successors is the very definition of an occupying power, and in any international context, the neocons would be quick to define it as a hostile occupying power. Folks sometimes wonder why we don't have an exit strategy. The answer, now obvious, is because we don't want one.

--Ezra Klein

(thanks to atrios...)

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Greenwald explores the depths of denial

a sad and damning litany...

[A] willingness to ignore waves of evidence and assert plainly false facts that they want to believe are true is -- as I have argued many times before -- the predominant mental attribute that has governed our country over the last five years. It is that corrupt dynamic that explains how things are going really well in Iraq; how Saddam really did have WMDs when we invaded; how the chaos and anarchy in Iraq is the fault (and invention) of the news media; how Saddam personally participated in the 9/11 attacks; how terrorists did not know before the New York Times story in Decmeber, 2005 that we were trying to eavesdrop on their telephone calls; how terrorists did not know before this weekend that we were trying to monitor their bank transactions; how Bush is really popular and most of the country agrees with him and that data to the contrary is due to flawed and biased polls, etc. A desire for a fact to be true is sufficient to embrace it as true, even with no evidence that it is, and even in the face of abundant evidence that it is false.

and therein lies the political genius of karl rove...

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Alito's sure earning his keep

keeping their "powder dry" over this tie-breaker's confirmation was perhaps one of the dumber things senate dems have done and, lord knows, they've done plenty...

New Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito broke a tie Monday to rule that Kansas' death penalty law is constitutional. By a 5-to-4 vote, the justices said the Kansas Supreme Court incorrectly interpreted the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment to strike down the state's death penalty statute.

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Bushco AIN'T INCOMPETENT...!

thank god... i've been screaming and hollering about this for well over two years... lakoff, ettlinger, and ferguson, however, fail to emphasize the essential criminality and massive degree of destruction that has taken place since the coup d'etat became official on 12 december 2000...

The idea that Bush is incompetent is a curious one. Consider the following (incomplete) list of major initiatives the Bush administration, with a loyal conservative Congress, has accomplished:

* Centralizing power within the executive branch to an unprecedented degree
* Starting two major wars, one started with questionable intelligence and in a manner with which the military disagreed
* Placing on the Supreme Court two far-right justices, and stacking the lower federal courts with many more
* Cutting taxes during wartime, an unprecedented event
* Passing a number of controversial bills such as the PATRIOT Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, the Medicare Drug bill, the Bankruptcy bill and a number of massive tax cuts
* Rolling back and refusing to enforce a host of basic regulatory protections
* Appointing industry officials to oversee regulatory agencies
* Establishing a greater role for religion through faith-based initiatives
* Passing Orwellian-titled legislation assaulting the environment — “The Healthy Forests Act” and the “Clear Skies Initiative” — to deforest public lands, and put more pollution in our skies
* Winning re-election and solidifying his party’s grip on Congress

These aren’t signs of incompetence. As should be painfully clear, the Bush administration has been overwhelmingly competent in advancing its conservative vision. It has been all too effective in achieving its goals by determinedly pursuing a conservative philosophy.

bushco's ability to accomplish what it's set out to accomplish is truly staggering... unfortunately, in the process, the united states as we thought we knew it has practically ceased to exist...

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An unfortunate diversion on a Sunday evening

a lightning-caused fire on the eastern foothills of the sierras just inside the california border west of reno, nevada...

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Mexico's election is next Sunday and AMLO is leading in the polls

the mexican presidential election is only one week away and it looks as though andres manuel lopez obrador, the left-leaning former mayor of mexico city, could possibly take his place as mexico's next president...

"We are not against businessmen as those who see us with negative eyes have been saying," Lopez Obrador tells cheering supporters. "We cannot be against those who invest and generate jobs. We are against those who traffic influence -- the corrupt."

i've posted on this many times... the gap between the haves and the have-nots in mexico is huge... over 50% of the population lives in poverty yet mexico is home to some of the world's richest people... nafta has done nothing to reduce that, quite the contrary, in fact... yet, the u.s., in its desire to keep milking the relationship, has no desire to see amlo become president and, to nobody's surprise, has been actively working to undermine his candidacy...

[T]he first big problem facing an Amlo administration would be to heal the rift opened up by the negative campaigns launched by the Calderon camp*, for which he blamed the influx of expensive US political consultants.

* Felipe Calderon, the National Action Party (PAN) candidate, is campaigning to be Vicente Fox's successor, promising to continue PAN's slow-moving market reforms.

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Grannies to march on D.C.

ya gotta love it...

With wheelchairs, walkers, canes and pictures of their grandchildren on their backs, the Granny Brigade was back in Times Square, the scene of their arrest last fall for blocking the entrance to the Military Recruitment Center to stop the war.

This time, they're kicking off a 10-day trek to the nation's capital.

"We want to wake up an apathetic American public," Joan Wile, the Brigade's founder said. "Maybe they're against the war, maybe they're not. But they're totally indifferent."

Granny, an extreme sports fanatic
(from Hoodwinked)

and they don't seem to have any hesitation about shaking their collective fingers right in george's face...

And the oldest among them, 91-year-old Marie Runyon, would love to speak directly to President Bush to tell him, "you've made the whole world hate us. What you've done is illegal and immoral and I think you need a psychiatrist."

give 'im hell, marie, and, while you're at it, a whack across his backside with a broom...

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Wow...! Newsweek's in a race to prove that they're the MOST out of touch with reality

somebody somewhere asked the question earlier today... just exactly what is it that rove has on all these people that they can keep grinding out the same old spin regardless of the fact that it has nothing to do with the mood of the country, the polls, the facts, the truth, or reality...? damned if i know, but it seems to be working... media matters does a much better job dissecting newsweek's july 3 bag o'shit than i could...

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Dick Cheney: "No one listens to him."

i thought i was going to grow old and die before i heard this kind of right-on response to cheney, rove, and the talking-point media circus...

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The worst possible thing we could do is what the Democrats are suggesting, and no matter how you carve it, you can call it anything you want, but basically, it is packing it in, going home, persuading and convincing and validating the theory that the Americans don't have the stomach for this fight.

BLITZER: All right. You want to respond to the vice president, Senator Biden?

BIDEN: No, I don't want to respond to him. He's at 20 percent in the polls. No one listens to him. He has no credibility. It's ridiculous.

i'm no fan of joe biden but, credit where credit is due... putting the words "dick cheney" and "credibility" in the same sentence pushes the concept of oxymoron to an entirely new plateau...

(thanks to atrios...)

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Showing the world how clueless you REALLY are - for DUMMIES

lord, where to start...

"It's a little bit like 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' with these[Daily Kos and liberal/progressive bloggers] guys," said an aide to a Democratic presidential candidate who asked not to be identified while the boss was angling for Moulitsas's support. "You like what they're saying when they're coming in, but you don't know what they're going to do once you let them into your house." Newt Gingrich, who wins points even from liberal bloggers for his political acumen, marvels at the Democrats' embrace of the blogosphere: "Candidates out there run a risk of resembling the people they're trying to appeal to," he tells NEWSWEEK. "I think the Republican Party has few allies more effective than the Daily Kos."

(bolded items added to illustrate outstanding examples of cluelessness and/or stupidity...)

as i'm sure many people have, i've been following the media uproar over the liberal/progressive blogosphere that seems to have focused on daily kos and markos in particular as its latest smear victim, and i've come to the conclusion that responses are just a waste of time and energy... if you've ever spent any time at all reading daily kos (i refuse to disclose the number of times a day i visit because it would reveal too much about my own level of obsession with the current state of affairs in the u.s.), you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that kos readers are nothing if not diverse... but, as usual, the media fails to grasp that it's a community effort... we're keeping each other informed, we're educating each other, we're constantly forming and re-forming opinions and perspectives, in short, we're having the kind of discussions this country was founded on, mediated by the internet rather than through pamphleteering a la tom paine...

the sub-headline on the newsweek article tells you all you need to know about the depth of understanding in the rest of the article...

The Daily Kos thinks the politics of Iraq will help him shape the Democratic Party.

daily kos ain't a "him," guys...

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When you're determined to have a war, facts be damned

guys like drumheller are the ones who are paid to keep the bigs from getting their tails caught in cracks...

In late January 2003, as Secretary of State Colin Powell prepared to argue the Bush administration's case against Iraq at the United Nations, veteran CIA officer Tyler Drumheller sat down with a classified draft of Powell's speech to look for errors. He found a whopper: a claim about mobile biological labs built by Iraq for germ warfare.

Drumheller instantly recognized the source, an Iraqi defector suspected of being mentally unstable and a liar. The CIA officer took his pen, he recounted in an interview, and crossed out the whole paragraph.

A few days later, the lines were back in the speech. Powell stood before the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 5 and said: "We have first-hand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails."

when you made up your mind - possibly as much as two years beforehand - that you're going to take out saddam, facts and truth become mere inconveniences... after all, the decision had already been made and the war planning had already been done... all that needed doing was the p.r. effort before the "product launch..."

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