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And, yes, I DO take it personally: 05/13/2007 - 05/20/2007
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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 19, 2007

Bush Bashing Georgia Style

As my first contribution, I will piss off my fellow Repubs by saying that Old Jimmy gets better with age.

Check out the following article.


For all his faults, Jimmy Carter is probably the most knowledgeable and effective US expert on the Middle East. They should send him into the area to perform damage control as soon as we give the NeoCons the boot.

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Rick Hasen hands Steve Benen THE voter suppression, oops, voter fraud picture

it doesn't get much clearer than this...
Among Republicans it is an "article of religious faith that voter fraud is causing us to lose elections," [Royal Masset, the former political director of the Republican Party of Texas] said. He doesn't agree with that, but does believe that requiring photo IDs could cause enough of a dropoff in legitimate Democratic voting to add 3 percent to the Republican vote.

And that, my friends, is what the "voter fraud" game is all about.
-- Steve Benen

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Tick by painful tick, George inches closer to the drain

as does everything and everybody attached to him...
The President’s Job Approval has fallen to the lowest level ever recorded by Rasmussen Reports. Just 34% of American adults now Approve of the way that George W. Bush is performing his duties as President.



why is this man still our president...? why are 34% of us still so terribly deluded...?

(thanks to atrios...)

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The PNAC cheerleaders for death and destruction

i think it's important to keep track of those whose primary professional and career efforts have involved leading their country down a certain ideological path... it's clear from booman's much-appreciated research on these folks, namely the signatories to the pnac statement of principles, real accountability for the horrors they've been the cheerleaders for has yet to be felt...
  • Dick Cheney- Vice-President of the United States.
  • Midge Decter- When she isn't partying with Conrad Black she is busy being the wife of Norman Podhoretz and mother of John Podhoretz.
  • Frank Gaffney- Doing weird shit as Center for Security Policy president.
  • Donald Kagan- Sterling Professor of Classics and History at Yale University. His son, Fred, is the author of The Surge.
  • Zalmay Khalilzad- U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. He has already served as ambassador to Afghanistan and to Iraq.
  • I. Lewis Libby- awaiting sentencing for perjury, making false statements, and obstruction of justice.
  • Peter W. Rodman- recently left as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs to take a job at the Brookings Institute.
  • Stephen P. Rosen- the Beton Michael Kaneb Professor of National Security and Military Affairs at Harvard University.
  • Henry S. Rowen- appointed on February 12, 2004, by President George W. Bush to be one of the "final two members of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction." He's also a member of the Department of Defense's Defense Policy Board.
  • Donald Rumsfeld- the less said the better. He was fired as Secretary of Defense.
  • Paul Wolfowitz- shit-canned from the World Bank.

in a just world, which is, hopefully, somewhere around the corner, they will be confronted with the consequences of their beliefs and the actions they took to make them reality...

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A supremely incurious Supreme Court Justice

well, well, this is a pretty staggering revelation...
The last time [United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas] asked a question in court “was Feb. 22, 2006, in a death penalty case out of South Carolina.”

so's this...
A recent tally by McClatchy Newspapers underscored this point: Thomas has spoken 281 words since court transcripts began identifying justices by name in October 2004. By contrast, Thomas' neighbor on the bench, Justice Stephen Breyer, has uttered nearly 35,000 words since January.

(thanks to think progress...)

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NYT: Mr. Bush’s warm embrace is really a payoff to yes-men

the nyt nails it, to. the. wall...
Mr. Bush protects his embattled advisers because they are doing precisely what he told them to do.

[...]

The more of these White House psychodramas we get to witness, the more obvious it is that Mr. Bush’s warm embrace is really a payoff to yes-men who didn’t challenge his orders or question ideology-driven policies.

yeah, ok... why is george bush still president and when are you, nyt, going to take the next logical step and call for his impeachment or, better yet, his resignation...? hmmmm...?

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"The president has become belatedly pragmatic?" What is he smoking?

it must be some pretty powerful shit to be able to claim that george w. bush has "come around..."
A New Reality in Washington, but Can It Last?

[...]

What is clear is that both Mr. Bush and his rivals are shying from the path of confrontation. Democrats, for the most part, are refraining from muscle-flexing, showers of subpoenas and other displays of new clout. And a White House hungry for legislative victories is working hard to negotiate a vastly changed political landscape.

“The president has become belatedly pragmatic,” said Ross Baker, an expert in presidential-Congressional relations at Rutgers University. “I think it took a while for him to recognize that the ground rules have changed, but he seems finally to have come around to the realization that he’s not working with a docile Congress of his own party, but with people who really have decided that they are going to challenge him.”

i can see it's time once again to trot out the warning label that bushco prominently affixed to its post-2006 election plans last october...
In fact, when it comes to deploying its Executive power, which is dear to Bush's understanding of the presidency, the President's team has been planning for what one strategist describes as "a cataclysmic fight to the death" over the balance between Congress and the White House if confronted with congressional subpoenas it deems inappropriate. The strategist says the Bush team is "going to assert that power, and they're going to fight it all the way to the Supreme Court on every issue, every time, no compromise, no discussion, no negotiation."

what exactly has george bush done, mr. baker and ms. stolberg (sheryl gay stolberg, the author of the excerpted nyt article), to lead you to think george bush is behaving according to a "new reality...?" please, it's a serious question... he kissed off the dems' attempt to compromise on the war funding bill, he's retaining a proven liar as attorney general, he refused to answer a legitimate and very important question about his role in the "wednesday night ambush," he's stonewalling subpoenas, he's withholding documents and emails, he's continuing to pursue a detainee interrogation policy based on torture techniques, he's sanctioning military kangaroo courts and attempting to block detainees from access to legal counsel... great god almighty...! don't feed me the absolute, unadulterated crap that the president has suddenly seen the light and decided to become pragmatic just because there's been highly questionable "bipartisan" agreements reached on immigration and trade... if you can't recognize bullshit when it's being poured over your heads, that's YOUR problem, but don't try to get me to go along for the ride...

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Saturday philosophizin'

an interesting article in today's alternet, written by chris hedges at truthdig...
Chris Hedges is the former Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times and the author of "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning."

The relentless drive against abortion by the Christian right ... has nothing to do with the protection of life. It is, rather, a cover for a wider and more pernicious assault against the ability of women to control their own bodies, the use of contraception and sexual pleasure.

[...]

The leaders of this movement understand that the only emotion that cannot be subsumed into communal life, which they seek to dominate and control, is love. They fear the power of love, especially when magnified and expressed through tender, sexual relationships, which remove couples from their control. Sex, when not a utilitarian form of procreation, is dangerous.

They seek to fashion a world where good and evil are clearly defined and upheld by the nation's judicial system. The battle against abortion is a battle to build a society where pleasure and freedom, where the capacity of the individual and especially women to make choices, and indeed even love itself, are banished. And this is why pro-life groups oppose contraception -- even for those who are married. The fight against abortion is the facade for a wider fight against the right of an individual in a democracy.

you probably figured i picked this because i have a few thoughts of my own... why, whatever gave you THAT idea...?

first of all, i do not agree with this statement...

"The leaders of this movement understand that the only emotion that cannot be subsumed into communal life, which they seek to dominate and control, is love."

while i agree that love, "expressed through tender, sexual relationships" is a good thing, to be promoted, cherished and celebrated, not excoriated, love, in all its forms, directly or indirectly, is also most definitely part of communal life... in fact, rather than being something that "cannot be subsumed" in communal life, love subsumes EVERYTHING as the one principle that lies above all else, and, even though the sexual component of love is commonly conducted in private (at least in our current society), love can and should add immeasurably to the richness and quality of that communal life...

now, of course, i understand that when hedges refers to "communal life," he is referring to it as defined by the leaders of the extremist versions of fundamentalist christianity, a definition no different from that subscribed to by leaders of other extreme versions of religious fundamentalism... these leaders seek absolute authority and control over the lives of others, whether or not they subscribe to the tenets of their creed... in fact, one of the main tenets of organized religion in general requires that followers abdicate their personal authority to that of an external authority, usually an appointed or anointed individual, who either serves as the interpreter of absolute truth via the bible or other source, or, in more extreme cases, as the source him- or herself... (david koresh comes to mind...)

hedges again...

[T]heir own experiences ... have led them to build a movement that creates an external rigidity to cope with the chaos of human existence, a chaos that overwhelmed them. They do not trust their own urges, their capacity for self-restraint or judgment.

authentic communal life based on love, imho, recognizes that individuals must look within for truth, encourages that exploration, has expectations that it will occur, and provides the guidance and support necessary for it to proceed naturally in the course of an individual's process of growing and maturing... the "vision quest" of the native americans is a perfect example of how honoring an individual's truth can be built in to the fabric of a community... it's even evident in the bible with the story of john the baptist's sojourn in the desert and christ's journeys into the depths of his own soul...

especially interesting to me is that the expressed purpose of those journeys is to seek truth, and that truth, as so clearly stated by christ himself in the gospels, leads to nothing more or less than love... by contrast, what organized religions have so diligently pursued is to convince their followers that inner truth is not to be trusted, that only an external, "sanctioned" authority can be relied on as the source of truth... most organized religions are, in fact, primarily instruments of control, with the power of that control resting in the hands of a few who guard it jealously and insure that only those who share the same beliefs are admitted to the inner circle...

the inner journey, on the other hand, if conducted with the seriousness and the sense of the sacred that it deserves, will lead to the truth, and the truth will lead, inevitably, to love... with the insights gained by that inner journey as a basis, the individual can then partake in communal life as a full contributor, bringing the wisdom and love uniquely expressed out of having encountered his or her own truth... the purpose of REAL religious leaders is to help guide us on that journey and to recognize that such a journey is an essential part of an individual's life, which, if subjected to external control, loses its value entirely...

on a final note, i think it's abundantly clear that social control based on the requirement that individuals abdicate their personal truth in favor of an external, sanctioned authority is hardly unique to religions... repressive, authoritarian governments of every stripe follow precisely the same path, and even the high priests of our scientific community, who worship at the altar of scientific method, observation, measurement, and objectivity, often demand total obeisance from their followers...

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Friday, May 18, 2007

The Krug-man: The more un-American the policy, the more the Republican base supports it

i have to confess, when i read about the audience erupting in loud applause and cheers when the trolls passing themselves off as republican presidential candidates came out in support of torture at the repub debate the other night, i was stunned... aren't there any REAL republicans out there...? well, i know of ONE, jim, who comments regularly on this blog, but, i mean, HELLO...!?!?! did they screen the audience at the debate to see who could demonstrate sufficient bloodlust...? was there a testosterone and steriod test at the door...? evidently paul krugman had some thoughts of his own (nyt select, subscription required)...
What we need to realize is that the infamous "Bush bubble," the administration's no-reality zone, extends a long way beyond the White House. Millions of Americans believe that patriotic torturers are keeping us safe, that there's a vast Islamic axis of evil, that victory in Iraq is just around the corner, that Bush appointees are doing a heckuva job -- and that news reports contradicting these beliefs reflect liberal media bias.

krugman may be right, but, if so, i'm going to opt for staying in denial... i choose to believe that those in the debate audience were truly NOT representative of the majority of americans who i believe are decent, compassionate, and caring individuals, individuals who hold firmly to our cherished notions of human rights, human dignity, justice, due process, and all of the rights and obligations set forth in the u.s. constitution... if bush can live in his bubble, i can live in mine...

(thanks to raw story...)

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Flying down to Argentina? Read this first.





Aeropuerto Internacional Ezeiza, Buenos Aires

back in march, i posted on argentina's broken air traffic control system and the problems they were having as a result of faulty radar systems at both buenos aires airports... as a regular flier in and out of one of them, ezeiza, the country's biggest international airport, and as a former airline employee, i take more than a casual interest in aviation issues, particularly when they concern my safety...

this was from that march post...

Pilots at Argentina's largest domestic airline, Austral, ended a short strike late on Thursday over a faulty radar system after the government guaranteed the safety of air traffic control.

The unionized pilots had said the radar system was not showing the exact coordinates of planes landing at or leaving the country's two biggest airports, both in the Buenos Aires area -- a claim disputed by [Defense Minister Nilda Garre].

ok, so i flew out of ezeiza back to the u.s. one month and four days ago... today, i read this...
Two months after a bolt of lightning wrecked the radar at Argentina's main international airport, pilots and air-traffic controllers say the government response has been too slow and passenger safety is at risk.

One pilots' association has reported several near-misses, although another group of pilots and government officials accuse it of alarmism.

"The (defense) ministry... has tried to cover up all the problems that exist," said Jorge Perez Tamayo, president of Argentina's Association of Airline Pilots (APLA).

Earlier this week, an international body representing air-traffic controllers also criticized the government for its slow response since the March 1 lightning strike.

i love that line about "alarmism..." the following quote is even better...
"It causes a feeling of insecurity and risk, both for Argentine passengers and foreigners, who aren't used to these things like we are," said Ana Giese, a Buenos Aires student.

oh, yeah, indeed... the typical response when anybody, argentino or foreigner, gets frustrated with the lackadaisical way things are dealt with in argentina: "hey...! remember...! you're in ARGENTINA...!"

i actually remember the storm that caused the problem... it was fierce and i knew it had caused air traffic control problems, but i was unaware it had completely knocked out the ezeiza air traffic control radar... im also astounded that, two months later, it's still a problem... and i fly back the end of july... < sigh >

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OMG, CNN opinion contributor dares to agree with Ron Paul and invite Giuliani's wrath

son of a gun...! ron paul's gone and convinced somebody that he might have a point...
Ron Paul's assertion in this week's Republican presidential debate that American foreign policy in the Middle East invited the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 should not be dismissed, lest Americans continue to ignore the lessons of history, a CNN contributor wrote in an opinion piece Friday on the network's Web site.

"As Americans, we believe in forgiving and forgetting, and are terrible at understanding how history affects us today," wrote Roland S. Martin, who also hosts a talk show in Chicago. "We are arrogant in not recognizing that when we benefit, someone else may suffer. That will lead to resentment and anger, and if suppressed, will boil over one day."

cue rudy... rudy...? RUDY...?? c'mon, RUDY...! let's hear it...

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Oh, and btw, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out

absolutely mind-boggling arrogance and total denial...
A day after resigning as World Bank President, Paul Wolfowitz said “his biggest task before leaving on June 30 was to meet with staff.” An anonymous employee responded: “Please just leave. You can take all your loyal employees with you. Who are you kidding?”

these bushco characters are all out of the same mold, which looks suspiciously like dry drunks who never really worked their programs...

(thanks to think progress...)

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Oh, those wascally Democwats and their bottomless bag of twicks

uh, 'scuse me, mr. fratto, who exactly IS it that still supports gonzales...?
Q Senators Schumer and Feinstein are going to introduce a no confidence resolution for Attorney General Gonzales next week, the Senate is going to vote on this. You have a sixth Republican, Norm Coleman, come out and say the Attorney General should resign. Doesn't this all add up to the weight that's dragging him down? And how can he be effective with all --

MR. FRATTO: I think it adds up to the bottomless bag of tricks that Democrats in the Senate would like to pull out on a weekly basis, regarding the Attorney General. The Attorney General has the full confidence of the President. He's focused on the mission of the Department of Justice, which is to keep Americans safe, protect us from domestic terrorism threats, child predators. We know that this has been a difficult period, dealing with the discussion and questions having to do with the U.S. attorneys. But the Attorney General is sticking to his job. We feel he's been a very strong Attorney General, and we continue to support him.

Q You addressed the Democratic part of that question. You didn't say anything about the six Republicans. And you also had Specter saying that he predicts that he'll resign -- Gonzales will resign, saying that he's unable to perform his duties. What about the Republicans?

MR. FRATTO: We understand that there are senators who have different views.

Q I'm talking about the Republicans.

MR. FRATTO: Talking about senators of both parties, and we understand that they have concerns and questions. We think that the Attorney General has been honest and forthright in addressing those questions; and as I said earlier, most importantly, has the full confidence of the President.

Jim.

Q But, Tony, when you say he has the full confidence of the President, and when you say you feel he's been a strong Attorney General, doesn't this erode the President's credibility when it seems like the entire rest of the political universe is on the other side of that?

MR. FRATTO: No, I don't think that's where everyone is. Look --

Q How is -- who's on his side?

MR. FRATTO: What we are focusing on, what we think the Attorney General is focusing on is the mission of the Department of Justice. I haven't heard anyone say that the Department of Justice has been weak in enforcing child predator laws. I haven't heard anyone say that the Department of Justice has been anything short of strong and aggressive in protecting America from domestic terrorism threats. Those are the things that we are focusing on, and those things have happened under this Attorney General's leadership.

if gonzo is good enough for george, he's good enough for me...

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26, no, make that 30 U.S. Attorneys

the wapo offers a list of the 26 and a timeline...



(click on image or here to see full-size graphic)

but TPMmuckraker reports that mcclatchy has now identified 4 more, for a total of 30 (out of 93)...

Some targets who ultimately weren't fired were Christopher J. Christie in New Jersey, whose office subpoenaed Democratic Senator Robert Menendez just before the November 2006 elections; Mary Beth Buchanan in Pittsburgh, Pa., who had worked for the Justice Department in Washington; and Dunn Lampton in Mississippi, who pursued a high-profile prosecution of a powerful Democratic donor and several Democratic judges on bribery changes.

why is gonzales still attorney general...? why is bush still president...?

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Oh, please, please, WATCH this, while I wipe tears of laughter from my eyes

oh. my.



anything i could add would be entirely superfluous...

(thanks SO much to think progress...)

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Argentina's commuter rail privatization woes provoke riot



this is a shame for several reasons... one, that lousy train service should be more prevalent in the "lower income" districts of the city... two, that train service gets to the point where commuters riot... three, that the lovely re-hab job to estación constitución was victimized in the process... and four, it's yet another failure of privatization...



Estación Constitución
Commuters, enraged by constant delays in train service to Buenos Aires’ mostly lower-income southern suburbs set fire on Tuesday evening to parts of Buenos Aires City’s Constitución station, looted nearby shops and clashed with riot police, who responded with rubber bullets and teargas.

Passenger frustrations came to a head after service was interrupted at the evening rush hour by a train that broke down on a track just outside the station, blocking other trains from leaving the station that serves some 300,000 commuters daily.

Buenos Aires area commuter railway lines were privatized in the 1990s during Menem’s tenure, and passengers for years have complained about the failure of the new operators to provide timely service on overcrowded routes.

there's an ugly little secret that isn't mentioned in the article... as a buenos aires commuter rail user, i've had the opportunity to make a few observations...

as the article notes, estación constitución primarily serves the "lower income southern suburbs..." estación retiro, on the other side of downtown, serves quite a few of the other outlying districts, including the wealthy northern suburbs... the tigre line, the one i use, is the line that serves those wealthier 'burbs... (self-disclosure: i am FAR from wealthy nor would i even necessarily put myself in the category of modest means... i am fortunate to have a nice, simple little place in a quiet, treed neighborhood that just so happens to be on the tigre line...)

here's the dirty secret... the tigre line is the only commuter rail line that offers air-conditioned cars... another recent feature on the line is the installation of overhead flat-panel video screens that show short features like movie reviews, trivia quizzes, photo features of argentina attractions, etc., plus advertising (of course)... none of this is offered on the other lines operating out of retiro...

now let's move to estación constitución... a number of the cars on the lines operating out of constitución don't even have DOORS and quite a few more don't have GLASS in the windows... that alone might provoke me to riotous behavior...

meanwhile, the tigre line moves on...




A two-level car planned for Linea Tigre
(Trenes de Buenos Aires)

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Day #3 that the WaPo smells the coffee, kinda sorta

i do believe a new term has entered the lexicon...

WEDNESDAY NIGHT AMBUSH

day 1, the wapo is simply SHOCKED about comey's testimony...

day 2, they're calling láffaire gonzo a cover-up...

and, now, day 3, they are excoriating bush for trying to hide behind "the national security curtain"...

It doesn't much matter whether President Bush was the one who phoned Attorney General John D. Ashcroft's hospital room before the Wednesday Night Ambush in 2004. It matters enormously, however, whether the president was willing to have his White House aides try to strong-arm the gravely ill attorney general into overruling the Justice Department's legal views. It matters enormously whether the president, once that mission failed, was willing nonetheless to proceed with a program whose legality had been called into question by the Justice Department. That is why Mr. Bush's response to questions about the program yesterday was so inadequate.

there's one statement in the op-ed, however, that is profoundly disturbing...
Under the Constitution, the president has the final authority in the executive branch to say what the law is. But as a matter of presidential practice, this is breathtaking.

is it just me, or is that an endorsement of the bogus unitary executive, signing statement scam, wartime powers of the commander in chief under article II of the constitution bullshit that bush has been slinging at us for years...?

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Wolfie "said all the right things. None of which he lived up to."

what an epitaph...
...an arrogant intellectual who cared more about his ideas and image than about the institution or its customers.

and i REALLY wish someone with some investigative reporter talent would follow up on this...
Wolfowitz's emphasis on increasing the World Bank footprint in Iraq was a contentious subject with staff members who argued that Iraq was dangerous and, because of its oil reserves, too rich for lending.

WHY was he pushing this...? i can only conclude that, as at least one commenter has pointed out, world bank loans to iraq would be focused on rehabilitating its oil industry infrastructure, thus allowing the global oil giants to avoid paying for it themselves, and then, with loan terms written to require payback from oil revenues (part of the reason ecuador recently kicked out its world bank rep and negated its loan agreement), iraq would be totally in western hands, assuming of course the oil law eventually passed...

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Thursday, May 17, 2007

Ok, I've put it off this recommendation long enough. Watch "America: Freedom to Fascism"

aaron russo's well-done, very powerful movie... whatever your political persuasion, it's worth your time... you may or may not agree, but it's still something you should see...



(The above is Aaron Russo's "Director's Authorized Version.")

from the movie...

Stop Being Good Democrats.

Stop Being Good Republicans.

Start Being Good Americans.

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CIA Inspector General Report on 9/11

this should have been done a long time ago... this kind of stonewalling only adds to the conspiracy theories that are already swirling around and are fueled by stories of what was left out of the 9/11 commission report... what's so goddam secret that it can't be shared with the american people, unless there's something to hide...?
A bipartisan group of senators is pushing legislation that would force the CIA to release an inspector general's report on the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The CIA has spent more than 20 months weighing requests under the Freedom of Information Act for its internal investigation of the attacks but has yet to release any portion of it.

The agency is the only federal office involved in counterterrorism operations that has not made at least a version of its internal 9/11 investigation public.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and two other intelligence committee leaders - chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and senior Republican Kit Bond of Missouri - are pushing legislation that would require the agency to declassify the executive summary of the review within one month and submit a report to Congress explaining why any material was withheld.

The provision has been approved by the Senate twice, but never made into law.

and, of course, news of this comes from the guardian across the pond rather than from our own media... how perfectly typical...

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Chau, Wolfie... Hasta luego... Cuidate, suerte...

the tiresome, annoying, rude and boorish dinner party guest finally decides to call it a night...
World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz has resigned his post, effective June 30.

be sure to come back when you can't stay so long and i see no reason why you have to stick around until june 30...

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Darth Cheney: the staggering, unbelievable, unmatched arrogance of power

holy shit...
Attorneys for Cheney and the other officials said any conversations they had about Plame with each other and reporters were part of their normal job duties because they were discussing foreign policy and engaging in an appropriate "policy dispute." Cheney's attorney went farther, arguing that Cheney is legally akin to the president because of his unique government role, and has absolute immunity from any lawsuit.

"So you're arguing there is nothing -- absolutely nothing - these officials could have said to reporters that would have been beyond the scope of their employment [whether it was] true or false?," U.S. District Judge John D. Bates asked.

"That's true, your honor. Mr. Wilson was criticizing government policy," said Jeffrey S. Bucholtz, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's civil division. "These officials were responding to that criticism."

< picks jaw up off the floor > holy shit...

(thanks to TPMmuckraker...)

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Scott Paul on Repub attempts to ban Ron Paul

scott paul rails against the attempt to banish ron paul from the republican debates...
Ron Paul and I have very few things in common besides our last name. We agree on very little, and we defend those few policy positions we happen to share on very different ideological and philosophical grounds.

My namesake and I agree on one thing, though: Ron Paul has every right to participate in the Republican primary debates.

Saul Azunis, the Chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, wants Paul out of the GOP debates simply because he finds Paul's ideas objectionable. Here's the direct quote:
"I think he would have felt much more comfortable on the stage with the Democrats in what he said last night and I think that he is a distraction in the Republican primary and he does not represent the base and he does not represent the party."

What nerve.

If candidates should ever be excluded from debates - and I leave that as an open question - it should be based on measured levels of support, simply so voters can get better acquainted with the more viable candidates. Interestingly, since Paul commented that the 9/11 attacks were motivated by U.S. military activity in the Middle East, interest in his candidacy has gone through the roof.

Clearly, the campaign to exclude Paul isn't based on his waning support or viability. This effort to exclude him on the basis of his ideas is more than absurd - it's an affront to democratic principles.

i - almost - completely agree... ron paul is a duly elected republican congressman from texas and a legitimate, declared candidate for the presidential nomination of his party... and the problem with that would be what, exactly...? we simply cannot tolerate this kind of overt censorship... ron paul is entitled to his views, to his party affiliation, and to his constitutional right to seek to represent his country by running for the highest office in the land...

now, for the "almost" part... allowing or disallowing a declared candidate to appear in a debate based on "measured levels of support," while sensible on its face, still troubles me... who decides what "levels of support" a candidate has to have to be considered debate-worthy...? and this is not just a problem of republican and democratic candidates, it also extends to third-party candidates... unity '08 comes to mind...

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A domestic spying timeline

TPMmuckraker, always in the thick of it, offers a reader's narrative timeline of the domestic spying program for the period october 2003 through june 2004... it's a good backgrounder for what's getting the reality-based community up in arms today...

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Senate no-confidence vote on Gonzo

At a press conference moments ago, Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) called on the Senate to hold a no-confidence vote on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

it’s about damn time they get serious about this… after reading greenwald reinforcing my own view that things are completely out of control with bush and the white house, we need to be taking some very serious and very assertive steps to reclaim our country… a no-confidence vote is a small step, but at least it’s in the right direction…

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For the umpteenth time, Karl Rove is evil

cls comments on susan ralston's immunity, a story that novakula broke and i posted on last night...
She may get immunity from prosecution, but I hope she realizes it will not save her from the hatchet job Rove and his rove-bots will do on her.

i responded...
i have a feeling, after working so closely with satan's surrogate, she has a pretty damn good idea of what karl is capable of... witnessing just one outburst like the one ron suskind described from his january 2003 interview with rove would have laid bare the true evil nature of the man...

just for chuckles and grins, here's a reprise of suskind's unforgettable description of the REAL karl rove, from my post of april 2005...

suskind was outside rove's office waiting for the appointment for the interview to begin...

Inside, Rove was talking to an aide about some political stratagem in some state that had gone awry and a political operative who had displeased him. I paid it no mind and reviewed a jotted list of questions I hoped to ask. But after a moment, it was like ignoring a tornado flinging parked cars. "We will fuck him. Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever fucked him!" As a reporter, you get around—curse words, anger, passionate intensity are not notable events—but the ferocity, the bellicosity, the violent imputations were, well, shocking. This went on without a break for a minute or two. Then the aide slipped out looking a bit ashen, and Rove, his face ruddy from the exertions of the past few moments, looked at me and smiled a gentle, Clarence-the-Angel smile. "Come on in." And I did. And we had the most amiable chat for a half hour.

indulging in completely idle speculation, that aide could well have been susan ralston... if so, i'm sure she would have left feeling all warm and fuzzy inside, don't you think...?

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Bush on Wolfie: "I regret that it has come to this"

i'll take this as a farewell...
"I believe all parties in this matter have acted in good faith," Bush said in a markedly somber tone. "I regret that it has come to this. I admire Paul Wolfowitz. I admire his heart, and I particularly admire his focus in helping the poor. There is a board meeting going on as we speak. All I can tell you is that Paul Wolfowitz has an interest in what's best for the bank, just like he's had an interest in what's best in making sure the bank focuses on things that matter -- human suffering, the human condition. So I applaud his vision, I respect him a lot, and as I said, I regret that it has come to this."

paul wolfowitz hasn't had the best interest of a goddam thing in mind with the single exception of advancing an arrogant, megalomaniacal, neocon agenda focused entirely on power, money and absolute control, an agenda he has made his life's work... the world bank has never been an exemplar of pure-white altruism, working as it has to advance the interests of the g7, but at least it had SOME credibility... i think that it's now clear to everyone that wolfie's appointment as world bank president was just another item on the to-do list of the bush administration's push for absolute world power...

there were many who believed that wolfie's appointment to the world bank was an effort to get him out of the way, putting him on a siding where he couldn't do any more harm... i posted this back in january 2006...

there were those who speculated that bush was sending wolfie to the world bank to neutralize him and get him out of the line of fire in the defense department particularly since he was one of the principal architects of the iraq war... i didn't believe that for a minute...

that was in response to this from steve clemons, someone else who never bought the idea that installing wolfie in the world bank would "neutralize" him...
Wolfowitz may be showing his stripes now -- and may be finally tilting the Bank into a groove where it becomes a harsher instrument of U.S. foreign policy -- rewarding friends and punishing those who don't fall into lockstep behind George W. Bush's vision.

until it finally dawned on me a few weeks ago that one of the principal reasons wolfie was pushing for the world bank to increase its lending to iraq was to support the iraq oil law, i was somewhat vague on just exactly what "being a harsher instrument of u.s. foreign policy" might look like... well, i guess like so much else in bushco, it looks like power (controlling iraq) and money (oil)...

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How long will we tolerate criminals in the White House?

inquiring minds want to know...
There is just no excuse left for allowing the administration to keep this behavior concealed from the country. What James Comey described on Tuesday is the behavior of a government completely unmoored from any constraints of law, operating only by the rules of thuggery, intimidation, and pure lawlessness. Even for the most establishment-defending organs, there are now indisputably clear facts suggesting that the scope and breadth and brazenness of the lawbreaking here is far beyond even what was known previously, and it occurred at the highest levels of the Bush administration.

We are so plainly beyond the point of no return with this criminality. It is now inescapably evident even for those who struggled for so long to avoid acknowledging it. Here is one of the most establishment-friendly voices of the Bush administration [referring to Fred Hiatt and the Washington Post - see previous post] proclaiming the Attorney General of the United States to be a chronic liar and accusing the Bush administration -- as part of events in which the President was deeply and personally involved -- of engaging in deliberate cover-up of blatant lawbreaking.

in response to greenwald's painfully clear and plaintive call, atrios writes this...
I kind of feel like Glenn Greenwald has to write a version of this post every day for the next 5000 years before maybe a few more people will understand: the Bush administration was, for years, illegally spying on unknown numbers of Americans in clear and obvious violation of statute and likely still are.

i hasten to point out that greenwald isn't just talking about illegal spying... there's a whole host of criminal bush administration actions that are crying out for accountability, and i, for one, am not willing to wait 5000 years...

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Bush: "I'm not going to talk about it"

click over to think progress and watch the president of the united states verbally flip off the media and the american people...
During a press conference today, President Bush was confronted about recent accusations made by former Deputy Attorney General James Comey regarding the White House’s shocking efforts to seek legal sanction for its warrantless wiretapping program.

[...]

NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell pressed Bush on this point. “Sir, did you send your then Chief of Staff and White House Counsel to the bedside of John Ashcroft while he was ill to get him to approve that program,” she asked, “and do you believe that kind of conduct from White House officials is appropriate?”

Bush twice dodged the question entirely. “Kelly, there’s a lot of speculation about what happened and what didn’t happen. I’m not going to talk about it.” He added, “I’m not going to move the issue forward by talking about” it.

our president has absolutely no respect for the truth... he doesn't speak it himself and he refuses to respond to others' attempts to discover it... george bush and his criminal administration must be removed...

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U.S. to Europe: pull the data directly from the airlines' computer servers and store the information for 99 years

an interesting battle over privacy is shaping up...
The post-Sept. 11 flight data sharing agreement between the US and EU expires in July. But a new agreement is nowhere in sight. The Americans want to know even more, and the Europeans want to tell them even less.

the u.s., in response to perceived resistance, even sent chertoff to talk to the european parliament...
It was his first opportunity to address the European Parliament about an issue that is extremely contentious in Europe: How much information should US authorities be given about travellers from EU countries flying to the US?

small wonder there's resistance...
The Americans' dream agreement would allow them to pull the data directly from the airlines' computer servers and store the information for 99 years.

but, these days, what with one thing and another, the u.s. is about as popular as a turd in a punchbowl...
[T]he session repeatedly turned into an obscure, would-be trial about the US's many lapses over the past years: From Abu Ghraib and illegal kidnappings by the CIA to gun laws, every gripe was fair game.

and, naturally, we have the patented bushco stonewall...
Chertoff ignored just as many questions as he answered.

so far, little progress is being made...
[Center-left parliamentarian Wolfgang Kreissl-Dörfle's] main criticism was that the US is basically blackmailing Europe. In his view, Washington is forcing a simple alternative on the EU states: "My way or the highway." That is not, he says, the way to a solution, even if the deadline looms.

but, hey, wolfgang, that's the way they operate domestically too...

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The 2008 election: "The aim of the party out of power is not to cut the presidency down to size but to seize it"

in today's alternet, chalmers johnson, writing for tomdispatch, gives voice to some of my deepest concerns...
[B]y the end of March 2007, at least 280,000 American citizens had already contributed some $113.6 million to the presidential campaigns of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Mitt Romney, Rudolph Giuliani, or John McCain.

If these people actually believe a presidential election a year-and-a-half from now will significantly alter how the country is run, they have almost surely wasted their money. As Andrew Bacevich, author of The New American Militarism, puts it: "None of the Democrats vying to replace President Bush is doing so with the promise of reviving the system of check and balances.... The aim of the party out of power is not to cut the presidency down to size but to seize it, not to reduce the prerogatives of the executive branch but to regain them."

he then goes on to outline what he thinks needs to happen if we are to avoid the total collapse of our democracy, actions that i find remarkably consistent with much of what the grassroots/netroots have been so forcefully advocating over the past several years and forcing candidates for political office to consider...
What the country desperately needs is a popular movement to rebuild the Constitutional system and subject the government once again to the discipline of checks and balances. Neither the replacement of one political party by the other, nor protectionist economic policies aimed at rescuing what's left of our manufacturing economy will correct what has gone wrong. Both of these solutions fail to address the root cause of our national decline.

I believe that there is only one solution to the crisis we face. The American people must make the decision to dismantle both the empire that has been created in their name and the huge (still growing) military establishment that undergirds it.

[...]

To succeed, such an endeavor might virtually require a revolutionary mobilization of the American citizenry, one at least comparable to the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Even to contemplate a drawing back from empire -- something so inconceivable to our pundits and newspaper editorial writers that it is simply never considered -- we must specify as clearly as possible precisely what the elected leaders and citizens of the United States would have to do.

in order to dismantle the empire, johnson proposes a number of things...
  • First, in Iraq, we would have to initiate a firm timetable for withdrawing all our military forces and turning over the permanent military bases we have built to the Iraqis.
  • Where spending is rising, as in military supplemental bills to conduct the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would sharply decline. *
  • Where spending is steady or declining (health, education, job training, the promotion of energy conservation and renewable energy sources, veterans benefits, funding for the UN and UN peacekeeping operations, and so on), it would sharply increase. *
  • Bush's tax cuts for people with incomes over $200,000 a year would be immediately rescinded. *
  • [W]e would have to launch an orderly closing-up process for at least 700 of the 737 military bases we maintain (by official Pentagon count) in over 130 foreign countries on every continent except Antarctica.
  • [W]e should rewrite all our Status of Forces Agreements -- those American-dictated "agreements" that exempt our troops based in foreign countries from local criminal laws, taxes, immigration controls, anti-pollution legislation, and anything else the American military can think of.
  • We would have to end our belligerent unilateralism toward other countries as well as our scofflaw behavior regarding international law.
  • The United States needs to cease being the world's largest supplier of arms and munitions -- a lethal trade whose management should be placed under UN supervision.
  • [W]e should take some obvious steps like recognizing Cuba and ending our blockade of that island and, in the Middle East, working to equalize aid to Israel and Palestine, while attempting to broker a real solution to that disastrous situation.
  • [W]e need to rewrite the National Security Act of 1947, taking away from the CIA all functions that involve sabotage, torture, subversion, overseas election rigging, rendition, and other forms of clandestine activity. The president should be deprived of his power to order these types of operations except with the explicit advice and consent of the Senate.
  • [T]he U.S. must cap its trade deficits through the perfectly legal use of tariffs in accordance with World Trade Organization rules, and it must begin to guide its domestic market in accordance with a national industrial policy.
* quoted from Noam Chomsky

and if we don't do these things...?
I also believe that unless we follow this path, we will lose our democracy and then it will not matter much what else we lose.

he's right... and these aren't issues to be cast in terms of republican or democratic ideology, they are fundamental to the very survival of the country we all thought we were citizens of...

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Comey: "devotion to the law trumped political considerations"

now, THERE'S a concept... devotion to the law, something we ought to be able to take for granted with our top justice department officials, right...? ok, i don't think anyone's so naive that they think political leanings and personal opinions don't affect judgment... of course they do... but i've also assumed that, when you are given a position of stewardship over the laws of a nation and the obligation to see that justice is served, you would bend over backwards to keep politics and your own biases out of your work... so, here's comey, obviously (to me, at least) a sincere and dedicated public servant who just so happens to be a republican and a supporter of george bush... does that keep him from doing the right thing...? no... should it have...? no... but just look at the agony and suffering the bush criminal cabal has put a good man through...
Colleagues say Mr. Comey is, even now, a reluctant critic of the administration he served. But they say he feels strongly that there was no justification for the purge of prosecutors and remains furious about what he saw in 2004 as an improper attempt by the White House to bypass the Justice Department.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who led Mr. Comey through his dramatic tale on Tuesday said it was clearly an emotional release for the former No. 2 Justice Department official. “When we asked him about it, it was like a dam broke,” Mr. Schumer said.

“He had been carrying this weight around inside him and wanted the appropriate opportunity to get it off his conscience,” Mr. Schumer added. “When you watched him, he was both pained and relieved.”

Mr. Comey, a former federal terrorism prosecutor in New York and Virginia, is described by colleagues as a solid Republican but one whose devotion to the law trumped political considerations.

Steven R. Peikin, who prosecuted securities fraud cases under Mr. Comey when he was United States attorney in Manhattan, said he found Mr. Comey’s intervention in the N.S.A. program “totally unsurprising.”

“We always joked that Jimmy Stewart’s going to play him in the movie,” Mr. Peikin said. “He’s the picture of rectitude — a charming, engaging, funny guy, but one who set a tone for the office about doing the right thing, not necessarily about winning every case.”

in reading about comey's attempts to find legal justification for bushco's surveillance program and harsh interrogation methods, neither of which i support in the least, i can't say i support the guy's positions... what i DO support wholeheartedly is his effort to stay within the law and the framework of the constitution... THAT is what someone in his position is put there to do and it is deeply wrong to attempt to make someone like that a political and partisan tool...

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It's a coverup! Two days in a row, the WaPo smells the coffee!

the title of the op-ed is...
The Gonzales Coverup

could it be any more aptly named...?
What was the administration doing, and what was it willing to continue to do, that its lawyers concluded was without a legal basis? Without an answer to that fundamental question, the coverup will have succeeded.

well, well, well... whaddaya know... maybe it's starting to come clear to them that, when revelations surface like the bombshell comey dropped the other day, there's no way they can continue to shill for the bush administration without losing all of their credibility as a shaper of opinion, not that there was that much credibility left anyway...

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Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Frontline: Spying on the Home Front



i'm watching it right now... it's giving me a case of the creeps, not that i didn't have the creeps already... i suggest you give it a look... it's comprehensive, thorough, well-done, and you get to hear john yoo defend the unitary executive...

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More immunity...? For a Rove aide...?? For Susan Ralston...???

by all means, give it to her, and let her sing like a canary...

via josh at tpm...

From Evans-Novak Political Report ...
Rove's former assistant, Susan Ralston, is currently seeking immunity to testify before Waxman's committee. Ralston is a former assistant to Jack Abramoff, the disgraced Washington super-lobbyist and Republican fund-raiser. As Rove's gatekeeper, she became special assistant to the President and the highest-ranking Filipino-American in the administration. For Waxman, she is a link between Abramoff and Rove. Ralston was deposed behind closed doors prior to her request for immunity. According to her friends, she has nothing to say that would cause problems for Rove. Her request for immunity was forwarded to the Justice Department, whose recommendation may or may not be followed by Congress.

her friends may say she has nothing to say that would cause problems for karl rove, but i sincerely doubt she's seeking immunity because she only wants to recite bedtime stories...

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So, Wolfie's gonna stay and fight (cuz he's not welcome anywhere else either)

and, no doubt, hold out for more money...
ABC News is now reporting that “Paul Wolfowitz will not resign and would rather push the issue of his tenure to a vote by the World Bank board, his lawyer says.”
World Bank officials say the negotiations between the bank's board and a lawyer for World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz stalled today when the two sides could not agree on an "exit strategy" to allow Wolfowitz to "save face" over the issue of his efforts to seek a promotion and pay raise for his girlfriend at the bank.

The officials said the bank's board had hoped to accept Wolfowitz's resignation but also acknowledge that the World Bank's Ethics Committee bears "some responsibility" for giving him bad advice on the issue of his girlfriend.

Wolfowitz canceled a scheduled trip tonight to Europe, and officials said it was unlikely to be rescheduled.

German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul said yesterday, "He would do the bank and himself a great service if he resigned." The German said Wolfowitz would not be welcome at an Africa forum the bank is holding next week in Berlin should he refuse to resign.

you gotta stop and think about what the rest of the world makes of this, and you know damn well what's going through their minds... they're comparing wolfie's total intransigence to that of his fearless leader, george, and his situation to his fearless leader's other gut-ripping embarrassment, gonzo... ain't it great to be making total and complete fools out of ourselves on the world stage...?

(thanks to think progress...)

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Mark your calendars - Monica's up on the 23d

i can't wait...
Former counsel to Alberto Gonzales and Justice Department liaison to the White House Monica Goodling, who allegedly holds the “keys to the kingdom” of the U.S. Attorneys scandal, will testify before the House Judiciary Committee on May 23.

hey, monica... maybe gonzo will volunteer to help you prepare... after all, he's been through it twice now...

(thanks to think progress...)

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I'm likin' Mike Gravel more and more

honestly, i was kidding when i said the other day that my dream ticket for 2008 was gravel/paul... any more, i'm not so sure i wasn't on to something... the story calls him a "long shot..." maybe not so much...
Gravel went on to reaffirm his support for his signature campaign issue, a national initiative process, as well his support for a national sales tax, a traditionally conservative position.

When asked whether he believed marijuana should be available next to beer in liquor stores, Gravel replied, "Go get yourself a fifth of scotch or a fifth of gin and chug-a-lug it down and you'll find you lose your senses a lot faster than you would smoking some marijuana."

He asserted that all drugs should legalized and regulated. "The drug problem is a public health problem. It's not a criminal problem. We make it a criminal problem because we treat people like criminals."

Gravel continued, "You take a drug addict, you throw him in jail, you leave him there, and he learns the criminal trade so that when he gets out you have recidivism."

When pressed on his earlier statement that President Bush should be jailed for his manipulation of pre-war information, Gravel reaffirmed that belief.

"If you had an FBI agent knock at your door today and you lie to that agent, you commit a felony and you go to jail," Gravel said.

"If that's the way it is for ordinary citizens, what about the president of the United States who lies to the American people, fraudulently sells them on a war that 50 million Americans don't want and over 3,000 Americans get killed as a result of that, and thousands and thousands of Iraqis gets killed... do you not think that's a felony? It's criminal."

it's amazing... when somebody actually talks some sense, you don't have to sit down and analyze your ass off to figure out what they are REALLY saying, it's just obvious...

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The public statement of an impeachment convert

wmtriallawyer at daily kos sees the light...
It's time for all of them to go.

For all this, one needs a catalyst to make [Congress] reach this conclusion. To me, it's Comey's testimony from yesterday. It is so damning in so many ways. It was a deliberate usurping of our Department of Justice by the Presidency. It was an attempt to illegally seize the reins of government to circumvent the Constitution and deliberately trample on the Bill of Rights. Who gave them the right to do this? Who gave them the right to act in such a heinous matter?

Sometimes, it takes a day for this stuff to sink in. When I finally got around to watching Comey's testimony today, it only took a matter of minutes.

They...must...go.

On Katrina, they could hide behind incompetence. On Iraq, they could hide behind the so-called faulty intelligence. But on what has gone on with our Department of "Just-us", there is no more hiding.

It's Nixon again. Maybe worse...Nixon covered it up. These guys were just more brazen about it all.

Even if we're not successful in impeaching, even if it doesn't deliver a single resignation, even if we have to wait until 2009 to get our new President...we MUST CONTINUE THESE INVESTIGATIONS. We MUST CONTINUE TO ASK THE HARD QUESTIONS.

Because we all DESERVE TO KNOW THE TRUTH.

Sorry, this diary is kinda short. I'm just seething right now. I've had it with the lot of them.

Forgive me my past trangressions. I stand on the side of justice now.

to earn your forgiveness, you need to shout this from the rooftops, post it on every available weblog, and preach it to your friends, family and colleagues... the clock is ticking...

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Dear Gonzo, we hope this finds you well

as one think progress commenter said...
A letter?

Wow, I guess that they’ve really taken off the gloves now.

yeah, an honest-to-god letter... they're really bringing out the BIG GUNS...!
Russ Feingold (D-WI), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Ted Kennedy (D-MA), and Richard Durbin (D-IL) sent Attorney General Alberto Gonzales a letter regarding former Deputy Attorney General James Comey’s testimony yesterday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
You testified last year before both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Judiciary Committee about this incident. On February 6, 2006, at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, you were asked whether Mr. Comey and others at the Justice Department had raised concerns about the NSA wiretapping program. You stated in response that the disagreement that occurred was not related to the wiretapping program confirmed by the President in December 2005, which was the topic of the hearing. …

We ask for your prompt response to the following question: In light of Mr. Comey’s testimony yesterday, do you stand by your 2006 Senate and House testimony, or do you wish to revise it?

there MUST be stronger moves taken to restore accountability... i appreciate the fact that congress must move slowly and deliberately, but time is of the essence... day by day, the foundations of our republic are being chipped away to the point where our country is becoming unrecognizable... congress needs to MOVE... we cannot afford to wait...

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Bye-bye, Wolfie...? I'm so-o-o-oooo ready for that "fleeting rush"...!

hot damn...! let it be true...
World Bank officials say the bank's board is completing an "exit strategy" that will allow World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz to resign this afternoon and "still save some face" over the issue of his efforts to seek a promotion and pay raise for his girlfriend at the bank.

flashing back to naomi klein's article of several weeks ago...
...the fleeting rush that comes from forcing neocons to resign.

yeppers... i'll take that "fleeting rush" and love it...

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Asking for an explanation if the new subpoena deadline isn't met is simply NOT acceptable

c'mon, congress, stop stalling... let's get the constitutional crisis underway... every day you delay is another day bushco continues to trash the foundations of our republic...
“You ignored the subpoena, did not come forward today, did not produce the documents and did not even offer an explanation for your noncompliance,” the senators wrote in a lettter to Alberto Gonzales today. “Your action today is in defiance of the Committee’s subpoena without explanation of any legal basis for doing so.” (You can read the letter here.)

The senators set a new deadline, this Friday at May 18, 10 AM. If the Justice Department does not respond to the subpoena, the senators ask that they at least explain why they're not responding "so that the Chairman and the Committee can assess any objections to the subpoena or privileges claimed by the Department."

"The Committee intends to get to the truth," they conclude.

get your respective congressional asses in gear, please... the time for explanations, assessments, objections and privileges is long past...

GET WITH THE PROGRAM, CONGRESS...!

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Can we please get on with indicting the criminals in the Bush administration?

please...? pretty please...?
What more glaring and clear evidence do we need that the President of the United States deliberately committed felonies, knowing that his conduct lacked any legal authority? And what justifies simply walking away from these serial acts of deliberate criminality? At this point, how can anyone justify the lack of criminal investigations or the appointment of a Special Counsel? The President engaged in extremely serious conduct that the law expressly criminalizes and which his own DOJ made clear was illegal.

it seems like i have been waiting for eons for the bushco house of cards to come tumbling down, and every time i think it might be getting close, my hopes are dashed... glenn greenwald, the source of the above snippet, concludes with the same plaintive questions i am asking, phrased more eloquently than i could hope to do...
How is this not a major scandal on the level of the greatest presidential corruption and lawbreaking scandals in our country's history? Why is this only a one-day story that will focus on the hospital drama but not on what it reveals about the bulging and unparalleled corruption of this administration and the complete erosion of the rule of law in our country? And, as I've asked many times before, if we passively allow the President to simply break the law with impunity in how the government spies on our conversations, what don't we allow?

If we had a functioning political press, these are the questions that would be dominating our political discourse and which would have been resolved long ago.

of course, it's not just about a functioning political press, although that is a large piece of it... it's also about the docile, stuff- and entertainment-addicted, willfully self-deluded citizenry... it's not like the reality of bushco is completely hidden and impossible to dig out... the american people have been all too compliant in the ceaseless campaign of the elites to abdicate thinking for themselves and thus arming themselves with the information necessary to function as effective monitors of their own elected government...

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The WaPo on Comey - smelling the coffee?

they're SHOCKED, simply SHOCKED...!
The dramatic details should not obscure the bottom line: the administration's alarming willingness, championed by, among others, Vice President Cheney and his counsel, David Addington, to ignore its own lawyers. Remember, this was a Justice Department that had embraced an expansive view of the president's inherent constitutional powers, allowing the administration to dispense with following the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Justice's conclusions are supposed to be the final word in the executive branch about what is lawful or not, and the administration has emphasized since the warrantless wiretapping story broke that it was being done under the department's supervision.

Now, it emerges, they were willing to override Justice if need be. That Mr. Gonzales is now in charge of the department he tried to steamroll may be most disturbing of all.

guess what... there's a LOT more where this came from, and i only hope it all surfaces quickly... we can't afford to wait...

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Wolfie now has only two allies, the U.S. and Japan, and maybe not the U.S.

i remain completely flummoxed at why he is fighting so hard to stay... is it just arrogance and ego or does he have unfinished business of the neocon variety...? i'm inclined to think it's probably both...
After consistently backing World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz as he faced calls to step down, the United States has now indicated an openness to discuss "all options" for the organization's leadership. ... The U.S., at a conference call meant to win support for the former U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary from the Group of Seven industrial countries -- the bank's biggest donors -- only found an ally in Japan.

meanwhile, wolfie fights on...
"I respectfully submit, to criticize my actions or to find them as a basis for a loss of confidence would be grossly unfair and would be contrary to the evidence we have presented to you," Wolfowitz said in a statement to the board.

"Rather than fix blame for something that wasn't wrong, we should all acknowledge our responsibility as I have acknowledged mine," he said, conceding he made mistakes.

anybody who displays the angry vulgarity of the sort that was revealed yesterday, has forfeited any right to "respectfully submit" anything... so LEAVE, already...

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Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Ted and Rudy belong to the World Wrestling Entertainment school of interrogation

everytime i hear the testosterone-fueled ravings of the pull-out-their-fingernails crowd, i can't help but think of world wrestling entertainment, imho, one of the principal shapers of today's u.s. culture, from shaved heads and goatees, to head butts and floor slams...


During tonight’s presidential debates, several candidates were asked whether they would support the use of waterboarding — a technique, defined as torture by the Justice Department, that simulates drowning and makes the subject “believe his death is imminent while ideally not causing permanent physical damage.”

Both former mayor Rudy Giuliani and Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) suggested they would support using the technique. Specifically asked about waterboarding, Giuliani said he would allow “every method [interrogators] could think of and I would support them in doing it.” Tancredo later added, “I’m looking for Jack Bauer,” referencing the television character who has used torture techniques such as suffocation and electrocution on prisoners.

The audience applauded loudly after both statements.

tough talk, white boys, but don't let your mouths write checks your bodies can't cash...

p.s. i don't think it's any coincidence that jack bauer has a germanic last name...


(thanks to think progress...)

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Tell CBS to re-hire John Batiste

you can sign the petition here... what i sent is below...
C'mon, CBS, get a clue. John Batiste is about as partisan as pound cake and was certainly not pushing a political viewpoint in his VoteVets ad. He obviously cares a great deal about the horrible mess in Iraq and for the soldiers and former colleagues who are having their lives ruined and sometimes ended by fighting in a war that is already lost for a president who is too stubborn to face the truth. That has nothing to do with being Republican or Democrat, nothing to do with who wins or loses an election, and nothing to do with attempting to gain political advantage. It DOES have a great deal to do with being a concerned American. Make this right, CBS, and give him his job back. Show us you can admit to a mistake, unlike our President.

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Cross "Implementation and Execution Manager" off Stephen Hadley's list

after it becoming a national joke, bushco pushes ahead with an incredibly stupid idea... i bet stephen hadley is so-o-o-o-ooooo relieved (see below)...
After a frustrating search for a new "war czar" to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, ABC News has learned that President Bush has chosen the Pentagon's director of operations, Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, for the role.

i fully expect the situation in iraq will start to markedly improve in only a matter of a few short days...

here's from my post back on april 30...




Mr. Hadley is interviewing candidates
, including military generals, for a new high-profile job that people in Washington are calling the war czar. The official (Mr. Hadley, ever cautious, prefers “implementation and execution manager”) would brief Mr. Bush every morning on Iraq and Afghanistan, then prod cabinet secretaries into carrying out White House orders.

ooooooo, it's so exciting...! a real WAR CZAR Implementation and Execution Manager...

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RIP Jerry Falwell

with all sincerity and good will, he will now find out what's REALLY on the other side...
The Rev. Jerry Falwell, the television evangelist who founded the Moral Majority and used it to mold the religious right into a political force, died Tuesday shortly after being found unconscious in his office at Liberty University. He was 73.

Ron Godwin, the university's executive vice president, said Falwell was found unresponsive late Tuesday morning and taken to Lynchburg General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead about an hour later.

"I had breakfast with him, and he was fine at breakfast," Godwin said. "He went to his office, I went to mine, and they found him unresponsive."

Dr. Carl Moore, Falwell's physician, said the evangelist had a heart rhythm abnormality. He said Falwell was found without a pulse and never regained consciousness.

gotta keep it in the family..
Falwell had made careful preparations for a transition of his leadership to his two sons, Jerry Falwell, Jr., now vice-chancellor of Liberty University, and Jonathan Falwell, executive the pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church.

and let's hope his sons are less rigid than he was...

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Comey speaks

go read it for yourself at TPMmuckraker... it's very scary stuff... you can only imagine what's taken place that we don't yet know about... you can only imagine what's going on right NOW that we don't know about... it's easy to see why george was so eager to put gonzo in the ag seat and why he's so loath to let him go...

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Wolfie: "More like a cast member of the Sopranos"

well, isn't THIS special...?
Sounding more like a cast member of the Sopranos than an international leader, in testimony by one key witness Mr Wolfowitz declares: "If they fuck with me or Shaha, I have enough on them to fuck them too."

The angry comments attributed to Mr Wolfowitz came from damning testimony by Xavier Coll, head of human resources at the bank, who provided investigators with his notes of a meeting with Mr Wolfowitz last year.

a real class act, that spitcomb guy...

(thanks to think progress...)

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"Nowhere were we taught that the ends justified the means"

"We call on you and the President to relent from this reckless path, and begin to restore respect for the rule of law we all learned to love many years ago."

i posted last evening on the letter to gonzo written by his harvard law school classmates and mentioned the upcoming publication of the letter as a full-page advert in today's wapo... well, here ya go...



meanwhile, over at the national press club...
During an event this morning at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Attorney General Alberto Gonzales launched an unabashed and shameless finger-pointing campaign at outgoing Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, blaming him for the U.S. attorney scandal.

Minimizing his own role, Gonzales said McNulty has “most of the operational authority and decisions” at the Department of Justice.

Despite having delegated the task of putting together the list of fired U.S. attorneys to his chief of staff Kyle Sampson, Gonzales claimed that “the one person I would care about would be the views of the Deputy Attorney General. … At end of the day, my understanding was that Mr. Sampson’s recommendations reflected the consensus view of the senior leadership of the Department — in particular the Deputy Attorney General.”

When asked why two inexperienced staffers — Sampson and Monica Goodling — were given prominent roles in the firing process, Gonzales responded, “Well again you have to remember at the end of the day, the recommendations reflected the views of the Deputy Attorney General. He signed off on the names and he would know better than anyone else.”

and mcnulty isn't even gone yet... couldn't he at least wait until his chair cools off...? is gonzo a total weenie or what...?

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Why is Wolfie so determined to stay where he's not wanted?

judgment day's a comin'...

from the world bank special committee report...

  • Mr. Wolfowitz broke bank rules and the ethical obligations in his contract
  • [H]e tried to hide the salary and promotion package awarded to Shaha Ali Riza
  • [H]e “cast himself in opposition to the established rules of the institution”
  • Mr. Wolfowitz saw himself as the outsider to whom the established rules and standards did not apply
  • It evidences questionable judgment and a preoccupation with self-interest over institutional best interest
  • Mr. Wolfowitz has taken the position that there were no rules that applied to the situation and therefore no rules could have been broken in resolving the matters as he did
henry paulson...
  • [T]hese facts do not rise to the level of warranting dismissal
dick cheney...
  • [O]ne of the most able public servants I’ve ever known
  • [H]e’s a very good president of the World Bank, and I hope he will be able to continue
maybe dick can find a place for him on his staff...

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So much for the so-called "independence" of the Privacy Board

if independence was anything other than a mere word to be used as a smokescreen, this wouldn't be happening...
The Bush administration made more than 200 revisions to the first report of a civilian board that oversees government protection of personal privacy, including the deletion of a passage on anti-terrorism programs that intelligence officials deemed "potentially problematic" intrusions on civil liberties, according to a draft of the report obtained by The Washington Post.

the draft report was issued under unanimous consent of all the board members...
The changes came after the congressionally created Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board had unanimously approved the final draft of its first report to lawmakers, renewing an internal debate over the board's independence and investigative power.

and of course we have the usual administration b.s...
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino called the editing "standard operating procedure," saying it was appropriate because the board remains legally under the supervision of the Executive Office of the President.

appearances are everything... for the privacy board to truly BE independent, it has to APPEAR independent, and what's described here APPEARS entirely the opposite... but dana perino is 100% correct... for the bush administration, it IS "standard operating procedure" to say one thing and do another... and at least one board member has the courage of his convictions...
[One of the panel's five members, Democrat Lanny J. Davis'] resignation letter cited "the extensive redlining of the board's report to Congress by administration officials and the majority of the board's willingness to accept most" of the changes.

that last statement, "the board's willingness to accept most" of the changes, strikes me as peculiar... if they're willing to accept most of the changes, does that mean that they don't see themselves as independent, that they see the white house as a more accurate source of information than those available to the board, or that the changes themselves were insignificant...? all of the above...? regardless, as a member of a so-called "independent" board, i would be extremely annoyed to have 200 changes made to the final draft of a report that was passed unanimously no matter WHAT the nature of the changes were...

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