I Think They Call It Plausible Deniability

(Headline fixed, thanks for correcting my spelling, y'all!)

Murray Waas somehow has dug up some damning documents from the Justice Department, you may have heard.

Let me add this. It gives Gonzales the ability to say with a straight face that he knew nothing about the firings, he just approved the decisions made without being a part of them. He didn't know anything, which is why he can't remember anything when questioned.

But ask yourself this, if you had a manager working for you who had no clue about what was happening in his office regarding personnel, would you keep him on, or fire his sorry ass and let one of the people doing the work take over. And that raises another question.

What does Gonzales do with all of that taxpayer money he gets from his salary? People issues always take up a lot of management time, that's really what managers are there for anyway, right, making sure people show up to work and work within the rules. And planning strategy and monitoring the activities of the department. So what the hell does that useless man do with his time?

Somebody needs to ask him that question.

Bill Moyer Returns

I got home from work last night, turned on the teevee to see if there was anything fun on C-SPAN, but Moyer's new show was on first, and that's as far as I got.

Just in time to see Moyer's carefully and respectfully questioning "The Media" about their failed coverage of the propagandizing the cause for a war with Irak (Timmeh).

When you go back and think about it, how and when did Iraq get into the dialogue anyway? When did we go from getting the terrorists to obsessing over Hussein's intransigence, his drive towards NBC's (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical, aka WMD's).

When the Beltway, Teevee media kept reporting what the White House was telling them without question. And Moyers gets those guys to expose their cowardice, their laziness, and their selfishness, every single one of them. Bob Simon, Tim Russert, Walter Isaakson, Dan Rather, all too scared of Bush and his Bullies Rover and Big Time to do their jobs.

"We might have gotten fired" or "the people would rise against us" or "our corporatations would lose access and money money money" they whined. Simply overlooking that if they had reported the truth, the facts, the relentless and never ending lies, if they hadn't buried the precious little important stuff they did report on page 18 and such of their papers or after the funny cat video, then maybe the American People could have figured things out instead of getting swept up in a war fever thanks to the utterly one sided propaganda of the Bush Administratin and the Big Time Media.

Yes, you need to watch the video. Moyers destroys them all very politely, pointedly, yet he asks the questions and gets answers that no invective blogging would ever get. He shows those fat cat and useless media tools exactly how you balance being on the inside and asking tough questions, he shows Tim Russert precisely, by demonstrating on ol Timmeh, how he should be doing his job, still keeping access, but actually holding up the powers that be to the light of truth.

Well done.

On the Defensive?

Just read this piece from the Huffington Post via TPM.

How excited were we to have our first opportunity ever to talk directly to the Bush Administration about global warming.

We asked Mr. Rove if he would consider taking a fresh look at the science of global warming. Much to our dismay, he immediately got combative. And it went downhill from there.

I just can't let that pass, because it tells so much about the way things have turned for the Bushites. Turned towards the good for the country. Because 2 years ago, we would never hear about such an exchange. And Rover would never have been so nasty in public either. The rich and powerful don't respond to the will of the amorphus "people." They respond to power. He's wrong, of course, as his salary does come from the US Treasury, of course how much money he's making on the side remains to be seen, maybe White House advisor is a side job for him, eh?

As Josh has noted earlier, Abu's testimony didn't do anything for the White House, I was listening to the testimony this morning when Sen Feinstein asked him who made up the List, because somebody had to put the names down, and since Gonzales couldn't remember but said it wasn't him, and since Sampson testified that he was an aggregater but never put anybody on the list, and Battle knew nothing about it, attention has to swing to the White House for authorship.

And that can't make Karl too happy. And it's long past time for the country to see that odious man under the glare of the camera lens, long past time. That's part of what sank McCarthy, it didn't do Nixon much good, and it should have buried Bush after the first debate with Kerry, so seeing Karl in all of his glory should just about seal the deal, I'm thinking.

Why, you ask? Because Karl isn't Karl when he's being Karl, if you follow me. He's being himself when he's manipulating and managing somebody else. That won't work when he's the one under the lights, now will it?

They're Not Indispensible

Two men, same story. Both soft spoken to the point of insipidness. Both feckless, fawning, toadies to the Bush/Cheney Axis of Venal. Both consider themselves as more important than the institutions they serve.

Says Bush's favorite death enabler, “I am committed to working with you in trying to restore the faith and confidence you need to work with me,” as if keeping his job was the main thrust of the hearings.

Says the neo-con warmongering ideologue, [l]ook, I believe in the mission of this organization, and I believe that I can carry it out. I've had many expressions of support, as well as the things that you referred to. I come back to what we agreed to in that communique, which is that we need to work our way through this, because it's more important for him to stay on as Bank President then it is to restore the credibility of the Bank. Really. Look, it's been a painful time for Paul. He said so himself.

Not only was this a painful personal dilemma, but I had to deal with it when I was new to this institution, and I was trying to navigate in uncharted waters.

Yes, that's right, ladies and germs, it hurt him deeply to get his girlfriend a big fat raise and a nice position out of his spit shined hair. Jeebus.

Gonzales, of course, takes the cake. In this version of the AP story they quote this gem: "The notion that there was something that was improper that happened here is simply not supported," Gonzales said, but, as they also noted in the article, you have to wonder how he would know that, given the [s]eventy-one times he fell back on faulty memory, saying he could not recall or remember conversations or events surrounding the firings.

After weeks of highly intensive "preparation" (another instance of a word reaching new heights of redefinition by the Bushites) this was the best that Gonzales could come up with? I still don't effing remember? In a normal world such a miserable memory would be cause for the removal of such a manager as simply intolerable. In the real world you don't become a powerful manager by being unable to remember the details and content of important meetings, it just doesn't work that way.

So clearly there is something else to this. Part of the strategy to impede, stall, and delay, justice and any rollback of the multi headed Bush/Cheney/Corporate/Neo-Con agenda, and part to keep in place those people who will carry out said agenda as long as possible. Look, there are plenty of people who could preside over the World Bank as well as and even better than Wolfowitz. Likewise for Gonzales. (D'oh, ya think?) But how many would carry out the corruption, the protection, the delusions, the coverups, and the abuse of those institutions for benefit of the Axis of Venal like Abu Gonzales and Wolfie?

The World Bank doesn't have a mechanism for removing the President. But they don't have a mechanism for NOT removing him either. So here's a suggestion. Get together, agree that he's a blight and an embarassment and a pox on their credibility, and fire his ass.

Congress does have a solution for Gonzales. Monday, the House should begin impeachment proceedings against him, then impeach him, then send him over to the Senate, where they can convict him for lying serially to Congress and obstructing justice and perjury.

Then let's see Bush pick replacements with integrity. Hahahahahahahahahahahaha ha!!!!

For Blacksburg

Darkness, Darkness
Be my pillow
Take my head
And let me sleep
In the coolness of your shadow
In the silence of your deep

Darkness, Darkness
Hide my yearning
For the things I cannot be
Keep my mind from constant turning
Toward the things I cannot see now
Things I cannot see now
Things I cannot see

Darkness, darkness,
Long and lonesome,
Ease the day that brings me pain.
I have felt the edge of sadness,
I have known the depth of fear.
Darkness, darkness, be my blanket,
Cover me with the endless night,
Take away, take away the pain of knowing,
Fill the emptiness of right now,
Emptiness of right now, now, now
Emptiness of ri-ight now.

Darkness, darkness, be my pillow,
Take my hand, and let me sleep.
In the coolness of your shadow,
In the silence, the silence of your deep.
Darkness, darkness, be my blanket,
Cover me with the endless night,
Take away, take away the pain of knowing
Fill the emptiness of right now,
Emptiness of right now now now
Emptiness of right....
Oh yeah Oh yeah
Emptiness, emptiness
Oh yeah


Poem 58

The way you talk
The things you've done
Make me wish I
Was the only one
Who could ever have made you laugh now
Could have made you
Made you want to cry
To have been there the day
You first whispered "I love you"
Yes I love you

When you discovered
All those new things
And when you first
First met the world
When you felt beautiful
And you said hello
To everything you saw
If I could have been all
So I could have known you all those times
I love you
Yes, I love you
Yes I do

Jimi Hendrix said that Terry Kath played better guitar than he did. I dunno, but he certainly takes your breath away on that song.

My condolences and thoughts to the people of Blacksburg.

What Bush Has Accomplished.

Watching CNBC this morning, they were talking about how the Market has hit a "New Seven Year High" and how great and wonderful that is.

Just to put that in some sort of perspective, what that really means is that under the Bush Administration auspices, the Market has rturned to levels that were last seen during the Clinton Administration. So basically, we're back where we left off under the leadership of the last President with a functioning frontal lobe.

Despite all of the record profits for the Exxon Mobile's and all, and I mean all, of the money that private equity firms have corraled from Bush's tax giveaways to the rich, we're as a nation of investors no better off then we were before this disastrous and deluded and wrong thinking presidency usurped their way into power.

Here's a decent business friendly run down of private equity firms, just note this tidbit:

The headlines about private equity have focused on the dollars rushing in. Kohlberg Kravis Roberts proposes buying Vivendi for $50 billion, a record-sized deal that would have been unthinkable just a year ago. Blackstone Group announces that it's raising a $20 billion fund, the biggest ever. Private-equity firms already own a growing stable of America's most famous companies - Hertz, Neiman Marcus and Toys "R" Us, among others.

Yes, private-equity deals are making investors rich. In the 12 months through last June, investments in PE firms returned 22.5 percent, vs. 6.6 percent for the S&P 500, says Thomson Financial.

Over the past ten years, the score is 11.4 percent a year vs. 6.6 percent; over the past 20 years, 14.2 percent vs. 9.8 percent. Those are significant differences, and some critics charge that huge fees and sweetheart deals with management are siphoning value from public shareholders.

That's what Bush has accomplished. He's enabled the transfer of vast sums of public equity and public earnings into the coffers of the rich and the richer. Never forget that fact.

Peeling Back the Web of Lies

You never know where an investigation is going to lead you, and this business about the USA's is a classic example of that.

What started out as a series of questions about the firings of a handful of US Attorney's has gotten out of the control of Rover and his team of bankrupt bullies. A bunch of people, including Republicans, have said that if they had told the truth from the beginning this would have all blown over in a week or two. Me, I'm not convinced of that, first of all, if it comes from the right it's a pretty much some flavor of lie, excepting the foma they would never use, second because I don't believe that they could just tell the truth.

Not because they're incapable of truth telling, a not unreasonable conclusion to arrive at, but because there is no acceptable version of the truth to this story that wouldn't have started this ball rolling, once the Democrats regained control of Congress. And why? Because the people they wanted to fire, specifically Carol Lam, were right in the middle of serious investigations that would require explanation from Congress. And telling them they fired her because they wanted to was not, and is not, cutting it.

But they had to fire her, because her road was going to end up in Dick Cheney's office, hell it already has, so they came up with a cover story to obfuscate, confuse, muddy the water is todays term, delay, trivialize, delay, and so on. Even if it costs them the Presidents favorite counselor, Alberto Gonzales, a willing sacrifice no doubt.

Ah, Dick Cheney, can't you just smell the sharp tang of petroleum products in the air at the mere mention of his name? Here's a reminder of what all of the actions of Bush/Cheney really boil down to, a story I don't recall seeing much, Laura Rozen linked it from her article above, but you really should read it to see our government in action. It has all the ingredients, and here's a taste.

"There were statements made: 'Don't bother the oil companies,' " Maxwell told the House Natural Resources Committee, which is investigating allegations of mismanagement in the royalty program run by the Minerals Management Service of the Interior Department.

[snip...]According to Interior Department data, enforcement revenue averaged well over $100 million a year during the 1990s, peaking at more than $331 million in 2000. In the six years since then, enforcement revenue has averaged about $46 million a year.

[snip...]The inspector general estimated that the Interior Department had reduced the number of auditors by 15 percent since 2000 and was completing about 22 percent fewer audits than it had six years earlier.

"It does appear that we're getting ripped off, plain and simple," said Rep Nick Rahall 2nd., a Democrat from West Virginia ...

The Interior Department is under fire for other problems in the royalty program as well. It is struggling without much success to correct leasing mistakes that could allow oil companies to escape $10 billion in royalties over the next decade or so.

And so the US Attorney investigation rumbles on, and now it has Rover in the crosshairs. for violations not directly related to the Purge, 5 million freakin e-mails????? Over 6 years, 50 people would average 45 e-mails every day of the year to write that much stuff. Peel the Bush White House onion and everything turns to ashes, lies and deceit. Everything. That story above, they were ripping off Indian Tribes too, you wonder who was involved in that? We don't need a special prosecutor, we need Elliot Ness to clean out this whole rat's nest of RICO violations. The Democrats need to start impeaching Bush's Patriot Act replacement USA's. They need to start removing Bush's appointees wherever they can, but Justice is the place to start. This simply cannot continue, we can't allow them to run out the clock. And don't think I'm criticizing Congressional Democrats at all, I'm not. I'm just saying what I think they need to do.

The thing that I fear, and you can see the media and rover setting it up, is that when the soulless Gonzales resigns to go back to spending time scrabbling in the dirt he "rose" up from, is that will be the end of these investigations.

Rover is setting up Gonzales, he being the perfect empty vessel following orders from his leaders, as the focus of all things evil in this White House. The media, being at turns complicit, lazy, shallow, insipid, and corporate, will certainly sniff at Gonzales' fall, then search eagerly for the first distraction to toss over his still warm carcass, but will Congress, the Blogs, and the Real Media do the same?

Not if I can help it, me and my legion of readers.

More US Attorney purge

Yes, I can't get enough of it, and so, dear readers, neither can you!

I just wanted to bring attention to this graph from Glenn Greenwald's piece yesterday. For all the apologists and trolls who think that having a Justice Department that you can't trust to do the right thing regardless of the political party being investigated, explain to me why, if this is a whole lot of nothing, why Gonzales and company can't cooperate with the Congressional investigators? [My highlights]

Much of the evidence is, admittedly, circumstantial, but that is so precisely because we have not yet had full hearings with the key witnesses/culprits and full disclosure of key documents. And the reason the pool of information is still so incomplete is because the White House, cheered on by the national media, has steadfastly refused to reveal what it knows (and what it did), choosing instead to hide behind precarious assertions of "executive privilege."

Just like the Libby trial and conviction, there's nothing here yet because the Administration is hiding, covering-up, and probably destroying, the evidence.

And that tells us why there's no there there, because they don't want us to discover the truth. It's just like the stupid Anna Nicole paternity thing, the guy trying to block the DNA testing did so because he knew he wasn't the father. It's really as simple as that. We all can understand some reluctance to air out dirty laundry on the part of normal people, but this intransigence goes way beyond reluctance. It's part and parcel of how the Bushites operate, and they do it for a reason.

Because their actions are not in the least bit concerned with the interests of the American People, with our Nation, our Laws, our Traditions, or our Founding Principles. It's all about keeping the power they essentially stole and using it to perpetuate their corporate and neo-con and insane fundie wet dreams. Plain and simple.

Demonstrating Values

Here's a post from DKos that bears repeating, it's something I've been saying for years. It's a modest proposal that works on several different levels at the same time.

Devilstower argues that the money being raised for the 2008 election, some $1 billion dollars is an early estimate for the presidential candidates, is not spent very efficiently. The law of dimishing returns and our experience tells us that the 7th phone call to vote for Bill Richardson, the nth repetition of the same commercial, the 49th flyer stuffed in the mail box and deposited directly into the recycling can have a marginal impact that belies their cost, and that a candidate would be smart to do something else with that money. And he's right, I've done phone banking, and people get tired of the repeat phone calls rather quickly, nobody reads the mail crap after a while, and the commercials lose their grip after a while.

So Devilstower suggests that the candidates give a tenth of their campaign contributions to charity. As a DEMONSTRATION OF THEIR VALUES, although he didn't say it that way, that's how I've been saying for years. Rather than give their money for endless and destructive teevee commercials that tell the voters nothing, give it to charity, and get free publicity for doing it, I mean, of course the teevee would cover John Edwards giving Katrina Reconstruction $5 million dollars, that would rebuild a couple of houses and roads in New Orleans, or Barack dumping $5 million into the coffers of the MLK Foundation, or whatever charity these people like.

And the best part of it? The Networks and Cable Companies get none of that money. The Networks and Cable Companies who have attacked and smeared and trivialized and denegrated and marginalized Democrats for the past 20 years or so, ever since the Big Corporations sold out to the tawdry lures of the GOP.

Yes, I think it's a grand idea, it doesn't need to be charity per se, it could be funding Yearly Kos, or a Blogger Conference on Ethics, or Air America, or to staff a Democratic Think Tank, or to Broadcast Al Gore's movie, whatever, the point being to DEMONSTRATE DEMOCRATIC VALUES without buying a bunch of air time from the same people trying to destroy our Constitution and freedom loving way of life.

Politicizing Function

That's what this USA Purge is doing in the long term, even as the White House uses the US Attorneys to push their bogus voter fraud schemes, their Democratic investigations, and stopping their Republican investigations.

Way back in 1982 or so, I saw the Reagan WH doing the same thing to the environment via James Watt and his disciple Gail Norton, and that's when I got involved in politics, in my own small way, opposing the politization of the Executive Branch, opposing their corporate giveaways, opposing their unending violations of precedent and reasonable decorum. Looking back, of course, I realize what pikers they were, or maybe since they didn't own Congress it was just a matter of limitations imposed on them by a slightly less corrupt Democratic Congress.

Regardless, what we see today is the fruits of those labors begun in earnest by the Reagan Republicans. This CBS News article makes the case for the damage being done at the Justice Department. The writer is particularly blunt in his words discussing the actions of the Bush Administration. He concludes thus:

When you populate an office with ideologues and partisans and underachieving talent, you get an ideological and partisan office with underachieving results. And if there is any department in our federal system that can least afford to be ideological and partisan and underachieving, it is the Justice Department. This sorry state is true today, regardless of how and when the scandal over the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys is resolved. Of all the dismaying legal legacies left by this administration, this one surely ranks near the top.

Read the article, because it gives a deeper layer of context to the United States Attorney Purge. It shows the shortsighted and destructive consequences of the Mayberry Machiavellis, whose determination to seize and hold political power for their corporate masters and their stupid, ignorant, and just plain stupid and deluded ideology has led us to this point in history. The Corps, they don't mind the stupidity of Bush/Cheney/Rove and their ideology since they profit so handsomely from it, but for real, caring, human, people, we pay twice for their insanity, once to the Corps, once to the consequences of their wilful destruction of our government and its many and varied agencies, like our military and our justice system.

If you want a reason to impeach these fuckers, pardon my french but there it is, look no further than the Justice Department. And when Bush nominates his replacement for the faithful cur Alberto Gonzales, press your Senators, no blank check, no free pass, no uncritical deference because that crank is the President and he deserves the cabinet he wants. Screw that, he deserves nothing but a one way plane ticket to Amersterdam, which is in the same country as The Hague, if you know what I mean.

Local Politics Same as National Politics

Talk about corporate welfare, check out this beauty from the sleepy confines of not very sunny today San Diego.

First, a brief backgrounder. San Diego is a former Sleepy Navy Town that has been long dominated by Developers, Developers who would be perfectly content to pave over every inch of San Diego County if they could make money on it. With the drawdown in our military forces since the collapse of the Soviet Union, all of that juicy military property is a Grail of some sort for the developers, right on the bayfront of downtown San Diego, in places like the Broadway Pier Complex, right next to the cruise ship terminals, Ruth Chris Steakhouse, the USS Midway Museum, the Seaport Village tourist trap, Petco Park (home of the Padres) and an astonishing number of new high rise condo projects; and Liberty Station, former home of the USMC Recruit Depot, a scandal just waiting to be exposed, but not here.

And with development comes infrastructure, comes more development, comes taxpayer "improvements" meant to, well, improve the facilities and accommodations and constructions and businesses of the developed area. And of course, taxpayer money.

Take this noise abatement boondoggle in the article. From an estimate of $3.5 million to $16.7 million in two years, but that's okay, coz [t]he Centre City Development Corp. will pay for the Quiet Zone and nearly 60 percent of the suspension bridge with property taxes collected from downtown redevelopment. So who made the initial estimate, and the subsequently revised one in November for $7 million? And how did that revision get it so wrong, did I mention it was in November, electoral November, 4 months ago? But it's okay coz it gets paid for by property taxes for downtown redevelopment, remember? I'd like to see a breakdown on how much individual taxpayers are putting out to satisfy the downtown condo developers and how much the developers are paying. Might be revealing to see who is really paying for this, and it might be revealing to speculate on what tha extra money could get for the citizens of the City, like beginning to address the chronic sewer system failures or fixing the sorry road system in Downtown San Diego. As opposed to the Downtown Developers garnering the vast majority of the benefits, thanks to the kindness of the taxpayer. Now, I know what you're thinking, there goes Duckman ranting against the evil corporations.

Well, yeah, I am. I know that they aren't all bad, in concept, but the fact is that they have garnered so much power that they are totally out of control, so I oppose them, I rant about them, I try to show the disparities wherever I can, big and small. So these Downtown Developers who have been running San Diego County, not just the city, for decades, earn my ire.

You want more? Here's another oneThis article is just a part of the battle, as city attorney Mike Aguirre battles with other developers who basically want to take over the Municipal Airport on Kearney Mesa for development, it is a big chunk of flat ground and all, that's what this Sunroad brouha is all about, yet another example of Developer malfeasence and influence and even control of the government of San Diego. I mean, follow the story line for this garbage.

Jerry Sanders is oh so popular with San Diegans, thanks to his stint as Police Chief, and a successful(?) re-org of the local Red Cross after Their past financial scandals. He seemed moderate and reasonable, an upstanding citizen. Then along comes this strong mayor proposal that passes with the voters, and suddenly Sanders starts acting like a low level George W Bush, not sociopathic I'll grant you, and it's business as usual. The Developers are in heaven. It's like Michael Corleone and Hyman Roth's owned government in Cuba, only slightly less messy.

Check this out, does it sound like nothing to see here?

But first to the search warrant, and its case against Story:

Story left City Hall in July 2005 (though he continued getting paid into November).

He was told by a city Ethics Commission staff member in October that for one year he was restricted from contacting city officials on any project that he had worked on at City Hall.

Story soon was hired as Sunroad's vice president of development. His qualifications were solid: Before becoming Mayor Dick Murphy's senior policy adviser and chief of staff, he was a deputy planning director. In that role, he worked on a development agreement for the site where Sunroad is constructing its too-tall building. In his first year away from City Hall, Story e-mailed former colleagues seeking their help with his project. He also contacted city employees through intermediaries. In attached e-mails, city planners seem to bend over backward to help out Sunroad – or as one put it, to “make Tom Story happy. :)”

(Yes, that's a smiley face.)

The lobbying restriction was created precisely to prevent such favorable treatment – the kind the rest of us never get.

But the police chief didn't serve the search warrant, he called Mayor Sanders, the guy Story used to work for. And then all and sundry spent the next week slamming the City Attorney for serving the warrant and then outing the duplicity of the police chief.

Not attacking the warrant so much as, does this sound a wee bit familiar, the guy who proposed it. Is this anything different than Gonzales and Rove and Cheney and Feith and Libby and Novak and Boehner and Matthews and Russert and DeLay and Hunter and pretty much every stinking Republican in this country?

And it isn't about religion is it? It has always been about the tool of money, of power and greed and corporate control of our nation. Big or small, they all follow the same pattern, abuse of power to favor those who put you into power.

AND RIGHT NOW IT IS ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY A REPUBLICAN OPERATION, so spare me the Democratic examples.

Finally, an unrelated, maybe, question for those who get this far. Why is it that teevee always shows the Ten Commandments on Easter weekend? I mean, Moses came along before Jesus, right? And while Passover does fall around Easter, it varies quite a bit. So why do they always play the Jewish Story on Jesus' Weekend? One has relatively nothing to do with the other, yet that's what you can expect to watch on Easter Weekend, Chuck Heston all shiny with sweat and reluctant to take on the responsibility laid out for him by God. Or is it just a conspiracy of the Hollywood Jews to subvert their will over the Christians on Resurrection Sunday?

And I know it's all just a spring holiday celebrating the rebirth of plants and good weather and what not, and I understand that Jesus was a Jew andthe Last Supper was probably a Passover dinner, but really, the Ten Commandments story has nothing to do with Christ, so, what gives?

Issa Trip Exposes WH Irrelevence

[Cross posted at DKos. And all bolds are mine.]

That's really what Darrell Issa has done, and judging by Bush's comments, it's obvious even to him, well, maybe his handlers. Funny, on the same day that Dick Cheney is trotting out that absurd canard about Hussein and al Qaeda being linked in unholy matrimony, Issa is in Damascus saying this:

He told reporters in the Middle East that Bush has failed to promote the dialogue necessary to resolve disagreements between the United States and Syria.

“That's an important message to realize: We have tensions, but we have two functioning embassies,”

As the reporter writes,

Whatever else Issa's trip may have accomplished, it seemed to take what little air was left out of the partisan rage over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's meeting with Assad just a day earlier.

President Bush's sharp criticism of Pelosi for her visit left the White House little room to move when asked about Issa's travels.

Events are leaving Bush behind, his policy of isolating Syria serves no purpose except to make war more likely and peaceful solutions to the chaos in Iraq less likely. Which, as we all know, is the Bush Administration objective, and why they need to be removed from office, as soon as possible, rather than later. When Cheney keeps trotting out his delusion speak to try to wrest the dialogue back to his perverted view of things, and when faithful soldiers like Issa slap Bush policy in the face, you know these guys have lost their standing. Like the chicken dashing about sans head, they just haven't had the reality sink in yet.

Consider this comment from Cheney's interview. He's also said the same thing if the bills are loaded up with pork, on nonessential spending. That would be to veto the supplemental spending bill of course. And by non-essential spending Cheney means funds for the victims of Katrina and FEMA, funds to ameliorate some of the devastating effects of the drought on our farmers, gosh, funds to improve the care and treatment of the Veterans maimed by Cheney's delusion run rampant and Veterans from past service to this nation. Yes, that's mighty non-essential isn't it?

Look, this Administration has been, in actual political reality, wrong or totally inappropriate on everything they've done or decided. Granted that they have done all of these things to perpetuate their clawlike grip on power for their real constituency, Wall Street and the Corporate Boardroom, that world is not the everyday world of people's lives, and those more or less removed from their rovian world are showing some inclination to try to return this country back to reality for the people.

Those most invested in BushCo, like limbaugh or Dobson or Doolittle or Lewis or Hatch will not change, but the tide of history is starting to turn against these lunatics, because what they want to do is not sustainable in the real world. We will see more and more of the Issa's of the country turn against these guys, and not a day to soon.

This business with Syria is a perfect demonstration of the realities, and the criminal values of Bush's "policies" as they play out in that real world. It's absurd, and detrimental, and only serves one purpose, to further their war, and all of the benefits that BushCo derives from that. Money, Power, Junkets, House and Senate Fiefdoms, Radio Talk Show Fiefdoms, did I mention Money and Power? And I don't think a place in heaven with virgins and grapes and what not is a part of what they want for themselves.

Time and Religion in the Schools

I got an e-mail from DEFCON today, and i sent Time a response on their cover story about teaching religion in schools. I also read most of the first of 4 pages of the article from Time. After swallowing some vomit I dutifully sent Time a letter, the essence being that, well, read on please, I'll bold my favorite parts.

There is no reason to be teaching the Bible in public schools, carefully or otherwise.

The Bible is a compilation of moral and religious teachings. Public schools are for educating minor children in the fundamentals of reading, mathematics, scientific methodology, engineering, artistic expression, logic, and reason. You know, tools and building blocks for future growth.

You can't "teach" the Bible in the schools without including all of the moralizing, the values, the dogmatic belief systems, the faith, and the righteousness. Not to mention, whose Bible are you going to teach? The Jewish Bible (hey, it came first you know), the Catholic one, the Methodist one, what about the Koran or the Hindu sacred texts? What about something for the atheists or the deists, what kind of Bible are you going to bring for them? Somebody else’s?

For a magazine that has more time for writing articles then a newspaper, it's pretty shocking how shallow you have become. It's like you're trying to compress seven days of car chase stupidity into a weekly magazine, instead of doing in depth and truly thoughtful and well researched work.

Why didn't Time do the story on the conditions at Walter Reed, instead of a daily newspaper? Why hasn't Time researched the purge of the US Attorney's and the lies and dissembling from Gonzales and Crew that have followed the revelations of the Purge? How many people have resigned from the White House so far because of that story, and yet you want to write dreck about teaching that damnable book in Public Schools?

I guess because the religious fundamentalists of America have been screaming and shoving their precious Bible down our throats, it behooves the public schools to cave into that fundamentalist revisionism and start teaching their creed, since, to quote your lovely piece, "But then religion rushed into the public square."

All by itself it rushed into the public square, right? Dobson and Falwell and Robertson and Reagan and Bush evangelicalizing and fomenting their neo-fundamentalism on America, and we're expected to accept that frame and buy into the notion that Religion, IXOYE style, is an intrinsic part of the American psyche, so gosh, we better teach it in the public schools.

If Thomas Jefferson were alive today he'd probably spend all of his days fused to his toilet, vomiting in despair and revulsion at what America is becoming, the antithesis of what the American Revolution was all about, a revolution of mind and spirit that Jefferson expressed in our Declaration of Independence. Teaching religion in the schools because a bunch of hypocritical blowhards with access and influence want to propagate their insidious fundamentalism hardly seems like a reason for rejecting the very foundations of this country.

But hey, your religion writer had a deadline to meet, right?
[Was that too harsh for Time? Think they'll publish it?]

Brent Wilkes Plays Carol Lam Card

Brent Wilkes lawyer, Mark Geragos, the same guy trying to screw the city of San Diego for Alex Spanos, has his hand in the Brent Wilkes Randy Cunningham scandal too. Now he's playing the card dealt him by A Gonzales for his client, Brent Wilkes.

A lawyer for former Poway defense contractor Brent Wilkes told a judge yesterday “there is no way” his client will plead guilty to charges stemming from the Randy “Duke” Cunningham bribery scandal.

The lawyer, Mark Geragos, also said he planned to seek dismissal of the case because he has reason to believe former U.S. Attorney Carol Lam may have leaked secret grand jury documents to the media.

Even though Ms. Lam's dismissal for cause has been well and truly repudiated, the issue opens enough of a door for a snake like Geragos to stick his foot in, with this claim that Lam leaked grand jury documents, he hopes to get Wilkes off without a trial.

So far, the judge doesn't seem to be buying it, and given what I remember from local reporting, I can't recall any reporting based on GJ leaks that amounted to anything more than the whisper that Wilkes and Foggo were going to be indicted, and given that we all were quite familiar with their involvement, that wasn't much of a leak.

But it's enough for Geragos, that suggestion of impropriety, and he's going to try to use the Democratic investigations of the USA Purges to bolster his case.

In court he referred to e-mails – unearthed as part of the congressional investigation of the controversial firings of Lam and seven other U.S. attorneys – that supposedly bolster his position. After court, he would not elaborate.

Fortunately the case seems to be proceeding, and I have to like the comments later in that article that suggest Geragos is full of it.

A scenario in which Lam was thwarted by the Justice Department, then leaked documents to the press to ultimately obtain indictments, seemed far-fetched to some lawyers familiar with the office's protocols for obtaining indictments.

“If the Justice Department balked, I would think they would not give approval and she wouldn't have returned the indictment,” said defense attorney Charles LaBella, a former San Diego U.S. attorney. “I just can't imagine a U.S. attorney would ignore the approval process. It's not consistent with how Carol operated.”

But consistent with how a Bushite would operate. So the judge will hear arguments on May 14, and he's set a trial date before September.

Just remember, Wilkes is the one with all of the dealings with the Congressmen, Hunter and Doolittle and DeLay etc. He's the one involved with the CIA, he's the one who probably is/was CIA, and with his procurement buddy Foggo, he's the one that can uncover a lot of the general corruption of the Republicans in Congress. I don't know who's a bigger fish, Wilkes or Abramoff, but it's worth a full scale investigation to find out. Here's hoping the Interim USA for San Diego is a professional and not a crony. More on that later.

An Amusing Sensibility

I can't get past this paragraph in the latest battle over this Sunroad building being constructed near Montgomery Field, a commuter airport in the busy commercial district of Kearney Mesa here in San Diego. Home to Cubic and Titan and many other corporations, Sunroad has risen like a blight on the airport.

Despite FAA objections, but with the support of unnamed City planners, the building continues to reach skyward, 180 feet, alas the FAA has a limit of 160 feet, but nobody seems to care. Read the article, it gives a pretty good rundown of the machinations of business getting what they want despite governmental objections, but take especial stock of this graph and my bolded part:

Those permits were issued before the FAA was made aware of the building and declared it a hazard. City building officials have said they had no indication before the FAA's declaration that a tall building near the airport would be dangerous.

No idea at all!

The problem here is twofold, one that the City Planners are entrenched conservatives who have always favored business over the public and the community, and secondly that business is a part of the community peripherally at best. You can see that play out time after time, when Ford plays town after town against each other for the latest factory, when a Circuit City devastates their workforce with their disgusting job cut/pay cut proposal, when Blackwater tries to run roughshod over some tiny little mountain/border community in order to build a "training" facility, one that would sure make privatizing the Border patrol all that much easier.

Yes, it's as old as civilization, the dangerous overreaching always laying in wait to seize advantage and accumulate the wealth of the community for its self. Which is why we must oppose it, to restore balance and equilibrium. At all levels of society. From DC to SD to NOLA and all points in between.

The Bush Administration and You

I cite these articles to remind you what the Bush Administration is all about. If you thought it was about Christ, you're wrong, Christ is just a tool these people use to activate their base for the dirty grunt work of signs and thuggery and intimidation and bal, er, envelope stuffing.

If you thought it was American Exceptionalism, well, that's just propaganda for the patriotic people too busy trying to keep afloat to pay attention.

Thinking it was geopolitical hegemony to protect our oil, well, that's closer, but it's more a symptom than a cause.

No, this is what they're all about, and don't forget it.

Income inequality grew significantly in 2005, with the top 1 percent of Americans – those with incomes that year of more than $348,000 – receiving their largest share of national income since 1928, analysis of newly released tax data shows.

The top 10 percent, roughly those earning more than $100,000, also reached a level of income share not seen since before the Depression.

Everytime you hear Sen. Grassley toss aside a comment about how well the economy is doing, everytime the Wall Street Trumpeters wax poetic about the greatness of the latest chart topping DOW number, just 30 companies out of the thousands traded on the stock markets or in private hands you realize, recognize that they aren't talking about you or I.

Now that gas has gone over 3 dollars again, and is likely to stay there, let's see, it's gone up about 50 percent in the last 2 years say, but has your income gone up that much in the same time frame? Talk about priorities, how's this for priorities?

“The nation faces some very tough choices in coming years,” he said. “That such a large share of the income gains are going to the very top, at a minimum, raises serious questions about continuing to provide tax cuts averaging over $150,000 a year to people making more than a million dollars a year, while saying we do not have enough money” to provide health insurance to 43 million Americans and cutting education benefits.

Here's some other stats to choke on: The new data also show that the top 300,000 Americans collectively enjoyed almost as much income as the bottom 150 million Americans. That's about 1 percent of our population of around 300 million people making as much money as nearly half the country, 150 million Americans.

And the same thing seems to be happenng in Canada too. Coincidence? I don't think so. The fact is that everything the bushites have done has been to strip this nation of her wealth and put it into the hands of a select few. Hell, of the world really. That's why trouble makers like Hugo Chavez cause such vitriol. That's why Rove plots and schemes and lies and intimidates to perpetuate republican control, why Dan Burton gets so pissed off at Henry Waxman for pounding that hapless tool running the GSA, that's why Carol Lam gets fired for doing her job their way until she started looking at them, why my least favorite Senator ever, Orrin Hatch, licks the boots of Kyle Sampson for the Bush regime.

What did Bush do when he first got into the White House? Loosen all the bonds of responsibility he could for business, especially big business, and push those big tax cuts, "right away!"

This is the rhetoric about the economy: After meeting with economic advisers and members of his cabinet at his ranch here, Bush said the economy is humming in large part because Republicans cut taxes aggressively during his first term in office and are ahead of pace to cut the deficit in half by 2009. "The economy of the United States is strong and the foundation for sustained growth is in place," Bush told reporters. Yet at the same time the PEOPLE say this: Yet the economic gains have not translated into political benefits for Bush, as recent polling shows a majority of Americans are not satisfied with the president's handling of economic issues. People are expressing concern to pollsters about several economic factors, including gas prices, health care costs and whether the housing bubble is about to burst. That's because of this, from the Times article above, read those bold numbers and weep.

[A]verage incomes for those in the bottom 90 percent dipped slightly compared with the year before, dropping $172, or 0.6 percent. The gains went largely to the top 1 percent, whose incomes rose to an average of more than $1.1 million each, an increase of more than $139,000, or about 14 percent.

That's what the Bush administration is all about. Money for them, none for you.

Grilled Mueller with Avocado Butter

I just got home and I was watching an enjoyable performance on the teevee. No, it wasn't some symphonic masterpiece, a reunion concert of a bunch of old and withered rock stars, not even the running of a classic black and white Japanese Kurosawa film. Nope, it was simply a display of elective consequence.

Robert Mueller was squirming under the disbelieving questions of a handful of Senators, trying desperately to justify and explain the actions of the FBI, aided of course by that Senator from Alabama, Sessions, and the whiner from Utah. Last year, Mueller would have had a couple of glare downs with Sen. Feinstein, maybe some curt words with Sen. Leahy, and that would've been that. Just another drive-by bricking of America's windows, and soon done.

But not this time. And it was a pleasure to see.

It happened, Mueller said, because of "mistakes, carelessness, confusion, lack of training, lack of guidance and lack of adequate oversight."

Then came this line, which senators didn't find reassuring either:

The FBI's use of inaccurate information to obtain secret search warrants? The problem was "very lengthy documents . . . with thousands of facts."

See, this is what we voted for, an end to this nonsense. Feinstein and company aren't buying the incompetence canard so much, because they don't have to. And when you look at the forces peeling back the layers of corruption being revealed by the purging of those US Attorney's, you see substantive, concrete, changes thanks to 11/7/06.

Just listen to the bleating from the Bobo's and Broder's out there, trying in their own timorous ways to head off the Democratic investigations threaten their grip on power. They know that once this train gets a rollin there will be no stopping it. And know this, my friends, for all of its horrors and heartbreak, for all of the destruction being wrought to both Iraq and the United States, the Iraq Invasion and Occupation is not the heart of the matter, is not the purpose and mission of this Administration.

Iraq, al Qaeda, Incompetence, US Attorney's, NSA spying, Evolution in Kansas, Mexicans at the Border, all these things are symptoms or distractions or both for what they really want, a Corporate Government. They don't want to do the actual governing work, that's too tedious and quaint. They just want to be the puppet master greasing the skids for their access to all of that USA cash.

That's what is a the center of the US Attorney purge, Carol Lam's investigation. Josh Marshall has been all over this from the get go, and every day it gets darker and higher up the food chain. Don't think this is about Alberto, no this is all about stopping Lam's investigation, and if we have to fire some decent people and gut 6 or 8 other investigations in the process, so be it.

Consider this piece from Copley News Service

First came the May 11, 2006, exchange between Justice Department officials suggesting Lam's removal, the day after she notified them she would serve search warrants on former CIA Executive Director Kyle “Dusty” Foggo.

It was a week later that Mercer revealed in an e-mail that Lam's situation “now has Frist's attention” – referring to then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Republican struggling to ensure his party retained control of the Senate in the upcoming November elections.

Two weeks after that, Mercer questioned the wisdom of giving Lam more resources.

The day after this Mercer missive, Sampson directed Mercer in an e-mail to have a “heart-to-heart” with Lam about “the urgent need to improve immigration enforcement in San Diego.”

“Put her on a very short leash,” Sampson wrote. “If she balks – or otherwise does not perform in a measurable way by July 15, remove her.”

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out what's happening here, it's all about the contracts and the access and the jobs for spouses and the burnishing of the image with those lavish charity dinners that cretins like Randy Cunningham wallowed in, the dismantling of the structures and reputations of our government so they can replace it with something more lucrative. That's the Heart of the Matter. And that's what these investigations are going to reveal. Because they've stepped on too many people to get to this place, people once on their side but now tossed aside or under the bus, and much like an Iraqi whose home has been invaded by American GI's, revenge is their coin.

Senatorial Embarassment

Watched VP Gore tonight talking to the Senate. Inhofe musta made ol BartCop proud with that performance. He truly torpedoed his efforts by being such an asshole about the whole thing, I don't think he earned many points with his folks back in OK with the respectful way he treated the former Vice president and Senator and Academy Award Winner, and if my memory serves me, at least this is what the GOP is always preaching about folks in the heartland, it's that they are respectful of people like former Vice Presidents. Not so Jimmy Inhofe.

Call it what you will, wankery, ignorance, fundy fruitiness, general rudeness, I think it was just an act by a desperate man fronting for his masters, Big Oil and Big Utilities. Because Mr. Gore talked about the one thing that can truly get us off of the oil monkey, truly impact global warming, really move in a way that makes us all part of the solution not the problem, that empowers Americans in ways the GOP can't really internalize (to use a phrase from Mr. Gore today) at all.

Distributed energy production. Instead of one big power plant we all shackle ourselves to, Gore thinks we need to have distributed power, and guess who loses in that scenario? Corporations, that's right. And thus we get that ridiculous performance by Inhofe. He's not crazy, he's not even that stupid (yeah, I know, he is that stupid, but a different kind of stupid bred out of greed and fear and personal cowardice), but in reality he's just a tool of the money that doesn't want anything that gives power to the people, literally in this case, at their expense.

You want to get back at those guys? Buy something solar powered, get a little wind generator for the backyard, something that moves you towards distributed power and away from centralization and the attractive colors of its lures, away from those fur lined handcuffs dangling before you courtesy of Springfield Power, away from the tempting Power Company Marlboro Man.

That's what they fear, and that's why they seek to destroy Al Gore, environmentalists, why they attack the very notion of global warming. Why, it's the same strategy they used when Kerry said that nice thing about Cheney's lesbian daughter, attack since the contradictions exposed by Democrats would fracture the GOP coalition of the insane and the insatiable.

It's the same strategy they use for everything they do, the war, US Attorneys, Aids, Global Warmng, Cafe standards, you name it, attack so you won't look at the reality and fracture their untenable coalition of the insane and the insatiable. I repeat that coz it sounds kinda catchy!

Nixon and Bush

[cross posted at DKos]
As I was reading this AP piece, I couldn't help but visualize Richard Nixon solemnly swearing that these stacks of transcripts

In these folders that you see over here on my left are more than 1,200 pages of transcripts of private conversations I participated in between Sept 15, 1972, and Apr 27 of 1973 with my principal aides and associates with regard to Watergate. They include all the relevant portions of all of the subpoenaed conversations that were recorded, that is, all portions that relate to the question of what I knew about Watergate or the coverup and what I did about it.

[...]

As far as what the President personally knew and did with regard to Watergate and the coverup is concerned, these materials—together with those already made available—will tell it all.

Bush says this:

The president cast the offer as virtually unprecedented and a reasonable way for Congress to get all the information it needs about the matter.

"If the Democrats truly do want to move forward and find the right information, they ought to accept what I proposed," Bush said. "If scoring political points is the desire, then the rejection of this reasonable proposal will really be evident for the American people to see."

You want it made more clear? Try this, first Bush, then Tricky Dick.

Bush said he worried that allowing testimony under oath would set a precedent on the separation of powers that would harm the presidency as an institution.

"My choice is to make sure that I safeguard the ability for presidents to get good decisions," he said. "If the staff of a president operated in constant fear of being hauled before various committees to discuss internal deliberations, the president would not receive candid advice and the American people would be ill-served."

Tricky

Ever since the existence of the White House taping system was first made known last summer, I have tried vigorously to guard the privacy of the tapes. I have been well aware that my effort to protect the confidentiality of Presidential conversations has heightened the sense of mystery about Watergate and, in fact, has caused increased suspicions of the President. Many people assume that the tapes must incriminate the President, or that otherwise, he would not insist on their privacy.

But the problem I confronted was this: Unless a President can protect the privacy of the advice he gets, he cannot get the advice he needs.

This principle is recognized in the constitutional doctrine of executive privilege, which has been defended and maintained by every President since Washington and which has been recognized by the courts, whenever tested, as inherent in the Presidency. I consider it to be my constitutional responsibility to defend this principle.

Other than the fact that Nixon could speak without sounding like an idiot, is there really any difference between these two Presidents, the heretofore reigning Worst President Ever and the Hands Down New Champ?

The discussion and overanalysis of the "Constitutional Crisis Question" will continue regardless of what I say, but NOW is the time to back up the Democrats on this. Bush's "offer" is an insult, a joke, a charade, to not just Congress, but to every American living or dead, an insult to the troops dying for greed and hubris, an insult to the taxpayers who fund this government (He [Bush] added that federal prosecutors work for him and it is natural to consider replacing them. [Actually they work for the American People you feckless git]), an insult to my Dad who taught 6th grade for 30 years, my Mother who taught me decency and compassion before she passed, to my sweet little Gramma who taught me about family and homemade desserts and scratching each others back while watching Hawaii 5-0, yeah, that was some offer he made. No oath, no press, no transcript, pretty much never happened.

Here's the link to the House Judiciary Committee, here's the link for the Senate Judiciary Committee, and here's its contact page. Use it.

More Lies From the GOP

You have to love House Democratic Whip James Clyburn's comments yesterday about Abu Gonzales and company from this AP screed:

"They don't know anything about running government. They're just political hacks," Clyburn said at a news conference in Columbia, S.C. "Gonzales is just a political hack."

Their hackery goes beyond The Purge, and Plame, and Iraq, and Tax Cuts, of course, and here's another one.

Via The Wilderness Society we get an example of another way they operate. The National Wildlife Refuge System is getting stressed to the breaking point, and here's how they do it.

The Land and Water Conservation Fund is intended to fund acquisitions of areas of value to the refuge system, yet of the $900 million from oil and gas royalties available, Bush and the GOP Congress spent 16 percent of that, and Bush has proposed to spend 6 percent next year. Of course the new Democratic Congress will probably reverse that trend, but the fact remains that the Bush Administration is not a good steward of our lands, our laws, or our people.

They've done this same dodge with Aids in Africa, and countless other programs, budget a bunch of money but never spend any, the only purpose being to claim they increased the budgets, even though they didn't spend the money. It's just another LIE from the mouths of George W Bush and his soulless coterie of fiends and hacks and incompetents, just to prove that government doesn't work so we need to privatize it.

That's all they do. See, we increased the budget, and the place still fell apart. Government can't do the job, private industry can ride to the rescue better and cheaper. Of course, as Scout Prime is chronicling about the latest New Orleans Katrina outrage, and gee, guess what, the Bush's are involved, well, maybe if by rescue you mean liberate millions from the taxpayers for the corporate coffers in return for supplying goods and services that don't work.

I really don't like these people, at all.

Attorney's and Corruption

Paul Krugman raises a good question, and i was very happy to hear Chuck Schumer make the same point today during the Judiciary Committee hearing. What about the ones not fired? For instance,

[T]he subpoenas that Chris Christie, the former Bush “Pioneer” who is now the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, issued two months before the 2006 election — and the way news of the subpoenas was quickly leaked to local news media.

The subpoenas were issued in connection with allegations of corruption on the part of Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat who seemed to be facing a close race at the time. Those allegations appeared, on their face, to be convoluted and unconvincing, and Mr. Menendez claimed that both the investigation and the leaks were politically motivated.

Then there's this piece from New Mexico regarding a local Democratic scandal involving courthouse construction. Here's the key line in the article, after all the Rove involvement is discussed: The courthouse controversy has yet to yield indictments.

We've all heard about this study that out of 375 investigations, 298 involved Democrats. Seeing as how there's some rough parity of elected officials party affiliation across the country, you would figure the numbers would be more like 200 GOP and 150 Dem and the rest others, but then you wouldn't be thinking about who's involved here. Karl Rove, Mr politics is policy.

I have to hand it to the committee today, Schumer made that point, Feinstein made some good points about the obvious politization involved here, and she countered when that jackass Kyl threw in the Clinton fired all 93 US Attorney's canard. And I have to question that based on this article from Minnesota Public Radio, (my bolds) to wit:

Tom Heffelfinger resigned his post as U.S. attorney in Minneapolis last February. He had served two stints -- the first from September 1991 to April 1993, and then again from September 2001 to February 2006. President Clinton took office in January of 1993, so there's one USA he didn't fire, it would appear. I'll bet there's others who they asked for and received resignations from, but who then stayed for a while until replacements were found. After 12 years of Reagan and Bush you know damn well they needed replacing by Democrats, that's just too long for one party to control their positions, especially given the corruption and cronyism, a pale spectre of Bush/Cheney's but present nonetheless, of Reagan and his Spymaster Bush.

Somebody at TPM Muckraker said that Abu would resign and that would be the end of it. But I say no. Perjury is a felony regardless of your employment status, and there are too many threads of corruption running around this issue to be satisfied by the scalp of that wretched little man Gonzales. Not that he's ever going to talk, he knows what would happen to him if he did, there'd be no spider hole deep enough for him to hide in, but putting the squeeze on him and his wretched flunkies is bound to achieve results. Hey, it worked for Khalid Sheik Mohammed, right, it oughta work for Abu G.

GOP Demonstration

Just heard Trent "Where's My Porch Brownie?" Lott waxing on about how the Senate can't get anything done, blah blah blah. Two things came to mind. One, then vote for the Democrats bills you petulent hack, and, more tragi-comically two, if only the Democrats had acted this way as a minority party.

It would have been so simple in so many cases to just say no and not allow debate to stop on anything of substance, to just block the GOP, there weren't 60 Republicans at any time, even counting Joe Lies A Lot, sorry, that's Condi's handle, Joe Lies About His True Values (Kiss kiss, smoochie smoochie Goeorgie poo!).

But alas, the Democrats haven't quite gotten the knack of putting your values, as represented by your Party, ahead of your own personal ambitions or beliefs, in order to place yourself in the POSITION OF BEING ABLE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. Maybe if they had 80 Senators and 350 Congressmen they might be able to push forward with getting what 60 to 70 percent of the American People want, us out of Iraq.

Certainly the *Blue Dogs* haven't figured it out, and yes, it's been a long standing Democratic traditiion to circle the firing squad and act like a bunch of cats on catnip, but now is the time to break that tradition, don't you think?

Instead of a Donkey maybe the Dems should adopt a frightened hen as their fetish, for all the good they APPEAR to be accomplishing. And that's the root of the problem, they keep on ceeding the PR battle to the Goppers, they continue to reinforce the Gopper framing of what is a Democrat, and you don't win friends and influence getting framed as a s bunch of gutless wimps, Henry Waxman and bouncing Abu Gonzales notwithsatnding.

I mean, it won't be the Democrats who get credit for purging us of Little Himmler, it's going to be John Sununu and the other "Brave" Republicans who cross the lines to get rid of that terrible liability hanging around Bush's scrawny neck, which of course further insulates Bush from responsibility for his own administration and its multitude of crimes and outrages. Now if the Democrats were to lead the charge they could hammer both Little Abu and Lil' Boots mercilessly and DEMONSTRATE Democratic vs Republican values, but that would require some fortitude and unanimity so lacking in the Democratic brain stem.

I'd love to be proven wrong, but I'm not going to withhold breathing waiting.

Media Tidbit-CNBC Hearts Fox

Joe Kiernan, on Squawk Box had this little filler thing, the 3 "reporters" sitting around, talk show like, showing off the woman's legs, and Kiernan went off on the Dem's cancelling the Nevada Debate on Fox "News", although he tried to make it sound like it hadn't been cancelled. He defended Fox, questioning those nasty bloggers like Markos, those dirty hippies like MoveOn, wanting to know why the Dems want to associate with those off the chart wacko's instead of the mainstream massive majority of Democrats who should treat Fox as a fully legimate news organization. And of course they pooh poohed Ailes Obama / The Murderous Terrorist Bush Has Failed To Find slur, rightly viewed as an excuse for the pullout, but also NOT acknowledged as very indicitive of the nature of Faux "News."

Unbelievable, the hackery. He posited what next, the GOP boycott CNN???

Stop it Joe, yer killin me!!!! [sniff, wipes tear from eye]

There was no reason for this segment they had, it was just killing some time at the end of the hour, yet it accomplished many things for the corporate press. Legitimizes Faux, deligitimizes MoveOn and Kos, and confuses the border between the pure "news" divisions of the various networks, and their corporate activites like branding and ratings for their shows, etc. Faux running a political debate is not "news," it's a business function, and that's fine, there's nothing wrong with it, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with Democrats responding to the people they represent and deciding that it would be inappropriate to support that business function of a lying, smearing, pandering, bootlicking outfit like Faux News.

But CNBC "reporters" apparently got their marching orders from GE HQ, and decided that shilling for Faux was more important than journalistic integrity. Faux, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, all legitimate "News" operations, and don't you dare think otherwise, oh, and don't listen to that huge number of dirty filthy hippies who believe in democracy and a free press and actual news reporting like the sort that Dana Priest has demonstrated with her Walter Reed stories.

Bi-Broder-Sans Grey Mystery Meat

Read Broder's Thursday column at work, just had a good laugh. What astounds me is how Mr Dean of the Fairies, er Pundocracy, Pundidiotocracy, Punditirodacy, DC Hand Jobbers, is how he forgets some minor factual matters in his desparate embrace of civility over substance, comity over progress, or congeniality over accomplishment.

For instance, and doesn't Tom Daschle make a fine example? Sen. Gopper Leader Frist campaigns against his opposite number, Sen. Daschle, breaking a 50 year tradition, straining the bonds of comity in the process. Sen. Daschle, of course, having been accused of all manor of heinous crimes, from treason to not being sufficiently supplicantable in his relations to George W Bush while, horrors, a war was happening, was so fierce and violent in his attacks against Bush that he had to be defeated you know.

"I don't think the success has been overstated. But the continued success I think is still somewhat in doubt. Whether we continue to succeed depends on whether we get the right answers to the questions Senator Byrd was posing yesterday. ... I will say that at this point, given the information we've been provided, I don't think it would do anybody any good to second-guess what has been done to date. I think it has been successful. I've said that on many, many occasions. But I think the jury's still out about future success, as I've said."

He also suggested Thursday that it was necessary for the United States to find Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders for the war on terrorism to be considered a success.

And in response Sen. Daschle got this:

Trent Lott, however, fired back almost immediately by attacking Daschle's right to criticize the Bush administration's prosecution of the war. "How dare Senator Daschle criticize President Bush while we are fighting our war on terrorism, especially when we have troops in the field," Lott stated. "He should not be trying to divide our country while we are united." Bill Frist, called Daschle's remarks "thoughtless and ill-timed." Meanwhile, Rep. Thomas Davis, claimed Daschle's "divisive comments have the effect of giving aid and comfort to our enemies by allowing them to exploit divisions in our country."

[...] Andrew Sullivan suggested that Daschle's comments marked the start of a campaign "to undermine the war in order to gain some political traction against the president."

Mr. Broder forgets stuff like that, forgets the ugly smears that republicans have been throwing out at Democrats for years, forgets the contempt that Republicans have demonstrated for Democrats in every way, remember Sensenbrenners fit at the basement hearings the Dems were having, just relagating them to basement hearings, Bill Thomas calling the cops on the Democrats, oh the list is a long one, why just yesterday some House gopper of some name, can't remember which one nor does it matter, kept making the snotty little Democrat Party comment, minor to be sure, but a petty insult that demonstrates the GOP's sense of comity nonetheless, yes, David Broder forgets that at the heart of this divide is nobody but Republicans.

Tom Daschle asks a wishy washy question, and you'd think he'd raped Mary Cheney for christssake. And David Broder thinks these eminent gris leaders are going to save the country from partisanship?? Broder wants gruel sans the grey lump of mystery meat or salt and thinks that is going to make this a better place for all.

As Ezra Klein notes though, tellingly so,

You can't bipartisan the health care crisis. You can't bipartisan Iraq. You can't bipartisan energy. There are solutions to these issues, and you have to be courageous enough and concerned enough to actually make the hard choices and advocate for the right ones. [That's why we have political parties, they think their own solutions are the right ones-DGR] And maybe, if you're forceful enough, and savvy enough, you can get members of both parties to agree that your solution is the right one. But you don't start with bipartisanship, you end with it.

More Good Economic News

FOR SOME AMERICANS THE ECONOMY IS GREAT

CNBC this morning reported on retail sales for Feb. this morning, Sacks, Nordstroms, the high end retailers in general, had a pretty good month, but not so much for the rest of the pack, in general. As I noted earlier, labor costs, i.e. wages and benefits, were up last quarter, in large part to big bonuses paid to high-income workers.

So you see, the economy is doing great! It's like the ad I heard on KLSD Air America one morning, some financial planner who wants to give back to his community for all of his business successes as a way to say thanks, and to help people out.

How nice, I thought, how progressive even. Then I heard the pitch. It was for a seminar to help the successful wealthy investors make the most out of their high end investments! Way to give back to the community, dude. [Shakes head in wonder and amazement]

In a related area, I also heard the spokesman for the American Bankers Association talking about credit cards, I guess Congress held some hearings on credit card debt yesterday, and he said that a lot of the problem is an educational one, that people need to be better educated about credit and how it works.

True enough I said, but, when you watch the way the credit card companies sell their product, and isn't that what advertising is all about, educating the consumers about your product? But, alas, when you watch the ads, they're selling vacations and golf outings and impressing the boss and buy buy buying more crap for your house. I'm pretty sure that educating the consumer about responsible credit, the impact of just making the minimum payment on your credit card accounts, and a whole plethora of things related to credit and credit cards, is AWOL from their campaigns.

But their spokesmodel said the problem is the consumer being un-educated. No mention of their culpability in it, no sirree bob, it's you, you dear readers, at fault.

Graham and Faux Outrage Covers for Bush War

ON NEWS HOUR BLAMES TROOPS, DENIES TRUTH

I just finished watching the News Hour interview with Sen. Patty Murray, D-WA, and a truly reprehensible Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, about the VA/Military Hospitals care. Twice in the space of the interview Graham went out of his way to throw blame on Sgt's and maintenence workers and lower ranking officers for the mess at Walter Reed, and, incredibly enough, at Abu Ghraib.

And $250,000 was spent in 2005 to renovate the building. My question is, as a military lawyer for 20-something years, who was the first sergeant in charge of Building 18? Who was the company commander whose job it is to inspect facilities?

And we want to hold commanders at the highest level accountable, but there is also a chain of command down below. Some rooms in Building 218 got to be deplorable because it was just not structurally sound. Somebody in the Army is responsible for maintaining that building. I want to know who they were and why they didn't do a better job. [...]

What was Abu Ghraib about? It was about not enough people to run the jail who were poorly trained.

Nice. I'm surprised he didn't try to toss Bill Clinton that bus too.

Sen. Murray did a pretty good job making the case that the problem stems in large part from the failure of the administration to properly plan for Cheney's War of Occupation, and she also noted a couple of times that the Bush Administration is impeding the Congress in trying to correct the problems.

And I think that, you know, here in the Senate, we're not going to sit by idly and wait for more commissions. We are going to get to work and try to deal with this, but that takes honesty from this administration.

An honesty lacking by this administration and apologists like Lindsey Graham. They won't tell Congress how many traumatic brain injuries there are, as Murray clearly puts it, frankly, what we've seen from the V.A. is the same thing we've seen from the Pentagon, at this point, is that we haven't been given honest numbers and assessments of what this war is costing so that we can provide the resources that are needed.

And that's the crux of this matter, it's the filter you need to look through with every outrage surrounding this stinking "war."

We cannot know the true costs of this war, the real costs, the costs that affect and impact our actual lives, not the fantasy lives of the media narrative, of our national psyche, of our detached and disconnected world, no, we cannot know what this war is actually costing us, because if we do ever figure it out, the support for this "war" and the criminal corporate nationalistic enterprise it is feeding, will fall through the floor, and there will be some repurcussions unlike any this nation has ever seen. Mark my words, for there is no justification for this war. It was wrong the instant it was moved out of the bowels of PNAC, it was wrong in every way when it was pushed by Cheney's special plans group, by Rummy and Scooter and Powell and Graham and Lieberman and every other enabler and nationalist and oilogopolist. And maybe, just maybe, if we keep pushing this story of the failed care of our troops, if we keep pushing our weak-kneed Congressmen to act, maybe, just maybe, the scales will fall from our eyes, and we shall see; and seeing, we shall know the truth; and knowing the truth, we will be set free from our bonds of greed and fear.

And there will be celebrations across the land.

More Good News-Labor Costs Rise!

And productivity increased as well! Hooray! Bravo, good job, workers! You worked hard for all that money!

What? What's that you say?

Not so fast, lowly laborers, is that what you're telling me?

Bugger!

It was the biggest quarterly increase in labor costs since a 9.1 percent surge in the first three months of 2006. Both gains [labor costs-DGR] were attributed in large part to big bonuses paid to high-income workers.

Oh.

Well, never mind, I need to go work now.

US Attorney's Firing Linked to Bill Clinton

Yes, I heard it on C-SPAN so it must be true. Granted, it was a caller on the Republican line, so there's a chance that some mis-information may be involved. But at any rate, we have one of the talking points that justifies yet again the Bush adminstration putting their power grab over the priorities of the Country.

You see, Clinton fired all 93, count 'em, 93, US Attorney's when he came into office. Sure, after twelve years of Reagan and Bush, that seems reasonable, and given that new administrations always ask for the resignations of ALL political appointees, that seems like standard procedure, but not to the faithful, oh no.

The writer from the Legal Times, Jason McClure, who was taking questions with Rob did not really respond to that call, or a later one that pointed out the routine nature of Clinton's firings, didn't mention that in respect to mid-term firings, 3 since 1980 or so, these were unprecedented, in fact he sorta went out of his way to defend Bush pointing out that he kept some US Attorney's without acknowledging that, yes, incoming Presidents ask for the resignations of all political appointees, whether they accept them or not or that after 12 years under one party there aren't going to be much that a supposed outsider is going to want to keep.

No, it's just all Bill Clinton's fault, don't you know anything? He had an unauthorized blow job in the White House! Better he got it across the street in the park I suppose.

Support of Our Troops, Republican Style

While looking for a transcript of the hearings at Walter Reed, I went to the Oversight Committee website, where I found this report from the Committee on Government Reform — Minority Staff Special Investigations Division. My bolds.

The Department ... has had long-standing problems providing care for eligible veterans. In 1996, Congress passed the Veterans Health care Reform Act, which expanded eligibility for VA care to all veterans. Since the legislation was passed, enrollment in VA health care facilities has increased by almost 300%, from 2.9 M in '96 to an estimated 7.5 M in '03. Funding for the VA, however, increased at a much lower rate during this period, leading to shortages of capacity and long waiting times for many veterans.

That Republican congress had to pass Clinton's bill, but they didn't have to pay for it all that much. In the same way, Bush, demonstrating his support for those heroes he loves to pose before, would impose fees and cost increases on Priority 7 Veterans that effectively forces tens of thousands of them out of the system, and deny enrollments for a whole large group of new Vets, so called Priority 8 Veterans.

Priority 7 veterans are veterans whose injuries are not service-related and whose income is more than $24,644 ($29,576 for a veteran with a dependent) but less than 80% of the community’s median income. Priority 8 veterans are veterans whose injuries are not service related and whose incomes are higher than Priority 7 veterans. Together, these two classes of veterans represent 41% of the veterans currently receiving VA health care.

So to honor our Veterans, the great Cult of the Military Forces, that would be the GOP, would deny access to any VA care for a whole class of Veterans, while raising a never before done TAX!!! on another group of Vets, effectively forcing thousands of Veterans out of the VA system.

We're supposed to honor our troops by supporting them, by taking care of them, even after they're done with their service. They made great sacrifices, of time and body, and we should pay for their healthcare as part of our bargain for their service. Bill Clinton got that done, only the Republicans seem to have undone it, just as they have attempted to undo everything else Bill Clinton accomplished in office, see North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Roadless Rules, Clean Air, Fair taxation, you name it, to the extent I'm surprised they haven't tried to restart the The Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Support the troops indeed.

Congressional Questions-Democratic Version

Okay, to be honest, other than wanting to know why they're such greedy and feckless Bush lickers, there will be no Republican version, their answers lack the merest shred of credibility. But I want to know, having heard some blather from Chuck Schumer this morning, a few things. First, the gist of the offending comment:

In a letter Sunday to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., asked for an independent commission, possibly headed by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, to investigate all post-combat medical facilities and recommend changes.

Why do you need an independent investigation?
Aren't your values good enough?
Aren't you capable enough?
Do you lack the integrity necessary to conduct an investigation, as demonstrated by continually running for bi-partisan cover instead of standing on your own?
Are you afraid of what the "Press" is going to say about you?
Afraid they might question your patriotism?
Afraid they might label your actions as "political and partisan" even though the American People want to know the answers and do not support this war or the Bush administration and don't believe them and their lies any longer?
Do you enjoy the taste of Colin Powell's spew that much, the same spew he gave you with his pre-war WMD testimony, that you would invite him to head your investigation, not just be apart of it, but HEAD it?

These are just a few of the question I have for the Democratic LEADERSHIP, and they're all pretty much centered on the central question that keeps swirling around my head, around the blogosphere, around the water coolers and kitchen tables and talk radio's and anywhere else people congregate, namely,

WHY WON'T YOU LEAD US OUT OF THIS NIGHTMARE THAT IS THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION???

The Beneficiaries of "Incompetence"

Some musings on the US Attorney's Purge, prompted by a number of TPM posts, here, here, and especially here.

So who hired these US Attorney's in the first place?

Wouldn't it have been the, yes, wait, Bush Administration?

I concur wholeheartedly with the "incompetence" dodge reader BG wrote about, they're only incompetent if you think that what they have been doing is trying to run a democratic government for the betterment of the American People in its entirety.

Given that such a consideration is far down the list of their policies and beliefs, the incompetence dodge disappears under the weight of so much greed and delusional ideology. Granted, some of them are incompetent, some too are pretty much certifiable, some, like the attorney general, are about as close to being a complete sociopath as I've ever seen, but for the most part, the problem is that they are profoundly immature in their belief systems, that they are so suffused with fear and shame that they project their inadequacies onto a grand scale, not unlike a group of people who plunged the world into the most hideous maelstrom of death and destruction and insanity ever.

So back to my question, when their tools misbehaved, either by action or inaction, they moved to replace them with more willing tools, or less willing tools you could say, depending on the particulars. What this demonstrates is not incompetence, but an inability to appreciate that some people do behave in ways that uphold their duty to their oath's of office, that their Mayberry Machiavelism renders them incapable of understanding honor and dignity and responsibility. That doesn't make them incompetent or corrupt, it makes them, essentially, evil.

And it's far past time for the Democrats to embrace that concept, and act accordingly. And soon.

Watch the News Hour

Friday's News Hour had some good reporting and discussions, even from Bobo, believe it or not.

And they even had a representative from the online world, Mark Benjamin from Salon.com. Bloggers have been talking about this story from day one, that's why Atrios was always wondering why Bush would never visit the troops there, DKos has had weekly discussions of the treatment of soldiers and veterans, people like Seven of Six have talked about their "adventures" with the VA, but until the WaPo went front page, nobody did didly. This exchange between Lehrer, a former Marine, and Bobo, not a former Marine, tells quite a lot:

DAVID BROOKS: And to me -- and I really wasn't aware of how much had been reported in Salon. I wasn't aware until Dana Priest just said it, that there had been a hearing.

JIM LEHRER: In 2005, and nobody paid any attention, including us.

As Judy Woodruff noted, now that we have a divided government again, these sorts of stories will come out. But the question is why they haven't before this? Why did/does the Bush Administration suppress so much about this war, beyond the fact that half of what they do is illegal, the other half incompetent?

They actually kindof discussed it in the Walter Reed story and in the Shields and Brooks discussion, but I'll summarize.

They don't want the people of this country to know the consequences of the Administration's War of Occupation. They don't want us to sacrifice, because if we become a part of this nightmare we will begin to seriously question why; those 30 percent dead enders that back Bush without question will start to wonder when things begin to impact their own Cheetos stained lives, those 10 percent supporters will not just leave Bush, but go after Bush and Cheney, and start to look for changes and solutions, will start demanding that the troops come home now, and it won't be unequivocable either. And Bush/Cheney can't afford that.

Because then stories like the two that followed Shields and Brooks will get addressed too, and then their whole criminal enterprise will come crashing down around their preciousssssssss corporate masters. Here's a link to the video of the Port Pollution story. Check it out too, it's quite interesting, and once again California is actually trying to fill the void left by Bush's Administration.

Bush Rebuked in NOLA

Scout Prime sent me an e-mail about this, better late than never, here's the link and here's another link to what people in NOLA have to do with their time if they want to get help.

All I can add to this is that Bush showing up in New Orleans only reminds people of how badly Bush and Brownie and Bush's FEMA (not Bill Clinton's FEMA, George W Effing Bush's FEMA) failed their responsibilities. It's like everytime he makes a speech on Iraq his poll numbers go down.

And Rove is a genius, right?

C'mon Democrats, take these people on!!!!!!!

Two Recoveries

This article from Bob Woodruff talks about the struggles of our wounded veterans returning from Iraq:

Navigating the military and veterans health-care system can be daunting and sometimes downright maddening for the families of wounded veterans.

"It's almost like a scavenger hunt," said Sarah Wade, whose husband, Sgt. Ted Wade, lost an arm and suffered a traumatic brain injury when his Humvee was hit by an improvised explosive device, IED, nearly three years ago.

"I'm still trying to recover what I've lost, and I'm still trying to reorganize myself," Ted said.

Sarah dropped out of college and quit her job so she could advocate full time for her husband's care.

"It's taken a toll on me physically. It's been really, really hard," she said.

Recall the comments of Rep. Young, R-FL-10: we were made to feel very uncomfortable," said Young, about asking questions of the staff. Then he ran away. Gee, you useless coward, that must have been really hard work.

But has anybody noticed that Bob Woodruff is recovered enough to go back to work, while the people in the military having suffered the same sort of injuries, are scavenging aid and benefits through the VA healthcare system, and still trying to recover?

Why can't the people that we paid to put in this place without their choice, compared to Woodruff who wanted to be there, why can't we get those people standing and falling in our stead taken proper care of, made whole again?