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And, yes, I DO take it personally: 04/22/2007 - 04/29/2007
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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 28, 2007

Harvard Law School greets alum Gonzo in fitting fashion

my opinion of harvard law school students has risen somewhat...


Student protesters wearing hoods and Guantanamo Bay garb found their way into the US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' 25th Harvard Law School reunion Saturday.

[...]

"When I heard he was on campus, I was stuffing envelopes with letters to Congress in an office two floors above," said Deborah Popowski, a second-year law student, according to the release. "I dropped everything. Gonzales needs to know that after approving poorly-reasoned memos that distort the rule of law and justify torture, he is simply not welcome here."

According the the group, Popowski slipped though the law library's front doors and approached Gonzales from behind as the Attorney General's security detail kept protesters at bay.

"On behalf of many other Harvard Law students," she said, "I'd like to tell you that we are ashamed to have you as an alumnus of this school. And we're glad you're here to be able to tell you that."

Gonzales allegedly thanked the student and offered to shake her hand, but was refused.

is it any wonder the "loyal bushies" prefer to live in their bubbles...?

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A strategic mistake: invading Iraq in the first place

wow...! i can't imagine a stronger message...

the dems' weekly radio address by ltg (ret) wm. odom...

[T]he President has let [Iraq] proceed on automatic pilot, making no corrections in the face of accumulating evidence that his strategy is failing and cannot be rescued.

"Thus, he lets the United States fly further and further into trouble, squandering its influence, money, and blood, facilitating the gains of our enemies. The Congress is the only mechanism we have to fill this vacuum in command judgment.

"To put this in a simple army metaphor, the Commander-in-Chief seems to have gone AWOL, that is 'absent without leave.' He neither acts nor talks as though he is in charge. Rather, he engages in tit-for-tat games.

"Some in Congress on both sides of the aisle have responded with their own tits-for-tats. These kinds of games, however, are no longer helpful, much less amusing. They merely reflect the absence of effective leadership in a crisis. And we are in a crisis.

"Most Americans suspect that something is fundamentally wrong with the President's management of the conflict in Iraq. And they are right.

"The challenge we face today is not how to win in Iraq; it is how to recover from a strategic mistake: invading Iraq in the first place. The war could never have served American interests.

here's what i wish would happen...

i wish odom, along with four or five of his retired general officer colleagues, would join with larry wilkerson, james baker, richard clarke, russ feingold, chuck hagel, john murtha, harry reid, nancy pelosi, hell, throw in lee iacocca too, to sit down with bush in the oval office and lay the cards on the table...
"look, george... it's over... iraq's over... your presidency is over... you've got a choice... you can either gracefully resign along with dick cheney, or we're going to bust our humps to remove you via impeachment... the country and the world can't put up with any more, george... we've had it..."

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Domestic terrorists "had enough armament to outfit a small army"

interesting... after posting the other day on the bomb found outside a women's health clinic in texas, here's another domestic terrorism story out of alabama...

if muslims had been discovered with a rocket launcher and a weapons cache of this size, the story would eat every available byte, pixel and drop of printers' ink for a week at least...

Simultaneous raids carried out in four Alabama counties Thursday turned up truckloads of explosives and weapons, including 130 grenades, an improvised rocket launcher and 2,500 rounds of ammunition belonging to the small, but mightily armed, Alabama Free Militia.

Six alleged members of the Free Militia also were arrested by federal authorities and are being held without bond.

Investigators said the DeKalb County-based group had not made any specific threats or devised any plots, but was targeted for swift dismantling because of its heavy firepower. The militia, which called itself the Naval Militia at one point, had enough armament to outfit a small army.

"We classify these groups as violent and anti-government," said Jim Cavanaugh, who supervises the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operations in portions of the South. "They stockpile things and live off a fear, a paranoia they're going to need weapons and explosives because some event is going to happen when they will need them."

"Any time you have a self-appointed colonel or a self-appointed major and they've got weapons and explosives, it is a recipe for tragedy," Cavanaugh said.

they not only had plenty of weapons, they'd also constructed a defensive perimeter...
Agents encountered booby traps at one site. They found trip wires and two hand grenades rigged as booby traps at the Collinsville camper home of 46-year-old Raymond Dillard, who holds titles of both militia major and fugitive from justice on an unrelated federal case in Mobile.

"We were prepared," Cavanaugh said. "We suspect booby traps with these types of groups."

further proof, as if we needed any, about how terribly skewed our media coverage and national focus has become...

(thanks to crooks and liars...)

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Impeachment summer begins today



April 28, 2007: Impeachment Summer Begins This Spring!

George Bush and Dick Cheney have lied the nation into a war of aggression, are spying in open violation of the law, and have sanctioned the use of torture. These are high crimes and misdemeanors that demand accountability. Since Congress doesn't seem to get it, on April 28 Americans from Miami, Florida to North Pole, Alaska are going to spell it out for them: IMPEACH!

works for me...

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"Getting blogs"

atrios offers a fairly lucid view...
Left of center blogs filled various connected vacuums which were created by a triangulating-against-itself-Democratic party, a media with a "no liberals on TV or radio" rule, and the post-9/11 media prostration to the Bush administration and its complete abdication of its responsibility with respect to the Iraq war, all of which followed its campaign 2000 prostration to the Bush candidacy. Overall what blogs have been able to do is create an unfolding political narrative which has been largely absent elsewhere. Sometimes it's about emphasizing different things, sometimes it's about combating DC conventional wisdom, sometimes it's about highlighting things which are being ignored. But taken all together it's about telling the story of politics in a different way.

While there are other elements - fundraising, various types of activism, etc... - day to day the power of the blogosphere is that it offers up a competing version of political reality, in opposition to the Russert/Matthews/Dowd version and in opposition to the Limbaugh/Hannity/Fox News/Heritage Foundation version.

speaking entirely for myself, yes, i do see myself offering up "a competing version of political reality..." however, even more than that, maintaining this blog day after day helps me keep a grasp on my OWN reality... the mere act of putting up a post requires me to visit, read, absorb, digest, and, via my own mental processes, regurgitate a spectrum of current events selected on the basis of what i believe to be the most meaningful in the context of today... i can't sit on the sidelines and pretend that i know what's going on or that my opinions are static... one of the most fundamental elements of my life is to continue to learn and grow... blogging facilitates that as well or better than anything i have ever done... besides, there's always the anonymous commenter to keep me humble...
What a bunch of BS this blog is !!
cchas | 04.28.07 - 2:02 pm | #

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Don't "test my will" but "let's discuss a way forward"

what's wrong with this picture...?
President Bush and Democratic leaders yesterday toned down the talk of the last several weeks and hinted at a willingness to compromise.

While warning Congress not to test his will by sending him another bill that includes a withdrawal date, President Bush said: “I invite the leaders of the House and the Senate, both parties, to come down, you know, soon after my veto so we can discuss a way forward.” He later issued an official invitation for Congressional leaders to meet at the White House on Wednesday.

The boldness of Senate Democrats has only seemed to swell as the war debate has worn on. Yesterday, they said they remained committed to carrying out what they believed to be the will of the American people to change direction in Iraq. But, like Mr. Bush, they also indicated a readiness to negotiate.

of course, there's always room to talk... keeping the lines of communication open is always a good thing... but compromise...? the democrats should know after 6+ years that bush only lays traps, he doesn't negotiate, he doesn't compromise... he and his criminal compadres are interested in one thing and one thing only - getting their way - and they aren't going to settle for anything less...

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"The fleeting rush that comes from forcing neocons to resign"

i wonder if spitcomb is assiduously "preparing" a la alberto gonzales...
A World Bank committee investigating president Paul D. Wolfowitz has nearly completed a report that it plans to give the institution's governing board, concluding that he breached ethics rules when he engineered a pay raise for his girlfriend, three senior bank officials said Friday.

Friday evening, the committee was debating whether to explicitly recommend that Wolfowitz resign, according to the sources, who spoke on condition they not be named, citing an ongoing probe into leaks.

Wolfowitz is scheduled to appear before the committee with his attorney on Monday morning and mount his defense, and the bank's 24-member board of directors will convene that afternoon to discuss the report. The sources suggested that a vote by the board could come that day.

jumping back to naomi klein's article (see previous post) to grab another quote snippet...
...the fleeting rush that comes from forcing neocons to resign.

as bad as things are under bushco, i will happily go for the "fleeting rush..." yes, the world bank is a problem in and of itself, just the way u.s. behavior has been a problem in and of itself long before bushco... but with the bush administration, i've seen criminality baldly moved front and center, and putting wolfie at the world bank counts as just one more instance of their ceaseless effort to accumulate unfettered power, create access to unlimited rivers of cash, and impose their twisted ideology on the rest of the world... if wolfie goes, yes, it's just a step, but i'll take it...

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The World Bank - "let the ship go down with the captain"



naomi klein, writing at the nation via alternet, argues, let's not spotlight wolfie and ignore the REAL problems with the world bank... the only difference between wolfie's sin and the daily, business-as-usual world bank sinning is that wolfie sinned without finesse as befitting his finesse-free persona, as an individual rather than institutionally, and, as fate would have it, while the spotlight was aimed in his direction...
The more serious lie at the center of the [Wolfowitz] controversy is the implication that the World Bank was an institution with impeccable ethical credentials -- until, according to forty-two former Bank executives, its credibility was "fatally compromised" by Wolfowitz. (Many American liberals have seized on this fairy tale, addicted to the fleeting rush that comes from forcing neocons to resign.)

The truth is that the bank's credibility was fatally compromised when it forced school fees on students in Ghana in exchange for a loan; when it demanded that Tanzania privatize its water system; when it made telecom privatization a condition of aid for Hurricane Mitch; when it demanded labor "flexibility" in the aftermath of the Asian tsunami in Sri Lanka; when it pushed for eliminating food subsidies in post-invasion Iraq. Ecuadoreans care little about Wolfowitz's girlfriend; more pressing is that in 2005, the Bank withheld a promised $100 million after the country dared to spend a portion of its oil revenues on health and education. Some antipoverty organization.

part of the overall problem...
[T]he United States and Europe -- via the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization -- tell the developing world, "You take down your trade barriers and we'll keep ours up."

anti-corruption...? it is to laugh...
The bottom line is that there is good reason that corruption has never been a high priority for the Bank and the IMF: Its officials understand that when enlisting politicians to advance an economic agenda guaranteed to win them furious enemies at home, there generally has to be a little in it for those politicians in bank accounts abroad.

Russia is far from unique: From Chile's dictator Augusto Pinochet, who accumulated more than 125 bank accounts while building the first neoliberal state, to Argentine President Carlos Menem, who drove a bright red Ferrari Testarossa while he liquidated his country, to Iraq's "missing billions" today, there is, in every country, a class of ambitious, bloody-minded politicians who are willing to act as Western subcontractors. They will take a fee, and that fee is called corruption -- the silent but ever-present partner in the crusade to privatize the developing world.

the solution...?
What we should absolutely not do, however, is participate in the effort to cleanse the Bank's ruinous history by repeating the absurd narrative that the reputation of an otherwise laudable antipoverty organization has been sullied by one man. The Bank understandably wants to throw Wolfowitz overboard. I say, Let the ship go down with the captain.

an excellent and thorough background of the global damage done by both the world bank and the international monetary fund can be found in joseph stiglitz' masterwork, "globalization and its discontents," required reading for anyone who purports to understand anything about how the u.s., the g7, and those two institutions (among others) shape the global economy and keep millions of people in poverty...

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Friday, April 27, 2007

Bush and Condi loved Tobias - and now he's gone

but, as abstinence promoters, i doubt any of them used condoms...
"I'm sad today," said one person close to Tobias, according to Saturday's Washington Post. "The president loves him and Condi absolutely loves him."

it's really hard to fill a gap in a threesome...
Deputy Secretary of State Randall Tobias [...] said "that he must step down" from his post "effective immediately," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement Friday that did not disclose his escort service link.

"He is returning to private life for personal reasons," the statement added.

Within minutes, Tobias's biography was deleted from the USAID Web site, the Washington Post reported on Saturday's front pages.

they're dropping like flies...

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Further detainee rights abridgement - a world-class disgrace

shame, shame, shame on us... we have the unmitigated gall to preach democracy, freedom, and the rule of law to every other country in the world, and look what we do...
The US Supreme Court has refused to block government moves that would result in severely limiting contacts between Guantanamo war-on-terror detainees and their lawyers, a judicial source said Friday.

The court rejected a request submitted Wednesday by detainee lawyers to keep alive habeas corpus petitions by detainees to protect their legal rights, including access to their lawyers.

In effect the ruling could lead to the cancellation of arrangements established over the past few years that allowed lawyers to meet with detainees and retain sensitive records from Guantanamo over their cases.

Based on government recommendations indicated by one case last year, that could result in restricting detainees access to only one lawyer, and allowing the lawyer only three visits with the client, regardless of the duration of the client's detention.

as i posted on wednesday...
“These rules,” [Jonathan Hafetz of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University] said, “are an effort to restore Guantánamo to its prior status as a legal black hole.”

where does it stop...? never mind, i don't want to know...

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Oh, George, just bite me, will ya...?

who was that warner bros. cartoon character who would get SO-O-O-OOO pissed off when bugs bunny pulled a fast one on him...?
Bush to Democrats: do not 'test my will' on Iraq

President George W. Bush warned Democrats Friday not to "test my will" by passing new legislation on a US troop pullout from Iraq after he vetoes a bill passed by Congress this week.

Bush invited Democrats and leaders of his Republican Party to discuss a way out of their standoff soon after he strikes down the bill, which ties 124 billion dollars in war funds to a withdrawal that would start on October 1.

"And if the Congress wants to test my will as to whether or not I'll accept the timetable for withdrawal, I won't accept one," he told a news conference at his retreat in Camp David, Maryland, alongside Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

"So if they want to try again that which I have said was unacceptable, then of course I'll veto it," Bush said.

oh, yeah... marvin the martian...

listen...




"You have made me very angry - very angry indeed!"


(links to .wav file)

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Uh-oh... The fired U.S. attorneys are going to talk to each other...

this is good...
Fired U.S. Attorney John McKay, now a visiting professor at the Seattle University School of Law, will host two fellow purged prosecutors for a forum on the U.S. attorney scandal.
Joining McKay will be David C. Iglesias, the former U.S. attorney for New Mexico, and Paul K. Charlton, the former prosecutor for Arizona. McKay, Iglesias and Charlton are three of the most controversial firings of the eight ousted prosecutors, because they were either conducting sensitive investigations of Republicans or under fire for not prosecuting Democrats around the time of their dismissals on Dec. 7.

All three were also contacted by members of Congress or their staff at a sensitive time regarding ongoing criminal corruption investigations.

getting together may help them piece together the bigger picture of what happened as some of them will be able to provide bits and pieces that the others didn't have... they ought to see how many others would be willing to join them... they should also transcribe the proceedings and send it to leahy...

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Tenet

George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, has lashed out against Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials in a new book, saying they pushed the country to war in Iraq without ever conducting a “serious debate” about whether Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States.

[...]

The 549-page book, “At the Center of the Storm,” is to be published by HarperCollins on Monday. By turns accusatory, defensive, and modestly self-critical, it is the first detailed account by a member of the president’s inner circle of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the decision to invade Iraq and the failure to find the unconventional weapons that were a major justification for the war.

i will say this once, and once only...

mr. tenet, you can go directly to hell... along with colin powell, you were in perhaps the best position to speak out in real time on the - now - very clear fact that the bush administration was railroading the united states into an illegal war with iraq... now, you want to sell me your fracking book... screw you AND the horse you rode in in...

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Today's context-free WaPo op-ed on Syria and Pelosi

it's a masterpiece of context-free journalism with a familiar theme - smear pelosi and blame the democrats...

headline...


No Results in Damascus

they go on to say...
Congressional leaders leaders who visited Damascus this month to meet Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad gave a practical test to the oft-stated theory that "engaging" his regime is more likely to produce results than the Bush administration's policy of isolating it. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was particularly unstinting in her goodwill, declaring that she had come to see Mr. Assad "in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is a road to peace."

[...]

Three weeks have passed, so it's fair to ask: Has there been any positive change in Syrian behavior -- any return gesture of goodwill, however slight?

after painstakingly listing all of the areas in which nothing has improved since the visit, they render their judgment...
To recount this dismal record is not to endorse President Bush's refusal to engage in high-level bilateral contacts with Mr. Assad's regime. In certain contexts it may be worth trying to talk to Syria -- for example, when negotiations are directed at particular ends, such as securing Iraq's borders, and coupled with forceful diplomatic and economic steps to raise the pressure on the dictatorship. The danger of offering "friendship" and "hope" to a ruler such as Mr. Assad is that it will be interpreted as acquiescence by the United States to the policies of dictatorship. Ms. Pelosi's courting of Mr. Assad didn't cause [imprisoned human rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni] prison sentence this week -- but it certainly did not discourage it.

the bush administration's insistent labeling of syria as part of the "axis of evil," its refusal to engage in diplomatic dialog, and its attempts to isolate syria, are given only the slightest mention and "engaging" syria (the quotes are the wapo's, not mine) is smirkingly labeled as a "theory" (the quotes are mine, not the wapo's)... why in the world would bashar assad move one inch in any direction favorable to the requests presented to him by lowly members of the u.s. house of representatives when he knows the president's position has not (and probably will not) change...?

but, wait, there's more...

the only congressional name in the entire piece is, of course, nancy pelosi, who, as anyone with two brain cells knows, is a democrat, although the word "democrat" does not appear anywhere in the piece... neither does the word "republican" and neither does any mention of either the republican house member, david hobson, who traveled with pelosi or the republican house delegation, robert anderholt and frank wolf, that preceded her or the republican congressman, darrell issa, that followed her...

although only a short piece and written in the measured, articulate, oh-so-insightful manner of a major newspaper's editorial page, this is a perfect example of the kind of journalistic bullshit moyers demonstrated to such devastating effect in his documentary... it is also precisely the kind of journalistic bullshit that's destroying the american public's right to real news and informed opinion rather than government propaganda...

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When active duty officers start speaking out, they're putting it ALL on the line

the most vocal officers so far have been retired, usually generals... active duty generals have been either very low profile or mute in their criticism... moreover, as with shinseki and others who let their divergence from the bushco orthodoxy be known, even if it was back-channel and very quiet, have been replaced by those willing to cheerlead for bushco... having an active duty, combat zone, field-grade officer below the rank of general speak out in a public forum is highly unusual and is a demonstration of how much punishment the military is taking in the endless nightmare that is iraq... this guy, yingling, by daring to openly criticize his superiors, is undoubtedly aware that he is putting a full stop to his career and may even face mandatory retirement... he's put it all on the line...
An active-duty Army officer is publishing a blistering attack on U.S. generals, saying they have botched the war in Iraq and misled Congress about the situation there.

"America's generals have repeated the mistakes of Vietnam in Iraq," charges Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, an Iraq veteran who is deputy commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. "The intellectual and moral failures . . . constitute a crisis in American generals."

Yingling's comments are especially striking because his unit's performance in securing the northwestern Iraqi city of Tall Afar was cited by President Bush in a March 2006 speech and provided the model for the new security plan underway in Baghdad.

He also holds a high profile for a lieutenant colonel: He attended the Army's elite School for Advanced Military Studies and has written for one of the Army's top professional journals, Military Review.

when this kind of thing starts to pop up, you know you're in a world of shit, but bushco, i am sure, will just shrug it off with the same arrogance that they're mocking impeachment efforts...

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Thursday, April 26, 2007

The REAL importance of "Buying the War"

sirota...
Moyers piece is important not just because it has exposed the entire sham that was pre-war Beltway journalism, but also because he has finally exacted a price - in this case, humiliation - from the reporters whose power-worshiping, must-stay-on-the-cocktail-party-circuit tendencies led them to aggressively push this country into war. And we can hope that fear of future humiliation will help prevent another gross abdication of responsibility next time around.

well, david, i would venture to say that it's not just PRE-WAR beltway journalism, it's TODAY'S beltway journalism... i don't see that things have changed very much, particularly not since, as you so colorfully describe it...
In the lead up to and wake of Bill Moyers' much-anticipated mega-dunk on the Washington press corps this week, we are seeing the ugliest side of Beltway culture - the meltdown, damage-control freak out. Only what's new is that instead of politicians melting down, it's reporters themselves.

as moyers clearly pointed out, all the usual suspects are still out there every day, being called on as experts and being given new and more visible media positions from which to spew their mis- dis- and piss-poor "information"...

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Lying your country into war is an impeachable offense - unless the truth no longer matters

hard on the heels of bill moyers' powerful documentary (i finished watching it earlier today and have to confess there were a few times when i teared up), comes this from guest essayist carla binion, writing at robert parry's consortium news...
It's astonishing that members of Congress are either unaware George W. Bush and Dick Cheney lied the nation to war with Iraq, or they are aware of the fact and don't care. A Congress grounded in reality would have unequivocally acknowledged the administration's lies long ago and taken appropriate action - almost certainly impeachment.

If we say the pre-war lies don't matter and the country should sweep them under the rug and only focus on the best way out of Iraq, what we're really saying is that the truth itself doesn't matter.

If we say we should look away from the fact that thousands of U.S. soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died for a lie, we're saying the lost lives don't matter, the war-injured and maimed don't matter, America's honor and integrity don't matter.

she touches on what i sincerely hope will be the logical progression of events...
The investigation and subpoenas should go forward, and Congress shouldn't let administration officials get away with evading the subpoenas or whitewashing and covering up the facts. Given the vast amount of evidence on public record and easily available to Congress, it's likely that any honest, rigorous investigation would lead to impeachment.

i've said it so often, i'm tired of listening to myself, but, as a country, we simply cannot afford to have bush and cheney continue in office until 20 january 2009...

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Riverbend and her family are leaving Iraq

how very, very sad...
It's difficult to decide which is more frightening- car bombs and militias, or having to leave everything you know and love, to some unspecified place for a future where nothing is certain.

juan cole...
In the past 14 months, 750,000 Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes. And the US media lets politicians get away with saying that things are "improving"!

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Condi tips her hand about where her head is REALLY at

for a united states secretary of state who also happens to be ranked as the most powerful woman in the world by forbes magazine in 2004 and 2005 and number two in 2006 to make such an obvious and damaging gaffe and then to not catch herself, tells me as much as i want to know about condoleezza rice...
"The idea that somehow 10 interceptors and a few radars in Eastern Europe are going to threaten the Soviet strategic deterrent is purely ludicrous and everybody knows it," she told reporters ahead of the Oslo meeting. "The Russians have thousands of warheads. The idea that you can somehow stop the Russian strategic nuclear deterrent with a few interceptors just doesn't make sense."

perhaps she's just pining for the days when her expertise was actually relevant...
From 1989 through March 1991 (the period of the fall of Berlin Wall and the final days of the Soviet Union), she served in President George H.W. Bush's administration as Director, and then Senior Director, of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council, and a Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. In this position, Rice helped develop Bush's and Secretary of State James Baker's policies in favor of German reunification. She impressed Bush, who later introduced her to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev as the one who "tells me everything I know about the Soviet Union."

or maybe she was distracted thinking about going shopping for some new ferragamos later in the day...



Condoleezza Rice...........Ferragamo shoe

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Domestic terrorism - today - directed at a women's health clinic

that offers abortions...

we don't need to fight the terrorists over there so they won't follow us over here... they LIVE here already...

On Wednesday, April 25th, at approximately 2:15 p.m. APD patrol officers responded to a suspicious package call at the Austin Women’s Health Center parking lot located at 1902 South I-35. The 9-1-1 call was placed by a clinic employee who also notified ATF and FBI per the clinic protocol. The clinic and an insurance agency were evacuated, as well as one apartment building behind the incident location.

The Bomb Squad was notified and examined the package. After reviewing the information collected, the decision was made to render the package safe. All four southbound lanes of I-35 were briefly closed while the package was rendered safe. Closer examination of the package revealed an unknown powdery substance in the device. The Homeland Defense Team and the Austin Fire Department responded with specialized equipment to conduct field analysis to determine the chemical makeup of the substance. After the initial field analysis, it was determined that the powder was an explosive powder, not a biological health hazard.

It was determined that the package was an explosive device and would have caused serious bodily injury and/or death had it functioned. A criminal investigation is being conducted by local and federal authorities.

The City of Austin has made great strides and continues to seek initiatives to ensure that the appropriate training and resources are available to guarantee a prepared and quick response to any critical incident. City of Austin public safety entities work jointly with federal, state and local agencies during critical incidents, as well as long-term projects, to assure the safety of the Austin community.

so, what is the department of homeland security doing about this...? where is the big media coverage...? where are the fracking pundits...? where is the righty blogosphere...?

(thanks to pinche tejano at daily kos...)

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Bill Moyers for president

i am watching bill moyers' "buying the war" right now via pbs online... i have seen two parts out of five so far, and i can say, unequivocally, it's excellent... moyers has done our country a terrific service, perhaps the most outstanding effort of an already outstanding career... i hearken back to many months ago when there was a quiet but powerful tremor that rippled through the blogosphere...

from the late, great molly ivins in july of last year...

Dear desperate Democrats, here's what we do. We run Bill Moyers for president. I am serious as a stroke about this. It's simple, cheap and effective, and it will move the entire spectrum of political discussion in this country. Moyers is the only public figure who can take the entire discussion and shove it toward moral clarity just by being there.

MOYERS FOR PRESIDENT


(To let Moyers know what you think of this idea, write him at P.O. Box 309, Bernardsville, NJ 07924...)

you can watch "buying the war" by clicking here...

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Subpoena the attendance lists for the political briefings

and let's see who was REALLY there and if it was REALLY only political appointees... and, while we're at it, let's see if attendance was voluntary or mandatory...
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said briefings were held at other federal agencies besides the GSA, for a total of about 20 - most in 2006 and a couple in 2007. They were conducted by White House political director Sara Taylor or Jennings, her deputy. It had been known that other briefings had been held, but not how many. Others were held in previous years as well, but Stanzel said the White House hasn't kept a count of how many.

Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino said no laws were broken and that the White House counsel's office signed off on the effort. "It's not unlawful and it wasn't unusual for informational briefings to be given," Perino said. "There is no prohibition under the Hatch Act of allowing political appointees to talk to other political appointees about the political landscape in which they are trying to advance the president's agenda."

She added: "These briefings were not inappropriate, they were not unlawful, they were not unethical."

oh, dana, you can say whatever you want (or were instructed to say)... pointing out that the white house counsel signed off, given what's come out in recent weeks, might be persuasive if the white house counsel had any credibility whatsoever... but, dana, nobody believes a goddam thing at this point... skip the carefully crafted responses, skip the reassurances, skip the protestations of innocence and appropriateness... the only things that matter now are concrete, provable FACTS, nothing more and nothing less...

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One signature away: you're spot on, Barack

yes, george, it's all up to you now, and we know you'll make the right decision...
Senate passes Iraq War funding bill: Obama says 'one signature away' from ending the war

As the Senate voted 51-46 to pass a supplemental funding bill for the Iraq War that the White House has threatened to veto, Senator Barack Obama put the onus on President George W. Bush to act and end the debate over the emergency defense spending bill.

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Schlozman: disdainful and vitriolic

TPMmuckraker has the lowdown on brad schlozman...
"He was universally despised by career people. He was the most disdainful and vitriolic guy I've ever dealt with, and he had it in for everybody."

looks like there's no longer any doubt, the justice department was merely a branch office for the white house, which, in turn, was merely a wholly-owned subsidiary of karl rove inc. and the republican national committee...
Schlozman was appointed to be the interim U.S. attorney in western Missouri on March 23, 2006 -- just two weeks after the president had signed the USA Patriot Act into law; the bill contained a provision that allowed interim U.S. attorneys to serve indefinitely.

Schlozman, who had zero prosecutorial experience, was installed as the U.S. attorney in western Missouri -- where Jim Talent was battling Claire McCaskill in one of the closest Senate races in the country. The administration appointed him suddenly and without consulting the senior Republican senator in the state, Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO). A spokeswoman for Bond said that "Senator Bond was informed of Mr. Schlozman's appointment when he was named as interim U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri."

"most disdainful and vitriolic" is quite a statement... i've observed folks like that in action in the private sector and it isn't pretty... sure, you take a lot of shit from them that you should never have to take out of fear of losing your job, but, what it amounts to, without beating around the bush (pardon the pun, please), is nothing more or less than verbal and emotional abuse... what's usually worse is that THEIR bosses are often aware of such behavior and do nothing... needless to say, that kind of boss NEVER behaves that way in front of HIS boss, so HIS boss just writes it off to whining employees...

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No longer swirling the bowl, George is down the drain

wow... 28%...
President Bush's approval rating slipped to new lows in the most recent Harris Interactive survey, but he's not alone: For the first time since the series began, all of the political figures and institutions included in the survey have negative performance ratings.

Of the 1,001 American adults polled online April 20-23, only 28% had a positive view of Mr. Bush's job performance, down from 32% in February and from a high of 88% in the aftermath of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The current rating is his weakest showing since his inauguration.

i'm praying george mcgovern's right about bush and cheney resigning before the end of 2008... my preference would be before the end of this year, but...

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As long as we're on the subject of Condi



Condoleezza Rice...........Ferragamo shoe

she's back in europe, lying her ass off...
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday dismissed as "ludicrous" Russian concerns that Washington's plans to deploy anti-missile defenses in Europe would endanger Moscow's nuclear arsenal.

A flurry of high-level talks in recent weeks has failed to soften Russia's public opposition to the U.S. plan to install radar scanners in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptor missiles in Poland.

Washington says the deployment is aimed at protecting Europe and North America from a growing threat of missile strike by North Korea, Iran or others in the Middle East. Moscow says those countries do not pose an immediate threat, and claims the U.S. plan aims to target Russia's strategic missile arsenal.

understandably, putin's pissed...
Putin ... warned that Moscow could halt compliance with the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, a landmark 1990 agreement between NATO and former Warsaw Pact countries.

"I propose we declare a moratorium on fulfillment by Russia of the CFE treaty," Putin said.

The Russian leader complained that Western powers have failed to ratify the agreement. However, the threat appeared to be linked to growing tensions over security, especially the US military's plan to deploy anti-missile defences in eastern Europe.

let's just imagine that russia wanted to put missiles in cuba... i know that's "ludicrous" and would never, ever happen, but let's just suppose for a moment that it did... what do you think would be the u.s. reaction...
The "Cuban Missile Crisis" was a confrontation during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States in Cuba. The missiles were ostensibly placed to protect Cuba from further planned attacks by the United States after the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion, and were rationalized by the Soviets as equivalent to the U.S. placing deployable nuclear warheads in the United Kingdom, Italy, Greece, and most significantly, Turkey

The crisis began on October 14, 1962 when U.S. reconnaissance imagery revealing Soviet nuclear missile installations on the island were shown to U.S. President John F. Kennedy and ended fourteen days later on October 28, 1962, when Soviet premier Nikita Krushchev announced that the installations would be dismantled. The Crisis is often regarded as the moment when the Cold War came closest to escalating into a nuclear war. Russians refer to the event as the "Caribbean Crisis," while Cubans refer to it as the "October Crisis."



oops... i had an emily litella moment... never mind...

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Ok then, let's get this constitutional crisis party started

anybody who didn't see this coming, please raise your hand... hey, you... over there in the corner... wake up and pay attention... i asked you a question...
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Norway on Thursday appears to have rejected Rep. Henry Waxman's (D-CA) subpoena compelling her to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on the intelligence used to build the case for the Iraq war, according to the Associated Press.

In a press briefing in Oslo, according to the AP's Matthew Lee, Rice took the opportunity to state directly for the first time that she didn't see her testimony as necessary.

"I think I have more than answered these questions, and answered them directly to Congressman Waxman," she told reporters.

The Secretary of State also invoked executive privilege as a reason for not testifying.

after a few errands in town this morning, i'll be sure to stop on the way home to pick up an extra stock of popcorn...

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Passage of "War Bill" in the House stirs up war fans

the "war bill..." such a dark way to phrase it...
War Bill Passes House, Requiring an Iraq Pullout

[...]

Only hours after Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander in Iraq, told lawmakers he needed more time to gauge the effectiveness of a troop buildup there, the House voted 218 to 208 to pass a measure that sought the removal of most combat forces by next spring. Mr. Bush has said unequivocally and repeatedly that he will veto it.

so, a bill that actually calls for MORE war (albeit with limits), authorizes $95B for iraq and afghanistan through september 30, AND provides specific measures to ACTUALLY support the troops while they're there (instead of just giving lip service to it), has the war-lovers in a snit... just look at today's front page of townhall... note the red asterisks... (**)

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Wednesday, April 25, 2007

An effort to restore Guantánamo to its prior status as a legal black hole

our government at work, doggedly pursuing a strategy to remove the most fundamental principles upon which the republic was founded...

from the nyt via raw story...

The dispute is the latest and perhaps the most significant clash over the role of lawyers for the detainees. "There is no right on the part of counsel to access to detained aliens on a secure military base in a foreign country," the Justice Department filing argued.

Under the proposal, filed this month in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the government would limit lawyers to three visits with an existing client at Guantánamo; there is now no limit. It would permit only a single visit with a detainee to have him authorize a lawyer to handle his case. And it would permit a team of intelligence officers and military lawyers not involved in a detainee’s case to read mail sent to him by his lawyer.

The proposal would also reverse existing rules to permit government officials, on their own, to deny the lawyers access to secret evidence used by military panels to determine that their clients were enemy combatants.

[...]

Jonathan Hafetz of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, a lawyer who has helped to coordinate strategy for the detainees, said the government was trying to disrupt relationships between the lawyers and their clients and to stop the flow of public information about Guantánamo, which he described as a “legal black hole” before the courts permitted access for the lawyers in 2004.

“These rules,” Mr. Hafetz said, “are an effort to restore Guantánamo to its prior status as a legal black hole.”

gosh, was it only today that i posted on the article outlining the 10 steps for destroying a democracy and installing a fascist state...? my how time flies...

steps 2 and 10...

2. Create a gulag [Guantánamo, CIA black sites, military tribunals, Military Commissions Act, suspension of habeas]

10. Suspend the rule of law [John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007, violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, possibility of the declaration of federal martial law]

it's hard for me to comprehend that the department of justice is still, even after the attorney general being revealed as nothing more or less than a bush/cheney sock puppet, running totally out of control...

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Broder is no longer intellectually capable of tracking important issues

scathing (and richly deserved)...
The Washington Post's David Broder is called the “dean” of the Washington punditry. More recently, he seems to sum up everything that's wrong with the class who brought you weapons of mass destruction, the Iraq war and the ever “resurgent” President Bush. He is the vessel of a received wisdom which keeps the war-president in place, cautioning against criticism and validating war- and fear-mongering at every turn. Rather than provide pearls of wisdom based on a lifetime in Washington politics, Broder dishes out naïve, uncritical appraisals of Bush which often have a sycophantic twist—by contrast, he strings administration critics with malicious attacks which reflect faulty reasoning and imaginary facts. True, every columnist makes a mistake or two under the pressure of an imminent deadline. But Broder's recent streak is a growing embarrassment for the Washington Post.

[...]

Clearly David Broder has earned retirement. It's time for him to get to work on a rich set of recollections that will educate us all without doing more damage to the public debate over important issues that Broder is no longer intellectually capable of tracking.

ouch, ouch, ouch...

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As Bushco grows desperate, don't forget Section 1076 of the Defense Authorization Act

i remember patrick leahy's lonely cry (see below) when this was coming up for a vote... it passed and it's still out there, ticking like a time bomb...

taken from "Working for the Clampdown," written by james bovard in the american conservative...

Section 1076 of the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 changed the name of the key provision in the statute book from “Insurrection Act” to “Enforcement of the Laws to Restore Public Order Act.” The Insurrection Act of 1807 stated that the president could deploy troops within the United States only “to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.” The new law expands the list to include “natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition”—and such “condition” is not defined or limited.

[...]

“Martial law” is a euphemism for military dictatorship. When foreign democracies are overthrown and a junta establishes martial law, Americans usually recognize that a fundamental change has occurred. Perhaps some conservatives believe that the only change when martial law is declared is that people are no longer read their Miranda rights when they are locked away. “Martial law” means obey soldiers’ commands or be shot. The abuses of military rule in southern states during Reconstruction were legendary, but they have been swept under the historical rug.

Section 1076 is Enabling Act-type legislation—something that purports to preserve law-and-order while formally empowering the president to rule by decree. The Bush team is rarely remiss in stretching power beyond reasonable bounds. Bush talks as if any constraint on his war-making prerogative or budget is “aiding and abetting the enemy.” Can such a man be trusted to reasonably define insurrection or disorder? Can Hillary Clinton?

Bush can commandeer a state’s National Guard any time he declares a “state has refused to enforce applicable laws.” Does this refer to the laws as they are commonly understood—or the laws after Bush fixes them with a signing statement?

so, how could things play out...?
These new pretexts are even more expansive than they appear. FEMA proclaims the equivalent of a natural disaster when bad snowstorms occur, and Congress routinely proclaims a natural disaster (and awards more farm subsidies) when there is a shortfall of rain in states with upcoming elections. A terrorist “incident” could be something as stupid as the flashing toys scattered around Boston last fall.

The new law also empowers the president to commandeer the National Guard of one state to send to another state for up to 365 days. Bush could send the Alabama National Guard to suppress antiwar protests in Boston. Or the next president could send the New York National Guard to disarm the residents of Mississippi if they resisted a federal law that prohibited private ownership of semiautomatic weapons. Governors’ control of the National Guard can be trumped with a simple presidential declaration.

leahy understood the implications, but either his colleagues didn't or they didn't care enough to stop the bill's passage...
Mr. President, I rise to express my grave reservations about certain provisions of the Fiscal Year 2007 Defense Authorization Bill Conference Report. This legislation poorly handles key provisions related to the National Guard, which — as the events since September 11th have highlighted — is critical to our Nations’ defense. The final conference report drops the reforms known as the National Guard Empowerment Act, a bill that would have given the National Guard more bureaucratic muscle inside the Pentagon. It would have cleared away some of these administrative cobwebs and given the Guard the seat at the decision-making table that it needs and deserves. It also should concern us all that the Conference agreement includes language that subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military’s involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law.

as bushco becomes increasingly desperate, the likelihood that they will resort to desperate measures increases dramatically...

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Ax Karl Rove: John Edwards' stock just skyrocketed in my book

i doubt seriously that there is much else edwards could have said that would have gained him as much credibility with me as this...
At Thursday's first presidential debate of the season, former Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards will be calling on President Bush to fire his political adviser Karl Rove, according to an e-mail sent out by his campaign, and obtained by RAW STORY.

"There is a trail of rot making its way through our government—and it leads straight to Karl Rove," begins the e-mail written by the former North Carolina senator's campaign manager David Bonior. "New evidence shows that Rove has been methodically working to twist even the most impartial branches of the federal government—including the Justice Department—to serve the Republican Party at the expense of the American people."

The e-mail continues, "Enough is enough. Impartial justice must be protected. Integrity in government must be defended. Karl Rove must be fired."

i am vastly impressed with edwards decision to call for rove's firing... karl rove is the singular most poisonous force on the planet today... his vicious, take-no-prisoners, scorched-earth approach to politics has taken a country already divided and made it infinitely worse... directly or indirectly, provable or not, his fingerprints are on every single smear and dirty trick that's surrounded the political career of george w. bush and, no doubt, dozens, if not hundreds, of other political figures as well... karl rove is a truly dark force who, if removed, shouldn't be allowed within one hundred miles of any governmental or political entity, be it national, state or local for the rest of his life...

sign the petition here...

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Say g'nite, Wolfie

c'mon, george... step up to the microphone and express your confidence...
[T]he European Parliament today expressed its opinion on the Wolfowitz scandal. As part of a resolution on transatlantic relations, the following text was adopted by roll call vote with 332 votes in favour and 251 against:

"Calls on the EU Presidency and US government to signal to the President of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz, that his withdrawal from the post would be a welcome step towards preventing the Bank's anti-corruption policy from being undermined..."

(thanks to think progress...)

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Impeachment - nothing to lose and everything to gain

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) ... announced a series of charges against Vice President Dick Cheney in Washington, DC. Kucinich alleged that the Vice President had committed a series of impeachable offenses and stated that he was therefore introducing Articles of Impeachment against Cheney [House Resolution 333] in the Congress today [April 24].

it may be tilting at windmills, but it's still worth a shot...

you can contact the house judiciary committee and express your support by clicking here...

here's mine...

Honorable Members of the Judiciary Committee:

Representative Dennis Kucinich has submitted Articles of Impeachment, H. Res. 333. I strongly encourage you to review those articles, approve them, and send them to the House floor for immediate action.

I have closely observed the Bush administration's actions for six and one-half years, and, as a 60 year-old Vietnam veteran, never thought I would see the kind of constitutional crisis my country now faces. Under the highly suspect theory of the "unitary executive," George Bush, Dick Cheney, and their lieutenants, have waged a full-scale assault on the Constitution of the United States for far too long. It needs to be stopped - now. Waiting until 20 January 2009 is simply not acceptable. The additional damage that will be done to our Republic between now and then is too frightening to contemplate.

Respectfully,

there's a big opportunity coming up this weekend at the california democratic convention in san diego...
"I've been blown away by the response. People are wanting to organize and rally behind one single thing at the convention, and that's impeachment," said Joye Swan of the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party, who is helping lead an effort to pass a resolution expressing the California Democratic Party's support for impeaching President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

But the fight will be complicated by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's unwillingness to hear their message and the encouragement that her stance may give opponents of the impeachment measure within the California Democratic Party leadership.

if you are a constituent in her district, you can contact nancy pelosi by clicking here, or you can contact her via the speaker's office by clicking here...

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10 Steps to shutting down a democracy

naomi wolf, writing in the guardian...
From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy [islam, war on terror, al qaeda]

2. Create a gulag [Guantánamo, CIA black sites, military tribunals, Military Commissions Act, suspension of habeas]

3. Develop a thug caste [Blackwater, security contractors who are immune from prosecution in Iraq]

4. Set up an internal surveillance system [the Patriot Act, warrantless domestic wiretapping]

5. Harass citizens' groups [conduct surveillance on environmental, anti-war, animal rights, and other activist groups]

6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release ["no-fly" list, "terrorist watch" list]

7. Target key individuals [Sibel Edmonds, Richard Clarke, Joseph Wilson, Valerie Plame, Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean]

8. Control the press [criminal complaint against Greg Palast, attacking al Jazeera, firing on unembedded reporters in Iraq, Fox News, O'Reilly, Limbaugh]

9. Dissent equals treason [accusations against Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, the New York Times, open-ended definition of "enemy combatant"]

10. Suspend the rule of law [John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007, violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, possibility of the declaration of federal martial law]

this is an extraordinary article which, unfortunately, comes to us from across the pond... it's the kind of in-depth journalism that we are so desperately lacking here in the united states...

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Would adoption of a withdrawal timetable produce a de facto cease-fire?

a very good question...

robert parry writes in consortium news
...

George W. Bush admits he has no evidence that a withdrawal timetable from Iraq would be harmful. Instead, the President told interviewer Charlie Rose that this core assumption behind his veto threat of a Democratic war appropriation bill is backed by “just logic.”

“I mean, you say we start moving troops out,” Bush said in the interview on April 24. “Don’t you think an enemy is going to wait and adjust based upon an announced timetable for withdrawal?”

It is an argument that Bush has made again and again over the past few years, that with a withdrawal timetable, the “enemy” would just “wait us out.” But the answer to Bush’s rhetorical question could be, “well, so what if they do?”

If Bush is right and a withdrawal timetable quiets Iraq down for the next year or so – a kind of de facto cease-fire – that could buy time for the Iraqis to begin the difficult process of reconciliation and start removing the irritants that have enflamed the violence.

there's a compelling logic to what parry suggests... in any case, how can things get much worse...?
Obviously, there is no guarantee that a timetable for a U.S. withdrawal would bring peace to Iraq. The greater likelihood remains that civil strife will continue for some years to come as Iraq’s factions nurse their grievances and push for a new national equilibrium.

But the counterpoint to Bush’s veto threat against a withdrawal timetable is that his open-ended war is doomed to failure. To attain even the appearance of limited success would require American forces to effectively exterminate all Iraqis who are part of the armed resistance to the U.S. occupation.

After all, the only logical reason for not wanting the “enemy” to lie low is so American troops can capture or kill them.

given bush's history of spoiled child tantrums and insistence on getting his own way, and in the unlikely event we experience a deus ex machina, bush will exercise the second veto of his presidency and our troops and the iraqis will pay the price...

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Monica gets immunity

damn...! a busy day...!
[T]he House Judiciary Committee voted 32-6 to grant immunity to Monica Goodling, Gonzales' White House liaison, for her testimony on why the administration fired eight federal prosecutors. The panel also unanimously approved - but did not issue - a subpoena to compel her to appear.

hard to keep up...

(thanks to think progress...)

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Laura, puh-l-e-e-e-e-eze... Spare me...

gag me with a spoon...
According to the first lady, when it comes to Iraq, "No one suffers more than their president and I do."

what insufferable arrogance... nobody can look at either laura's or george's faces and see a single trace of suffering... no one can hear them speak and hear any anguish whatsoever in their voices... and nobody in hell is going to believe that they are "suffering MORE" than anybody else on iraq... in the lbj/vietnam era, you could SEE pain written all over lbj's face, you could hear it in his speech... vietnam haunted lyndon baines johnson right into an early grave... george himself has said he has no trouble sleeping at night... i doubt seriously that laura does either... what total stinking garbage...

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Email technology - recovery and tracing

raw story has a terrific backgrounder on exactly how email works and how and why there's really no such thing as "missing" emails...

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Push, push, push on the Bush

woo-hoo...! 3 (count 'em, 3) subpoenas... now that they're approved, will they be issued...?
"We have hit a brick wall with the Secretary of State," said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA). "She will not propose a date to testify, she will not agree to testify, and she insists that our Committee be satisfied with partial information that was previously submitted to other committees."

Waxman's remark came in a fractious hearing on issuing three subpoenas. One sought Rice's testimony on May 15 concerning the intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq. The other two concerned the deletion of e-mails on accounts supplied the Republican National Committee and used by White House employees, as well as RNC documents concerning the use of the General Services Administration to assist Republican political efforts.

All three subpoenas were agreed to by the Committee.

while, as committee chair, waxman has the power to unilaterally approve and issue the subpoenas, he opened the matter to full committee debate and vote...
"Under the rules of this Committee, the Chairman has the power to issue subpoenas without debate or votes in the Committee. That is what Dan Burton used to do. In fact, that is what he did over 1,000 times," he said. "But I am taking a different approach today. I believe the entire Committee should have a chance to participate in the subpoenas we will consider today."

push, push, push on the bush...

[UPDATE]

according to this ap account, a subpoena will be issued to rice...
By 21-10, the House oversight committee voted to issue a subpoena to Rice...

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Professor Cole quotes General McCaffrey on Iraq

juan cole, as per usual, offers up a clear perspective...

from the kansas city star...


Barry McCaffrey, retired Army general and one-time White House drug czar
"We’re in trouble."

"The Iraqi government in power is dysfunctional. "

"There is essentially no province in Iraq where the central government holds sway."

"Iraq’s neighbors are bearing no good will toward a favorable outcome in Iraq."

" . . . collectively the American people have said that the conduct of the war has been so incompetent that we’ve come to disbelieve the administration has the ability to carry this off."

"The next president, unless the situation in Iraq is dramatically turned around, is pulling the plug."

Gee, I guess Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are in pretty good company after all. It is Dick Cheney who is living in fantasyland.

yes, it's a good thing barry's retired because, otherwise, darth would probably find a way to give him the boot...

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Fighting water privatization in the U.S. - look south

H2O

is arguably the single most important component of all living organisms... but, if there's a way to make a buck, the already super-rich holders of the world's capital resources will find a way to do it...

All across the United States, municipal water systems are being bought up by multinational corporations, turning one of our last remaining public commons and our most vital resource into a commodity.

The road to privatization is being paved by our own government. The Bush administration is actively working to loosen the hold that cities and towns have over public water, enabling corporations to own the very thing we depend on for survival.

The effects of the federal government's actions are being felt all the way down to Conference of Mayors, which has become a "feeding frenzy" for corporations looking to make sure that nothing is left in the public's hands, including clean, affordable water.

[...]

"The administration has backed language in legislation to reauthorize existing federal water funding assistance programs that would require cities to consider water privatization before they could receive federal funding," reports Public Citizen. "And in lockstep with private industry's goals, the EPA is increasingly playing down the role of federal financial assistance while actively encouraging communities to pay for system upgrades by raising rates to consumers -- exactly the strategy the industry hopes will drive cash-strapped and embattled local politicians to opt for the false promise of privatization." [The U.S. Conference of Mayors Urban Water Council

it isn't just "all across the united states..." it's happening worldwide, and, interestingly, today seems to be the day to look south for guidance...

the global scenario...

Today 460 million people around the world are dependent on private water corporations for their daily supply - compared to 51 million in 1990 - because of the privatization polices promoted by the World Bank and IMF.

argentina...


Aguas Argentinas is a case study of the rush to privatize water services in the last decade by European and U.S.-based companies, backed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.

The deal made between Argentina's water authority and a consortium that includes the Suez group from France, the largest private water company in the world, and Spain's Aguas de Barcelona, in May 1993, established a new private entity, named Aguas Argentinas, with the help of the World Bank which also bought a small stake in the consortium. According to a study by Dr. Malpartida's Ecology and Environment Foundation, the new company was "the biggest transfer of a water service and watershed into private control in the world" encompassing a region with over 10 million inhabitants.

As a result, according to Daniel Azpiazu, a researcher at the Latin American Faculty for Social Sciences, residential water rates increased 88.2% between May 1993 and January 2002 although there was "no relationship between this rate and the consumer price index (inflation rate), which was 7.3% for the same period."

Azpiazu says this provided the company with net profits of 20%, which he says is far higher than is "acceptable or normal" for the water industry in other countries: "In the United States, for example, water companies earned between 6-12.5% profits in 1991. In the United Kingdom a reasonable rate of profit for the sector is between 6-7%. In France, 6% is considered a very reasonable return on investment."

Yet this rate increase did not translate into higher quality or quantity of service. In 1997, the company was found to have failed to honor 45% of its contract commitments for improvement and expansion of services, resulting in massive pollution.

argentina's response...
President Néstor Kirchner rescinded the contract in March [2006], and announced the creation of a new state company, Aguas y Saneamiento Argentinos (Argentine Water and Sanitation).

bolivians took to the streets...


On January 10 [2005] the citizens of El Alto [Bolivia] took to the streets en masse to demand that their water system, privatized in 1997 under World Bank pressure, be returned to public hands. Three days later Bolivia's president issued a decree canceling the water concession, led by the French water giant Suez, and an arm of the World Bank itself. The El Alto water revolt follows, by five years exactly, the now famous revolt against water privatization in Cochabamba, in which a company controlled by the Bechtel Corporation was ousted from the country.

uruguayans took action as well...


Voters in Uruguay, for instance, approved a constitutional reform in 2004, declaring water resources a public good and prohibiting the privatisation of water and sewage services.

so, who's the biggest dog in the water-for-profit game...?

suez [pdf]...


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Letting Mexico show us the way to fight poverty



this is from a story in today's nyt about nyc mayor bloomberg's trip to mexico to see first-hand how mexico is dealing with its huge number of people living in poverty... i could care less about bloomberg, but i did find the details of the mexican program fascinating... particularly since bushco's concerted attack on any form of implied or explicit social contrast and its championing of social darwinism and the bogus "on-your-own(ership)" society, the u.s. has turned a blind eye to poverty...
If the women and their children have kept all their medical appointments, and if their children have stayed in school, the money is theirs to use as they wish. The awards range from 360 to 3,710 pesos (about $36 to $370), enough to buy food or shoes or other necessities. The size of the award depends on how many children they have and what level of school the children are in.

The program is 10 years old, has a budget of more than $3 billion a year and covers almost a quarter of all Mexicans.

[...]

Outside evaluations have found that the program, called Oportunidades, has been successful in raising school attendance and nutrition levels. The percentage of Mexicans living in extreme poverty has fallen by 17 percentage points since 1996, when it reached 37 percent.

Those results have spurred some 30 countries to adopt some version of the program.

meanwhile, back in the richest country in the world...
  • In 2005, 16 million people -- 5.4 percent of all Americans -- had incomes below half the poverty line. The number of Americans living in such extreme poverty grew by over three million [PDF] between 2000 and 2005, and the share of poor people living in extreme poverty is now greater than at any point in the last 32 years.
(u.s. poverty statistics courtesy of the center for american progress...)

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In a Catholic country, one of the world's biggest cities ignores the Vatican



who woulda thunk it...?
After months of furious debate and threats of excommunication by the Catholic Church, Mexico City's legislative assembly on Tuesday overwhelmingly voted to legalize abortion for the first time in the capital's history.

and who knows what other depravity might come next...
Activists ... fear the vote in Mexico City, a federal district that functions much like a state, will create a domino effect, leading to similar laws elsewhere in Mexico. Last year, after the assembly passed the country's first gay civil unions law, the northern state of Coahuila passed its own civil union law, and a raft of similar proposals are now working their way through other state legislatures.

gay civil unions...? OH, N-O-O-O-O-OOOOOOOOOOO...!

i bet RAT-zinger is s-o-o-o-oooo pissed...

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Norm Coleman, Lamar Alexander and Susan Collins have joined the choir

notice how the words "fire" and "resignation" are conspicuously absent... instead we have "grave doubts," "tightrope," and "not served well..."
  • "I think there's a huge credibility issue at the Justice Department," said Sen. Norm Coleman (Minn.). "I continue, even after his testimony, to have grave doubts."
  • "I think the attorney general is on a tightrope, and he and the president need to make a decision before very long," said Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.).
  • Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) also said only Bush could demand a resignation. "It's his call," she said. "I don't think the attorney general has served the country or the president particularly well."
but, as we know, criticism and prevailing opinion has no effect on where the choir of one stands...
This is an honest, honorable man, in whom I have confidence.

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McCain doesn't need a "fresh start," he needs life support

mccain formally announces today in new hampshire...
[I]f a candidate from either party needs a fresh start, it is the embattled senator from Arizona.

Whit Ayres [said] that McCain's "national stature is so great and the campaign's fundraising potential is so great that it would be a serious mistake to write him off prematurely."

mccain's problems are entirely of his own making... if he continues along the same path, and there is no reason to think that he won't, he would save himself and the rest of us a lot of pain and suffering by simply dropping out now...

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Who is Richard Mellon Scaife's rag pushing in today's WaPo?

every so often, i open my daily wapo headlines email only to be greeted with whoever the conservative bandwidth waster newsmax happens to be pushing today...



past newsmax greatest hits...





since the wapo is usually the first major media outlet i look at, coming face-to-face with one of these mugs doesn't get the day off to the best start...

btw, richard mellon scaife is also the money source for a good chunk of the right-wing noise machine...

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Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Oh, Rudy, for the love of god, don't start with that shit

AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH...!!!!!
Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001.

< sticks fingers in ears > lalalalalalalalalala, i can't HEAR you...!

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Iglesias' complaint launched OSC investigation

interesting-er and interesting-er...

think progress has the goods...

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No matter how ugly things get for the administration, the media still spins in its favor

i lifted this from atrios because it needs to be widely seen...



this is precisely the kind of bullshit we get from our media... as the horrific revelations about bushco's criminal activities keep piling up, the media keeps going flat-out to work against the truth... and we pride ourselves on being a nation of free speech supported by a free and independent press... whatever...

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Is the OSC investigation a red herring for orchestrating a cover-up?

at this stage of the game, i wouldn't doubt it... when it came out earlier, i had this brief flash of optimism, but as more info has surfaced throughout the day, particularly about the osc head, scott bloch, my spirits are - yet again - being dampened...

from think progress...

Scott J. Bloch, the head of the Office of Special Counsel, “who says he is investigating Karl Rove for allegations he influenced government activity for partisan purposes is himself facing allegations of similar behavior.” In April 2005, government watchdogs and others complained that “the White House appointee had allowed his office to ’sit on’ a complaint that then-White House National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice used government funds to travel in support of President Bush’s re-election bid.”

UPDATE: CREW adds: “The fact that OSC has been charged with handling these matters suggests the possibility that the White House is orchestrating a cover-up of its illegal and improper activities.”

as i should have learned by now, after so many times of getting my hopes up, with this gang of criminals, anticipating nothing but the worst-case scenario is the only reasonable and prudent mindset to adopt...

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McGovern: "I expect to see Cheney and Bush forced to resign their offices before 2008 is over"

that would be the greatest gift this country could possibly receive and would be the first step in helping us move past the most serious constitutional crisis in the nation's history...
It is my firm belief that the Cheney-Bush team has committed offenses that are worse than those that drove Nixon, Vice President Spiro Agnew and Atty. Gen. John Mitchell from office after 1972. Indeed, as their repeated violations of the Constitution and federal statutes, as well as their repudiation of international law, come under increased consideration, I expect to see Cheney and Bush forced to resign their offices before 2008 is over.

i have a great deal of respect for george mcgovern and i desperately hope he's right... judging from the mind-boggling revelations that continue to pour forth from washington (just today alone, fercryinoutloud) about the criminal undertakings of the bushco coup d'etat, perhaps it's not out of the bounds of possibility...

(thanks to mcjoan at daily kos...)

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Cheney on Reid; Reid on Cheney

today in congress...

cheney...

"I think his speech yesterday was unfortunate, that his comments were uninformed and misleading. Senator Reid's taken many positions on Iraq. He has threatened that if the president vetoes the current pending supplemental legislation, that he will send up Senator Russ Feingold's bill to defund Iraq operations altogether. Yet only last November, Senator Reid said there would be no cut-off of funds for the military in Iraq. So in less than six months time, Senator Reid has gone from pledging full funding for the military, then full funding but with conditions, and then a cut-off of funding. Three positions in five months on the most important foreign policy question facing the nation and our troops."

reid...
Not long after the vice president spoke, Senator Reid responded, calling Cheney the "president's attack dog."

uh, yeah... i think that's a fair assessment... wait... maybe it should be the "shadow president attack dog..."

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Condi has more important things to do than to be held accountable

this ought to be interesting...
[A]Republican Congressman sent out an "action alert" claiming that "we've gotten word that Waxman will issue a subpoena to Secretary Rice tomorrow morning," adding that such a move could allow the GOP to show how Democrats are "trying to win the political war for themselves no matter its effect on America’s efforts to promote peace and democracy abroad."

"I can only assume that members of Congress would rather have the secretary of State be focused on issues of war and peace," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack in a press briefing today, and then listed her obligations over the next month.

He added, "So she can be doing those things, or she can be testifying before Chairman Waxman's committee about an issue that has been about as investigated as an issue can possibly be investigated."

"as investigated as an issue can possibly be investigated...?" not really... i don't believe an investigation that fails to come up with the truth can be considered thorough...
"Congressman Waxman has had a series of questions for Secretary Rice, and we started out at the -- some 50-plus questions. I think we've narrowed it down to about three, and we will be providing a response to those last three questions, I expect, later this afternoon to Chairman Waxman and his committee," [McCormack] added.

there's a vast difference between responding to questions in writing and responding to them in person... if there was ever a definitive case study of that fact, one only has to go back to last thursday and review gonzales' truly pathetic performance before the senate judiciary committee...

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When the president flips you off

from roll call...
With Attorney General Alberto Gonzales vowing to remain in his job and President Bush standing by him, Senate Democratic leaders are seriously considering bringing a resolution to the floor expressing no confidence in Gonzales, according to a senior leadership source....

The vote would be nonbinding and have no substantive impact, but it would force all Republican Senators into the politically uncomfortable position of saying publicly whether they continue to support Gonzales in the wake of the scandal surrounding the firings of eight U.S. attorneys.

as i posted the other day...
i fully expect gonzo to still be attorney general a week from today and, quite likely, a month from today... if george dumps him, it will not be until he can make it look like HIS decision rather than as a response to the hearings and political pressure, the same way he disposed of rummy...

and this...
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...

a vote of no confidence notwithstanding, i hope the committee keeps on digging... if they do, they will eventually strike a vein of shit so rich, it will bring a quick end to this 6 year-old coup d'etat...


(thanks to TPMmuckraker...)

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