A tough day's work for George but, tomorrow, ALBANIA!

the day didn't start off too well and it just got worse...

first, bush was apparently distracted when he was briefed on the protocol for meeting the pope, and that he had forgotten what he had been told before previous meetings didn't help...

Meeting the pope, Bush said: "Good to be with you, sir." Italian journalists noted the breach in protocol: the pope is formally addressed as "Your Holiness."

then there was a car problem...

The president's stretch - armour-plated - limo stalled while he returned from the Vatican to the US embassy. A statement on American engineering?

and, after all that, there were those annoying demonstrators...

After the talks [with the Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi], riot police used tear gas against anti-Bush demonstrators.

ah, but everything will be SO much better when he gets to albania tomorrow...

The city [Tirana] and the country have been in a state of almost permanent excitement for weeks for the first-ever visit by a US president to this small, Western Balkan country.

Travelling in from the airport on the newly constructed road you are immediately confronted with billboard after billboard proclaiming the visit.

"Albania welcomes President Bush" and "President Bush in Albania, making history" the signs read.

A picture of Mr Bush beams down from giant posters.

i'm sure he'll forget all about italy in no time at all...

"Albania is for sure the most pro-American country in Europe, maybe even in the world," [Tirana] Mayor Edi Rama told the newspaper. "Nowhere else can you find such respect and hospitality for the president of the United States. Even in Michigan, he wouldn't be as welcome."

nope, for sure, i don't think he'd be as welcome in michigan...

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The "gay bomb" - truly, THE most bizarre story I've ever read

when i first read this on americablog, i thought it was a spoof... sadly, no...

A Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting.

[...]

The documents show the Air Force lab asked for $7.5 million to develop such a chemical weapon.

words fail me...

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If BAE (British Aerospace) was forking over cash to Prince Bandar, you can bet the same thing is happening in the U.S.

this story hasn't received nearly enough coverage in the u.s...


Prince Bandar bin Sultan
of Saudi Arabia appears on
Meet the Press, April 25, 2004

item...

[T]he OECD Working Group on Bribery reaffirmed its serious concerns about the United Kingdom’s discontinuance of the BAE Al Yamamah investigation and outlined continued shortcomings in UK Anti-Bribery legislation. It urged the UK to remedy these shortcomings as quickly as possible and decided to conduct a further examination of the UK’s efforts to fight bribery.

[...]

The recent discontinuance of a major foreign bribery investigation concerning BAE SYSTEMS plc and the Al Yamamah defence contract with the government of Saudi Arabia has further highlighted some of these concerns. The Working Group notes that the UK has stated that the discontinuance was based on national and international security considerations and that the matter is subject to judicial review in the UK. The Working Group underlines in this respect that bribery of foreign public officials is contrary to international public policy and distorts international competitive conditions.

does attempting to halt an investigation based on "national security" ring bells with anyone...? and we're not talking chump change here either... according to the guardian...

£30m a quarter - for at least 10 years - was paid into accounts controlled by Prince Bandar at the Riggs bank in Washington.

The money was paid from an account at the Bank of England into accounts in Washington controlled by Prince Bandar. Details of the transfers were discovered by the Serious Fraud Office during the marathon investigation into BAE.

holy crap...! £30m A QUARTER...!! by current exchange rates, that's $58,968,058.97 U.S. DOLLARS EVERY THREE MONTHS...!! great god almighty...!! and OVER TEN YEARS, THAT'S £1.2 BILLION or $2.4 BILLION U.S. DOLLARS...!! DAMN...!!!

among other things, just look at what that kind of money can buy...


Glympton, Oxfordshire. The 2,000 acre manor house
and sporting estate purchased by Prince Bandar
after he arranged the al-Yamamah arms deal.
Photograph: INS News

a little history...

• The British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, negotiated with Bandar to clinch the so-called al-Yamamah deal for BAE in 1985.
• Over the past 20 years, the warplane programme has brought £43bn in revenue for BAE. The deal made the career of BAE executive Dick Evans, who rose to chair the company on the strength of it.
• Police later calculated that more than £6bn may have been distributed in corrupt commissions, via an array of agents and middlemen.Newly obtained documents and our own investigations have revealed details of where the money may have gone.
• Millions went to Bandar, according to US sources. Up to $30m (£15m) at a time is alleged to have been paid into his dollar account at Riggs Bank [see below] in Washington.
• More millions were paid by BAE into Wafic Said-linked accounts in Switzerland.
• Bandar's father, Prince Sultan, was described by a British ambassador as having "a corrupt interest in all contracts".
• Legal sources say BAE disguised many of the payments by making them through an anonymous offshore company, Poseidon. Large amounts were also alleged to have been transferred in this way to Mohammed Safadi, a Lebanese politician. He acted for Sultan's son-in-law, Prince Turki bin Nasser, who controlled the Saudi air force. At least £1bn is said to have gone down the Poseidon route. More payments were allegedly disguised in inflated bills to BAE from local subcontractors.
• A relatively minor, although colourful, aspect of this torrent of cash was a £60m "slush fund" maintained by BAE to keep Prince Turki bin Nasser sweet on his visits to the west. The arms firm provided him with extravagant holidays, fleets of classic cars, planeloads of shopping and blond girlfriends. BAE claims these treats were "paid for under the contractual arrangements". But in fact bills went to the al-Yamamah contract at the MoD under the misleading phrase "support services.
• The cash for all these payoffs came, simply enough, from overcharging.
• Accidentally released UK documents [article] reveal that the basic price of the planes was inflated by 32%, to allow for an initial £600m in commissions.

in case riggs bank sounds familiar, it should...

In October 2002, the directors of Riggs Bank received an internal memorandum listing $1.9 million in suspicious cash withdrawals by former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet from 2000 to 2002 -- the board's first official notification of a relationship that bank regulators were investigating.

The directors did not question the nature of the bank's relationship with Pinochet, who only a year before had eluded a Spanish criminal indictment on genocide and torture charges, according to sources who have seen minutes and transcripts of the meeting. No internal procedures were changed. The board took no action.

so, the uk and bae bribe prince bandar, who puts the money in accounts at riggs bank, which, at the time, was holding money from a brutal dictator, pinochet, and bandar is really good friends with - guess who? - the bush family... yes, it's all circumstantial, i know, but entirely TOO circumstantial to suit me...


George Bush and
Prince Bandar bin Sultan

here's craig unger writing in the boston globe back on april 11, 2004...

Let's go back to Sept. 13, 2001, and look at several scenes that were taking place simultaneously. Three thousand people had just been killed. The toxic rubble of the World Trade Center was still ablaze. American airspace was locked down. Not even Bill Clinton and Al Gore, who were out of the country, were allowed to fly home. And a plane bearing a replacement heart for a desperately ill Seattle man was forced down short of its destination by military aircraft. Not since the days of the Wright Brothers had American skies been so empty.

But some people desperately wanted to fly out of the country. That same day, Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States and a long-time friend of the Bush family, dropped by the White House. He and President George W. Bush went out to the Truman Balcony for a private conversation.

now, back to bandar's appearance on meet the press...

Tim Russert: 140 Saudis leave the country, two days after September 11, and nobody knows who gave permission. You don't know anything about it? You didn't ask anyone for permission? You didn't facilitate it in any way? The planes were just allowed..

Prince Bandar: Tim, no, no, no. This is becoming exotic now. We had those people in the country, and a lot of them were relatives of the bin Laden family going to school, from teenagers to some people in college. And we asked the FBI, that those people are scattered all over America and with tempers high at that time, and rightly so, and we were worried that someone getting emotional would hurt them.

Tim Russert: So, who did you call for permission?

Prince Bandar: We didn't call them, we asked them, is it possible..

and, in closing, again craig unger...

Never before in history has a president of the United States had such a close relationship with another foreign power as President Bush and his father have had with the Saudi royal family, the House of Saud. I have traced more than $1.4 billion in investments and contracts that went from the House of Saud over the past 20 years to companies in which the Bushes and their allies have had prominent positions -- Harken Energy, Halliburton, and the Carlyle Group among them.

gee... BILLIONS OF DOLLARS...? weren't we just discussing that at the beginning of the post...? hmmmmm... < scratches chin > nah... just conspiracy thinking...

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This message paid for by the committee to keep all the others out.

mark fiore, one my my favorites, thanks to john at americablog and the sf chronicle online...



(click here to view)

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Blackwater attempts to silence Fallujah victims

markthshark has the outrageous details at daily kos...

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More from the Constitution Subcommittee hearings on domestic spying

from think progress and the nyt...

Rep. Mel Watt (D-NC):
I’m not asking you to make anything public. I’m asking you, does that mean that the former attorney general had some reservations about — legal reservations about some aspects of the program, Mr. Bradbury?

Principal deputy assistant attorney general and the head of the Office of Legal Counsel Steven Bradbury:
Well, all I’ll say is what the attorney general has said, which is that disagreements arose, disagreements were addressed and resolved; however, those disagreements did not — were not about the particular activities that the president has publicly described, that we have termed the Terrorist Surveillance Program.

Bradbury’s testimony contradicts what Alberto Gonzales said just last week. Gonzales claimed that former Deputy Attorney General James Comey’s testimony about Ashcroft’s reservations related to the “program which the president confirmed to the American people sometime ago.”

So, if Gonzales is telling the truth, Bradbury misled Congress under oath. If Bradbury is telling the truth, it means that Gonzales has again lied about the controversy surrounding the administration’s spying efforts. Moreover, if Bradbury is correct that Ashcroft’s disagreements were not about the NSA warrantless wiretapping program, that must mean other spying programs exist.

any way you slice it, it's lies, lies, and more lies... speaking for myself, i have no doubt whatsoever that intensive, in-depth domestic surveillance is being conducted and has been for some time, extending back prior to the clinton administration...

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So many bread crumb trails to follow, but they all lead to the White House

think progress has a post up on an interview they conducted with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) regarding the source of the list of fired attorneys...

Whitehouse explained that tracking down who conceived of the list of fired U.S. attorneys was made much more difficult due to new rules employed by the Bush administration that greatly expanded the number of DoJ and White House employees that could talk to one another about criminal cases. During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in April, Whitehouse forced Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to admit previous firewalls between White House and DoJ staff had been torn down, allowing at least 400 White House officials and over 30 Justice officials to have discussions with one another about criminal cases.

that reminded me of the incredible visual whitehouse used to illustrate his point that i posted on in late april... at the time, my overwhelming impression was one of total chaos, but now i think it may very well have been created as a deliberate strategy for obfuscation...



whitehouse doesn't speculate on the deliberate strategy aspect, but he does see, as so many others have pointed out, all signs pointing to the white house...

WHITEHOUSE: So a Karl Rove to Kyle Sampson call about a case would have been out of bounds under the rules that had been developed for decades. Under the Bush Administration, they knocked down the rules, so there’s so many opportunities for that infiltration it’s hard to know where it came from. And that’s why I think we need to continue to pursue the investigation. By process of elimination if nobody in the Department of Justice knows where the list came from, then it may not have come from within the Department of Justice; it may have come from somewhere else. And given the likelihood here — it probably didn’t come from Congress; it probably didn’t come from the Governor of Iowa or, you know, the Mayor of Detroit. You can pretty well safely bet that the place that it came from was the White House.

follow those trails, guys...

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While Bush talks with the Pope and Prodi, Italy tries CIA "fugitives" for extraordinary rendition

..

President Bush, deeply unpopular here and met by boisterous protests, sought to impress Pope Benedict XVI and the Italian public on Saturday with his humanitarian record and downplayed differences with the Vatican over Iraq.

his HUMANITARIAN record...? george's hypocrisy knows no bounds... i also doubt very much if RAT-zinger brought up the subject...

As President Bush headed for Italy on Friday, a Milan court opened the trial of a group of CIA agents accused of kidnapping a radical Egyptian cleric — the first legal prosecution of one of the administration's most controversial counter-terrorism tactics.

Twenty-six American defendants, including two CIA station chiefs and an Air Force colonel, are being tried in absentia in the 2003 abduction from a Milan sidewalk of the cleric known as Abu Omar.

[...]

Judge Oscar Magi opened the trial, reading the indictment and ticking off the Americans' names, repeating 26 times: "Fugitive."

"Fugitive."

"Fugitive."

[...]

Only in Italy, however, has [an extraordinary rendition] case gone to trial, a public forum that threatens to further illuminate the actions of CIA operatives and the long-denied complicity of their European counterparts.

"We want to punish terrorists — but in the courtroom," Milan's lead prosecutor, Armando Spataro, said in commenting on the significance of the landmark trial. The war on terrorism, he said, should be waged "within the full respect of the laws of our Western democracies."

In an uncomfortable coincidence for American officials that highlighted the ongoing strain in U.S.-Italian relations, the trial started just hours before Bush arrived in Italy for a day-and-a-half visit following the Group of 8 summit in Germany.

in the ap story quoted at the top of this post, it was not until the last two paragraphs, paragraphs 36 and 37 that this was mentioned...

Along with the 26 Americans on trial for the abduction of an Egyptian cleric, a U.S. soldier is on trial in Rome for the March 2005 slaying of an Italian spy in Baghdad. In both cases, the U.S. citizens are being tried in absentia.

[Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi] said he and Bush did not discuss the trials.

heaven forbid anyone would try to burst george's bubble...

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Is Mike Mullen replacing Pace because of his support for a strike against Iran?

nico pitney, posting originally on think progress, shares some insights on pace's replacement, mike mullen, none of it particularly comforting...

Some insight on Mullen can be gained from a speech he gave to sailors in Pearl Harbor in Feb. 2007:

In his opening remarks, Mullen, a Vietnam War veteran, told Pearl Harbor sailors: "I honestly believe this is the most dangerous time in my life.

"The enemy now is basically evil and fundamentally hates everything we are -- the democratic principles for which we stand ... This war is going to go on for a long time. It's a generational war."

From a Feb. 2006 interview with Mullen:

You use the term 'Long War', and it's important to understand that and really grab this issue because it is going to be around for a significant amount of time. I call it generational. That said, there are still traditional capabilities that are very much required.

When [Adm. William J. Fallon] was appointed in January to lead CentCom, analysts noted the choice of a Navy officer reflected "a greater emphasis on countering Iranian power, a mission that relies heavily on naval forces and combat airpower to project American influence in the Persian Gulf." In announcing the nomination of Mullen this afternoon, CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr said that Mullen "watches Iran closely."

so far, there are several reasons why pace was replaced that are floating around... one is my speculation that he might have become tired of simply being a mouthpiece for bush administration talking points... larry johnson is convinced that he was axed for the supporting letter he wrote concerning scooter libby... most disturbing was the opinion offered by leveymg at daily kos, that pace was shown the door for opposing an attack on iran, a view which seems to square with mullen's quotes above... after reading that, i searched back to my post on the article in the new yorker from its april 2006 edition written by seymour hersh... remember, what he was writing about took place well over a year ago...

The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups.

[...]

A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was “absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb” if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do “what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,” and “that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.”

[...]

“The planning is enormous,” the former senior intelligence official said, referring to the activity at the U.S. Central Command headquarters, in Florida; the Joint Warfare Analysis Center, in Virginia; and the U.S. Strategic Command, in Nebraska. “Space assets, SLBMs”—submarine-launched ballistic missiles—“tactical air, and sabotage, coöperation from the Turks and the Russians.” He added that the plans include “significant air attacks on their countermeasures and anti-aircraft missiles—a huge takedown.” He depicted the planning as hectic, and far beyond the contingency work that is routinely done. “These are operational plans,” the former official said.

[...]

One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites.

all of this led to an astounding revelation by hersh...

The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he added, and some officers have talked about resigning. Late this winter, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran—without success, the former intelligence official said. “The White House said, ‘Why are you challenging this? The option came from you.’”

that brings us to just this past february where possible resignations were again in the news, this as reported by the times of london...

Some of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.

Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.

[...]

A generals’ revolt on such a scale would be unprecedented. “American generals usually stay and fight until they get fired,” said a Pentagon source.

lots of puzzle pieces here, but the biggest and most critical one to keep an eye on concerns mullen and iran, because it appears as though george is, once again, stacking the ideological deck...

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No passport needed.

It is such an outrage that the most inexpensive, common sense efforts to prevent the entry of terrorists into the US are suspended, underfunded, or completely ignored. Yet, any method that violates constitutional rights, costs more money, or creates new government programs is embraced totally.

US Temporarily Relaxes Western Hemisphere Passport Requirement
By VOA News
08 June 2007

The Bush administration has announced it is relaxing passport rules for U.S. travelers in the Western Hemisphere for the next three months.

The administration said Friday it will suspend a requirement that all U.S. citizens must have a valid passport if traveling by air to and from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda. But travelers will still have to show proof of a passport application.

The proposal is a response to the increasing backlog of U.S. passport applications since January, when rules requiring passports for travel to those nations first took effect.

The mandate, known as the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, prompted a surge of passport applications at the State Department, causing a backlog and delays that led angry applicants to complain to their congressional representatives.

The initiative will also impose the same rules on land and sea travelers beginning January 1, 2008.

It was known for months that there would be a rush to apply for passports, but they wait until now to beef up personnel to process requests.
I bet the NSA didn't wait to have it's personnel increased so they could spy on our e-mails and telephone calls.
Basic verifiable identification is the best way to know who is entering or leaving your country, that's why all nations everywhere have a passport document.
Also, if we want a National ID, wouldn't a passport serve that function, SINCE IT IS A NATIONAL ID?
If you wan to know if a person applying for a job is a citizen or not, wouldn't a passport confirm that, SINCE IT IS A NATIONAL ID?
No, instead we suspend the need for a passport, yet tell the people that they are in danger from terrorists and illegal aliens if we don't submit to a new government national ID program and don't allow our privacy to be invaded in our own homes.
BULL, BULL, BULL!

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Friday photoblogging, high desert sunset, 8:24 p.m. PDT

in case you haven't figured it out yet, i have a thing for sunsets...

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The Amici Curiae brief filed on behalf of Scooter

first, the intro to the brief (PDF)...



note this in particular...

...amici submit that the constitutionality of Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald's appointment presents a "close question."

[italics added]

it's worth noting that the entire 9-page brief is devoted to questioning the constitutionality of fitz's appointment... it's also worth noting that the 9 signatories on the brief identify themselves as current or former professors of constitutional law... failed supreme court nominee robert bork is one of the signatories...

marcy wheeler/empty wheel at the next hurrah has some observations...

How appropriate that Robert Bork would weigh in on the Libby conviction to assert that Fitzgerald's appointment might not be constitutional. Over thirty years later and he's still trying to fire the guy investigating the Republican Administration.

she also highlights judge walton's counter argument...

Walton explains the reason for the necessary legality of the Special Counsel: Because if we can't have a Special Counsel free of direct oversight of the AG, then there is no way to investigate those who occupy high levels of DOJ or those who have direct responsibility for it.

most importantly, she emphasizes precisely WHY this is so critical and WHY she thinks these heavy-hitters are coming down so hard on the issue...

[I]f Fitzgerald's appointment is unconstitutional, Walton was arguing, we can't hold Alberto Gonzales or Dick Cheney or George Bush to account.

That's not really a constitutional argument, mind you, it's a pragmatic one. But it really underscores the importance of this issue. Because Bork is not just trying to get Fitzgerald fired. He's trying to get the next Special Counsel--the one investigating BushCo constitutional violations--fired.

now, THAT'S a truly worrisome perspective, one i think judge walton is no doubt very well aware of...

later on, she has another interesting observation...

Jeebus! They sure pulled this together quickly, with 12 fancy lawyers agreeing on a brief within 72 hours. You think maybe they had this in the works ahead of time?

then she wonders if trying to full-court press judge walton is necessarily the wisest strategy...

I'm reminded of Judge Walton's face when Ted Wells insisted on reading the letters from Wolfie et al before the sentencing. He was staring up at the ceiling with his lips pursed, a look of disgust that Team Libby insisted on carrying out their big show regardless of any effect it might have on Walton. Walton was just a prop, it seemed, in Ted Wells' circus.

And from the look of things, Walton isn't any happier about this latest stunt. I'm not so sure that the Bork brief is as easy to ignore as Wolfowitz' letter. But Team Libby sure seems prepared to piss off Walton to get what they want out of him.

she was reacting to a footnote judge walton appended to his order [PDF] allowing the submission of the amici curiae brief, and it's a doozy...

It is an impressive show of public service when twelve prominent and distinguished current and former law professors of well-respected schools are able to amass their collective wisdom in the course of only several days to provide their legal expertise to the Court on behalf of a criminal defendant. The Court trusts that this is a reflection of these eminent academics' willingness in the future to step to the plate and provide like assistance in cases involving any of the numerous litigants, both in this Court and throughout the courts of our nation, who lack the financial means to fully and properly articulate the merits of their legal positions even in instances where failure to do so could result in monetary penalties, incarceration, or worse. The Court will certainly not hesitate to call for such assistance from these luminaries, as necessary in the interests of justice and equity, whenever similar questions arise in the cases that come before it.

marcy doesn't think that leaves much doubt about where judge walton stands and i would wholeheartedly agree... she says...

Ouch! You think maybe he didn't appreciate the heavy-handed intervention into his case? You think maybe he didn't appreciate having 12 fancy lawyers suggest he can't make his own decision in this matter?

what i absolutely do not want to happen is to have a precedent set that would further insulate bush/cheney from prosecution... no way, no how...

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More subpoenas - Leahy's got Nadler's back

all i have to say is this...

NO MORE SUBPOENAS WITHOUT ENFORCEMENT...!

"The warrantless wiretapping program has operated for over five years outside of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and without the approval of the FISA Court. The Committee has continued to ask for the legal justification for this sweeping and secret program, and has continually been rebuffed by inadequate and at times, misleading, responses from this Justice Department," said Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, in a statement sent to RAW STORY. "The information we have requested has been specific to the legal justification for this program and is firmly within the Committee’s oversight jurisdiction."

[...]

In a hearing Thursday afternoon at the House Judiciary Committee, a Justice Department official refused to turn over President Bush's legal justification for the warrantless spying program.

"Those [Office of Legal Counsel opinions] reflect the internal confidential legal advice of the executive branch," said Steven G. Bradbury, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. "We are citing the confidentiality interests that the executive branch has in internal confidential deliberative advice of the executive branch."

The program is operated by the National Security Agency and legally certified by the Justice Department.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who chairs the subcommittee on constitutional issues and is investigating the program, slammed the Bush White House's actions in warrantless eavesdropping.

"We rejected monarchy in this country more than 200 years ago...This President appears to have forgotten that fact," he said in his opening statement. "Not only has he asserted the right to go around the FISA Court and the Wiretap Act, but he has actually done so."

Nadler went further in an earlier interview with Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall.

"This entire warrantless wiretapping is illegal and the President and Attorney General are engaged in a criminal conspiracy. I mean, to me this is worse than Watergate," he said in the video interview.

(click here to watch...)

< sigh > let's get this constitutional crisis party started, fercryinoutloud...

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This appeal, asking George to override the justice system, is OUTRAGEOUS in the extreme

this can only be read with an airsickness bag close at hand...

Mr. President, some weeks ago, I wrote a letter of appeal, a character reference, to Judge Reggie B. Walton, urging leniency for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Scooter, I said, has seen the undoing of his world, but he comes before a "just court in a just and decent country." I was joined by men and women of greater acclaim in our public life, but the petitions were in vain. Now the legal process has played out, Judge Walton has issued a harsh prison term of 30 months, and what will rescue this honorable man is the power of pardon that is exclusively yours.

[...]

Mr. President, the one defining mark of your own moral outlook is the distinction between friend and foe, a refusal to be lulled into moral and political compromises. Your critics have made much of this and have seen it as self-righteousness and moral absolutism, but this has guided you through the great, divisive issues faced by our country over these last, searing years. Scooter Libby was a soldier in your--our--war in Iraq, he was chief of staff to a vice president who had become a lightning rod to the war's critics. He didn't sit around the councils of power only to make the rounds in Georgetown's salons insinuating that this was not his war all along. He didn't claim this war when it promised an easy victory only to desert it when it stalled in the alleyways of Fallujah and Baghdad and in the twilight world of Arab politics. You are not a lawyer, Mr. President, nor is the vast populace out there. The men and women who entrusted you with the presidency, I dare say, are hard pressed to understand why former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who was the admitted leaker of Mrs. Wilson's identity to columnist Robert Novak, has the comforts of home and freedom and privilege while Scooter Libby faces the dreaded prospect of imprisonment.

[...]

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald could not, and would not, decide whether this was a case about outing an undercover agent, or a plain case of perjury and obstruction of justice. He had the best of possible worlds: He presented this case as one of perjury, insisted that the undercover status of Valerie Plame Wilson was of no consequence, then shifted grounds to introduce the Intelligence Identities Protection Act at a latter phase in the proceedings. The "covertness" of Mrs. Wilson was never convincingly and fully established. Even Judge Walton himself was not sure of her employment status. So the recollections of Scooter Libby clashed with those of journalist Tim Russert? Surely, we don't end an honorable career in public service and haul a man off to prison on that thinnest of reeds.

that's right... compare a convicted perjurer and obstructor of justice, one who hasn't endured a single privation or hardship in his entire life, one who cravenly decided to take a fall rather than to allow his criminal boss to face accountability, to a soldier fallen in combat, is despicable and intolerable... equally despicable is the complete dismissal of our system of justice, due process, solid evidence, proven fact, and the smear of one of the most thoroughly professional prosecutors i have ever witnessed in action... that this should occupy nearly a full page in a newspaper with a global circulation is totally outrageous... when i read stuff like this, i can only weep for my country and those who claim they are serving it...

(thanks to atrios via firedoglake...)

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A "surge" of lawyers to achieve "victory" in the White House

josh at tpm offers this...

Lawyering up. Prez adds nine new lawyers to the White House Counsel's staff.

Late Update: TPM Reader AB checks in ...

Did you note that three of the nine came from the Washington, D.C. firm previously known as Wiley, Rein & Fielding? It is now called Wiley Rein, LLP, since its name member, Fred Fielding, moved to the White House late last year, to help defend BushCo from Congressional oversight and investigation. It appears that Fielding's assessment is that the situation ahead is dire and so he is moving part of his lawyer firm into the White House as reinforcements, a "surge" of lawyers we might call it.Later Update: As many TPM Readers have noted, not a single Regent Univ. Law School alum among the nine. For the people, Regent, for the prez, the Ivy Leagues.

all i ask is that we get this long-delayed constitutional crisis underway... i know everybody in congress is avoiding it like the plague, but, goddam it, it's way, way overdue, and we better get after it rather than sitting around watching our country continue to be dismembered by the most lawless presidential administration in history...

(thanks to mcjoan at daily kos...)

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Larry Johnson's take on the Pace dumping

i confess, i didn't think of this angle, but that's why we read other bloggers with more insight and experience that we have, right...?

Let there be no doubt -- Perfect Peter Pace has been shown the door because of his letter to Judge Walton pleading on behalf of Scooter Libby. That letter was the final straw demonstrating his incompetence and political tin ear as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

How can you call upon troops to conduct themselves with honor and integrity when you make lame excuses for the conduct of a convicted perjurer and obstructer of justice like Scooter Libby? Pace's Libby letter was the tipping point. His status, already shaky with the debacle of Iraq and a six year record of failure, became toxic with that letter.

makes sense to me...

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Phone, email or fax your Senators on the Gonzo no-confidence vote set for Monday

a complete directory of the u.s. senate including numbers and email contact info is here...

The Senate’s no-confidence vote on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will take place Monday.

“If all Senators who have actually lost confidence in Attorney General Gonzales voted their conscience, this vote would be unanimous,” [Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)] said in a statement. “However, the president will certainly exert pressure to support the attorney general, his longtime friend. We will soon see where people’s loyalties lie.”

casting a vote of no-confidence in gonzo is the only reasonable response for any senator who truly supports our constitution and our vaunted "rule of law..."

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Bush throws Pace under the bus - or does he?

so much for trusting your generals...

The Bush administration sidelined Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Friday, announcing plans to replace him as the nation's top military officer rather than reappoint him and risk a Senate confirmation struggle focusing on the Iraq War.

so, what makes them think there isn't going to be a confirmation battle with THIS guy...?

Defense Secretary Robert Gates ... announced he would recommend Adm. Mike Mullen to replace Pace.

Mullen is the chief of naval operations, and Gates praised him for having the "vision strategic insight and integrity to lead America's armed forces."

and so, while the wheels of the bus are still rolling over pace's mangled corpse, we have the obligatory paeans of boiler-plate praise, probably as phony as a three-dollar bill...

"President Bush appreciates Gen. Pace's long and distinguished service to the country and as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe, who was traveling overseas with Bush. "He is an example for all our men and women in uniform and has been an integral part of the president's national security team."

[...]

Gates heaped praise on Pace, a Marine of more than 40 years. "He has served our country with great distinction and deserves the deepest thanks of the American people for a lifetime of service to our country and for his leadership. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with him, trust him completely and value his candor and his willingness to speak his mind," he said.

so, what's the REAL reason for dumping pace...? who knows...? maybe it was pace himself, who got tired of being given white house talking points to mouth, and having to look himself in the mirror each morning... maybe we'll get to meet the REAL pace once he re-enters civilian life...

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Yet another stage from which to ignite the constitutional crisis

i posted yesterday on jerry nadler's subcommittee hearing on the issue of warrantless domestic spying... i neglected to mention that it could provide yet another launchpad for the constitutional crisis - IF nadler doesn't wuss out like his colleagues seem to be doing...

Senior House Democrats threatened Thursday to issue subpoenas to obtain secret legal opinions and other documents from the Justice Department related to the National Security Agency’s domestic wiretapping program.

If the Democrats take that step, it would mark the most aggressive action yet by Congress in its oversight of the wiretapping program and could set the stage for a constitutional showdown over the separation of powers.

let's get on with it, ferchrissake...

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The NYT: "It's subpoena time" - but only if they're enforced

as i posted the other day, i don't want to see any more wishy-washy behavior on this from congress... there's still a subpoena floating around out there with condi's name on it that she is completely ignoring... if subpoenas are going to be issued, it's time to put teeth in it, and, if that provokes the long-awaited constitutional crisis, by all means, let's get on with it...

For months, senators have listened to a parade of well-coached Justice Department witnesses claiming to know nothing about how nine prosecutors were chosen for firing. This week, it was the turn of Bradley Schlozman, a former federal attorney in Missouri, to be uninformative and not credible. It is time for Senator Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to deliver subpoenas that have been approved for Karl Rove, former White House counsel Harriet Miers and their top aides, and to make them testify in public and under oath.

[...]

If Congress is going to get to the bottom of the scandal, it has to get the testimony of Mr. Rove, his aides Scott Jennings and Sara Taylor, Ms. Miers and her deputy, William Kelley.

[...]

This noncooperation has gone on long enough. Mr. Leahy should deliver the subpoenas for the five White House officials and make clear that if the administration resists, Congress will use all available means to get the information it needs.

hey, i'm all for it... but congress had better reach down deep inside and find the guts to go through with it to the end and call this lawless administration into account... and, as for no oath and no transcript, not only no, but HELL NO...!

The White House has offered to make them available only if they do not take an oath and there is no transcript. Those conditions are a formula for condoning perjury, and they are unacceptable.

TOTALLY unacceptable...

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What's Wrong With This Picture?

U.S. President George W. Bush enjoys a beer before an official dinner in Heiligendamm June 7, 2007. Leaders from the world's major industrialised nations meet in the Baltic resort of Heiligendamm on June 6-8 for a Group of Eight (G8) summit. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer (GERMANY)

[UPDATE]

evil poet pointed me to americablog which has more photos that look pretty genuine to me... (as a side note, i've had buckler, and it's not bad...)

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Tales From The Religious Twilight Zone

There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground that joins church and state, confuses science and superstition, and it lies between the depth of faith and the summit of ignorance. This is the dimension of fundamentalism. It is an area which we call the Religious Twilight Zone. (Apologies to the Rod Serling Memorial Foundation)

Think Progress reports...

Major Medical Associations Denounce Holsinger’s Views On Homosexuality

The Surgeon General of the United States is supposed to be “America’s chief health educator.” But President Bush’s nominee, James W. Holsinger, has repeatedly espoused medically-inaccurate homophobic positions that undermine his credibility to be the next Surgeon General.

The Bush administration has tried to brush aside Holsinger’s 1991 paper in which he concluded that homosexual relations were “intuitively” unnatural, blaming mainstream scientific opinion: “That was not his belief. It was not his opinion. It was a compilation of studies that were available at that time.”

But even a decade later, Holsinger remained out of the mainstream. In 2000, he helped found the Hope Springs Community Church, which takes the scientifically-rejected position that sexual orientation is a “lifestyle” choice. According to the church’s pastor, Rev. David Calhoun, the church helps people “walk out” of homosexuality through conversion therapy. By 2000, major medical associations had already denounced such “treatment”:

American Psychiatric Association: [T]he American Psychiatric Association opposes any psychiatric treatment, such as “reparative” or “conversion” therapy which is based upon the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder or based upon a prior assumption that the patient should change his/her homosexual orientation. [1998]

American Psychological Association: In 1990, the American Psychological Association stated that scientific evidence does not show that conversion therapy works and that it can do more harm than good. [1997]

American Medical Association: [A]version therapy (a behavioral or medical intervention which pairs unwanted behavior, in this case, homosexual behavior, with unpleasant sensations or aversive consequences) is no longer recommended for gay men and lesbians. [1994]

Rev. Troy Plummer, Executive Director of Reconciling Ministries Network of United Methodists, called the reparative therapy promoted by Holsinger “nothing short of torture of gay and lesbian people.”

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Congressional Democrats failed or refused to exercise their basic powers to stop the war spending bill

lying and duplicity on full view at the last democratic debate...

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The White House resorts to blogging to save the immigration bill

well, well, well... just when you think you've seen EVERYTHING, along comes something like THIS......



thereisnospoon at daily kos, who pointed me to this interesting development, has a few thoughts of his own...

I never thought I would see the day when the White House would be so panicked at the derailment of a particular bill by its own base that it would feel the need to post about it on the front page of a conservative blog in its own name.

I also never thought I would see the day when a respected community blog would simply allow a White House official to post on its frontpage--not even a promoted article or quote from an email, mind, but an originally authored piece.

Finally, I never thought I would see the day that George Bush had to defend himself from Republicans on charges of letting terrorists into America unsupervised and uncontrolled.

i am waiting for the day when i can say i never thought i'd see the day when both the president and vice president resigned their offices in disgrace...

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a-HA! Secret prisons in Poland and Romania CONFIRMED!

yeah, like we ever doubted it...

The CIA operated secret prisons in Europe where terrorism suspects could be interrogated and were allegedly tortured, an official inquiry will conclude tomorrow.

Despite denials by their governments, senior security officials in Poland and Romania have confirmed to investigators for the Council of Europe that their countries were used to hold some of America's most important prisoners captured after 9/11 in secret.

None of the prisoners had access to the Red Cross and many were subject to what George Bush has called the CIA's "enhanced" interrogation methods. These included water-boarding which leads detainees to believe they are drowning, which critics have condemned as severe torture.

i'm going to give myself some kudos here... i've been blogging about this since december 2005 (here, here, and here, among others), and also posted last december on the location of the prison site in poland along with the very airport the cia used when delivering or retrieving the prisoners (here and here)... in fact, here's a photo of the airport in poland where the cia flights landed and took off...



Szymany airport, Poland

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The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution swings into action

NOW, we're talkin'... here nadler questions steven bradbury, principal deputy assistant attorney general office of legal counsel about warrantless domestic wiretapping and starts to zero in on big-time...

Congressman Jerrold Nadler (NY-08), Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, today held a hearing titled, "Oversight Hearing on the Constitutional Limitations on Domestic Surveillance," to examine the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program and the Administration’s proposals for expanding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The hearing, the first examination of the issue by the House this Congress, is part of a broader series of hearings called, "The Constitution in Crisis: The State of Civil Liberties in America."

"The time has come to void the blank check the White House has enjoyed for the last six years," said Rep. Nadler. "Today’s hearing will examine the legal reasoning behind the Administration’s warrantless wiretapping program that operated without judicial check for years and the recent decision to place it under the ‘approval’ of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Let me be clear: We are not seeking the blueprints to this program – no one wants to expose sources and methods in a public forum. But I do expect honest and forthright answers concerning the legal justifications for the Administration’s actions."

Nadler questions Steven G. Bradbury, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Office of Legal Counsel U. S. Department of Justice.

nadler isn't cutting bradbury any slack... he's going right after the aumf and the lack of legal constitutional basis for the program... give it a look...

thanks to empty wheel at the next hurrah, who offers this concluding comment...

But at least, from the looks of things, we now have someone focusing on where the real abuse of power all starts, with Vice President Cheney.

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I just got off the phone with the Edwards campaign

they were calling to hit me up for $100 in their end-of-the-second quarter fund-raising drive... she was a very nice woman and i let her give her pitch... then i said i would give her my answer if i could provide some feedback first... she said, "certainly..."

what i said will be no surprise to anyone who reads this blog... i said that i appreciated what edwards was doing in trying to get us out of iraq... i said that, from what i have been reading, he gave a good speech on terrorism today... i lamented novak's completely dishonest attack on edwards this morning in the wapo... then i went for the jugular...

i said that i see the united states in the middle of the worst constitutional crisis of its history and that i am not hearing ANY candidate calling it for what it is... the only one that's come even close is chris dodd... i said that unless and until a presidential candidate stands up and calls it for what it is, and starts talking about what WE can do to set things right, he or she will NOT get my support... i asked her to please pass that along to edwards, which she assured me she would... then i said that, when edwards decides to step forward on that issue, to please feel free to get back with me...

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Tell Me Again How Dems Are Different Than Repubs?

What I think about all of this is not fit to print. Let's just say that I'm beyond disgusted.

This from DailyKos...

It's one thing to screw up on a highly complex and difficult issue like Iraq and capitulate to Bush, but on abstinence-only education? For shame.

Today, the House Democrats will waltz into the mark-up of the Labor HHS Subcommittee and proudly present a bill that puts their stamp of approval on domestic abstinence-only-until-marriage programs—an ideological boondoggle that threatens the health and well-being of America's youth.

The most appalling aspect of this sell-out is that that the Democrats will not only fully fund the worst of the failed abstinence-only-until-marriage programs—they'll give them a $27 million increase—the first in three years!

Shame on Congressman David Obey for brokering this "deal;" shame on Congresswoman Nita Lowey for agreeing to it; and shame on those other Democrats on the Appropriations Committee who have already promised not to offer any amendment that would cut funding for abstinence-only programs and thus "upset" the deal....

Consider this irony. The first domestic policy the Democrats will endorse on the prevention front will be to fund abstinence-only-until-marriage programs for young people up to the age of 29! Good work, gang. You make me proud to be a Democrat—NOT!

And consider this second irony. The Democrats will now become one of the largest funders of an ultra-conservative network that is clearly hostile to its policies and candidates (See an in-depth article in The Nation.)

What in the hell are Obey and Pelosi thinking on this one? Study after study has shown that abstinence-only education not only doesn't work, but is harming the health of young people. This is just insane. And why are they doing this? According to a CQ Today article cited by Bill Scher:

Lawmakers say the olive branch extended to Republicans increases the likelihood that the bill will pass the House with a veto-proof majority. It also sends a strong signal that Appropriations Chairman David R. Obey, D-Wis., will avoid controversial social policy changes this year in the interest of moving bills.

This is more than just controversial social policy. This is a profound failure on the part of Democratic leadership, once again, to stand up to a harmful conservative agenda. This, of all ridiculous policies wrought on the nation by the GOP Congress, is a no-brainer to let die.

The Appropriations Committee is meeting on this even as I write, but it's not to late to call. Call Pelosi at 202.225.4965 and e-mail her at sf.nancy@mail.house.gov. Call Obey, at 202.225.2771 and e-mail him here. Tell them no more funding for abstinence-only education.

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I think Reid is already broke down.

Thanks to Erick at Redstate. Yes, I said Redstate.

Is Harry Reid Having A Mental Meltdown?
By Erick

This is from the Senate transcript of floor debate earlier. He gets the Attorney General's name wrong (you know, all hispanics all named Antonio) and he can't even get the name right for the second branch of government. Weird.

See below:

I HAVE A LOT TO SAY ABOUT THE FAILED ATTORNEY GENERALSHIP OF GONZALES BUT THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO DO THAT. I MAY NOT HAVE THAT OPPORTUNITY BECAUSE THE ONLY ISSUE THAT WOULD BE BEFORE THE SENATE IS A SIMPLE VOTE ON A MOTION TO PROCEED. IF THE MINORITY DOESN'T WISH TO PROCEED TO HAVE A VOTE OF CONFIDENCE ON HIM, IT WON'T HAPPEN. IF THERE WERE EVER AN OPPORTUNITY FOR A LEGISLATIVE BODY TO SPEAK ABOUT WHAT'S GOING ON IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT, IT'S WITH WHAT'S NAPPING THAT JUSTICE DEPARTMENT. ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS READ THE NEWSPAPER TODAY TO FIND OUT WHAT HAS GONE ON IN THIS JUSTICE DEPARTMENT. SHOULD WE HAVE CONFIDENCE IN ANTONIO GONZALES? I DON'T THINK SO. BUT WE'RE ON IMMIGRATION. THIS IS A DAY FOR GETTING ALONG. I'M GOING TO DO THE BEST I CAN TO GET ALONG. I HOPE EVERYONE WILL DO THAT, CONTINUE TO WORK ON A BIPARTISAN BASIS TO MOVE FORWARD ON IMMIGRATION.

I smell a Big Rat. I bet my left..., well I just bet that there is a trade in the works. Dems lay off Gonzo if Repubs vote for a silly Immigration Reform Bill.
There is no excuse for letting Gonzo off the hook, unless he decides to roll on the big crooks.
Besides, the immigration bill assumes that everyone is an idiot and will behave as idiots. The new law assumes undocumented illegals will line up to pay huge fines and back taxes, rather than just continue on knowing existing laws aren't enforced. They may not have the education that the rest of us have, but that doesn't mean they're stupid. I understand they want to become legal, but the amount of money they would have to pay is prohibitive.
Here's an idea, make the employers pay fines and back taxes on the undocumented illegals they hired, then let those folks have a green card so they can get back to work.

The new law assumes big business will play by the rules of finding existing US residents for jobs first, then hire from a pool of guest workers. Employers know there is no way to monitor that system, so they likely won't play. They aren't that stupid, either. Besides, they want undocumented workers because it reduces their labor costs.
I don't even want to think about how much of our tax money was spent coming up with this bill.
All we really need to do is pass a law that anyone employed by anyone gets the same wage, benefit, taxes, fees, and worker protections under the law. No one can be exploited, citizen or not. Big Biz doesn't like that idea and so we get this foolishness they are debating in the Senate.
It would be even more insulting if Reid gives up Gonzo just to put this crazy bill through to law.
I think Erick may be correct, Harry is having a breakdown.
I think somebody should kick him in the ass to check and see.

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Restore the U.S. Constitution

i guess i've not been paying enough attention... somehow this slipped by me...



after all my hollering about the u.s. being in a constitutional crisis, it's very encouraging for me to hear chris dodd actually address the issue, even if it's only in the context of the military commissions act... but, hey, it's a start...

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Libby: "No admission of guilt, no statement of remorse."

marcy wheeler in the guardian...

At his sentencing hearing, Scooter Libby stood up to say a few words to the judge. In the American justice system, this is when those about to be sentenced voice their regret, a key part of any leniency from the judge. They admit their crime and their remorse for having committed it, and in return, the judge considers a lighter sentence.

But Scooter Libby did no such thing. Instead, he thanked the court for how nicely they treated Libby and his family during the trial. He named those who had been kind: Judge Walton's staff, court administrators, the US marshals, court security officers, and the probation office. He recognized, he said, that it was time for the court to decide on a punishment. And he simply asked that the court consider his entire life. "Thank you, your Honor," he said.

No admission of guilt, no statement of remorse.

[...]

Libby succeeded in serving as a firewall, and he apparently has no regrets or contrition for doing so. That act, it seems, merits celebration just like Libby's other notable characteristics: his kindness, his intellect, and his willingness to take the fall.

libby is still serving as a firewall in much the same way as gonzo... the difference is that gonzo hasn't been indicted - yet...

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"Weak and unwilling Democrats" - more insider crap

from a "purely political point of view"... one more example of how the elite insiders simply don't live in the same world we do... read this... read it carefully... then do a quick check on your emotions...

Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill played the issue like a Stradivarius. They forced a vote on a deadline for withdrawal from Iraq, putting Republicans on record supporting the status quo and President Bush, but allowed a subsequent vote to "fund the troops." That gave their own Members from swing districts the opportunity to demonstrate their support for the military.

From a purely political point of view, Democrats had their cake and ate it too. Yes, the war is unpopular, and opposing it is a no-brainer. But the one thing Democrats need to avoid is looking like themselves during the 1970s and 1980s -- weak and unwilling to support America's men and women in uniform.

[...]

So, in ignoring the demands of the party's left, Congressional leaders have kept their party right where they want it -- against the war but also against terrorists and for the troops.

[...]

Why take a chance alienating swing voters when the party already made its point by sending the president a deadline bill that he vetoed?

Anti-war critics of the Democratic Congressional leadership have nowhere else to go, both now and in November 2008.

Liberal bloggers apparently are angry with Democratic Rep. Mark Udall's vote for the supplemental, but they'll support him in next year's open-seat Senate race in Colorado. Similarly, the 2008 Democratic nominee for president will be more appealing to anti-war liberals than the Republican nominee will be, so the Democratic Party risks very little, at least at this point, in disappointing its most ideological, confrontational element.

so, how DOES it feel to be "ignored...?" how DOES it feel to be manipulated...? how DOES it feel to have those you went to the polls for last november take an illegal war and turn it into a "purely political" football...?

the democrats blew it... i won't go into big tent democrat's long and detailed explanations, and, besides, i doubt if i could do them justice anyway... but this i do know... "supporting the troops" means getting them the hell out of there and the democrats could - and should - have made that case and didn't... what they DID do is lose big-time, not just once, but twice... they not only bought themselves a war, lock, stock, and barrel, they also gave the head of our increasingly dictatorial state precisely the victory he wanted, along with more ammunition - pardon the very bad pun - to bolster his unitary executive bullshit...

let me be perfectly clear... our democratic leadership has a great deal more in common with bob novak (see previous post) than they do with me...

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Bob Novak wants us to know it's HIS CLASS who's calling the shots

slanted, dishonest, irresponsible journalism... would we expect anything less...?

A Contender's Worn-Out Welcome

By Robert D. Novak
Thursday, June 7, 2007; Page A27

The dynamic performance by John Edwards in Sunday's Democratic presidential debate, assailing his competitors for the nomination, got high marks from political reporters, Republican politicians and left-wing activists. But not from the Democratic establishment. Once their great hope for the future, Edwards now is massively unpopular among party regulars, who neither like nor trust him.

"massively unpopular"...? "massively"...?? where the hell are you getting your information, you twit...?

Democrats are surprisingly candid about him. Mark Siegel, a 35-year party insider, told me: "He came to Washington as a 'New Democrat,' but he's not that kind of Democrat anymore. He's into class warfare."

Edwards has not worn well with party colleagues. Campaign consultant Bob Shrum was enthusiastic about Edwards after working on his 1998 Senate victory in North Carolina and unsuccessfully advised Gore to make him his 2000 running mate. But Shrum chose Kerry over Edwards as his 2004 presidential client. In his newly published memoir, "No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner," Shrum explains: "I was coming to believe he wasn't ready; he was a Clinton who hadn't read the books."

During the 2004 primaries, Democratic activist James Carville was enchanted when Edwards shifted his centrist posture to a populist depiction of "Two Americas." Carville told me -- and then repeated it on CNN -- that Edwards was the best stump speaker he ever had seen. When I asked him this week whether he still thought that was true, Carville replied: "Maybe he's not as good now."

oh, ok... i've got it now... edwards is "massively unpopular" with the democratic LEADERSHIP, the INSIDERS like siegel, carville, and shrum, three people who certainly don't speak for me, and certainly not, in my opinion, for most grassroots liberals and progressives... and that bit about "class warfare"... feeling threatened, are ya, bob...?

then, in keeping with the unbelievably shallow attacks that have become a staple of the traditional media, novak goes on to babble about edwards' "haircut," his speaking honorarium, and his hedge fund salary...

but it's in the last paragraph that he fully reveals his hand...

Iowa Democrats in 2004 pulled back from catastrophe at the 11th hour and abandoned Howard Dean when they contemplated the impact of a Dean victory. Party leaders hope Iowans will take a similarly hard look at John Edwards.

you see, it's all about the PARTY LEADERSHIP, and has nothing to do with folks like US who actually CAST THE VOTES... novak's making the case that it's HIS CLASS, the INSIDER CLASS, who needs to call the shots... god forbid it should be US COMMONERS, or, as they would call us in shakespeare's day, GROUNDLINGS...

it's also very telling that novak should bring up howard dean, the "catastrophe" in novak's twisted world view... howard dean was a phenomenon created and led by the grassroots, a movement that struck such fear into the hearts of the insiders that they had no choice but to destroy both it and dean along with it... and, ironically, horrified as i was by what i was seeing with the bush regime, it was howard dean who brought me out of my shell and into the world of political activism for the first time...

p.s. i am certainly not declaring myself as an edwards supporter... there's way too much time between now and november 2008 for me to be jumping on any candidate's bandwagon... but i simply can't and won't tolerate naked efforts to destroy a candidate on bogus grounds, and that's precisely what novak is attempting to do... of COURSE, he would be more comfortable with hillary (or, should i say, mark penn) and obama too, for that matter... after all, they both support the war, which, by extension, means they support the power structure that keeps a shill like bob novak in good standing with his fellow elites...

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Where are the 39 "ghost prisoners"?

bad, bad, bad business...

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, said they filed a U.S. federal lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act seeking information about the 39 people it terms "ghost prisoners" in the U.S. "war on terror."

Reuters

Six human rights groups urged the U.S. government on Thursday to name and explain the whereabouts of 39 people they said were believed to have been held in U.S. custody and "disappeared."

"Since the end of Latin America's dirty wars, the world has rejected the use of 'disappearances' as a fundamental violation of international law," Professor Meg Satterthwaite of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University's School of Law said in a statement.

The report said suspects' relatives, including children as young as seven, had been held in secret detention on occasion.

sometimes i have to stop and remind myself that i'm reading about my own country, not el salvador, chile, honduras, or argentina...

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What if? What if Libby isn't pardoned? What if Libby goes to jail? What if Libby talks?

robert parry poses some very interesting what ifs...

[I]f U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton orders Libby to start his jail term in July while his appeals proceed – as it now appears the judge will – Bush will be faced with the prospect of Libby serving more than half his sentence before November 2008 and a risk that Libby finally might cooperate with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

If Libby, who was Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, were to start talking, he could explain the full role of Bush and Cheney in orchestrating the smear campaign against Iraq War critic Joseph Wilson, which set the stage for Libby and other administration officials to leak the identity of Wilson’s wife, covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, in summer 2003.

Libby also had a front-row seat to the White House cover-up that followed the revelation in September 2003 that the CIA had sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department, complaining about the security breach and prompting the start of a formal investigation.

The evidence from Libby’s trial makes clear that Bush and Cheney had authorized a media campaign to discredit former U.S. Ambassador Wilson, who undertook a CIA fact-finding trip to Niger in 2002 and accused the White House in July 2003 of “twisting” intelligence about Iraq’s alleged pursuit of uranium in Africa to justify going to war.

At minimum, the evidence shows that Bush selectively declassified parts of a National Intelligence Estimate to undercut Wilson, and Cheney ordered Libby to share the information with friendly reporters.

and...? and...? go on... i'm all ears...

From the start, Bush and Cheney appear to have sensed that they could make the cover-up work if they transformed it into a political spat. To a great extent, they have been proven correct in that assumption.

Now, their last remaining Plamegate concern is that “Scooter” Libby might calculate that he stands a better chance of reducing his time in jail if he tells the whole story rather than trust that his loyal silence will be rewarded by a pardon from a thankful President Bush.

as molly ivins - rest her dear soul - used to say, i'm serious as a heart attack... i would give the left portion of an important part of my anatomy if scooter would sing like a canary, and bring down the whole filthy mess right on top of george and dick... nothing, and i mean NOTHING, would give me greater satisfaction than to see those two driven from office in disgrace so we could get about putting things in the united states to rights... bastards...

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Stand up for habeas

stand up for your country and help rectify one of the most egregious violations of our constitution in the history of the united states... patrick leahy is spearheading this and it's something every citizen needs to speak out on...

just do it...

Restore Habeas Corpus

Many of you may recall the hasty passage of the Military Commissions Act in the weeks leading up to last year's election, a bill that set new rules for trying detainees, in particular those currently being held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

The passage of this bill was a profound mistake, and its elimination of habeas corpus review was its worst error. Righting this wrong is one of my top priorities, and on the first day of this Congress I joined with Senator Arlen Specter to introduce the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act (S. 185). This bipartisan bill already has 17 cosponsors, but it faces a crucial vote in the Judiciary Committee this Thursday so we need your help.

Please e-mail your home-state Senators today and urge them to protect our fundamental liberties by supporting the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act!

(click here to send a message to your senators...)

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So, it looks like Schlozman, the scumbag, might have been lying through his teeth

which, after watching his pathetic testimony yesterday, would not surprise me one iota... in fact, at one point, while watching him on cnn pipeline, i was actually hopping around the room, shouting, "you are LYING, you are a LIAR, LIAR, LIAR..." thank goodness no one was home at the time...

from TPMmuckraker...

Former U.S. Attorney for New Mexico David Iglesias said he finds Bradley Schlozman's testimony about Craig Donsanto unbelievable.

Schlozman told a Senate Judiciary panel yesterday that while he was the interim U.S. Attorney in Missouri he brought four criminal voter fraud prosecutions on the eve of the 2006 midterm election after getting the go-ahead from Donsanto, the director of the election crimes branch at the department.

[...]

Iglesias was in touch with Donsanto up until the summer of 2006, just before Schlozman would have received approval to bring the indictments. Iglesias said he can’t imagine a scenario where Donsanto would have changed his mind on the department’s voter fraud policy.

[...]

The Justice Department did not respond to calls requesting comment. Donsanto did not reply to an email message, though Iglesias guesses he is not allowed to speak to the press.

loyal bushies... lying is in their dna...

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A Conflict Of Interest?

RAWSTORY reports:

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday announced that she had picked ten colleagues to serve on subcommittees that investigate alleged Congressional ethics violations. But two of the ten Democratic Congressional members selected also donated money to Rep. William Jefferson, the Louisiana Democrat who was indicted on 16 public corruption counts on Monday and may soon be the target of a congressional ethics probe, RAW STORY has learned.

The ten Democrats will be serving in Pelosi's 'ethics pool,' a group of House members who can be appointed to investigative subcommittees by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct in order to look into ethical complaints. But two of the group, Reps. Barbara Lee (CA) and Gregory Meeks (NY) have donated money to the campaign and the legal defense funds of Rep. Jefferson, who is alleged to have received bribes related to a business venture in Nigeria, among other crimes.

EARTH TO DEMOCRATS: Saying the 110th Congress will be "the most honest and ethical one in history" is nothing more than empty rhetoric if you don't clean up your own backyard. Nor can you claim that you are any different then the Repubs. Something about logs and eyes comes to mind here...

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Vintage Taliban

They were for them before they were against them...

Proclamation 5034—Afghanistan Day, 1983
March 21st, 1983

By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation

The tragedy of Afghanistan continues as the valiant and courageous Afghan freedom fighters persevere in standing up against the brutal power of the Soviet invasion and occupation. The Afghan people are struggling to reclaim their freedom, which was taken from them when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December of 1979.

In this three-year period the Soviet Union has been unable to subjugate Afghanistan. The Soviet forces are pitted against an extraordinary people who, in their determination to preserve the character of their ancient land, have organized an effective and still spreading country-wide resistance. The resistance of the Afghan freedom fighters is an example to all the world of the invincibility of the ideals we in this country hold most dear, the ideals of freedom and independence.

We must also recognize that the sacrifices required to maintain this resistance are very high. Millions have gone into exile as refugees. We will probably never know the numbers of people killed and maimed, poisoned and gassed, of the homes that have been destroyed, and of the lives that have been shattered and stricken with grief.

It is, therefore, incumbent upon us as Americans to reflect on the events in Afghanistan, to think about the agony which these brave people bear, and to maintain our condemnation of the continuing Soviet occupation. Our observance again this year of Afghanistan Day on March 21, the Afghan New Year, will recall for all the world America's unflagging sympathy for a determined people, its support for their refugees and commitment to achieving a political settlement for Afghanistan which will free that country from tyranny's yoke.

The Congress, by Senate Joint Resolution 65, has designated March 21, 1983 as "Afghanistan Day" and has requested the President to issue a proclamation in observance of that day.

Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate March 21, 1983 as Afghanistan Day.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-first day of March, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and seventh.

RONALD REAGAN

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 3:10 p.m., March 24, 1983]

Note: The proclamation was not issued in the form of a White House press release.

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Republicans' Foe

Bush

Wu Wei sez:

Evil eventually destroys itself. The nature of evil is destructive. Therefore, anyone who employs it to gain his ends is always himself damaged by it. That is part of Universal law. It is also true that when evil, being a purely destructive force, finds nothing left to conquer, it turns upon itself and succeeds in its final conquest.

Karl Rove sez:

I don't think you ever kill any political party. Political parties kill themselves, or are killed, not by the other political party but by their failure to adapt to new circumstances. But do you weaken a political party, either by turning what they see as assets into liabilities, and/or by taking issues they consider to be theirs, and raiding them?" The thought brought to his round, unlined, guileless face a boyish look of pure delight. "Absolutely!"

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Joe Klein and "extremist" left-wing bloggers

Joe Klein

basically, i haven't bothered to post on joe klein because i seriously don't give a rat's ass, but this pushed me over the top...

obviously, jokeline just can't give it a rest...

[T]he smart stuff is being drowned out by a fierce, bullying, often witless tone of intolerance that has overtaken the left-wing sector of the blogosphere. Anyone who doesn't move in lockstep with the most extreme voices is savaged and ridiculed—especially people like me who often agree with the liberal position but sometimes disagree and are therefore considered traitorously unreliable. Some of this is understandable: the left-liberals in the blogosphere are merely aping the odious, disdainful—and politically successful—tone that right-wing radio talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh pioneered. They are also justifiably furious at a Bush White House that has specialized in big lies and smear tactics.

And that is precisely the danger here. Fury begets fury.

but, ya gotta understand, this isn't ABOUT JOE... oh, no... he's ever so concerned about our POLITICAL PROCESS...

The spitballs aimed at me don't matter much. The spitballs aimed at Harman, Clinton and Obama are another story. Despite their votes, each of those politicians believes the war must be funded. (Obama even said so in his statement explaining his vote.) Each knows, as Senator Jim Webb has said repeatedly, that we must be more careful getting out of Iraq than we were getting in. But they allowed themselves to be bullied into a more simplistic, more extreme position. Why? Partly because they fear the power of the bloggers to set the debate and raise money against them. ... In the long term, however, kowtowing to extremists is exactly the opposite of what this country is looking for after the lethal radicalism of the Bush Administration.

you don't get it, joe, and you aren't being honest either... the liberal, progressive, democratic, anti-war - whatever label you want to stick on us - aren't EXTREMISTS... moreover, you can take your goddam concern for our precious political process and stick it directly up your ass... the united states is in the middle of the biggest constitutional crisis in its history and those who are speaking out about it and insisting that the united states halts its criminal behavior are EXTREMISTS...? it's precisely the demonstrated lack of urgency and concern on the part of those we thought we had elected to represent us that drives us into hissy fits... that you don't see that and don't appreciate just how much we care, is a pathetic demonstration of narrow vision... and comparing us to those who advocate murdering innocents, torturing detainees, castrating gays, and assassinating leaders of other countries is despicable...

whatever credibility you might have had with me, joe, is gone...

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