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And, yes, I DO take it personally: 04/15/2007 - 04/22/2007
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"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it."
- Noam Chomsky
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And, yes, I DO take it personally

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Help fire Paul Wolfowitz



go read steve clemons' post at the washington note and then click here to sign the petition...

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The terrorists won't follow us, they're already HERE

welcome to one of the most chilling things i have run across in a very long time... this makes malkin's "The John Doe Manifesto" seem like a fluffy bunny story...


[T]he political ideology of winning over the West and the world for an Islamic Caliphate is NOT specific to some extremist group of Muslims. This is mainstream Islam and Shari’a. Historical, traditional and authoritative Islamic law mandates every Muslim to work to that end through personal development (or internalized Jihad), and outreach (or dawa), and external Jihad or war.

[...]

[U]nless someone investigates each and every one of the mosques and Islamic day schools in the US to determine what brand of Islamic law each one follows and how committed the organization, its leaders and followers are to Shari’a and Jihad, we will be effectively participating in our own destruction because we have accepted the Politically Correct notion that those of us in the West are not capable of or permitted to distinguish between good religious teachings and religious teachings which are in fact a disguise for a murderous and quite dangerous hegemonic political ideology.

[...]

[H]istory and empirical fact make absolutely clear that mainstream Islam is the evil we face and the enemies are the majority of Muslims around the world who pledge allegiance to Shari’a, even if they observe it in the breach.

[...]

[W]hile we don’t explicitly condone or promote citizen militias, we do condone and promote a fully informed and politically active citizenry. If we will not be the eyes and ears for law enforcement, they have already proven they will turn a PC-blinded eye and ear to the noble religion of peace. We will not.

It is our plan to update this work at least every year so that the networked cells operating out of these mosques and day schools will know someone is tracking them.

[...]

We want to prevent the next criminal act before it even has time to fructify into a conspiracy of evil and deeds of violence and mayhem. We want to expose Islam in America for what it is at its source and the source of Islam has always been its mosques and educational institutions. Without the network of theological and Shari’a-focused instruction, Islam is lost. Our goal is to inform ourselves, the American People, what it means to be a faithful Muslim in America at any given mosque or Islamic day school in the country. It will be up to all of us as Americans to use this information to turn things around. Immigration reform; profiling; criminalizing the teaching or preaching of Shari’a as an overt act of criminal conspiracy.

i used to get cold chills when i read about white supremacy groups... this is worse, much worse... what makes it even worse than white supremacy is that it's happening right out in the open... these people are budding terrorists, if they are not already... i am sick to my stomach...

(from glenn greenwald via atrios...)

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"Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as U.S. lives"



"the cost of doing business..."
"All levels of command tended to view civilian casualties, even in significant numbers, as routine and as the natural and intended result of insurgent tactics," Bargewell wrote [Maj. Gen. Eldon A. Bargewell's 104-page report on Haditha]. He condemned that approach because it could desensitize Marines to the welfare of noncombatants. "Statements made by the chain of command during interviews for this investigation, taken as a whole, suggest that Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as U.S. lives, their deaths are just the cost of doing business, and that the Marines need to get 'the job done' no matter what it takes."

and we wonder why they hate us...

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Opposed to Bush? "The rule of law is out the window. Wild West hangin' justice is in."

bush and his criminal compadres present themselves as the saviors of the american people, protecting us from the horrors of global "terrorism," which, if not confronted at exorbitant financial and human cost in iraq, will cross the ocean and attack us on our homeland... sadly, far too many people in the united states have swallowed this nonsense, hook, line and sinker, without stopping to consider that the fight is not between u.s. citizens and "terrorists..." rather, it is between those who support vs. those who resist the interests of the bush family and its highly interconnected networks of money and power... no one has documented this better than robert parry... what follows are the four paragraphs introducing parry's latest post on his consortium news, chronicling the staggering hypocrisy of george w. bush in the context of the recently released anti-castro terrorist, luis posada carriles...
George W. Bush likes to present the “war on terror” as a clear-cut moral crusade in which evildoers who kill innocent civilians must be brought harshly to justice, along with the leaders of countries that harbor terrorists. There are no grays, only blacks and whites.

But evenhanded justice is not the true core principle of the Bush Doctrine. The real consistency is hypocrisy: violence which Bush favors – no matter how wanton the slaughter of innocents – is justifiable, while violence that goes against Bush’s interests – even an insurgency against a foreign military occupation – must be punished without remorse as “terrorism.”

In other words, if Bush hates the perpetrators, they are locked up indefinitely without charge and, at his discretion, can be subjected to “alternative interrogation techniques,” what most of the world considers torture. The rule of law is out the window. Wild West hangin' justice is in. Even the ancient fair trial right of habeas corpus is discarded.

However, when the killers of civilians are on Bush’s side, they get the full panoply of legal protections – and every benefit of the doubt. Under this Bush double standard, therefore, right-wing Cuban terrorists Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, though implicated in a string of murderous attacks on civilians, get the see-no-evil treatment.

parry's conclusion is stark...
[T]he Bush family regards terrorism – defined as killing civilians for a political reason – as justified or at least tolerable in cases when their interests match those of the terrorists.

Terrorism is only a moral evil to the Bushes when the violence against civilians clashes with the Bush family’s interests.

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Slice and dice

during a living room pass-through a few minutes ago on the way to the kitchen for coffee, i stopped briefly to watch my older grandson playing a video game in which the principal dialog consisted of the words in the post title... after blacksburg and the events of this past week, i do not find that comforting...

[UPDATE]


much to my surprise, the video game is "teenage mutant ninja turtles..." i was under the impression that tmnt was a bit more benign... in any case, a check with my son told me that game, a bonus add-on to super mario, was not on his "ok to play" list... a cease and desist order was issued forthwith...

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"A cataclysmic fight to the death" over congressional subpoenas

yes, yes, i know... i've been beating this dead horse for weeks, but... we MUST NOT FORGET that the bush administration laid out its unequivocal strategy for how it would respond to any congressional attempts at exercising oversight or exacting accountability BEFORE the november elections...
In fact, when it comes to deploying its Executive power, which is dear to Bush's understanding of the presidency, the President's team has been planning for what one strategist describes as "a cataclysmic fight to the death" over the balance between Congress and the White House if confronted with congressional subpoenas it deems inappropriate. The strategist says the Bush team is "going to assert that power, and they're going to fight it all the way to the Supreme Court on every issue, every time, no compromise, no discussion, no negotiation."

you can go to the bank on the fact that bushco will be doing exactly what they said they were going to do, henry waxman notwithstanding...
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) sought yesterday to pressure the Bush administration into divulging sensitive policy information, scheduling a committee vote for Wednesday on his plan to issue four subpoenas for the information.

[...]

"I never found it necessary to issue subpoenas to either President Bush's father's Administration or the Reagan Administration," Waxman said in a statement. "We were always able to reach an accommodation that respected our legitimate interests. I hope that will continue to be the case with this White House" and the information will be provided voluntarily.

mr. waxman's hopeful sentiment is touching, but surely he knows there are only two scenarios that are likely to transpire here... one, his committee will issue the subpoenas and they will be ignored by the white house (or justice department or the state department or whatever other executive branch agency they're directed to)... that will force a consideration to declare contempt of congress, a judgment that would require enforcement by the justice department... since the justice department is peppered with bushco infiltrators, that won't happen, and the case would eventually have to be pushed up to the supreme court, another bushco enclave, with a positive outcome equally unlikely... the other scenario is that the subpoenas won't be issued and waxman will continue to huff and puff and nothing will be accomplished...

so, what's a body to do...? hell if i know... what i keep hoping is that, subpoenas or not, several truly damning revelations (there would have to be more than one) backed by hard evidence come into the possession of one or more house or senate investigative committees that will blow the whole bushco criminal enterprise wide open... this business of working piece-meal with condi, gonzo, rove, et al, may be good for chipping away at the power base of these arrogant criminals, but, by the time such efforts bring down any walls, 20 january 2009 will be upon us, and the damage done between now and then may very well be irreversible...

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Friday, April 20, 2007

Stick a sock in it, McCain

check out the moveon ad...



the only thing left for this guy to do is to put on a dunce cap and sit in the corner... as a presidential candidate, and very likely as a senator as well, he's through...

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"You will not be surprised to learn that I take a different view of this matter."

henry waxman...
"On April 16,2007, you appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and discussed the leak of [former covert CIA Agent Valerie Plame] Wilson's identity," Waxman (D-CA) wrote to Andrew Card, the former White House Chief of Staff. "[White House Counsel Fred] Fielding's position appears to be that it is appropriate for you to discuss these matters on The Daily Show, but not before a congressional committee. You will not be surprised to learn that I take a different view of this matter."

ouch... inescapable logic, imho...
Card served as Bush's chief of staff from the President's inauguration until April 2006. In March, Waxman sought "an on-the-record interview regarding the disclosure of Ms. Wilson's covert identity and the White House procedures for handling classified information," with Card.

But the White House Counsel rejected the request because "former senior White House officials such as the Chief of Staff to the President have historically not been available to Congress to testify, or to be interviewed, about their activities in serving the President," according to the Congressman's letter.

why, oh why, oh why-o, can't we put these criminals occupying the white house out on the street - or, better yet, in jail where they belong...?

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It's all about power and money

it's been a while since i've posted something by robert parry, but that's not because he hasn't been an active investigator and reporter... he's got a nice summary up on the justice department/white house incestuousness and the appalling politicization of virtually everything in the executive side of our government...
Watching the painfully inept testimony of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales brought to mind the memorable comment in 2002 by ex-White House insider John DiIulio, who described how politics dominated everything in George W. Bush’s government.

“There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus,” said DiIulio, who had run Bush’s office of faith-based initiatives. “What you’ve got is everything – and I mean everything – being run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis.”

The American people are finally waking up to the consequences of what DiIulio observed during his one-year stint on the inside. Everything is about the building and maintenance of power, not via sound policies but through political tactics – ranging from the conduct of the Iraq War to the handling of federal prosecutors.

[...]

The larger picture appears to be that the Bush administration is still subordinating almost everything – from longstanding traditions on prosecutorial independence to the protection of intelligence officers – to President Bush’s political needs.

there is a key element that parry neglects... yes, "everything is about the building and maintenance of power," but the inextricable companion to that overarching goal is the building and maintenance of the massive amounts of money necessary to keep the power machine turning... then there are the correlates: contractor cronyism and unparalleled corruption using an endless war as a money machine, the building and maintenance of the fear of terrorism in order to sustain a compliant populace and as the rationale for a steady abrogation of civil liberties, an unholy alliance with extremist christian groups as an additional means of social control, and the nullification of any implied or explicit social contract, thus diverting even greater rivers of cash into the "right" pockets... it's a many-faceted plan, has been executed slowly, inexorably and comprehensively for six-plus years, and will continue to be rolled out until bush and his criminal posse are removed from office... it goes without saying that 20 january 2009 may be too late...

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A VERY conservative columnist nails a colleague

yes, yes, and yes...
John Podhoretz responds to his fellow National Review columnist [John Derbyshire]: “The notion that a human being or group of human beings holding no weapon whatever should somehow “fight back” against someone calmly executing other people right in front of their eyes is ludicrous beyond belief, irrational beyond bounds, and tasteless beyond the limits of reason.”

(thanks to think progress...)

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Bush White House DOJ protocol = utter chaos

when senator whitehouse [Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.] presented this chart in the hearing yesterday, i was occupied with something else and didn't get the full gist of what it showed, so today, i surfed around until i found it... fascinating and quite disturbing...
The chart compares the Clinton protocol for appropriate contacts between the White House and the DoJ on pending criminal cases with the Bush protocol. According to Whitehouse, the Clinton protocol authorized just four folks at the White House to chat with three folks at Justice. The chart had four boxes talking to three boxes. Out comes the Bush protocol, and now 417 different people at the White House have contacts about pending criminal cases with 30-some people at Justice.




calling the bush portion of the chart "protocol" demeans the term...

pro·to·col
Pronunciation: 'prO-t&-"kol, -"kOl, -"käl, -k&l
Function: noun

1 : an original draft, minute, or record of a document or transaction
2 a : a preliminary memorandum often formulated and signed by diplomatic negotiators as a basis for a final convention or treaty b : the records or minutes of a diplomatic conference or congress that show officially the agreements arrived at by the negotiators
3 a : a code prescribing strict adherence to correct etiquette and precedence (as in diplomatic exchange and in the military services)

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Cooking your own goose for dummies - by Alberto Gonzales

the reviews are in on yesterday's one-man show...

first, in the major media-speak of the wapo...

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales came under withering attack from members of his own party yesterday over the dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys, facing the first resignation demand from a Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and doubts from others about his candor and his ability to lead the Justice Department.

[...]

The numerous uncertainties irritated many of the Republican committee members, who criticized Gonzales for bungling the dismissals and their aftermath, and questioned his apparent disconnection from the process.

then, a sample of the less formal (and pretentious) style of a major weblog...
Kyle Sampson, Gonzo's Chief of Staff, is a gentleman who well deserves his name given the apparently superhuman feat he's performed of running the Department of Justice for years in exactly the direction his boss did not want it to go. That being said, Gonzales stands by every decision he never made, even the ones he remembers not making.

[...]

Gonzales' Justice Department is run on the basis of consensus and group responsibility precisely because that minimizes personal risk, and that minimizing personal risk is the top goal of many new people at the Justice Department, whose inexperience in the processes of government is "surpassed only by their evident disdain for it." The buck doesn't stop anywhere.

but, further confirming his reputation as an out-of-touch, totally isolated president, george was "pleased..."
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said yesterday that Bush "was pleased with the attorney general's testimony" and that Gonzales "has the full confidence of the president."

"He again showed that nothing improper occurred," Perino said. "He admitted the matter could have been handled much better, and he apologized for the disruption to the lives of the U.S. attorneys involved, as well as for the lack of clarity in his initial responses."

at the end of yesterday's sad little melodrama, i was left with the same lingering question as david swanson...
How to hold the executive branch to account? The current dilemma seems like a real mystery, something our Constitution just does not provide a solution for. Even if we could get rid of Gonzales, who would replace him? Who, appointed by George Bush and Dick Cheney, would obey and enforce the law? The answer is simple enough: Nobody.

but, the final pronouncement comes from the wapo's dana milbank...
Alberto Gonzales's tenure as attorney general was pronounced dead at 3:02 p.m. yesterday by Tom Coburn, M.D.

[...]

Gonzales had weeks to prepare for yesterday's hearing. But the man who sat at the witness table sounded like the sort of person who forgets where he parked his car.

[...]

Take Gonzales's tally along with that of his former chief of staff, who uttered the phrase "I don't remember" 122 times before the same committee three weeks ago, and the Justice Department might want to consider handing out Ginkgo biloba in the employee cafeteria.

[...]

For much of the very long day, the attorney general responded like a child caught in a lie. He shifted his feet under the table, balled his hands into fists and occasionally pointed at his questioners.

yes, it was truly a pathetic display... i have to ask myself, if a more serious line of questioning had been pursued during gonzo's confirmation hearing, would he be attorney general today...? i think not...

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Thursday, April 19, 2007

In an interesting twist to events, the DNC is suing the DOJ

i am at a loss to explain why the democratic national committee is the one filing suit... are they claiming to be the aggrieved party or is it simply a suit filed as an expression of the common interest, much like c.r.e.w. would do...? can anyone enlighten me here...?
The Democratic National Committee sued the Justice Department on Thursday, demanding it turn over any e-mail traffic with the Republican Party on the U.S. attorneys controversy and criminal investigations.

[...]

Democrats suspect that White House officials used e-mail accounts provided by the Republican Party headquarters to avoid a permanent record of communications with the Justice Department involving political considerations in the appointment of prosecutors.

The Democratic Party's suit in federal court followed the Republicans' refusal for now to turn over e-mails to Congress. White House lawyers first will have an opportunity to review them to determine whether some should be kept secret.

Such a review is "commonplace," said a letter dated Wednesday and released by the Republican committee. Attorney Robert Kelner, representing the RNC, sent the letter to the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Rep. Henry Waxman, a Democrat. Kelner gave no end date for the White House review.

another question is, does this help or hinder the work of the congressional investigation...?

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"He cannot recall making a decision, because he never did."

cskendrick, commenting over at kos, has this to say...
I think Gonzales was always a figurehead...

At best a letter-carrier from the White House to the White House functionaries within the Department of Justice.

He cannot recall making a decision, because he never did.

He cannot recall who was in the meetings where decisions were made, because he was never invited to them.

He cannot recall when said meetings occurred for the same reason.

He well and truly does not know; he was never trusted, never consulted, never advised, never included and never, ever made a single judgment call of consequence because,

brace yourself,

the White House, the Congress, and all Republicans everywhere never doubted for a moment that Alberto Gonzales was incompetent.

That was his resume: that he was a dull-witted, scatterbrained toady. That, if ever brought in for hearings, he would be so frustrating to even the GOP caucus that they would be screaming for his removal long before the President ever did.

after watching gonzo's performance today, i don't know how anyone could come to any other conclusion... i hold a similar low opinion of bush, including that he is under the control of behind-the-scene handlers... moreover, under heavy questioning, i would expect to see bush turn in a performance that would make gonzo look like richard feynman...

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Schumer: "Whatever the White House does, he shouldn't be there"

"He's made a pretty convincing case himself that he shouldn't."

"Rove and Miers should come forward."

"Even the White House, as intransigent as they are, will not keep him after today."

i smell toast burning...

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Specter: "There's no point in asking any more questions"

because we haven't gotten any answers...

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Gonzo: "the burden of proof lies on those making the allegations"

breathtaking arrogance... positively breathtaking...

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Show me the money

or, dating myself, "where's the beef...?"

patrick leahy...

"If the White House did nothing wrong, than show us. Show us the documents, provide us with sworn testimony, what was done, why, and by whom. If there's nothing to hide, the White House should stop hiding it," he said.


just for chuckles and grins, here's the late clara peller classic...

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Doolittle takes himself off the Appropriations Committee

like i said yesterday, the bushco/republican/corruption ship of fools has a fire below decks...
Doolittle’s decision, to be announced Thursday, was confirmed by a Republican congressional staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity because the news was not yet public.

(thanks to think progress...)

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A European view: 240m guns in America, considerably more than there are adults

oh, yes, let's not question the right to bear arms, any arms, regardless of destructive power... after all, the business of america is business, and there's no bigger business in the world than the u.s. arms and defense industry...
Cho Seung-hui does not stand for America's students, any more than Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris did when they slaughtered 13 of their fellow high-school students at Columbine in 1999. Such disturbed people exist in every society. The difference, as everyone knows but no one in authority was saying this week, is that in America such individuals have easy access to weapons of terrible destructive power. Cho killed his victims with two guns, one of them a Glock 9mm semi-automatic pistol, a rapid-fire weapon that is available only to police in virtually every other country, but which can legally be bought over the counter in thousands of gun-shops in America. There are estimated to be some 240m guns in America, considerably more than there are adults, and around a third of them are handguns, easy to conceal and use. Had powerful guns not been available to him, the deranged Cho would have killed fewer people, and perhaps none at all.

[...]

More bleakly terrible is America's annual harvest of gun deaths that are not mass murders: some 14,000 routine killings committed in 2005 with guns, to which must be added 16,000 suicides by firearm and 650 fatal accidents (2004 figures). Many of these, especially the suicides, would have happened anyway: but guns make them much easier. Since the killing of John Kennedy in 1963, more Americans have died by American gunfire than perished on foreign battlefields in the whole of the 20th century. In 2005 more than 400 children were murdered with guns.

< listens for comments from our elected representatives and hears only crickets chirping >

several readers, writing to germany's der spiegel, capture my thoughts exactly...

franziska müller from mörlenbach

Those who live in a functioning democracy shouldn't need weapons...

stefan schmitt...
It's too bad, that a great country like America has been led astray by its government and a few starry-eyed, foolhardy people.

georg addison...
Every act of violence should be condemned to the fullest. In Iraq dozens of people die every day through acts of terror. Where is the outrage from the US government and the population? In Africa people die from civil war, sickness, thirst and hunger -- where is the outrage from the US citizens? I love the USA, but their president, Mr. Bush has ruined the country's good reputation.

thorsten schnittke...
America has lost touch with reality...

volker lauterbach...
[W]hat constantly astonishes us is the vehemence with which the right to own a gun, even after such a crime, is defended. The arguments that are constantly produced (people, not guns, kill people) disguise the fact that it is people with guns who kill people.

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Bushco: "The Fat Lady has not only sung, she's running for cover."

robert elisberg in the huffpo...
The Bush Administration has become a Wagnerian opera. Its fiery immolation of Valhalla is incinerating the entire Republican Party to ashes in the Twilight of the Gods. The Fat Lady has not only sung, she's running for cover.

[...]

There is zero way this Administration can save itself. Six months before the election, I wrote on Huffington Post how the Bush Administration is a house of cards built on a house of sand. There's nothing there to support it. The moment it begins to collapse, I noted, it can only eat away at itself. It's like a rotting tree that begins to give way and then just crumbles, bit by bit. That's what we're seeing now. And we've only touched the surface. These aren't the last scandals, they're just the latest - ones that have happened since the November election. The scandal revelations will keep coming, like a tsunami.

"the fat lady has not only sung, she's running for cover" is a terrific line but sadly inaccurate... the criminals of the bushco coup d'etat still occupy the white house and unless and until they are removed, there will be no point at which we can consider ourselves safe and secure from this criminal crowd... remember what bushco revealed PRIOR to the november elections...

from time magazine last october...

"In fact, when it comes to deploying its Executive power, which is dear to Bush's understanding of the presidency, the President's team has been planning for what one strategist describes as 'a cataclysmic fight to the death' over the balance between Congress and the White House if confronted with congressional subpoenas it deems inappropriate. The strategist says the Bush team is 'going to assert that power, and they're going to fight it all the way to the Supreme Court on every issue, every time, no compromise, no discussion, no negotiation.'"

since the elections, the bush administration has demonstrated their unswerving commitment to carry out that threat and they are not about to back off until we throw them out... i, for one, am not content to wait until 20 january 2009 for that to happen...

i do agree, however, that we have only seen the tip of the iceberg... what's left to be revealed is going to shock us right out of our socks...

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55 "I don't recall's"

and that's just so far... somebody's keeping count...

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"Liar, liar, liar..."

the hearing takes a 15-minute break and the gallery erupts...

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No problems with Cummins' performance

they just wanted to "put a qualified individual in his place..."

hmmmm...

and those "qualifications" would be...?

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"There were a lot of issues and weighty matters I was dealing with that week"

gonzo is such a weenie...

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Wow...! TWO maggot-gagging headlines on one day...!

Unplugged McCain sings 'bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran'

this guy is dead set on destroying his remaining credibility, miniscule though it may be...

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Karl "evil incarnate" Rove

robert novak circles the truth...
Conservative commentator Robert Novak writes that while many on the right view White House adviser Karl Rove as their 'Captain Ahab,' a number of liberals refer to him as "evil incarnate."

"The White House is letting it be known on Capitol Hill that [Rove] will play no part in President Bush's forthcoming big push to pass a compromise immigration bill," writes Novak in the latest Evans-Novak Political Report.

Novak implies that one reason for the White House's move is that President Bush's trusted adviser "is viewed by Democrats as evil incarnate."

referring to rove as "evil incarnate" is dead on... i have been of that opinion for many years... no one has ever poisoned the political and social discourse of the united states more than karl rove... his behavior, minus any accountability, has served to provide implicit permission for others to follow suit, thus expanding his dark influence in a geometric progression... i have only been hoping and praying that satan will call in the marker on his soul earlier rather than later...

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Watching the Gonzo hearing and speculating on a worst-case scenario...

cnn pipeline is carrying it live...

i just had a terrible thought and i have to confess to a degree of embarrassment in even expressing it... on the other hand, my cynicism has become of a size where i can't easily shrug off any possibilities... so, here ya go...

what if this entire hearing is a charade, a carefully choreographed piece of political drama designed to convince us that accountability is actively being pursued when in fact it is not...? what if alberto gonzales, at the conclusion of the hearings, goes back to business as usual...? those in congress who worked so hard to bring accountability to the attorney general could then sit back and say, "well, we tried..."


[UPDATE]

woo-hoo... feinstein asked who proposed the patriot act amendment that allowed the appointment of u.s. attorneys without senate confirmation and how it got in the final bill... gonzo's answer: "i don't recall..."

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Redemption for Gonzo - a headline to gag a maggot

On the Hill, Gonzales Gets His Chance at Redemption

check the definition of the root word to catch the full drift (boldface added)...

re·deem
Pronunciation: ri-'dEm
Function: transitive verb
Etymology: Middle English redemen, from Anglo-French redemer, modification of Latin redimere, from re-, red- re- + emere to take, buy; akin to Lithuanian imti to take
1 a : to buy back : REPURCHASE b : to get or win back
2 : to free from what distresses or harms: as a : to free from captivity by payment of ransom b : to extricate from or help to overcome something detrimental c : to release from blame or debt : CLEAR d : to free from the consequences of sin
3 : to change for the better : REFORM
4 : REPAIR, RESTORE
5 a : to free from a lien by payment of an amount secured thereby b (1) : to remove the obligation of by payment (2) : to exchange for something of value c : to make good : FULFILL
6 a : to atone for : EXPIATE b (1) : to offset the bad effect of (2) : to make worthwhile : RETRIEVE

When Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's top aide contemplated the mass dismissal of chief federal prosecutors two years ago, he advocated keeping the "loyal Bushies." Two years later, the question confronting President Bush is whether to keep Gonzales, the very model of a loyal Bushie.

As Gonzales heads to Capitol Hill today for a long-anticipated public interrogation about the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, at issue is the very concept of loyalty in Bush's world. With any other president, many in Washington say, the attorney general would already be gone. Bush has defied the drumbeat from both parties to remove Gonzales, but even the White House considers today's Senate hearing make or break.

regardless of the outcome of today's hearings, one fact remains... the damage done by alberto gonzales to the justice department in the name of his principal "client," george w. bush, is incalculable, and congress has neither the right nor the power to absolve this man from the consequences of his deeds... whether he stays or goes, the damage has been done... redemption for alberto gonzales could mean only one thing - that he repairs the damage he has done, and that would be a choice that he would have to make in his own heart and soul, which, in turn, would mean repudiating the voice of his master to whom he has voluntarily subjugated himself... i consider the likelihood of that happening to be less than zero... without that, there is no "redemption" for gonzo...

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Nonbinding, advisory deadlines - a sick co-dependency

bullshit...
Congressional Democratic leaders are moving to make their proposed timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq "advisory" as they seek to reconcile two versions of war spending legislation into a single bill that they plan to pass next week, according to several House members.

The compromise language would keep the deadlines included in the original House bill but make them nonbinding, as the Senate version did, and would allow President Bush to waive troop-readiness standards, lawmakers said. Bush has vowed to veto legislation with timetables in it, calling it a schedule of surrender, but Democrats hope to show that they are being flexible and the president rigid by softening the terms. The compromises may cost Democrats votes among antiwar liberals, but they hope to pick up some Republicans.

giving thoughtfully articulated, reasonable advice to the bush administration has proved to be a totally worthless exercise, and, after six-plus years, it's astonishing that anyone would even consider such a thing... picking up some republican votes is a craven coward's rationale and is disgusting in the extreme...

this ploy is equivalent to the battered spouse, after the umpteenth beating, telling her husband she's going to leave if he doesn't stop... it's playing entirely into the administration's hands, giving them the space and, essentially, the permission to continue doing whatever they goddam well please with zero accountability... standing aside and wringing one's hands when the "nonbinding" deadlines come and go without action is worse than no accountability at all... it's the worst kind of sick co-dependency...

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Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Doolittle raid: Let's get this party started

last friday...
“The FBI has raided the Northern Virginia home of Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.), according to Congressional sources. No details are publicly available yet about the circumstances of the raid, but Doolittle and his wife, Julie, have been under federal investigation for their ties to the scandal surrounding imprisoned former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.”

the bushco/republican/corruption ship of fools has a fire below decks... do you suppose this turn of events has anything to do with information provided by our friend, jack, who is seeking to have his sentence reduced based on his cooperation with the fbi, huh, do ya...?

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Allowing guns in schools is total raging wingnut insanity

reading this kind of serious mental derangement makes me crazy...
"The latest school shooting at Virginia Tech demands an immediate end to the gun-free zone law," Gun Owners of America president Larry Pratt said in an e-mail. "It is irresponsibly dangerous to tell citizens that they may not have guns at schools."

or this...
The murder of innocent victims is a disgrace, and our condolences go out to those who have lost loved ones in the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech.

More than one year before Monday's unprecedented shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, the state's General Assembly quashed a bill that would have given qualified college students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus. Could one legally armed citizen have made a difference at this tragic event?

We also need to ask the question: Do laws prohibiting firearms in certain places really prevent homicidal tragedies?

There is a striking paradox associated with mass murders. They are far more likely to occur in areas that have been designated as gun-free zones.

i have never owned a gun nor have i ever considered owning a gun... even the sight of guns makes me deeply uncomfortable... while i respect the 2d amendment, i have no tolerance for arguments in favor of gun ownership... the fact that anyone would WANT to own one, with the sole exception of hunters, eludes me... i don't advocate a prohibition on gun ownership, but this notion of everyone carrying a gun, to me, is evidence of a deeply diseased society, and i want no part of it...

(thanks to think progress...)

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Question of the day: Who is Alberto Gonzales' client?

alberto gonzales, 30 november 2006, on cnn...
BLITZER: Looking back on the decisions that you’ve made, at the White House, now at the Justice Department, anything jump to mind? Anything that you deeply regret, a decision that you made?

GONZALES: Oh, I think that you and I would — I’d have to spend some time thinking about that. Obviously I’m not going to say that I am perfect and that I’ve been perfect in doing my job. Obviously I’ve made some recommendations to my client. Some of those recommendations have not been supported in the courts. In hindsight, you sometimes wonder, well, perhaps, perhaps the recommendation should have been something different.

alberto gonzales at a press briefing on 13 march 2007...
At a press briefing this afternoon, US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales acknowledged that mistakes were made in the firing of US attorneys.

"I'm responsible for what happens in the Department of Justice," Gonzales said. "I pledge to find out what went wrong, so it won't happen again."

excerpts from alberto gonzales opening statement that will be presented before the senate judiciary committee, 18 april 2007...
“I apologize”
“I am sorry”
“could have — and should have — been handled differently”
“I made mistakes”
“I would have handled this differently”
“I should have done more”
“at times I have been less than precise”
“I misspoke”
“That statement was too broad”
“imprecise and overbroad”
“I regret that”
“management missteps”
“should have been more rigorous”
“should have been completed in a much shorter period of time”
“owes them more respect than they were shown”
“should have worked with them”
“I should have communicated the concerns more effectively”
“I should have informed them of my decisions in a more dignified manner”
“could have been handled much better”
“I want to apologize publicly”

question of the day... who is alberto gonzales' "client...?"

(thanks to think progress...)

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"Arm friends, attack enemies and rely on violence rather than dialogue" - facing the truth about Blacksburg

buried on page A19 of today's wapo...
Officials, newspaper columnists and citizens around the world Tuesday described the Virginia Tech massacre as the tragic reflection of an America that fosters violence at home and abroad, even as it attempts to dictate behavior to the rest of the world.

From European countries with strict gun-control laws to war-ravaged Iraq, where dozens of people are killed in shootings and bombings each day, foreigners and their news media used the university attack to condemn what they depicted as U.S. policies to arm friends, attack enemies and rely on violence rather than dialogue to settle disputes.

when you read and listen to all the incredibly shallow spoutings that are taking place in the u.s. about monday's horror at virginia tech and then read what the rest of the world is thinking, it's more clear than ever just how terribly sick our country is... look at this from argentina, which, from first-hand experience i can assure you, is not a paragon of national peace and serenity...
"Massacre in the Paradise of Weapons," declared the headline in the Buenos Aires daily newspaper Pagina/12. In an accompanying article, Dario Kosovsky of the Argentine Network for Disarmament said he believes students who commit mass murder are following the example of the U.S. government, which advocates "the use of violence to achieve liberty."



Pagina/12, 17 April 2007, front page

The headline reads, "The American Nightmare." The cartoon has Bush saying, "In light of what's happened in Virginia, we recommend that people don't go to the University." The article listed under the photo says, "Living in an Armed Society."

now that we have at long last entered a serious national debate on iraq, look at what a wonderful opportunity the terrible carnage at blacksburg provides us to move that debate to a level of serious national self-relection...
"It is a little incident if we compare it with the disasters that have happened in Iraq," said Ranya Riyad, 19, a college student in Baghdad. "We are dying every day."

"They are always saying that the Arabs and Muslims are behind the terrorism and the killing," said Hussein Kadhum, 26, a traffic policeman in the heavily Shiite city of Najaf, south of Baghdad. "But America has terrorism and they are exporting it to us. We did not have this violence in the Saddam era because the law was so tough on guns."

will we take advantage of this opportunity...? i think the answer is readily apparent to anyone who has followed the ceaseless television and newspaper coverage of monday's rampage...

on a poster he did for earth day in 1970 the late walt kelly's cartoon character pogo said it best...


....

We have met the enemy and he is us.

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Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Depressed, burned out or just burned...?

yeah, i'm back, and i THOUGHT i was also back in the saddle... i must be experiencing residual jet lag and/or an abreaction to being back in the u.s. because, as i was sitting here earlier, i suddenly experienced a dramatic energy drop... i took a nap, ate dinner with the family, and, now that i'm back at the keyboard and reading over the developments of the day, the only thought that keeps going through my mind is, "fuck it, what's the use...?" the same goddam criminals are in charge, they're spinning the same goddam lies, they're stonewalling congress like crazy, and we don't seem to be getting any goddam where... to make matters worse, it's snowing like hell, after temps in the low 60s and sunny when i got in at mid-day... maybe it'll all look different in the morning...

ok, yes, it's not all bleak... i'm babysitting (the son and his wife didn't waste any time!), and the sounds of the grandsons playing super mario is a pleasant background...

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Cormac McCarthy



Cormac McCarthy

those of you who follow this blog know i almost never push books, movies, or anything else entertainment or retail related... i am making an exception... i finished reading cormac mccarthy's "the road" early last evening in miami, and just now discovered that both it and mr. mccarthy have been awarded the 2007 pulitzer prize for fiction...

before dropping off to sleep last night, i tried to come up with a fitting shorthand way to describe the myriad scenes in the book, each one so jewel-perfect, so elegantly minimalist, and so devastatingly impactful, that they literally took my breath away, but i couldn't do it... the following doesn't do it either, but maybe you'll get the idea...

The famously reclusive Mr. McCarthy, 73, won for his devastating chronicle of a father and son walking alone across a post-apocalyptic America, cold, dark and strewn with corpses and ash. In her review in The New York Times,, Janet Maslin wrote, “ ‘The Road’ would be pure misery if not for its stunning, savage beauty.”

i've read a number of his other books, and, i have to say, imho, he is one of the best writers i have ever read, bar-none...

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My two-day involuntary layover in Miami is over

yes, i was on the hotel shuttle to the miami airport at 4 this morning and was camped in front of the airline check-in counter before they'd even opened... after two days of hanging out in a hotel room, while not unpleasant (in-room wireless internet, shopping mall across the street, a big winn-dixie a couple of blocks down), it was time to go... so, now i'm back in the high desert, the wind is blowing a gale (typical high desert springtime), and, after vacuuming a good inch of #$%&*@^!*# cat hair off my chair, i'm back in the saddle... doesn't look like i've missed much... i just read the comment on the previous post from section 9 and i agree with brother tim... sounds like somebody is way overdue for a stay in kool-aid rehab...

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Monday, April 16, 2007

Do you hear those footsteps, Condi? They're comin' for ya...

you've been trying to lay low and let it all blow over, but, guess what...? it ain't blowin' over... dust off them ferragamos, kiddo... you may have to do some walkin' pretty soon...
Depending on the State Department's response to a request for information prior to a Wednesday meeting, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice could face a subpoena from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, RAW STORY has learned. The move could compel Rice to testify on the intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq, and other issues.

"On the 18th, we may hold a business meeting, but that is contingent on whether or not we receive requested information from her,"an Oversight Committee staff member told RAW STORY.

The committee staff member added, "If we do not get the information from the State Department prior to Wednesday, the business meeting may take up the question of issuing a subpoena."

the doj just kissed off a document subpoena deadline, the secretary of state declines to provide requested information... what's with these people...? you'd think they were hiding something...

MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...!

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Subpoena deadline missed

and we would find this surprising because...?
The Justice Department has missed the 2pm deadline to turn over documents on the U.S. Attorney firings subpoenaed by the House Judiciary Committee.

(thanks to think progress...)

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Yes, obstruction of justice charges would be nice



how about an indictment for turning political discourse in the u.s. into a screaming hate fest...? how about satan returning to claim the marker on your soul...?
A major government watchdog organization has warned that White House officials, including Karl Rove, could face a number of obstruction of justice charges for the way they used outside e-mail accounts and failed to properly archive e-mails on White House servers.

"[Special Counsel Patrick] Fitzgerald could decide to reopen the case," said Melanie Sloan, Executive Director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, referring to the probe over who leaked the identity of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. "And if it turns out that e-mail was deleted from the RNC server as suggested by the Waxman letter, that could lead to new obstruction of justice charges."

such an odious human being is just crying out for appropriate consequences... oh, yes, the others too... ;)

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A comment on VA Tech

wanton slaughter is horrific whether it's taking place in baghdad, darfur, or blacksburg, virginia... none of it should be happening, and just because it hits close to home doesn't make it worse... however, it is an opportunity to reflect on what some folks have to live with every day, with no prospect of things ever getting better...

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The U.S. doesn't give a shit about Iraq

i'm talking about the people of course...

i've maintained all along that the u.s. really could care less if the iraqis slaughter each other down to the last man... we never went there to install democracy, despite the insistence otherwise, any more than we went there to topple a cruel dictator, or to rid ourselves of those pesky (non-existent) wmd's... now, somebody is actually telling the truth, and who better to do that for us than john bolton...




sully reacts...
Bolton's point-blank view [is] that the US had no responsibility to impose order after the invasion, and no responsibility for security within the country. Bolton actually says that the only error Bush really made was not giving the Iraqis "a copy of the Federalist papers and saying, 'Good luck.'" Yes, he says he's exaggerating for effect, but he is conveying the gist of the policy. The casual recklessness and arrogance of these people never cease to amaze. The world is theirs' to play with - and the victims of predictable and predicted violence are left to help themselves...

we went to iraq for two reasons, the very same reasons why bush and his criminal posse have been so intent on dismantling the u.s. constitution, creating a one-party, authoritarian state, and installing their litmus-tested, unswervingly loyal cronies throughout the executive branch - power and money... in iraq, the power is represented by an attempt to seize middle east hegemony and the money is represented by - what else? - oil... both of those reasons are also why the bush administration will never leave iraq and is also why it is very likely that, even if dems take the white house in 2008, they will find a way to stay on in iraq as well, it just may not look like full-tilt war... nobody, democrats or republicans, will be dismantling those permanent bases or tearing down the new green zone taj mahal u.s. embassy... if the leadership of our country has their way, we will be in iraq forever...

(thanks to think progress...)

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Cynicism, discontent, and speculation about a bleak future

overall, a fairly grim picture...

la times/bloomberg (pdf)
...
Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president? (IF APPROVE OR DISAPPROVE) Do you (approve/disapprove) strongly or do you (approve/disapprove) somewhat?

ALL
Approve (net) 36
Approve strongly 17
Approve somewhat 19
Disapprove (net) 62
Disapprove somewhat 16
Disapprove strongly 46
Don’t know 2

some accompanying narrative, first related to the figures above...
Bush's overall presidential job rating also continued to fall, hitting a low of 36% approval compared to 62% disapproval. The proportion of Americans who say they strongly disapprove of the job he is doing as president is approaching half – 46%. Similarly, only a third of the public backs his handling of the Iraq war, compared to 65% who do not.

the economy, gonzo, testimony under oath, iraq withdrawal and funding...
Americans predict that the U.S. will face an economic recession, and after a year of increasing optimism about the economy, their outlook has taken a decided downward turn, according to the latest Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll. In addition, most want Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez to step down [53%], and think Bush administration staffers should testify under oath before the House and Senate Judiciary Committee about their involvement in the dismissal of U.S. Attorneys last year.

The public is less one-sided when it comes to setting timelines for withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Although most do not see progress from President Bush's latest initiatives there, half the country sides with his assertion that setting a timeline for withdrawal of troops from Iraq will harm the forces already on the ground. They are split over whether he should sign or veto Congressional legislation that ties further funding of the war to timelines, and over whether Congress should give in and pass funding that has no conditions, or stand firm, if Bush vetoes the legislation as he has promised to do.

and, finally, immigration...
[S]upport for including a guest worker program varies little across political ideology. Fifty-eight percent of liberals, 59% of moderates, and 52% of conservatives all agree that including a guest worker program is a good idea, along with 53% of Democrats, 58% of independents and 56% of Republicans. Race, however, does play a role. While 55% of white respondents want to include a program for immigrant workers, 51% of African Americans favor tougher enforcement alone.

i can't help but feel that, if the american public were more generally aware of the abuses and crimes that have been and are being perpetrated by the bush administation, a drumbeat for resignation or impeachment would build until the roar was deafening... right now, i think most people are taking the cynical viewpoint that this is just all politics as usual, and the poll bears that out...
[T]he public sees [the Justice Department] investigation and others in a cynical light. More than six out of 10 said that they believe the Democrats in Congress are undertaking that investigation and others such as the Valerie Plame leak, unauthorized wiretapping of U. S. citizens, and substandard conditions at Walter Reed hospital, for political reasons. Just under three in ten said they believe that a real concern over ethics is the driving force.

most folks simply don't grasp that their country is in the midst of a constitutional crisis of epic proportions, and that getting rid of the criminals, be they republicans or democrats, that are running the country needs to be the first order of business... i am hoping and praying that the revelations still to come from the justice department investigation and the other investigations underway will break through the cynical malaise...

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They're in touch with their OWN reality, thank you very much

think progress has this from darth...
Yesterday morning on CBS’s Face the Nation, host Bob Schieffer asked Vice President Cheney if he agreed with Reid’s statement [see below] Cheney replied that it was a “ridiculous notion.” His rebuttal: “I spend as much time as I can to get out and do other things, be at home in Wyoming or, yesterday, I managed to go shopping with my daughter for a birthday present for granddaughters.”

you can live in your own little world and still go out to the mall and even rub shoulders with the po’ folk… cheney lives entirely within the ideological framework of his own mental landscape and is about as out of touch with what most of us would consider ordinary reality as it’s possible to be… i mean, after all, how many of us keep a biohazard suit available in their car…?
The president is as isolated, I believe, on the Iraq issue as Richard Nixon was when he was hunkered down in the White House.

however, it's important to note that both bush AND cheney ARE in touch, very much so, as a matter of fact... it's what they're in touch WITH that's the problem... they are both working THE PLAN, and quite effectively too, i might add... it's been several days since i've posted their signal to us all of precisely what they would do post-election... remember, this was dated late october LAST YEAR...
In fact, when it comes to deploying its Executive power, which is dear to Bush's understanding of the presidency, the President's team has been planning for what one strategist describes as "a cataclysmic fight to the death" over the balance between Congress and the White House if confronted with congressional subpoenas it deems inappropriate. The strategist says the Bush team is "going to assert that power, and they're going to fight it all the way to the Supreme Court on every issue, every time, no compromise, no discussion, no negotiation."

they may not be in touch with reality as most americans see it, but they are definitely in touch with their OWN reality, thank you very much...

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Public knowledge of current affairs

carefully peruse the contents of this chart, results from a recent Pew Research Center study...



with me so far...? most interesting, eh...? not that it's counter-intuitive or anything...

(thanks to think progress...)

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The WaPo's on a roll - both page 1 and op-ed

undiluted crap...
Fortunately some of the coolest heads in this discussion [the Iraq war funding proposal] belong to Senate Democrats such as Barack Obama (Ill.) and Carl M. Levin (Mich.), the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Both have suggested that if Mr. Bush vetoes a bill containing a withdrawal mandate, as he has promised to do, Congress should nevertheless approve the war funding.

is a "cool head" really what it takes to continue to support an illegal war, initiated on lies, and led by criminals in the white house, or is it a head carefully wired in to the wishes of those who are pulling your strings...?

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After posting about Dem lackeys and enablers, here's two more

here's somebody else in the democratic leadership supporting infrastructure who refuses to entertain the notion that the vast majority of the american people don't agree with his bullshit, but is definitely not going to let THAT FACT stop him from smearing it all over the walls... nor will it stop the consistently bushco-enabling wapo from headlining it on page one...
William A. Galston of the Brookings Institution, a Clinton administration domestic policy adviser and an early opponent of the Iraq war, said his party should note that voters appear just as worried that Democrats would withdraw from Iraq too quickly as they are concerned that Republicans would stay there too long.

"I think it's important to distinguish between the desire to bring this agony to an end and the consequences of bringing it to an end in the wrong way," he said. "I can't prove this, but I believe Democrats will be held responsible if they are seen as advocating a course of action that doesn't take the consequences of failure into account. We cannot afford as a party to be either silent or blithe about the consequences of rapid withdrawal."

there's an even more insidious line of crap embedded in this front-page story...
[T]he war is not the only area in which the candidates are at opposing poles of the debate. On issues such as taxes and spending, health care, and education, candidates are mostly taking their cue from -- or trying to cozy up to -- their respective ideological bases. In doing so, they risk embracing positions that could complicate later efforts to win the support of independent voters, whose votes will be crucial in November 2008.

read the above carefully... what picture does it conjure up...? that's right... two fringe groups, one parked on the far left and the other parked on the far right, both labeled as "ideological bases" with this vast white space labeled "independent voters" in between... this completely fails to take into account that the vast majority of that white space just so happens to support the very positions that are being ascribed to the far left fringe, however, no surprise to anybody, it's the "activists," as always, who are the ones making the most noise... seriously, i don't know how out of touch it is possible for mr. galston and the washington post to be and to still be citizens and residents of the united states...

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emptywheel on Schumer and Gonzo: "Oh this is good"

yeah, it's good... REALLY good...
Oh this is good.

Michael Battle, the guy who got to fire a bunch of very professional US Attorneys (and who subsequently quit because, stories said, he regretted the whole thing), told the Judiciary Committees that several of the Gonzales 8 were fired for no reason.
[Battle] told Congress that several of the prosecutors had no performance problems and that a memo on the firings was distributed at a Nov. 27 meeting attended by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, a Democratic senator said yesterday.

And note how this detail is getting to the press? Chuck Schumer is repeating the supposedly confidential briefings ... on the record.
Battle's statements, relayed to reporters yesterday by Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), came as Gonzales prepares for a make-or-break appearance on Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

[snip]

Battle told investigators that he was "not aware of performance problems with respect to several" of the prosecutors when he called to fire them, Schumer said in a conference call with reporters yesterday.

This is a nice touch. Though there was an unspoken understanding no one would mention the USAs who weren't fired, Schumer pressured Kyle Sampson to reveal those names in his statement. And now, rather than getting one of his staffers in trouble for an anonymous leak, Schumer's going to go on the record and reveal the testimony which Abu G has labeled as "confidential." Not in DC, Abu G.

she concludes with this...
I'm getting the feeling that Schumer has been preparing as diligently as Gonzales for the last two weeks.

and it all comes rolling out tomorrow...

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No, it's not a "funny thing," nor is it in the least bit surprising

while paul krugman is absolutely correct (behind the nyt firewall) in his appraisal, i'm surprised at his surprise...
[A] funny thing has happened on the Democratic side: the party’s base seems to be more in touch with the mood of the country than many of the party’s leaders. And the result is peculiar: on key issues, reluctant Democratic politicians are being dragged by their base into taking highly popular positions.

the democratic leadership (including many dems who aren't) is part and parcel of the same military-industrial, super-rich, take the money and run (and the ordinary joes be damned) gang that's been running things in the u.s. for years... there's zero incentive (read: $$) to take the national common good into account, none, and the only reason they're doing it now is to preserve the appearances of being at least minimally responsive to the national mood... the dems have perpetuated the myth of being the "people's party" and it would look more than a little suspicious if they flipped us off entirely... and, if you want to hear how they REALLY feel about being pushed this hard, you only have to turn to their paid lackeys and enablers, folks like james carville and terry mcauliffe, who make no secret of their disdain for what the "average" american thinks and continue to peddle hawkish, out-of-touch drivel...

(thanks to mcjoan at daily kos...)

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Betting on Dick Cheny's bets

[Cheney] said he was “willing to bet” that the Democrats would eventually cave in to President Bush’s demands for legislation [on Iraq] with no strings attached.

i'm willing to bet that cheney is one of the most vicious, machiavellian, lying vice presidents in the country's history by a magnitude of 20... tragically, insofar as the dems are concerned and given what we've seen so far, he may very well be right...

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Sunday, April 15, 2007

Why does Wolfie's statement sound like Gonzo's statement sound like Wolfie's statement sound like...

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz rejected calls for him to quit less than halfway through his five-year term, saying he still has important work to do alleviating poverty in the developing world.

"I believe in the mission of this organization and I believe I can carry it out,'' Wolfowitz, 63, told a press conference in Washington today. ``This is important work and I intend to continue it."

i believe you're an asshole...

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Back in Amerika without a doubt - some observations

it may be miami and spanish may be practically all you hear being spoken, but i'm back in the u.s.a., no doubt about it... i headed to the shopping mall across the street a couple of hours ago, just as it started raining... i got back a few minutes ago and it's still coming down, not heavy, but what i suspect is the kind of steady wind and big, fat tropical raindrops that are probably the norm around here...

a few observations...

we're all familiar with how shopping mall owners, ever on the lookout for more ways to turn a buck from their square footage, have leased the concourse space to hundreds of kiosks which are now so chock-a-block you can hardly make it from one end of the mall to the other... what i didn't snap to until today, is the changes in the very architecture and construction of the malls themselves... remember how mega-malls used to be massive architectural edifices in and of themselves, often on a grand theme like southern plantations, the forum in ancient rome, etc...? a lot of the existing ones are that way and some new ones are still being built that way, but, guess what...? mall developers have made the discovery that, basically, few people give a shit what the OUTSIDE of a mall looks like... patrons are busy finding a parking place so they can hotfoot it inside in pursuit of whatever they think will be the latest purchase to make themselves happy... so, as i realized today while WALKING (yes, that's what i said, WALKING) across the highway to the mall, the only two actual, identifiable BUILDINGS at this mall are the three anchor stores, macys on one end, sears on the other, and penney's in the middle... what connects them looks, from the outside, like nothing more than some type of quadruple-wide trailers towed in and stuck together... a heckuva deal, i must say, and undoubtedly a MUCH cheaper proposition for the developers... and, hell, the inside is nothing but connected boxes anyway, so throw in some plastic plants, a few skylights, and bright, come-hither lighting, and who's going to notice - or care...?

a second observation...

several commenters have noted the mccain banner at the top of the blog... i've been in argentina since it started appearing and i figured that the reason it hadn't shown up when i had the page open is that, given google's web crawler 'bots, it only appears when the ip address indicates that the viewer is actually in the united states... well, i guess i was right, cuz i got it NOW... < sigh >




and, last but not least, this bumper sticker, forwarded by a friend in macedonia who, in turn got it from a friend in the u.s., sure to be an instant classic...

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Gonzo: I look forward to working with you IF I still have my fracking job

there is only ONE reason why the wapo would give you a platform to air your pathetic lies, and that is because you are, sadly, STILL attorney general of the united states... and there is only ONE reason why you would seek to take advantage of such a platform, and that is because you are scheduled to testify to congress this coming tuesday, and you want to make your opening statement follow as closely as possible the lies you are writing in the wapo today, which, to your way of thinking, will somehow make them more believable...
What began as a well-intentioned management effort to identify where, among the 93 U.S. attorneys, changes in leadership might benefit the department, and therefore the American people, has become an unintended public controversy.

and, while you're at it, stop sounding like some red-faced teenager who was caught with an embarrassing stash of hard porn, and is trying to convince his parents that a friend had asked him to keep it for him, and how stupid he was to do something like that, and that he will never do it again, and that, if they want, mom and dad can check his room and his backpack regularly for themselves, just so they can see he has nothing to hide...
While I have never sought to deceive Congress or the American people, I also know that I created confusion with some of my recent statements about my role in this matter. To be clear: I directed my then-deputy chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, to initiate this process; fully knew that it was occurring; and approved the final recommendations. Sampson periodically updated me on the review. As I recall, his updates were brief, relatively few in number and focused primarily on the review process.

During those conversations, to my knowledge, I did not make decisions about who should or should not be asked to resign.

I am committed to explaining my role in this process and will do so Tuesday when I testify before Congress.

I am also committed to correcting any management missteps that occurred during this process. In recent weeks I have met with more than 70 U.S. attorneys around the country to hear their concerns and discuss ways to improve communication and coordination between their offices and the Justice Department.

These discussions have been frank, and good ideas are coming out, including ways to ensure that every U.S. attorney can know whether his or her performance is at the level expected by the president and the attorney general. Additionally, I have asked for recommendations on formal and informal steps that we can take to improve all forms of dialogue between the main Justice Department and U.S. attorneys nationwide.

I am also telling our 93 U.S. attorneys that I look forward to working with them to pursue the great goals of our department in the weeks and months to come.

hey, al... i hope your friendship with kyle sampson is incredibly strong, cuz, if it ain't, he's going to end up hating your ass for the rest of his life... also, gonzo, you might just try grabbing for a little reality and tell those u.s. attorneys that you look forward to working with them IF you still have your fracking job...

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Made it to Miami, oh, yay...!

trying to get a flight out of miami today and tomorrow is insane... if you didn't already have a booking, forget it... so, unless the miami clouds clear off and the florida sun decides to shine on me, i'm stuck here until tuesday... ah, well... a hot shower after an all-night flight, in-room wireless internet, and - whoopie-doo - a SHOPPING MALL across the street, will keep me about as occupied as i would be anywhere... so, if you were looking for a respite from my endless, obsessive posts, i'm sorry to disappoint you...

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Restoring public confidence in the White House - HAHAHAHAHA...!

a "good idea" to cooperate with the senate judiciary committee...? uhhhh, no shit, sherlock...
The White House said Saturday it is agreeing to the Senate Judiciary Committee's request for how to choose someone to help recover some lost e-mails involving official presidential business.

[...]

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Saturday that Fielding called Leahy and Specter to say that allowing the committee input into picking an independent consultant is a good idea.

kind of like gravity... it's not only a good idea, it's THE LAW...! they're skating as fast as they can to avoid criminal charges, there's no doubt about it...
On Thursday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and the committee's top Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, wrote White House counsel Fred Fielding to request that "we jointly agree on a fair and objective process for investigating this matter, including the use of a mutually trusted computer forensic expert."

"Such a process would help to restore the public's confidence in the White House's desire to comply with the Presidential Records Act," the senators said.

restoring "the public's confidence" in ANYTHING the white house has done, is doing or will do is a lost cause... moreover, anyone who still has any confidence in THIS white house is clearly not hitting on all cylinders... the very best the white house can do now, and i'm not sure even that is possible, is to figure out a way to make it to the finish line on 20 january 2009...

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