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And, yes, I DO take it personally: 04/29/2007 - 05/06/2007
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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, May 05, 2007

Ron Paul is a poll leader?

abc news straw poll on the republican debate... very interesting...



(numbers current as of 6:15 PDT)

[UPDATE]

as of 9:30 p.m. PDT, ron paul is still way out front with 2917...

if you're so moved, you can vote here...

(thanks to casey at open your mind's eye...)

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Laura, tell Lt. Eva Crouch how much you're suffering

this one is particularly hard to read... as a divorced father of three (all of whom are now grown and doing very well, i'm pleased to say), i can very personally relate to this mother's plight... what outrages me is that the criminals who created her situation are still at large and busy perpetrating the same crimes...
She had raised her daughter for six years following the divorce, handled the shuttling to soccer practice and cheerleading, made sure schoolwork was done. Hardly a day went by when the two weren't together. Then Lt. Eva Crouch was mobilized with the Kentucky National Guard, and Sara went to stay with Dad.

A year and a half later, her assignment up, Crouch pulled into her driveway with one thing in mind — bringing home the little girl who shared her smile and blue eyes. She dialed her ex and said she'd be there the next day to pick Sara up, but his response sent her reeling.

"Not without a court order you won't."

Within a month, a judge would decide that Sara should stay with her dad. It was, he said, in "the best interests of the child."

What happened? Crouch was the legal residential caretaker; this was only supposed to be temporary. What had changed? She wasn't a drug addict, or an alcoholic, or an abusive mother.

Her only misstep, it seems, was answering the call to serve her country.

Crouch and an unknown number of others among the 140,000-plus single parents in uniform fight a war on two fronts: For the nation they are sworn to defend, and for the children they are losing because of that duty.

this so is wrong on so many levels... i'm taken back to my post of a few weeks ago...
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...

laura, you air-headed, stepford, animatronic cartoon... tell me how much you've suffered... better yet, tell eva crouch...

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Condi may be protecting George but she's screwing her country

the only honorable thing for this woman to do would be to honor the congressional subpoena, testify under oath, tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may...
"As long as U.S. troops are dying in Iraq, the secretary of state has an obligation to answer questions about how they got there and why they stay. If accountability is ever to begin, it would be best if those questions are answered not on '60 Minutes' but under oath," [writes Frank Rich in his Sunday New York Times op-ed piece].

counting from 9/11, we've had nearly six years of half-truths, spinning, misinformation, disinformation, propaganda and outright deceit about iraq, and it seems like every time we get close to what might be the truth, it eludes our grasp... we're so far overdue for accountability in this country, it's ridiculous, so, like frank rich so clearly and so plaintively suggests, let's do it and not waste any more time...

(thanks to raw story...)

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Stop whatever you're doing and pay attention to THIS instead!

pardon me if i'm just a tad bit suspicious of a couple of things here... one, timing, and, two, source... i'll be better prepared to comment once i hear the adminstration spin...
New Tape: Al Qaeda No. 2 Wants 200,000-300,000 U.S. Dead in Iraq
Ayman al-Zawahiri Says Al Qaeda Wants to Spill More U.S. Blood Before America Withdraws

pay no attention to the 28% presidential approval rating, pay no attention to the justice department, pay no attention to condi ignoring a congressional subpoena, pay no attention to the ever-mounting evidence of the lies that took us to war, pay no attention to investigations, arrests and indictments of key republicans, just stay home and be afraid, very, very afraid...

(thanks to john at americablog...)

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The next 7 months in Iraq

juan cole posts a very interesting piece of correspondence he received from a vietnam vet (who asked not to be attributed), speculating on what the next seven months in iraq would bring... some highlowlights...
  • As was demonstrated by an entire school being wired as a complete booby trap, insurgents with good inside intelligence are anticipating American-Iraqi troops taking over abandoned schools, police stations, etc., as "outposts." Even if Americans inspect these facilities early, with sophisticated devices, there is no guarantee that stay behind explosives experts among the insurgents won't trigger these massive booby traps -- killing American and Iraqi inspection teams...
  • Al-Qaeda will try a Khobar tower attack, where they used an 18-wheeler fully loaded with tons of explosives. This will depend on whether an outpost is sufficiently distanced from the local population enough to destroy the outpost, but not killed any more Iraqis than necessary...
  • [I]mproved rocket and mortar fire will continue to hit the Green Zone with greater accuracy...
  • Every attempt will be made in the next seven months to cause at least two dozen or more American fatalities in one event, plus many more wounded...
  • President Bush WILL NOT reduce American numbers in Iraq in 2007.
  • More attempts will be made to capture Americans and hold them hostage.
  • If the "surge" does not show appreciable improvement on the ground in Iraq, Bush will ABSOLUTELY refuse to bring any troops home by Christmas.
a fairly grim picture overall but, sadly, not at all suprising... listening to george and seeing what's taken place with his bogus "surge" and the political bullshit he's dispensed over the iraq bill, this all computes quite well...

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Coincidence? I don't believe in coincidences.

it doesn't matter how much you polish a turd (or, in this case, turds)...
George W. Bush has the lowest presidential approval rating in a generation, and the leading Dems beat every major ’08 Republican. Coincidence?

and here's the goods...

19. Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?


Approve

Disapprove

Don't Know

Current Total

28%

64%

8%

1. Do you lean more toward ... the Democrat ... or the Republican?

BASED ON REGISTERED VOTERS


Total Clinton

Total Giuliani

Undec./Other

Current Total

49%

46%

5%


Total Obama

Total Giuliani

Undec./Other

Current Total

50%

43%

7%


Total Edwards

Total Giuliani

Undec./Other

Current Total

50%

44%

6%


Total Clinton

Total McCain

Undec./Other

Current Total

50%

44%

6%


Total Obama

Total McCain

Undec./Other

Current Total

52%

39%

9%


Total Edwards

Total McCain

Undec./Other

Current Total

52%

42%

6%


Total Clinton

Total Romney

Undec./Other

Current Total

57%

35%

8%


Total Obama

Total Romney

Undec./Other

Current Total

58%

29%

13%


Total Edwards

Total Romney

Undec./Other

Current Total

64%

27%

9%

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Bush has no respect for the troops, his generals, the American public or the truth

maybe i'm naive or terminally disingenuous, but i continue to be astounded that our media, given all that's out there about the horrors that have been and continue to be perpetrated by the most criminal administration in the nation's history, are still giving bush a free ride... they don't include context in their stories, they don't point out glaring hypocrisies, and they don't call foul on outright lies... moyers' documentary was a masterpiece of pointing out the media complicity in the lead-up to the illegal iraq war... the sad truth is that it's never stopped...
Bush has never stopped making statements about the Iraq War that are untrue, illogical or irrelevant. Yet, the Washington press corps remains almost as lax today about holding Bush accountable as it was in 2002 and 2003.

So, when Bush mocks Democratic “politicians in Washington” who supposedly seek to substitute their judgments for those of experienced commanders on the ground, the national news media stays silent on Bush’s hypocrisy. It’s almost never mentioned that he was the Washington politician in December who overruled the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the two top generals in Iraq on the escalation of the war.

Bush not only rejected the advice of the Joint Chiefs and his field generals, John Abizaid and George Casey, but then replaced Abizaid and Casey with new commanders who were compliant to Bush’s wishes. Though the removals fell within Bush’s Commander-in-Chief powers, it can’t be said he was respecting the judgments of the combat generals.

the most obvious hypocrisy to me is bush's claim to support the troops while displaying a completely cavalier disregard for their welfare by mandating multiple tours, failing to provide proper equipment, sending the wounded and disabled back into combat, shorting them on health care and rehabilitation, and damaging or destroying the families they left behind... the man is a disgrace as both a president and a human being...

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Dems, now hear this! Go kick some butt!

greg sargent at TPMelectioncentral...
The polls show clearly that the public strongly supports efforts by Dems to confront Bush both on Iraq and on corruption. Check out the numbers in this recent Pew poll:
Do you think Democratic leaders in Congress are going too far or not far enough in challenging George W. Bush's policies in Iraq, or are they handling this about right?

Too far 23%
Not far enough 40%
About right 30%
Don't know/Refused 7%

how very interesting, and particularly appropriate given my previous post about the dems "faltering momentum" and the bullshit being peddled by rahm emanuel and leon panetta... more greg sargent...
[T]he reporters quote Leon Panetta making the case that Dems had better watch out and not be too confrontational with the White House:
"The primary message coming out of the November election was that the American people are sick and tired of the fighting and the gridlock, and they want both the president and Congress to start governing the country," warned Leon E. Panetta, a chief of staff in Bill Clinton's White House. "It just seems to me the Democrats, if they fail for whatever reason to get a domestic agenda enacted ... will pay a price."

[T]he choice the public faces isn't between "fighting" and "gridlock" on the one hand, and "bipartisan cooperation" on the other. Rather, it's between (a) accepting the disastrous Bush/GOP status quo; and (b) backing Democratic efforts to change it. And the public supports the latter. Even though those efforts are partisan and confrontational. Is that really so hard to fathom?

let's keep the butt-kicking going strong...!

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It's another thing entirely to not have access to a lawyer to "rebuff"

it looks like the bushco strategy of obstructing legal assistance and detainee rights is having an effect...
Many of the detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are no longer cooperating with their lawyers, adding a largely invisible struggle between the lawyers and their own clients to the legal battle over the Bush administration’s detention policies.

Some detainees refuse to see their lawyers, while others decline mail from their lawyers or refuse to provide them information on their cases, according to court documents, writings of some of the detainees and recent interviews.

The detainees’ resistance appears to have been fueled by frustration over their long detention and suspicion about whether their lawyers are working for the government, as well as anti-American sentiment, some of the documents and interviews show. “Your role is to polish Bush’s shoes and make the picture look good,” a Yemeni detainee, Adnan Farhan Abdullatif, 31, wrote his lawyer in February.

Some of the lawyers accuse Guantánamo officials of feeding the detainees’ suspicions of the lawyers, a charge Pentagon officials deny.

Lawyers said many of the relationships appeared to have deteriorated as the detainees’ legal cause has suffered setbacks in Congress and the courts, and as Justice Department officials have begun efforts to limit lawyers’ access to detainees, raising new concerns among the detainees about their lawyers’ effectiveness.

“Every lawyer is afraid, every time they go down there, that their clients won’t see them,” said Mark P. Denbeaux, a professor at Seton Hall University School of Law who represents two Guantánamo detainees. “And it’s getting worse, because it’s pretty hard to say we’re offering them anything.”

i can certainly see why detainees might think the attorneys were working for the government... i can certainly see why they might resist their help because nothing's going to come of it... and i can certainly see how, given the obstacles deliberately placed in the way, seeing an attorney just might be more hassle than it's worth... but further limiting detainees' rights to access legal counsel, no matter what the detainees' attitudes toward legal counsel may be, is wrong, wrong, wrong... it's just as wrong as keeping detainees in guantánamo for years and years without being charged, just as wrong as using torture to extract information, and just as wrong as using extraordinary rendition and operating a series of cia black sites...

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The WaPo tells us how it is with the Dems - on page 1

i swear to god, there isn't anything they won't do or say to make the democrats look bad...
Democrats' Momentum Is Stalling
Amid Iraq Debate, Priorities On Domestic Agenda Languish

By Jonathan Weisman and Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, May 5, 2007; Page A01

In the heady opening weeks of the 110th Congress, the Democrats' domestic agenda appeared to be flying through the Capitol: Homeland security upgrades, a higher minimum wage and student loan interest rate cuts all passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.

But now that initial progress has foundered as Washington policymakers have been consumed with the debate over the Iraq war. Not a single priority on the Democrats' agenda has been enacted, and some in the party are growing nervous that the "do nothing" tag they slapped on Republicans last year could come back to haunt them.

"We cannot be a one-trick pony," said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), who helped engineer his party's takeover of Congress as head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "People voted for change, but Iraq, the economy and Washington, D.C., [corruption] all tied for first place. We need to do them all."

even worse, there's rahm, aiding and abetting the wapo effort...

sorry, rahm... if getting us the hell out of iraq qualifies as a "one-trick pony," YOU, sir, can bite me... and, i don't know what YOU mean by corruption, but i suspect it isn't what i mean by corruption... i suspect you're talking about folks like delay, abramoff, renzi, and the other gaggle of crooked congressmen and lobbyists... what I'M talking about is the constitution-shredding criminals currently occupying the white house which i would place in a priority ABOVE iraq, and which you don't even bother to mention...

what i have to say to you, wapo, is stop trying to paint the democrats as a bunch of bumblers... they are dealing with the most criminal administration in the history of this country, and, in doing so, are having to face many of their own shortcomings... the good news is that they're keepin' on keepin' on...

and you, rahm, are a sorely out-of-touch, dlc big-mouth, and fall squarely into the category of one of those "shortcomings" i referred to above...

p.s. the dems momentum isn't "stalling..." it's just getting started...

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Friday, May 04, 2007

A neo-con endorsing a "responsible democrat?"

interestingly, thomas de zengotita, posting at huffpo, comes at an issue that i have been grappling with in my own mind, just from an unexpected angle...
In this debate with Robert Kuttner hosted by The American Prospect, Bill Kristol, gave us a preview of how neocon thinking is evolving now that the Bush boat is foundering. He was arguing that "responsible Democrats" are going to have to deal with the same world (Islamic terror, Iraq, etc.) that the Bush administration has been dealing with. His point was that, when that time comes, there won't be that much difference in content (as opposed to style) between a "responsible Democratic" administration and the Bush regime.

Then, sort of being humorous, but not really--he was actually blushing-- he said something to the effect that he thinks that it might a good thing for this country if a responsible Democrat were to win the next election so that the nation as a whole will realize this truth. Then he mumbled something about how he's tempted to come out and support Hillary--but of course he wouldn't do that because that would only hurt her chances...

Think that over...

actually, i have thought that over...

in reading zengotita's post, once i got past the initial "oh-my-god" reaction, i have to say i'm not surprised by anything he has to say... for some time now, i haven't considered hillary a democrat (at least by MY definition), and to hear kristol pining for a "responsible democrat" and then mentioning hillary in a moment of embarrassment, surprises me not at all...

i have been speculating of late on what kind of on-going horrors we will be facing if the new president is sworn in on 20 january 2009 and the same constitution-shredding, signing statement power grabbing, rule of law be damned measures put in place by bush and his minions are still in effect... do i want hillary swearing that we can "trust her" to uphold the constitution...? speaking for myself, i have to say, no way in hell...

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Compounded obscenity - exec. comp. up 38%, average Joe, 4%

if we want to talk about obscenity, HERE'S obscenity...
Forbes, in releasing its survey late Thursday, said the CEOs of America's 500 biggest companies got a collective 38 percent pay raise last year, to 7.5 billion dollars, or an average 15.2 million dollars.

Exercised stock options accounted for the main component of pay, or about 48 percent, Forbes said.

Exercised stock options accounted for the main component of pay, or about 48 percent, Forbes said.

Number two on the list was Occidental Petroleum's Ray Irani with 321.6 million dollars, followed by Barry Diller at InterActive Corp (295 million), Fidelity National's William Foley (179 million) and Terry Semel of Yahoo (174 million).

Michael Dell, who retook the reins at Dell Computer, was sixth with a compensation package worth 153 million dollars.

how about the poor slobs who have to actually WORK for a living...?
Sibson Consulting reports that most employers "anticipate a less-than-4-percent base pay increase" for the vast majority of their workers in 2007 - about the same as in the past few years. For someone earning $40,000 a year, a pay hike of 3 to 4 percent works out to as little as $100 per month before taxes...

even someone as math-challenged as i am can figure out that 38% of $200M is a considerably higher figure than 4% of $40K...

like i said, there's obscenity, then there's OBSCENITY...

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Now that Elston's thrown McNulty under the bus, who's McNulty gonna throw?

murray waas does it again...
[Michael Elston, the chief of staff] to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty has told congressional investigators that phone calls he placed to four fired U.S. attorneys -- calls that three of the prosecutors say involved threats about testifying before Congress -- were made at McNulty's direction.

[...]

The U.S. attorneys have said that Elston, in effect, told them that if they kept quiet about their dismissals, the Justice Department would not suggest that they had been forced to resign because of poor performance.

[...]

On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee made public formal correspondence from three fired prosecutors who said they thought that Elston was trying to intimidate them into keeping quiet.

[...]

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., asked Cummins ... what they [he] would have done ... as [a] federal prosecutor[s] had they [he] learned that an interested party in one of their [his] investigations had tried to discourage a witness from providing information or testifying.

[...]

Whitehouse pressed Cummins: "But if that sort of approach had been made to a witness in an active proceeding that you were leading, and you were extremely proactive about it, that would lead you where?"

"Well, we'd certainly investigate it and see if a crime had occurred."

"And the crime would be?"

Cummins responded: "Obstruction of justice. I think there are several statutes that might be implicated -- but obstruction of justice."

looks like any thoughts i may have had about mcnulty being kept in the dark are now history...

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Boo-hoo, Monica

aw, poor baby...
Former Gonzales counsel Monica Goodling “told a colleague two months ago her government career probably was over as the matter was about to erupt into a political storm, according to closed-door congressional testimony. Goodling…sobbed for 45 minutes in the office of career Justice Department official David Margolis on March 8 as she related her fears that she would have to quit, according to congressional aides briefed on Margolis’s private testimony to House and Senate investigators.”

obviously, monica, my dear, if you were aware enough of the crap you were engaged in to break down and sob for 45 minutes, you were aware enough of what you were doing to have summoned the integrity of your supposedly fundamentalist christian education at regent university to refuse to have participated in it in the first place… or maybe you were just feeling sorry for yourself about the possibility of losing your fantastic job... either way, you're not going to get any sympathy here…

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Like we should be surprised Condi's trying to stonewall the truth?

and she's still got an outstanding subpoena which i guess waxman's letting ride for now...







smells a lot like sibel edmonds, doesn't it, luke...?
Three months before President Bush uttered his infamous 16 words, claiming there was evidence that Saddam Hussein was building a nuclear weapon, a State Department analyst named Simon Dodge had determined that the evidence for the claim was likely fraudulent.

Dodge emailed his assessment to fellow intelligence analysts in October 2002, and then again in January 2003 (two weeks before Bush’s State of the Union), saying the documents supposedly from Niger were “probably a hoax” and “clearly a forgery.”

According to Oversight and Goverment Reform Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA), the State Department is now refusing to let Dodge speak to Waxman’s staff, despite the fact that Dodge has indicated he is “willing to cooperate fully” with the investigation.

just keep diggin' and pluggin', henry... just keep diggin' and pluggin'...

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Hmmmm... I'm trying to connect "shock and awe" with sex

anybody care to help me out...?
Former Rumsfeld colleague Dr. Harlan Ullman, the US military analyst who devised the concept of "shock and awe," is apparently ready to testify he had sex with a woman from DC Madam Jean Palfrey's "Pamela Martin and Associates."

it seems to me the possibilities here are too rich to even contemplate... if jon stewart passes THIS by, he will forever after be diminished in my eyes...

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"Loose Change" won't be an in-flight offering at Virgin Atlantic after all

after announcing last week that they would be including "loose change" in their in-flight video entertainment selections, virgin atlantic has reversed their decision after taking heat from the usual suspects, among them, michelle malkin... needless to say, i found that distressing and was moved to write... (you can write them here if you so choose...)
Dear Friends at Virgin Atlantic,

I flew your airline from San Francisco to London Heathrow last July. I was pleased with the service and especially with the in-flight entertainment. I used to work for United Airlines and am very familiar with the in-flight services of many airlines and was particularly impressed with that of Virgin Atlantic.

The movie I chose to watch was "V for Vendetta." I had heard a great deal about that movie and was pleased to find it as part of the movie selection on my Virgin flight. I learned last week that Virgin had elected to show the 9/11 movie, "Loose Change," and was even more impressed with Virgin's willingness to offer a broad and unbiased spectrum of video entertainment.

Today, I read that Virgin has decided to pull "Loose Change" from the in-flight video offerings due to protests from a small but vocal group of people who represent an unfortunately vicious element in the extreme right-wing of the United States. If you explored the background of these people, particularly Michelle Malkin, you would be aghast at the venom they spew, cloaked in the guise of patriotism.

I am distressed that a fine airline like Virgin Atlantic, particularly one that is headed by a visionary like Richard Branson, would allow itself to be jerked around by hate-mongers. I would encourage you to reconsider.

Best regards,

here's the response virgin gave malkin...
Over at Hot Air, a statement from Virgin Atlantic--which has retreated from offering a 9/11 conspiracy documentary as in-flight entertainment:
We will not be showing Loose Change 2 on our aircraft. We don’t show movies or documentaries that cause mass offence and there is a danger with this movie that viewers, although they have the choice over what to watch and when on our flights, may be offended. Virgin Atlantic is known for showing the latest movies and media trends on its multi award-winning inflight entertainment system and we believe travellers have the right to choose from as wide a choice as possible.

and here's what started it off...
Wednesday Stupid: Virgin Atlantic offers Loose Change 2 as in-flight entertainment

What can one say about this? Make an absolutely crappy documentary, put scary music on it, make out George W. Bush to be eeeevil, and moonbats with money bags will beat a path to your door to put your lousy film on their airplanes.

what a shame...

(thanks to prison planet via casey at open your mind's eye...)

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Bush will never "be swayed by opposition to the war"

like we didn't know this...
J.D. Crouch, who is stepping down from his national security post at the White House, is confident history will prove that invading Iraq was the right thing to do.

Crouch, who has been President George W. Bush's deputy national security adviser for more than two years, said the president never will be swayed by opposition to the war.

as atrios often points out, we will be in iraq 4EVAH...

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The assault on the Constitution by the Bush administration soldiers on

all i can do is refer back to my post yesterday where kagro x and glenn greenwald once again point out the continued attack on the u.s. constitution and the rule of law by the most criminal administration in u.s. history... here is simply more of the same...
The Bush administration is urging Congress to pass a law that would halt dozens of lawsuits charging phone companies with invading ordinary citizens' privacy through a post-Sept. 11 warrantless surveillance program.

The measure is part of a legislative package drafted by the Justice Department to relax provisions in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that restrict the administration's ability to intercept electronic communications in the United States. If passed, the proposed changes would forestall efforts to compel disclosure of the program's details through Congress or the court system.

so, for want of anything better to say, i'll simply repeat what i said yesterday...
this is the kind of thing that gives me cold chills and restless nights, but it's precisely the path that the bush administration is on and has been on since the coup d'etat was blessed by the 12 december 2000 scotus decision...

[...]

unless and until bush, cheney and their minions are removed, we will continue down this same path until 20 january 2009... equally discomfiting is the fact that, if nothing is done between now and then, the next president will be sworn in with all of this crap still in place...

let me emphasize the point i make in that last sentence, because it is that fact that's causing me a greater degree of angst every day... think about it... on 20 january 2009, a new president will be sworn in... if all the draconian and illegal measures that have been put in place by george bush are still in place, doesn't that put the election of a president in november 2008 in an entirely different light...?

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Oh, puh-l-e-e-e-e-eze, Wolfie, give it a rest

this would be funny if it weren't so pathetic...
[I]n a new characterization, Wolfowitz asserted that the ethics dispute, far from an indictment of him personally, amounts to a shared institutional breakdown. He portrayed the crisis as a misunderstanding -- the product of decent intentions gone awry, combined with vague and dubious bank rules.

"While I am prepared to acknowledge that we all acted in good faith at the time and there was perhaps some confusion and miscommunication among us, it is grossly unfair and wrong to suggest that I intended to mislead anyone, and I urge the committee to reject the allegation that I lack credibility," Wolfowitz wrote. "Rather than attempt to adjudicate between our conflicting interpretations of the events that occurred here, the board should recognize that this situation is the product of ambiguous bank rules and unclear governance mechanisms."

Oh... My... God... the burden of acting or not acting ethically lies squarely with paul wolfowitz and blaming anyone or anything else is a gigantic load of bullshit... to avoid any appearance of impropriety, shaha riza should have resigned and severed all formal business contact with both the bank and its president, her main squeeze, and if she wouldn't do that, it was up to wolfowitz to dismiss her... nothing else would have sufficed...

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Continuing to push Bushco spin, context-free journalism hits a new low

condi meets with syria, shuns iran, the u.s. anti-iran propaganda machine grinds on, and neither the washington post nor the associated press bother to reference relevant events that only happened a month ago...

wapo headline...

Projectile Bomb Attacks Hit Record High in Iraq
U.S. Says Weapons Are Made in Iran

a.p...
The United States accuses Iran of secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons as well as funneling money and weapons [to] the Shiite militias responsible for much of Iraq's violence.

but since both condi and manouchehr just so happened to be in sharm el-sheikh at the same time, do you think they could have seized the opportunity...? oh, no-o-o-o-oooo...

a.p...

"There was no direct meeting [between Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice] but they were in the same room and they were discussing the issues," said Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.

wapo...
Senior Bush administration officials said that she would not hold a widely anticipated meeting with Iran's foreign minister, but that the United States plans to hold direct talks with Tehran in the near future.

however, after the white house and congressional republicans united in a talking point assault on nancy pelosi's trip to syria a few weeks ago, we now have this...

wapo...

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met here Thursday with her Syrian counterpart in the first high-level talks between the two governments in more than two years.

[...]

Officials said the decision to end the U.S. isolation of Syria and Iran -- which the administration accuses of facilitating insurgent and militia violence in Iraq -- was made in Washington in the days leading up to the conference.

[...]

Acknowledging a change in policy, officials characterized it as a response to direct appeals from the Iraqi government and emphasized that it should be seen in the context of the conference.

and what's missing from both the a.p. and the wapo stories...? not only no mention of nancy pelosi, but, as i posted the other day in reference to a wapo op-ed, ALSO no mention of...
either the republican house member, david hobson, who traveled with pelosi or the republican house delegation, robert anderholt and frank wolf, who preceded her or the republican congressman, darrell issa, who followed her...

then, after ignoring the recent congressional efforts to reach out to syria, the wapo grabs one more opportunity to quote bush administration spin by including this pathetic state department attempt to add its OWN version of context by reaching all the fracking way back to the carter administration...
State Department spokesman Tom Casey said in Washington on Thursday that the last U.S.-Iran "direct high-level meeting . . . that was substantive" was when President Jimmy Carter visited Iran in December 1977, before the revolution.

and, to add insult to injury, after grabbing the state department's reference to carter, the wapo neglects to mention that none other than jimmy carter HIMSELF voiced support for pelosi's trip...
Former President Jimmy Carter expressed his support for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to Syria, rejecting White House criticism of the visit.

"I was glad that she went," Carter said Wednesday. "When there is a crisis, the best way to help resolve the crisis is to deal with the people who are instrumental in the problem."

ok, look... i'm just an old fart, sitting around, blogging away, and it took me all of 30 minutes to put this post together, a post which, imho, contains more context than the combined resources of the washington post and the associated press could muster... is it because i'm smarter...? is it because i did more research or have access to more information...? we all know the answers to those questions - HELL, NO...! so why is the context missing...? there can only be one reason... THEY DIDN'T WANT TO PUT IT IN... and why not...? now, THERE'S the big question... we could sit around and speculate all day on why, but the fact remains, it's not there, and anyone reading these stories is missing a huge amount of relevant information - and that is a complete disgrace...

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Thursday, May 03, 2007

Was DOJ #2, McNulty, Comey's successor, cut out as well?

following on my earlier post...
Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, told congressional investigators last week that he, too, was kept in the dark about the White House's role in the firings.

[...]

According to a congressional aide, McNulty said he attended a White House meeting with Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser, and other officials on March 5, the day before McNulty's deputy William Moschella was to testify to Congress about the firings.

White House officials told the Justice Department group that they needed to agree on clear reasons why each prosecutor was fired and explain them to Congress, McNulty said, according to the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the transcript of McNulty's interview hasn't been made public.

McNulty said that White House officials never revealed during the meeting that they'd been discussing plans to replace some prosecutors with Gonzales aides, the congressional aide said.

McNulty recalled feeling disturbed and concerned when he found out days later that the White House had been involved, the congressional aide said. McNulty considered the extent of White House coordination to be "extremely problematic."

this raises a few questions in josh's mind, as well it should...
Why do you need to 'agree on clear reasons why each prosecutor was fired' if the reasons were actually clear when you did the firing and if the reasons can be stated publicly? Think about [it]. Why do Rove and the other heavies from the White House need to tell these guys how important it is to get their stories straight?

yeah... why...?

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Are you listening, Bill O'Reilly? Religion incites violence.

yep, it does...



(thanks to nicole at crooks and liars...)

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Gravel/Paul 2008

oh, i'm sure i'm probably gonna get nailed for this one but after taking in both debates, i can't help myself... i'm out of control...

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Potential Padilla jurors question 9/11

now, THIS is VERY interesting...
Many potential jurors in the Jose Padilla terrorism-support case say they aren't sure who directed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks because they don't trust reporters or the federal government.

[...]

The doubts were noted by a significant portion of the more than 160 people who have been questioned individually since jury selection in the case began April 16.

i find that more than a little astounding, and actually quite encouraging... we ALL ought to be voicing those doubts...

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10/11/2007 - Sunset over Iraq

i like it and i don't know why the hell it hasn't been put forward already...
Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), said today that he would introduce legislation that would cause the 2002 Iraq war authorization to expire on October 11, 2007, the fifth anniversary of when it was passed.

Presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) joined Byrd in supporting the "sunset" legislation.

"President Bush marked the fourth anniversary of his announcement that 'major combat operations in Iraq have ended' by vetoing war funding legislation because he claimed that it limited his ability to prosecute a war unconditionally and indefinitely," said Byrd, in remarks delivered on the Senate floor. "He was wrong in 2002 when he sought authorization to go to war and he is wrong today."

Byrd proposed that October 11, 2007 would become the "expiration date for the 2002 authorization, and that the President seek a new authorization from the elected representatives of the people in Congress."

my vote is to have the authorization revoked immediately, but i also have to bow to the constraints of reality...

p.s. this is the first thing i've been able to applaud senator clinton for in a while...

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Maybe the DOJ's attempted obstruction of Goodling's testimony to Congress isn't going to work

goodling's attorney, john dowd, sent this to the internal doj offices that are conducting the investigation into monica goodling...
Dowd wanted them to know: Congress's approval of Goodling's immunity is "in no way subject to approval by the Department," he wrote, adding that "the Department may not delay the issuance of an order of immunity by instituting a parallel investigation."

dowd also expressed his strong displeasure over learning about the doj investigation from a doj press release...

yeah, that'd tend to piss me off too...


(thanks to TPMmuckraker...)

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Why Venezuela's pull-out of the IMF and The World Bank is a good thing

....

until i started working in the balkans with the emerging economies of former socialist countries, i confess to knowing little about the world bank and the international monetary fund and their enormous impact on their client countries... my learning curve was steep, let me tell you, and i was also stunned to realize just how little my fellow countrymen in the u.s. understood how these two enormously powerful institutions affect the global economy...

i posted earlier this week on ecuador's decision to expel their world bank country director, and have been following off and on venezuela's decision to pull out of both the world bank and the imf... i wasn't moved to make a post on venezuela until i read this on huffpo by mark weisbrot...

Venezuela's decision this week to pull out of the IMF and the World Bank will be seen in the United States as just another example of the ongoing feud between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the Bush Administration. But it is likely to be viewed differently in the rest of the world, and could have an impact on both institutions, whose power and legitimacy in developing countries has been waning steadily in recent years.

[...]

[T]he resentment against the IMF and World Bank, and demands for change, are worldwide. The scandal over Paul Wolfowitz's leadership at the World Bank, which is about to topple the Bank's most unwanted president ever, is just the tip of the iceberg. Last month the IMF's Independent Evaluation Office stated that since 1999, nearly three-quarters of aid to the poor countries of Sub-Saharan Africa are not being spent. Rather, at the IMF's request, it is being used to pay off debt and accumulate reserves. This is a terrible thing to do to some of the poorest countries in the world, who desperately need to spend this money on such pressing needs as the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Venezuela's decision is likely to strengthen the hand of developing nations within the IMF and World Bank who are demanding serious reforms. Right now the United States, with less than 5 percent of the world's population, has more votes in the IMF than countries representing the majority of the planet. The world's developing countries, which bear the brunt of these institutions' mistakes, have little or no voice in their decision-making. Venezuela's move - and any other countries that follow - will show the IMF and World Bank that the option of quitting these institutions altogether is a real one.

i am delighted that these two enormously powerful institutions are finally getting some exposure for their generations-long exploitation of the world's underdeveloped and emerging economies... it's about goddam time...

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"One of the finest federal prosecutors there is"

my view exactly...
Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey, long believed to be one of Patrick Fitzgerald's best friends, turned on his one-time colleague during a House hearing a few moments ago.

Asked about his reaction to a now-infamous listing of U.S. attorneys in which Fitzgerald was ranked mediocre, Comey replied: "I've never thought much of him."

One beat...two beats...Comey grinned and said, "No, I'm just kidding."

Acknowledging that Fitzgerald is a close friend, Comey described the Chicago prosecutor as "one of the finest federal prosecutors there is...maybe has ever been."

and we desperately need him to be back in the thick of what's happening now...

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Why was the former DOJ #2 cut out of attorney firings?

ya gotta ask yourself... why...?
Comey was completely ignorant of Kyle Sampson's list of U.S. attorneys to be removed that Sampson drafted at around the same time. [February 2005]

[...]

Sampson seems to have intentionally ignored all of Comey's recommendations as to who were the weak U.S. attorneys -- and kept Comey, the #2 at the DoJ, ignorant that Sampson and the White House were targeting certain U.S. attorneys with the goal of firing them.

why was it so important that comey be kept out of the loop...? i think we can all hazard a guess - because they didn't want him to know that rove was working with goodling and sampson to remove those who weren't regarded as "loyal bushies" and to replace them with those who were...

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"A free government should show its respect for freedom even when it has to take it away."

in an exceptionally insightful post by kagro x at daily kos (i have cited his insightful posts on numerous occasions) on the extraordinary claim of the bush administration position that, in order to safeguard the citizens of the united states from the horrors of their manufactured, endless war, the constitution and other annoyances like the rule of law, simply do not apply... he quotes harvard professor and claremont institute fellow, harvey mansfield, who, back in january 2006, offered this jaw-dropping statement...
Much present-day thinking puts civil liberties and the rule of law to the fore and forgets to consider emergencies when liberties are dangerous and law does not apply.

naturally, glenn greenwald weighs in...
[Mansfield's] article bears this headline: The Case for the Strong Executive -- Under some circumstances, the Rule of Law must yield to the need for Energy. And it is the most explicit argument I have seen yet for vesting in the President the power to override and ignore the rule of law in order to receive the glories of what Mansfield calls "one-man rule."

to provide a bit of context on professor mansfield, glenn offers this...
He has a career-long obsession with the glories of tyrannical power as embodied by Machiavelli's Prince, which is his model for how America ought to be governed. And last year, he wrote a book called Manliness in which "he urges men, and especially women, to understand and accept manliness" -- which means that "women are the weaker sex," "women's bodies are made to attract and to please men" and "now that women are equal, they should be able to accept being told that they aren't, quite." Publisher's Weekly called it a "juvenile screed."

well, mansfield's at it again in today's wsj, and greenwald responds...
I didn't think it was possible, but Mansfield, with today's article in The Wall St. Journal, actually goes even further in advocating pure lawlessness and tyranny than he did in that remarkable Weekly Standard screed. He begins by describing "the debate between the strong executive and its adversary, the rule of law." He then says: "In some circumstances I could see myself defending the rule of law," but "the rule of law has two defects, each of which suggests the need for one-man rule."

The rule of law has two defects, each of which suggests the need for one-man rule. That is what is on the Op-Ed page of The Wall St. Journal this morning. The article is then filled with one paragraph after the next paying homage to the need for a Great Leader who stomps on the rule of law when he chooses -- literally:

The best source of energy turns out to be the same as the best source of reason--one man. One man, or, to use Machiavelli's expression, uno solo, will be the greatest source of energy if he regards it as necessary to maintaining his own rule. Such a person will have the greatest incentive to be watchful, and to be both cruel and merciful in correct contrast and proportion. We are talking about Machiavelli's prince, the man whom in apparently unguarded moments he called a tyrant. . .

The president takes an oath "to execute the Office of President" of which only one function is to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." In addition, he is commander-in-chief of the military, makes treaties (with the Senate), and receives ambassadors. He has the power of pardon, a power with more than a whiff of prerogative for the sake of a public good that cannot be achieved, indeed that is endangered, by executing the laws. . . .

In quiet times the rule of law will come to the fore, and the executive can be weak. In stormy times, the rule of law may seem to require the prudence and force that law, or present law, cannot supply, and the executive must be strong.

In the course of explaining how the rule of law applies only in "quiet times," Mansfield also argues that "civil liberties are subject to circumstances," not inalienable, and that "in time of war the greater dangers may be to the majority from a minority." Thus, he explains -- in what might be my favorite sentence -- "A free government should show its respect for freedom even when it has to take it away."

this is the kind of thing that gives me cold chills and restless nights, but it's precisely the path that the bush administration is on and has been on since the coup d'etat was blessed by the 12 december 2000 scotus decision... one of the reasons i like greenwald is that he, unlike so many others, recognizes just how critical is the constitutional crisis we are facing in this country...
The real point is that Mansfield's mindset is the mindset of the Bush movement, of the right-wing extremists who have taken over the Republican Party and governed our country completely outside of the rule of law for the last six years. Mansfield makes these arguments more honestly and more explicitly, but there is nothing unusual or uncommon about him. He is simply expounding the belief in tyrannical lawlessness on which the Bush movement (soon to be led by someone else, but otherwise unchanged) is fundamentally based.

and, like me, he agonizes over the fact that it's not seen by our media who should be screaming it from the rooftops...
Much of the intense dissatisfaction I have with the American media arises out of the fact that these extraordinary developments -- the dominant political movement advocating lawlessness and tyranny out in the open in The Wall St. Journal and Weekly Standard -- receive almost no attention.

While the Bush administration expressly adopts these theories to detain American citizens without charges, engage in domestic surveillance on Americans in clear violation of the laws we enacted to limit that power, and asserts a general right to disregard laws which interfere with the President's will, our media still barely discusses those issues.

unless and until bush, cheney and their minions are removed, we will continue down this same path until 20 january 2009... equally discomfiting is the fact that, if nothing is done between now and then, the next president will be sworn in with all of this crap still in place...

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Will Congress get to hear from Monica?

i didn't find out who suggested the special prosecutor yet but i'm sure i'll run across it again eventually... meanwhile, apropos of my previous post, here's josh's take...
[T]he fact that the DOJ is investigating Goodling could put a roadblock in the way of the investigating committees' efforts to give her immunity and force her to testify on Capitol Hill. So Goodling's new alleged wrongdoing could have the perverse effect of preventing her from being forced to go up to Capitol Hill and reveal what she knows about what happened in the Purge.

Go figure.

yeah, go figure...

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"Democracies have an absolute responsibility" to insure freedom of the press



when we think of restrictions on freedom of the press, we automatically think of countries like russia, cuba, egypt and pakistan... when we think of journalists being targeted for their work, we think of places like gaza, the congo and iraq... while it's always easier to point the finger elsewhere, we need to look in the mirror and take to heart the following...
Dear Reader,

Major terrorist attacks and threats against countries world-wide, particularly democracies, in recent years have led to the widespread tightening of security and surveillance measures.

The objective of these measures is laudable and compelling – the protection of citizens against threats to life and property. There is, however, a legitimate and growing concern that in too many instances such measures, whether old or newly introduced, are being used to stifle debate and the free flow of information about political decisions, or that they are being implemented with too little concern for the overriding necessity to protect individual liberties and, notably, freedom of the press.

Anti-terrorism and official secrets laws, criminalisation of speech judged to justify terrorism, criminal prosecution of journalists for disclosing classified information, surveillance of communications without judicial authorisation, restrictions on access to government data and stricter security classifications, all these measures can severely erode the capacity of journalists to investigate and report accurately and critically, and thus the ability of the press to inform.

Balancing the sometimes conflicting interests of security and freedom might indeed be difficult, but democracies have an absolute responsibility to use a rigorous set of standards to judge whether curbs on freedom can be justified by security concerns and should set them against the rights protected in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which guarantees freedom 'to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers'.

This is the clear message we need to impress on governments and their agencies on World Press Freedom Day.

Timothy Balding
Chief Executive Officer
World Association of Newspapers

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Who ya gonna trust? DOJ to investigate whether or not it's politicized.

in an effort, no doubt, to obstruct the house and senate investigations...
The Justice Department has begun an internal investigation into whether a former senior adviser to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales improperly tried to fill vacancies for career prosecutors at the agency with Republicans loyal to the Bush administration, department officials said Wednesday.

The inquiry focuses on whether the former adviser, Monica Goodling, sought to determine the political affiliations of job applicants before they were hired as prosecutors — potentially a violation of civil service laws and a break with a tradition of nonpartisanship in the career ranks at the Justice Department.

The inquiry by the department’s inspector general and the Office of Professional Responsibility was announced on a day in which the House and Senate Judiciary Committees advanced their broader investigations of issues related to last year’s dismissals of eight United States attorneys.

somebody, i can't remember who, suggested yesterday that a special prosecutor might be the appropriate solution, but also pointed out the problem of "who appoints" that special prosecutor... when the entire operation is full of loyal bushies and republican party operatives tasked to run the government as the private fiefdom of george, dick and karl, who ya gonna trust...?

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The 'fair" Iraq oil law - why the hell can't we get the TRUTH out of our media?

check this from today's nyt...
Iraqi Blocs Opposed to Draft Oil Bill

Kurdish and Sunni Arab officials are concerned over a draft
of a bill establishing a framework for the fair
distribution of oil revenues
.


[...]

The draft law, which establishes a framework for the distribution of oil revenues, was approved by the Iraqi cabinet in late February after months of negotiations. The White House was hoping for quick passage to lay the groundwork for a political settlement among the country’s ethnic and sectarian factions.

[...]

The draft oil law would allow regions to enter into production-sharing agreements with foreign companies, which some Iraqis and critics of the Bush administration say could lead to foreigners reaping too much of the country’s oil wealth.

Iraqi officials say all contracts will be subjected to a fair bidding process, but there are fears that American companies could be favored
.

here's the REAL STORY about iraq's oil law, contained in a post i made back in january... read it carefully and then decide if "fair distribution of oil revenues" comes within a country mile of being the truth...


it's a heckuva deal when you have the entire might of the taxpayer-supported united states goverment ready and willing to sacrifice people's lives in order to increase your opportunities for expanding business and increasing profits... you don't have to beat down or buy out the competition, you don't have to go through the tediousness of exploration and test drilling, you don't have a huge investment in new infrastructure, the economy is already in ruins so labor costs are laughably low... what's NOT to like...?
"Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days," Danny Fortson, Andrew Murray-Watson and Tim Webb report in the cover story [Britain's The Independent on Sunday].

According to the paper, the law "would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972."

"Supporters say the provision allowing oil companies to take up to 75 per cent of the profits will last until they have recouped initial drilling costs," the article continues. "After that, they would collect about 20 per cent of all profits, according to industry sources in Iraq. But that is twice the industry average for such deals."

reading things like this, i just get this incredible feeling of pride in my country... is the u.s. a great place, or what...?

then i posted this back in february...
more on iraq's oil law, the reason we went into iraq in the first place... of course, like everything else these days, it comes with the customary dose of cognitive dissonance...

inter press service news agency...

[The new oil law] specifies that up to two-thirds of Iraq's known reserves would be developed by multinationals, under contracts lasting for 15 to 20 years.

This policy would represent a u-turn for Iraq's oil industry, which has been in the public sector for more than three decades, and would break from normal practice in the Middle East.

According to local labour leaders, transferring ownership to the foreign companies would give a further pretext to continue the U.S. occupation on the grounds that those companies will need protection.

[...]

On Feb. 8, the labour unions sent a letter in Arabic to Iraqi President Jalal Talbani urging him to reconsider this kind of agreement.

"Production-sharing agreements are a relic of the 1960s," said the letter, seen by IPS. "They will re-imprison the Iraqi economy and impinge on Iraq's sovereignty since they only preserve the interests of foreign companies. We warn against falling into this trap."

[...]

The first draft was seen only by the committee of the Iraqi technocrat who penned it, nine international oil companies, the British and the U.S. governments and the International Monetary Fund. The Iraqi parliament will get its first glimpse next week.

[...]

There's no other country in the Middle East with the kind of oil reserves that Iraq has that would consider signing a production-sharing agreement," [Ewa Jasiewicz, a researcher at PLATFORM, a British human rights and environmental group that monitors the oil industry] said. "It's a form of privatisation and that's why those countries haven't signed these because it's not in their interests."

GOD-ROTTEN-DAMMIT... I'M SICK AND TIRED OF GETTING ONLY A TINY PART OF THE STORY... WHERE'S THE CONTEXT...? WHERE'S THE TRUTH...?

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Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Article II and Amendment 4 of the U.S. Constitution vs. the extraordinary claims of George Bush

are we clear now on why bush nominated mcconnell to replace negroponte...?
Senior Bush administration officials said Tuesday that they believe the president still has the constitutional authority to continue his domestic wiretapping program without first seeking court approval.

"Senior U.S. administration officials have told the U.S. Congress that they could not promise that the Bush administration would fulfill its January pledge to continue to seek warrants from a secret court for a domestic wiretapping program," reports the International Herald Tribune.

In January, the administration agreed to seek court-approved warrants for all wiretaps of US citizens and other living inside the US.

But during a Tuesday hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence, told Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI), that he could not promise that Bush would always seek warrants for domestic wiretaps.

"Sir, the president's authority under Article II is in the Constitution," McConnell said. "So if the president chose to exercise Article II authority, that would be the president's call."

what mr. mcconnell is saying, in effect, is that the president has chosen to interpret the united states constitution in a manner that suits his purposes... we are way, way past due to have this constitutional interpretation put to the test... the sooner we resolve this constitutional question and face up to the constitutional crisis our country has been experiencing since the coup d'etat was installed by the 12 december 2000 scotus decision, the sooner we can get on with our lives...
The United States Constitution

Article. II. - The Executive Branch

Section 1 - The President

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice-President chosen for the same Term, be elected...

[...]

Section 2 - Civilian Power over Military, Cabinet, Pardon Power, Appointments

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

article II does not make mention of the president's authority to undertake warrantless domestic spying activities... however, amendment 4 to the constitution definitely does, and not in its favor...
Amendment 4 - Search and Seizure. Ratified 12/15/1791.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

can we please get this settled...? like tomorrow...?

meanwhile, let's not forget article II, section 4...

Section 4 - Disqualification

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

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Hey... A car-bombing or two a week...? No problem...

great jumping jehoshaphat...
"Either we'll succeed, or we won't succeed," he said. "And the definition of success as I described is sectarian violence down. Success is not, no violence."

Bush then compared Iraq to the United States saying that there were parts of the US with "a certain level of violence," but that "people feel comfortable about living their daily lives" in those areas. That level of violence, said Bush, is what the US is aiming to achieve in Iraq.

i remember just the other night, we were all sitting around the dinner table, and talking about how a couple of break-ins or even a murder on our street every so often wouldn't be too bad... now, every DAY might be a problem...

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This is the giant bed they all sleep in

i don't often laugh out loud, but this got me going...

jon stewart on paul wolfowitz' attorney. robert bennett...

Robert Bennett who represented Bill Clinton in the Lewinsky case, and is the brother of Bill Bennett, former drug czar under George H.W. Bush, father of President George W. Bush, who appointed Wolfowitz to run the World Bank, and this is the giant bed they all sleep in.




(click here to view the clip)

(thanks to raw story...)

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Patrick Leahy as Lieutenant Columbo



from TPMmuckraker...
Tired of waiting for a response, Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT) issued a subpoena for any of Karl Rove's emails in the Justice Department's possession that might be relevant to the U.S. attorney firings. That includes emails sent from Rove's White House account (which apparently doesn't get much use) and emails from his account issued by the Republican National Committee.

now that we know that gonzo delegated away his hiring and firing authority, i'm sure leahy knows who exercised it, and it certainly wasn't sampson and goodling... when one ostensibly gives away one's power to relatively inexperienced staff political operatives to select highly experienced professionals, serious questions naturally arise... there seems no doubt that the REAL deciders were in the white house... this whole thing has smelled of karl rove from the get-go and, unless and until karl gets waterboarded into divulging what he knows, leahy's just going to have to continue with his peter falk, columbo routine...

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No override

this...
By a vote of 222-203, U.S. House fails to overturn Bush’s veto of Iraq bill.

couldn't eradicate this...



George Bush's signature vetoing the Iraq bill

give the intensity of my negative feelings toward george bush, imagine my surprise when this arrived in the mail a few days ago...



the very first time i've received a presidential award, and it has to be from HIM... < sigh > at least now i have my very own copy of his signature... big whoop...

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Rats that leave the sinking ship first are usually the best swimmers

sure enough, there's more... add dina habib powell to zoellick, tobias, zelikow, krasner, bolton, joseph, and lowenkron...

damn...! they can't get away from condi fast enough... you better not be standing near the door, you'll get trampled in the rush...

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice lost yet another senior aide on Wednesday when Dina Habib Powell, the highest-ranking Arab-American in the US government, announced her resignation to join a Wall Street investment bank.

The departure of Powell, key architect of a Rice initiative to improve the United States' image abroad, was the third senior diplomat to quit in the past five days and the sixth so far this year -- an exodus that is expected to continue in the final 20 months of the Bush administration.

as i posted on monday, here's what they would LIKE you to think...
"It's only natural as you get towards the end of the second term that people are going to be moving on," [a senior State Department official] said. "The secretary understands."

it's a proven fact... the rats that leave the sinking ship first are usually the best swimmers...

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"The Administration never saw an error in their ways" - HAHAHAHAHA...!

when have they EVER seen an error in their ways...? why in god's name would we think otherwise...? thinking otherwise is for fools, and if there is one thing the bush administration is very good at, it's making us all look like fools...
"Last September when the president announced that he was moving detainees from secret CIA prisons to Guantanamo, he left the distinct impression that his Administration was discontinuing their secret prison program," Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) said in a statement sent to RAW STORY. "Unfortunately, we learned this past weekend that the Administration never saw an error in their ways and that secret CIA prisons are still operating outside the law and outside the public eye."

yep, they're still there, humming along, 24/7, and i imagine the rendition flights that serve them are still up and running as well...



(click on image to enlarge)

Alleged pick-up points and destinations
of secret prisoner transfer flights

Source: Council of Europe report on alleged US secret prisons inside Europe [PDF]

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The escalation escalates, the war grinds on, and nothing is being accomplished anywhere

mission impossible over there...
Nearly 4,000 American soldiers have arrived in the capital to strengthen the 12-week crackdown aimed at quelling sectarian violence, the U.S. military said Wednesday, as bombings and shootings killed 12 people across the country.

mission impossible over here...
President Bush meets today with Democrats and Republicans from Congress to work on an Iraq war funding measure both sides can accept.

there is nothing, repeat NOTHING, that "both sides can accept..." there is only one option according to george and he's made that perfectly, abundantly, crystal clear... why does the media continue to pretend that it's otherwise...? why would ANYBODY continue to pretend that it's otherwise...? it's NEVER been otherwise for more than SIX BLOODY GODDAM YEARS, and it's not going to be otherwise now...

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