American Politics, pt. 12

10004. jexster - 12/16/2005 2:59:56 PM

Iraq war makes US safer: US Defense Secretary Rumsfeld

Safer Today? By Jack Shanahan, VADM, USN (Ret.)

[dni - channel not on Ronksi's tin foil hat ]

10005. jexster - 12/16/2005 3:03:30 PM

Bush Calls Criticism of War 'Irresponsible'

Not patriotic mein fuehrer!

We've heard that before too haven't we?

A man who says that no patriot should attack the war until it is over...is saying no good son should warn his mother of a cliff until she has fallen.

~G. K. Chesterton

10006. jexster - 12/16/2005 3:10:09 PM

Icon of Disaster; The Big Lie in the War Built of Slogans and Lies

"When will Democrats stop dicking around and tell Bush he's lost his mind" Chris Mathews




Throughout the political coverage and chatter about Iraq, it seems there is a virulent assumption that has jumped from theory into fact, without even a shred of factual support. I'm not talking about there only being a small amount of proof - I'm talking about an assumption that is being made by "experts," "operatives" and the media analysts with literally absolutely no evidence at all. It is so egregious that to call it an assumption is to be dishonest - what it is is a lie.
Listen to today's NPR piece, and you will hear this assumption all the way through, from both politicians and political "experts." The assumption is simple: it basically states as fact that those who support an exit strategy in Iraq will not only be attacked as "cut and run" cowards (like the GOP attacked Jack Murtha), but that voters will give credence to those attacks. Put another way, the political Establishment - which prides itself on "expertly" reading public opinion data - is actually ignoring all the hard data and simply assuming that Americans will politically punish those who support a withdrawal. In the process, they are asserting as fact the concept that Republicans will be able to use the war as a political bludgeon - as a winning issue - when all the hard evidence says the exact opposite.

For misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial along with the rest of the president's men. If convicted, they'll have plenty of time to mull over their sins.

Martin van Creveld

Professor of Military History

Hebrew University, Jerusalem

10007. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/16/2005 3:18:35 PM

Ronski- The lack of originality in right wing commentary is so utterly obvious and tedious because it only regurgitates the Left's criticisms and ideas while melding it with the Rovian swill that true-believers like you have already swallowed. The "Alternate Universe" theme was used to describe the Bushie's denial of reality months ago and now recycled in Hanson's pathetic propaganda piece.

10008. jayackroyd - 12/16/2005 3:29:04 PM

Ronski-

Thanks for posting this. This is a very typical conservative essay. It attributes a series of opinions to unnamed sources--even putting quotation marks around unattributed remarks. Then it refutes those caricatured opinions.

Take the opening sentence:For some time, a large number of Americans have lived in an alternate universe where everything is supposedly going to hell

That's hyperbolic nonsense. He talks about the red-hot economy, for instance. Nobody says that the economy isn't growing. The point that people like Krugman or Kevin Drum have been making is that people's compensation is flat to declining, between stagnant wages and declining benefits.

One thing that he says that I've actually read people saying is the accusation that Bush is in a bubble. In that case, isn't that a fair characterization of his presidency?

10009. jayackroyd - 12/16/2005 3:31:57 PM

And Ronski, a question.

You're seriously good with the Bush presidency? You're satisfied with his performance?

10010. jexster - 12/16/2005 4:05:15 PM

Senate Blocks Patriot Act

Ronski's dittohead Jay..you didn't know this?

Counterfeit as a $3 bill ..seriously fuckt up

10011. jexster - 12/16/2005 4:08:41 PM

10012. jayackroyd - 12/16/2005 4:16:52 PM

Jexster--

I'd like to have a conversation with him. I do not understand how intelligent people who pay attention to current affairs can be happy with this president, regardless of their political affiliation. I'd like to hear why ronski thinks the president is doing well, if he does indeed think so.

As a favor, could you allow that conversation to happen?

10013. jexster - 12/16/2005 4:17:42 PM

Ronski's playing useful idiot in yet another in the never-ending series of Bush charm offensive and pep rallies

Let's see how long she lasts this time b4 she starts crappin buttermilk and flees

10014. jexster - 12/16/2005 4:43:10 PM

Jay you seem to confused today

I will help you

This is on topic and this will stay here

Do you understand?

You wanna play games?

You came to the right place Jay...

xoxoxo

eet the New Abp of SF in RP

native of Los Angeles and lifelong admirer of Gandhi, Niederauer has been honored for his uncompromising stand against the Iraq war and in favor of immigrant rights.

He is not confused about the regnant immorality

You shouldn't be confused either

10015. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/16/2005 4:43:44 PM

FYI Department: Ace's blog–first place in Dittoes' heads . . .

10016. jayackroyd - 12/16/2005 4:57:36 PM

I didn't move that message jexster.

10017. ronski - 12/16/2005 6:23:44 PM

10018. judithathome - 12/16/2005 6:30:10 PM

Ace will never come here again, that's for sure. Now his head will never fit on so small a forum!

By the way, congrats to Ace. I'm actually thrilled he beat out Debbie S.

10019. ronski - 12/16/2005 6:34:44 PM

You're seriously good with the Bush presidency? You're satisfied with his performance?

No. He spends like a drunken sailor, never having seen a pork-laden bill cross his desk that he didn't love; he wants to tinker with the Constitution, and write prejudice and second-class citizenship back into it; he drops everything to interfere in the legal disposition of a tragically brain-injured woman to appease the religious right while he drops next to nothing to deal with poor babies dehydrating in the New Orleans sun; and the economy is, I think, somewhat fragile.

But he didn't lie about Iraq; he has done a reasonably good job confronting Islamist terrorism; and he has given the Middle East, the major source of trouble for the U.S. right now, a shake-up it needed.

10020. thoughtful - 12/16/2005 7:03:10 PM

Ronski, the only way one can say with a straight face that they didn't lie about iraq is if one starts parsing the definition of the word "lie".

He lied.

Plain simple fact.

He lied many times.

Plain simple fact.

And if you believe he didn't lie because he didn't know...that somehow his underlings including cheney kept it from him, then that's even worse as, as head of state, it's his sworn responsibility to know.

And that cartoon is simply wrong.
I hope nothing less than an absolutely successful democracy in iraq that leads to strong economic growth and peaceful trade and diplomatic relations with that country. If that were to occur, that would be nothing short of a miracle.

I just don't think it can happen...not in my lifetime.

10021. jexster - 12/16/2005 9:00:05 PM

The One That Got Away the Iraqis cannot recognize a Jordanian master terrorist, the American military has zero chance of fighting the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement in Iraq, because most of them don't even know enough Arabic to distinguish an Iraqi from a Jordanian accent. And if all it takes is putting on weight and growing a beard to disguise oneself, then we're in deep trouble.

Message # 4562 in thread 161

10022. jexster - 12/16/2005 11:03:06 PM

The Empire of the Morons
Too Fucking Dumb to Rule

While the U.S. press is spinning the Iraqi elections as a sign of Sunni apathy with the insurgency, the Guardian reports that the Sunnis were, in fact, told to vote by the insurgents:

"In Ramadi, a centre of armed resistance to the US occupation, masked gunmen guarded polling stations in Ramadi. "The mujahedin were at the polling station urging us not to let our voice be split. They urged us to go for either of the two Sunni lists, the Consensus Front or Saleh al-Mutlaq," said Ali Abed al-Dulaimi, a retired car salesman, in a telephone interview. Both lists, one Islamist, one secular, claim to have links with the nationalist gunmen

10023. Ronski - 12/16/2005 11:04:46 PM

He lied.

Plain simple fact.

He lied many times.

Plain simple fact.

I'd be delighted to look at proof, or strong evidence.

I'm sure there was pressure to suppress misgivings about the WMD intelligence; and, as I've said before, the major reason for invading Iraq was not the WMD issue, but that's not lying. That's just doing what presidents do in times of war.

10024. Ronski - 12/16/2005 11:07:05 PM

Oh, and the cartoon does not refer to you, thoughtful, nor to other thoughtful Democrats.

But it does apply to some Democrats, to the extent that any political cartoon reflects reality.

10025. Ronski - 12/16/2005 11:08:07 PM

Why is it suddenly news that some Sunnis who are in league with the insurgents nevertheless voted?

10026. jexster - 12/16/2005 11:10:12 PM

Hey...I am not spinning the ridiculous.

You are the fella in the foil hat.

10027. jexster - 12/16/2005 11:10:42 PM

Election ju-ju for Useful Idiots

10028. jexster - 12/16/2005 11:12:03 PM

I have been trying to get this through your rather dense defenses Ronski ...The Big Election Spin is a farce...

How many times do you have to made to look like a friggin idiot?

10029. jexster - 12/16/2005 11:15:05 PM

The American faith that if people go to the polls it means they won't also be blowing things up is badly misplaced. Juan Cole


Too fucking dumb for Empire..The Sunnis vote to kick us out and wipe out the Shiites..

Do you understand this?

Bush lied..This is a war built on slogans and lies for people just like Ronski

Too fuckin dumb

10030. jexster - 12/16/2005 11:28:40 PM

As plainly as I am able and the risk of being moved, the War in Iraq, a war based and fought on slogans and lies from Day 1, is a failure

But not just any failure..As Gen Odom put it "the greatest strategic disaster in US history" or as John Ickenberry of Princeton put it at TPMC the 21st Century's "icon of disaster", our Smoot-Hawley tariff.

The Sunnis who came to vote and were urged to do so by the insurgents want:

1. To throw the US out
2. To throw Shiites of the Government
3. To throw the Kurds out of Kirkuk
4 To make Iraq a strong centralized state under their tutelage.

And the Shiites - Shia fundamentalists and partners of Iran

That's a ROCK and a hard place
That's fucked if you do, fucked if you don't
That's the real world..the Icon of Disaster

This will be the final Bush Election Pep Rally and Charm Offensive

There simply aren't enough Useful Idiots left


Are you receiving me Ronski?

Are you that dumb?

10031. jexster - 12/16/2005 11:44:20 PM

Have the McLaughlin Group on..

You know what they're yelling about (hate to call that a debate)

Who lost Iraq

10032. jexster - 12/17/2005 12:14:03 AM

What had to happen, already has

If there are any more hostile to the US than the Shia fundamentalists who now control the government, it the Sunnis...

Ya gotta love that insurgent GOTV operation..


The main question about the war in Iraq was never whether it would go well or go badly. The question was whether it would go bad fast or go bad slowly. So far, it has gone bad slowly, which was always the greater probability. But the possibility remains that it could go bad fast. The greatest likelihood may be during that most delicate of military arts, the withdrawal.

At least behind closed doors, a consensus is emerging in Washington that America will leave Iraq in 2006. Whether the White House will accept that consensus or resist it is yet to be seen, but the result will be the same either way. At this point, the Bush administration has about as much credibility on Capitol Hill as Napoleon had in Paris after Waterloo. On the House side particularly, where every seat is up next November, the watchword is sauve qui peut.

As Dr. Johnson said, being about to be hanged concentrates the mind wonderfully

10033. jexster - 12/17/2005 1:23:37 AM

Ronsk..UR a Bushie I know but are U also a God-fearin man by any chance?

Message # 4568 in thread 161

They died in vain...tens of thousands..died in vain

10034. jexster - 12/17/2005 8:28:32 AM

Rafsanjani Claims Victory in Iraq Elections

As I was saying Ronski...the biggest supporter of democracy in Iraq

and so we've come full circle...

Merry Crimmus ditto head

10035. OhioSTOPAS - 12/17/2005 8:30:09 AM

Ronski (Message # 10023) incredibly asks, "What lies?"

Perhaps our Republican apologist has had his eyes closed and his fingers in his ears for the last few years.

Try this one:

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

On what "intelligence" could anyone have honestly believed that?

10036. jexster - 12/17/2005 8:30:10 AM

10017...the laugh is Ronski..the news you Useful Idiots thought good, isn't

The Real World don't care about Bushie Spun Victories

10037. jexster - 12/17/2005 8:33:11 AM

Ohio glad you stopped by..

I have a job lead for you..




A professor of advanced histrionics and sloganeering of the Booboisie....

10038. OhioSTOPAS - 12/17/2005 8:33:28 AM

Jex (10031): I didn't see last night's McLaughlin Group, but I'll bet the usual suspects (Buchanan, Blankley) were trying out the line, "We would have 'won' the Iraq war if the war effort hadn't been undercut by war critics at home." I predict the divisions and McCarthyism related to the Iraq war will go on long after it's over, egged on by the right wing and their media outlets.

10039. jexster - 12/17/2005 8:35:11 AM

What is especially pathetic about Ronski is the fact that he is still a pawn in these Bush Charm Offensives..he hasn't a friggin clue

Fool me once, you should be ashamed.
Fool me twice, we won't get fooled again George W. Bush

Pathetic

10040. jexster - 12/17/2005 9:28:55 AM

The K Street Project
Inside the Big Bush Bullshit Machine

CATO Columnist Resigns
Paid By Abramoff

10041. jexster - 12/17/2005 9:36:53 AM

Meet the New Boss

Religious Shiite Coalition Sweeping South;
Allawi's Showing Weak



Same as the old Boss

See Ronski..learn something old every day...hell if you'd stuck around, out from under your rock, you might have learned something over the last 1000 days of disaster

10042. wonkers2 - 12/17/2005 11:55:42 AM

The latest fiasco involving Bush's authorization of domestic spying by NSA is but another example of Bush's lack of the historical knowledge and judgment necessary to discriminate between good and bad advice from his advisers. He has repeatedly allowed bad advisers and advice to drive out good advisers and their advice, e.g. Powell on the war, Treasury Secretary O'Neill on the budget and economy, and various generals on Iraq. The big difference between Bush and Clinton and other intellectually capable presidents such as Lincoln, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Nixon lies in their mastery of the subject matter and their ability to exercise their own judgment independent of their advisers.

10043. jayackroyd - 12/17/2005 12:22:24 PM

I'd be delighted to look at proof, or strong evidence.

The 16 words are unequivocal proof. The trouble with accusing him of lying is he could have just been mistaken. But, in this case, they crafted the words, carefully, to give him deniability. You only do that when you know you're lying.

I think there's a pile of additional evidence, but it's not unequivocal. The 16 words are both false, and clearly known to be false.

And, thanks, ronksi, for replying to my question. I don't understand why conservatives are happy with this guy. You, at least, reflect a view that I would expect to be widely held.

10044. jayackroyd - 12/17/2005 12:26:32 PM

Why is it suddenly news that some Sunnis who are in league with the insurgents nevertheless voted?

I'm not sure what you mean by this, but it is very good news that the Sunnis turned out, and the insurgents turned off their attacks.

OTOH, the administration doesn't seem in the least bit interested in what a new government has to say. The positions they've taken in the last couple of weeks doesn't admit the participation of the Iraqi government in decisions about the US presence in Iraq.

10045. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/17/2005 12:56:44 PM

. . . to the extent that any political cartoon reflects reality.

Ronski, I don't question your sincerity–just your judgement and imagination.

10046. wonkers2 - 12/17/2005 1:05:01 PM

My impression is that ronski's a libertarian, not a conservative.

10047. jayackroyd - 12/17/2005 1:11:00 PM

That's just doing what presidents do in times of war.

That's true. But when presidents lie to create a stronger case for war, they'd better be right. Lying raises the stakes. FDR wasn't, in my opinion, entirely honest about the threat posed by the Japanese, or the US interests in a European war. But he was right. Johnson lied about the Gulf of Tonkin incident. And he was wrong. Bush lied about the threat posed by Iraq, and he looks, at this moment to have been wrong. Worse than Johnson, actually. Losing Viet Nam didn't really matter. Enlarging Iran's sphere of influence may matter.

10048. wonkers2 - 12/17/2005 2:07:46 PM

Kennedy's refusal to be stampeded by his generals and others into war with USSR over the Cuban missile crisis is another example of a president with the intelligence and perspective to make the correct decision. Bush shows no sign of having this capability or instinct.

10049. jayackroyd - 12/17/2005 2:25:13 PM

I don't think much of Kennedy's administration, but you're right on this one. It's an illustration, imo, that when you're the guy with the finger on the button, things look different. What's scary about Bush is that he doesn't seem to feel that way.

10050. jexster - 12/17/2005 2:47:59 PM

Jay you remember the name of the TPMC poster who argued that effective control of the Senate was in Democratic hands???

Seems the evidence is mounting

He No Longer Stands Alone
How Feingold Beat Bush and his "Patriot" Act

10051. jexster - 12/17/2005 3:22:42 PM

On Hill, Anger and Calls for Hearings Greet News of Stateside Surveillance

sauve qui peut

10052. jayackroyd - 12/17/2005 3:41:05 PM

Reed Hundt?

But Feingold is now my presidential candidate of choice. He really stepped up on this, and it's a very important issue. He also voted on principle on the war. And I do also appreciate his showing up on line. His content seemed unfiltered, and straightforward, in contrast to, say, Clark.

10053. wonkers2 - 12/17/2005 3:45:07 PM

I admire Feingold, also. Kennedy's administration was too short to prove much one way or the other other than that he had great style and was pretty moderate in his views.

10054. jexster - 12/17/2005 3:48:37 PM

No I think it might have been the guy from Connecticut who wrote the recent one on Lieberman but not sure..

Clearly though he was right. GOP discipline's collapsed under the weight of scandal and executive arrogance and failures

With you on Feingold...he's no fringe player anymore..that old rap is DOA


But the thing of it is Bush don't give a shit...the mutherfucker should be impeached..

If ever there was a case in US History - this is it...

The SOB is a liar, a thief, megalomaniac, a war criminal, and I think borderline insane:

High crime and misdemeanor anyone?



A government official familiar with the NSA order said the president urged that the change be explained to only a very limited group of people on a "need-to-know" basis. That meant that, for nearly four years, only two people in the judicial branch of the U.S. government knew about the warrantless searches: U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, who presided over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court at the time of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and rotated off the court in May 2002, and U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who succeeded him.

10055. jayackroyd - 12/17/2005 4:31:14 PM

Schmitt?

Kennedy's administration was too short to prove much one way or the other

That's true. But he ran on a lie, and really screwed up on the Bay of Pigs. And Kenny O'Donnell might have been right that after reelection he would have pulled out of Viet Nam, but waiting for reelection is itself an indication of a lack of commitment to principle.

10056. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/17/2005 4:54:15 PM

Jimmy Carter was the last honest man to hold that office and I think he would have made the world a better place, had he a second term–yet, in spite of his defeat, he still managed to make the world a better place.

10057. judithathome - 12/17/2005 5:14:06 PM

You know how Clinton is blamed for every single thing wrong in this country? The other day we were discussing the rise in peanut allergies and someone said the Republicans would blame Clinton for them and I said, "No, it will be found to be Carter's fault this time." ;-)

10058. wonkers2 - 12/17/2005 5:35:27 PM

Yesterday, I heard the following on AIR AMERICA Radio concerning Bill Frist's efforts on behalf of the Patriot Act: "Right now Frist couldn't pass gas at a chili festival!"

10059. wonkers2 - 12/17/2005 8:19:08 PM

A little humor from this after noon's Prairie Home Companion:

Keillor: Santa, why do you think fewer kids believe in you these days?

Santa: Well, it's all that crap about the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy....and the b.s. about weapons of mass destruction hasn't helped either!

10060. jexster - 12/17/2005 9:49:15 PM

Bob Barr's ready to impeach..see Lies

He should know

10061. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/17/2005 10:35:20 PM

10062. jexster - 12/17/2005 11:31:08 PM

King George - President Above the Law
1978 Statute Intended to Block Domestic Spying That Bush OK'ed
LAT

10063. robertjayb - 12/18/2005 12:51:12 AM

NPR's All Things Considered had an interview Friday with James Banford, author of a couple of books on the National Security Agency. He said his contacts were really pissed by Bush's actions, fearing the agency's reputation will go back in the toilet as it was post-Vietnam.

10064. wonkers2 - 12/18/2005 1:22:00 AM

Apparently Bush wasn't reading the magazines and newspapers then either which left him at the mercy of advisers like and John Yoo and Alberto Gonzalez. Cheney should and Rumsfeld should have known better.

10065. jexster - 12/18/2005 12:25:05 PM

Since Bush is going to say Sunday that the Sunni Arab participation in the elections suggests a near end of major guerrilla violence, let me just repeat what I said Thursday: the history of guerrilla insurgencies is replete with groups that simulaneously fought on both the political and paramilitary fronts.

Listen to how angry the Sunni politicians are, as they speak out in the wake of the elections, both at Bush and at the Shiites, and you get a sense of how detached the Bush administration remains from reality.

Parties Jockey for Power in Wake of Elections;
Dulaimi willing to Ally with Shiites

It is my fond hope that in his brief charm offensive sojurn here, I've manage to reattach him, if only a little, to reality

10066. jexster - 12/18/2005 12:32:13 PM

An American living in Egypt who was teaching out in the provinces in a major city told me about recently witnessing a student demonstration that included a skit. Thousands of students had come out, and some grade schoolers were there in the front row. On the steps of an academic hall, Islamist students enacted a play about an Iraqi suicide bomber blowing up US troops, to enormous glee and applause. That's what most Arabs think about Iraq, on the outside. They don't want to emulate an American-occupied country.

Bush's naive conviction that his project is exemplary reminds me of the way the Communists in Russia initially thought that all the factory workers in the West would want immediately to imitate their worker's paradise.

10067. jexster - 12/18/2005 1:10:05 PM

WaPo Page One
Bush Pushes Limits of Wartime Powers



and this time 'round, there can be no dispute...

The Republicans impeached Clinton. If they don't impeach Bush, it is time for them to go....

10068. jexster - 12/18/2005 1:19:48 PM

That cockroach has more battlefronts than Carter has little liver pills

Yesterday's acknowledgment of warrantless NSA eavesdropping brought the most forthright statement from the president that his war on terrorism is targeting not only "enemies across the world" but "terrorists here at home." In the "first war of the 21st century," he said, "one of the most critical battlefronts is the home front."

Nor should one underestimate the geographic expansion of legitimate intervention zones. Because any desert and any jungle can harbor a fac­tory for weapons of terror, a superpower must have eyes everywhere in order to be tranquil at home. Every attack it launches on the other side of the world becomes an act of self-defense, and it is therefore possible to be both neo-isolationist and omni-interventionist, as the defensive perimeters of Los Angeles and Chicago are now situated in sub-Saharan Africa, the Red Sea, and perhaps, tomorrow, Cape Horn.

10069. jexster - 12/18/2005 1:53:06 PM

FOCUS | The New York Times: This Call May Be Monitored ...

10070. jexster - 12/18/2005 3:36:11 PM

At least behind closed doors, a consensus is emerging in Washington that America will leave Iraq in 2006. Whether the White House will accept that consensus or resist it is yet to be seen, but the result will be the same either way. At this point, the Bush administration has about as much credibility on Capitol Hill as Napoleon had in Paris after Waterloo. On the House side particularly, where every seat is up next November, the watchword is sauve qui peut. As Dr. Johnson said, being about to be hanged concentrates the mind wonderfully. - William Lind (I used to know the guy...he's not a liberal Ronski..not even a Democrat - he's just one smart mutha)

10071. robertjayb - 12/18/2005 11:48:08 PM

Bush dressed up the familiar whoppers and delivered them from the oval office, just as a real president might. No sale here of course. Seemed to me he was begging for approval while seeming stern and sober.

No mention of the illegal spying. CBS news is helping out with that. Twice tonight I heard CBS newsmen (so-called) referring to this crime as evesdropping. Tee-hee. Nothing much here. Just a little evesdropping. Move along.

10072. jexster - 12/19/2005 12:18:09 AM

Thinks he's Lincoln:

know that some of my decisions have led to terrible loss — and not one of those decisions has been taken lightly. I know this war is controversial — yet being your president requires doing what I believe is right and accepting the consequences. And I have never been more certain that America's actions in Iraq are essential to the security of our citizens, and will lay the foundation of peace for our children and grandchildren.

Next week, Americans will gather to celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah. Many families will be praying for loved ones spending this season far from home — in Iraq, Afghanistan and other dangerous places. Our Nation joins in those prayers. We pray for the safety and strength of our troops. We trust, with them, in a love that conquers all fear, and a light that reaches the darkest corners of the Earth. And we remember the words of the Christmas carol, written during the Civil War: "God is not dead, nor (does) He sleep; the Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail, with peace on Earth, good-will to men."

Thank you, and good night.


1000 Days....we beat Japan and Germany in 1000 days..

10073. jexster - 12/19/2005 12:21:04 AM

"Everything he has said has turned out to be untrue. Why should I believe him now" John Murtha


"When will the Democrats stop dicking around and say, 'Mr. President you are out of your mind' " Chris Mathews

10074. jexster - 12/19/2005 12:28:59 AM

Just Saying What His Spin Dr. Feaver Told Him to Say

we are winning the war in Iraq


BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney visited Iraq on Sunday for the first time since the 2003 invasion, as hard-line leaders from both sides of the country's sectarian divide renewed calls for American troops to go home.



Cheney, a chief architect of the war to oust Saddam Hussein, met Iraq's prime minister and president during his 8-hour visit, and hailed Thursday's election as "tremendous."

But Saleh al-Mutlak, a Sunni Arab nationalist who stood in the parliamentary election and has spoken up for insurgent views, said Americans were not welcome in Iraq and should leave.

Since Bush is going to say Sunday that the Sunni Arab participation in the elections suggests a near end of major guerrilla violence, let me just repeat what I said Thursday: the history of guerrilla insurgencies is replete with groups that simulaneously fought on both the political and paramilitary fronts. Listen to how angry the Sunni politicians are, as they speak out in the wake of the elections, both at Bush and at the Shiites, and you get a sense of how detached the Bush administration remains from reality

Al-Hayat [Ar.] : The London-based Saudi daily says that most signs suggest that the bloc of young Shiite nationalist Muqtada al-Sadr will form a major element in the new Iraqi parliament, and that other parties will seek an alliance with it. Among the first to broach such an alliance is outgoing prime minister Ibrahim Jaafari, who spoke in Najaf on Saturday.


As for the Sunni Arabs, they celebrated their return as a power in political life, forming processions in various cities. The leader of the Concord Front thanked the armed resistance for refraining from attacks on Sunnis who came out to vote.



[AP says that Adnan Dulaimi, leader of an important Sunni bloc, expressed a willingness to ally either with the Kurds and the Allawi list, or with the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance. He is quoted as saying, "For the sake of Iraq, there is nothing impossible. We have to forget the past and we extend our hands to everybody. . ." Dulaimi is a Sunni fundamentalist, and obviously differs with his secular colleague, Salih Mutlak.



[A parliament jointly dominated by Muqtada Al-Sadr's people and Sunnis like Dulaimi would certainly demand an early departure of US troops. To Mickey Kaus, who asked why I thought parliament might make such a demand even though it is clear that the parliament could not keep order in the country if the US troops suddenly left, I would just reply: have you been listening to what the Sunni parties and the Sadrists have been saying for the past 2 1/2 years? Asking why politicians might do something that causes chaos is sort of naive, isn't it? Surely George W. Bush wouldn't have risked destabilizing Iraq and the Middle East with a rushed invasion based on faulty intelligence? He thinks Muqtada al-Sadr and Salih Mutlak are better than Bush?]

10075. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/19/2005 3:38:05 AM

10076. jexster - 12/19/2005 11:28:34 AM

One of the authors of the wiretap law that Bush violated points out that there is a max 5 yr federal time for each of perhaps thousands of individual violations

Let's 10,000 years.

10077. Max Macks - 12/19/2005 2:25:11 PM

"Everything he has said has turned out to be untrue. Why should I believe him now" John Murtha

10078. jexster - 12/19/2005 3:22:21 PM

The Great Republican Bullshit Machine
Pay for Play..CATO, The Whore of Liberty
Krugman
Message # 4592 in thread 161

10079. Max Macks - 12/19/2005 3:28:16 PM

I wonder how many people listened to Bush speak

more Bushshit yesterday.

10080. PelleNilsson - 12/19/2005 3:28:22 PM

It is strange that Max doesn't even bother to read the last ten posts before blurting out his latest observation.

10081. Max Macks - 12/19/2005 3:30:45 PM

Pelle Sorry .... I read them ,
what's your point .

and what is the difference between posting
and blurting ?
I see your just as cordial as usual LOL

10082. jexster - 12/19/2005 5:27:21 PM

Gettin ready to govern

Now Ronski knows why the Number 1 supporter of elections in IraQ is IraN...

Dumbsfeld used to know ...


must be old age

I doubt Ronski ever did

10083. jexster - 12/19/2005 5:28:55 PM

Max UR cool...it takes repetition to get through

10084. Max Macks - 12/19/2005 6:43:44 PM

Thanks Jexter

10085. jexster - 12/19/2005 9:49:33 PM

Bush on the Constitution: 'It's just a goddamned piece of paper'

10086. jexster - 12/19/2005 10:09:41 PM

The Bush Administration uses double barrel propaganda today, with Mr. Bush using a prime time television address to say things like "My fellow citizens: Not only can we win the war in Iraq - we are winning the war in Iraq," and responding to negative news by saying "It does not mean that we are losing." Meanwhile, Mr. Cheney, while on a heavily guarded tour of the "Green Zone" and other locales in Iraq said today, "I think the vast majority of them think of us as liberators."
...

And if you want a sampling of Iraqis who Cheney spoke of, the following is another powerful dispatch from independent Iraqi journalist Sabah Ali.

10087. judithathome - 12/19/2005 11:11:26 PM

I was amazed...but not really...to hear Bush attacking the people who broke the story on his illegal use of spying on people rather than apologizing for trashing the constitution like he did. Pure sleaze, that guy.

10088. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/19/2005 11:49:01 PM

10089. robertjayb - 12/19/2005 11:52:21 PM

Snoopgate: Bush tried to stifle NYTimes...(Newsweek)

The president was so desperate to kill The New York Times’ eavesdropping story, he summoned the paper’s editor and publisher to the Oval Office. But it wasn’t just out of concern about national security.
................................................

No wonder Bush was so desperate that The New York Times not publish its story on the National Security Agency eavesdropping on American citizens without a warrant, in what lawyers outside the administration say is a clear violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
...............................................

...Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story—which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year—because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker. He insists he had “legal authority derived from the Constitution and congressional resolution authorizing force.

10090. judithathome - 12/19/2005 11:57:28 PM

Yeah, why DID they sit on this for a friggin' year, anyhow?

10091. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/20/2005 12:05:40 AM

I think they were intimidated and are now trying to redeem themselves, Judith.

10092. jexster - 12/20/2005 12:25:33 AM

Bush has just about said "Impeach me I dare ya"

What's behind it?

The Revolt of the Professionals - CIA etc

Where's it going?

Watch after Christmas. I saw Sen Cornyn try to deal with the statutory justification - use of force resolution - and he even he couldn't defend that passing over to "some sort" of extra-statutory constitutional authority (plenary Fuehrer Powers) which to my ears sounded weak but headed toward "he's the president and we are his children and must trust him to save us from terroirsts"

Watch after Christmas...I think the Bush defenses may crumble if public outcry is sufficient but what it will come down to is Republicans in Congress...Fitzgerald may also play into this, as will predictably deteriorating conditions in Iraq

The defenses, weak as they are, are all that stand between GWB and articles of impeachment.

10093. robertjayb - 12/20/2005 12:26:49 AM

God, I love the smell of impeachment in the morning.

10094. jexster - 12/20/2005 12:32:31 AM

No one says flat out that FISA doesn't work..in fact Bush doesn't he worked the hell out of that statute.

Larry Johnson thinks he's trying to cover his ass - thinks that the probable cause info came from torture..

Coulda come from Israel..coulda just been GOP Fascism which is to my mind the most likely explanation..drive for power.

What laws/constitutional provisions would be safe if Bush's defenses stand????

10095. jayackroyd - 12/20/2005 1:40:01 AM

The midterm elections are looking increasingly important. One intitiative of the Kos has been to have an opponent for every republican seat. That may turn out to be a very big deal.

10096. jexster - 12/20/2005 1:43:16 AM

One House and all hell will break loose

10097. jexster - 12/20/2005 1:43:52 AM

How about a campaign theme: Give us one House and we'll give your government back

10098. robertjayb - 12/20/2005 4:01:25 AM

Vegans under close watch by FBI...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 - Counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show.

F.B.I. officials said Monday that their investigators had no interest in monitoring political or social activities and that any investigations that touched on advocacy groups were driven by evidence of criminal or violent activity at public protests and in other settings.

10099. jexster - 12/20/2005 8:29:47 AM

Bush's Impeachable Offenses

Article II, Section 4: "The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."


50 USCS § 1809 (2005)

§ 1809. Criminal sanctions

(a) Prohibited activities. A person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally--
(1) engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute; or
(2) discloses or uses information obtained under color of law by electronic surveillance, knowing or having reason to know that the information was obtained through electronic surveillance not authorized by statute.

(b) Defense. It is a defense to a prosecution under subsection (a) that the defendant was a law enforcement or investigative officer engaged in the course of his official duties and the electronic surveillance was authorized by and conducted pursuant to a search warrant or court order of a court of competent jurisdiction.

(c) Penalties. An offense described in this section is punishable by a fine of not more than $ 10,000 or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both.

(d) Federal jurisdiction. There is Federal jurisdiction over an offense under this section if the person committing the offense was an officer or employee of the United States at the time the offense was committed

10100. jexster - 12/20/2005 8:32:58 AM

One salutary consequence there Robert

Fuck the vegans
Their asses are grasses

10101. wonkers2 - 12/20/2005 9:12:43 AM

Mike Thompson sez, Bill of Rights or Bill of Goods?

10102. jayackroyd - 12/20/2005 11:03:13 AM

There's a growing consensus in the blogosphere that what the president has been doing is engaging in widespread keyword searches of American communication. See, for example, Bruce Schneier at Salon. This is simply an extension of what the NSA currently does with foreign communications to Americans. It's clearly illegal, expressly illegal.

10103. wonkers2 - 12/20/2005 11:58:12 AM

Jay, was getting to work today a problem?

10104. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/20/2005 12:01:01 PM

Good cartoon, Wonk.

10105. wonkers2 - 12/20/2005 12:19:14 PM

Yours are better. I email them to my friends.

10106. jayackroyd - 12/20/2005 12:46:32 PM

I work at home. Before that I worked in an office a few blocks away. But I'm sure it's a mess. For the people in my neighborhood, they're doing what Manhattanites always do when there are transportation disruptions. They walk to work.

I was talking to someone who lives in Bay Ridge, which is the most southwestern point in Brooklyn--it's where the verrazano narrows bridge enters Brooklyn. (That's the bridge that is the starting point for the Marathon.) She doesn't have a way to get work on Thursday--it's too far to walk. Those are the people most affected, carless people in the outer boroughs.

10107. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/20/2005 1:11:51 PM

Mercy Buckets, wonk!

10108. judithathome - 12/20/2005 1:32:36 PM

Watch after Christmas...I think the Bush defenses may crumble if public outcry is sufficient but what it will come down to is Republicans in Congress...

Well, you can forget about THAT. His polls are up today...and yes, that includes the ones taken after the Times published the story on his decision to act like a dictator and disregard the law and the Constitution.

10109. robertjayb - 12/20/2005 1:47:44 PM

What did the NYTimes know, and when did it know it? (Salon)

...When voters went to the polls in November, the New York Times knew -- but didn't tell its readers -- that the Bush administration had been lying about Scooter Libby's role in the outing of Valerie Plame. It now appears that the New York Times also knew -- but didn't tell its readers -- that the Bush administration had been spying on American citizens in violation of an act of Congress. The Times isn't alone in keeping secrets from its readers: Reporters at the Washington Post and Time magazine also knew about White House involvement in Plame's outing, for example, but chose to let Scott McClellan's denials stand through Election Day in favor of protecting their sources.

Isn't it wonderful to have a vigorous free press?
Hard to believe this is the outfit that published the Pentagon Papers.

10110. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/20/2005 1:57:35 PM

With the assassination of Robert Kennedy and countless other disastrous events following (think Paul Wellstone), it just seems like the fate of Democrats has been cursed.

10111. wonkers2 - 12/20/2005 4:07:12 PM

The Gray Lady lost her cojones. According to Ken Auletta's long, carefully researched and balanced article in the December 19 New Yorker, "Young Arthur" Sulzberger has been less than a success in his job as Chariman of the NYT since he took over from his father in 1997.

[Also, my early-on observation that Judy Miller might have been "doing" Sulzberger wasn't far off. They didn't have a sexual relationship, but their friendship dates to 1976 when Sulzberger and his wife shared a summer house with Judith Miller, Steven Rattner and other friends. Apparently Judith has repeatedly taken advantage of her long friendship with Sulzberger, to his detriment, especially in her latest fiasco.]

10112. robertjayb - 12/20/2005 4:33:35 PM

Arianna Huffington: Is the NYTimes in a bubble? (with links)

10113. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/20/2005 4:56:54 PM

Shit–that's what I forgot to get–the latest New Yorker–I wanted to read the Auletta piece. Thanks again, wonk.

10114. wonkers2 - 12/20/2005 5:42:41 PM

The New Yorker's a great magazine. The only problem is my guilt trip for not reading everything interesting in it every week. Back issues pile up on the book case so that I can return to them which I mainly do only as a result of an interesting letter to the editor referring to an article in a previous issue.

10115. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/20/2005 5:48:12 PM

Wonk, you're describing me to a tee–only it's with Harper's. (I also leave my shoes all over the house.)

10116. jexster - 12/20/2005 5:48:47 PM

John,


Add your name to our Freedom of Information Act request to get the facts about George Bush's use of the National Security Agency to spy on American citizens:

http://www.democrats.org/foia

This is not an easy letter to write, and I'm afraid it may be a hard one to believe.

By now you have probably heard the news that George Bush is using the National Security Agency to conduct surveillance on American citizens without the consent of any court. After initially refusing to confirm the story, the President has admitted to personally overseeing this domestic spying program for years and he says he intends to continue the program.

These actions explicitly violate a law designed to protect US citizens. But the administration says that other laws somehow allow for this unprecedented use of a foreign intelligence agency to spy on Americans right here in the United States. According to reports, political appointees in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel wrote still-classified legal opinions laying out the supposed justification for this program.

I have asked our General Counsel to draft a Freedom of Information Act request for the relevant legal opinions and memos written by that office. Since the program's existence is no longer a secret, these memos should be released -- Americans deserve to know exactly what authority this administration believes it has.

You can help pressure the administration to release these documents by signing on to our Freedom of Information Act request in the next 48 hours:

www.democrats.org/foia

This extra-legal activity is even more disturbing because it is unnecessary -- the administration already has access to a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. That court was created precisely to provide speedy, secure judicial review to the actions of our intelligence agencies.

To allow authorities act as quickly as possible, officials can even apply for a retroactive warrant days after the surveillance has already begun. Secret warrants have been approved over 19,000 times -- only five applications were rejected in nearly thirty years. The court, which regularly acts within hours, is hardly a roadblock, but it prevents abuse by providing the oversight required by our system of checks and balances.

This administration must demonstrate clearly what legal authority allows it to disregard criminal prohibitions on unilateral domestic spying. Sign on to the request now -- it will be delivered on Thursday:

www.democrats.org/foia

In an interview on Monday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez admitted that the administration asked certain Members of Congress about getting a new law to allow spying on Americans without a warrant. Realizing that even a Republican-controlled Congress wouldn't authorize such a measure, they decided to manipulate current law and proceed with the program anyway.

Manipulation of a law like this is dangerous. The same Office of Legal Counsel used vague assertions of sweeping authority in the infamous torture memos. The victim of this reasoning is the rule of law itself -- when this administration asserts sweeping authority to step over any line of legality, it asserts that there are no lines at all.

Does this administration believe there are any lines it can't cross? Americans deserve to know. Join our Freedom of Information Act request now:

www.democrats.org/foia

Some Republicans will try to pretend that this is just another political fight. But Americans of every political viewpoint are rightfully disturbed by this extra-legal activity. The Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, shocked by the report of this activity, promised to convene hearings in January.

Even Bob Barr, who was one of the most conservative members of Congress and the first member to file articles of impeachment against President Clinton, said:

"What's wrong with it is several-fold. One, it's bad policy for our government to be spying on American citizens through the National Security Agency. Secondly, it's bad to be spying on Americans without court oversight. And thirdly, it's bad to be spying on Americans apparently in violation of federal laws against doing it without court order."

We need to know whether George Bush went beyond the limits of the law -- and whether he and his administration believe that there are any limits at all. Please join this important request:

www.democrats.org/foia

Even after the press found out about these actions, the administration tried to cover up its existence. According to Newsweek, George Bush summoned the publisher and executive editor of the New York Times to the Oval Office to try to stop them from running the story of these illegal activities.

We have seen this kind of arrogance of power before.

Richard Nixon once said in an interview that, "if the president does it, it can't be illegal."

He found out that wasn't true. This administration may need a reminder.

Thank you.

Governor Howard Dean, M.D.

10117. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/20/2005 5:50:41 PM

BuzzFlash is sayin' that the Bushies broke the law and didn't go through FISA because the a the equivalent of a Nixonian enemies list. Could it be that simple?

10118. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/20/2005 5:52:35 PM

. . . theY have the equivalent of . . .

10119. jayackroyd - 12/20/2005 6:07:31 PM

Wiz--

It really looks like they were engaging in much broader surveillance than a FISA court would have approved. That is, broad-based keyword searches rather than individual taps.

10120. jexster - 12/20/2005 6:11:20 PM

Say what Wiz???

Their asses be grasses..

Can't do the time
Don't do the crime


Dear Sen. Boxer:

I just received your email report and letter concerning your conversations with John Dean.

Bush has admitted to a violation of FISA without colorable defense. He is liable to prosecution with sentence for each illegal wiretap of up to five years in the penitentiary.

50 USCS § 1809 (2005)
§ 1809. Criminal sanctions
(a) Prohibited activities. A person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally--
(1) engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute; or
(2) discloses or uses information obtained under color of law by electronic surveillance, knowing or having reason to know that the information was obtained through electronic surveillance not authorized by statute.
(b) Defense. It is a defense to a prosecution under subsection (a) that the defendant was a law enforcement or investigative officer engaged in the course of his official duties and the electronic surveillance was authorized by and conducted pursuant to a search warrant or court order of a court of competent jurisdiction.
(c) Penalties. An offense described in this section is punishable by a fine of not more than $ 10,000 or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both.
(d) Federal jurisdiction. There is Federal jurisdiction over an offense under this section if the person committing the offense was an officer or employee of the United States at the time the offense was committed.

10121. jexster - 12/20/2005 6:16:40 PM

Yeah ..they were/are on a massive fishing expedition claiming legal authority which if legitimated would be indistinguishable from that which Hitler claimed in the Enabling Act

Impeach him or forget your democracy

10122. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/20/2005 7:33:53 PM

Senator Crony (Cornin) was in The Senate today pitchin' a cocknbull story that The NYTs exposed the Bushies to coincide with the Iraqi elections and the publishing of a new book by one of its journalists. How desperately loopy is that?

10123. judithathome - 12/20/2005 7:38:42 PM

Cornyn is considering running for Pesident. He will do ANYTHING to make himself look like a viable candidate.

10124. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/20/2005 7:52:52 PM

Just what we need, another big dumb Texan.

10125. judithathome - 12/20/2005 8:23:18 PM

He's a big dumb Texan, for sure. An ass....lawyer and maybe smarter than Bush but a suckup, par excellance.

10126. wonkers2 - 12/20/2005 8:24:50 PM

Court orders are needed before surveillance because FBI agents are too dumb to judge what activities should be investigated, for example, from today's NYT:

"One FBI document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance of a "Vegan Community Project." Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's "semi-communistic ideology." A thir document indicates the bureau's interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by Poople for the Ethical Treatment of Animals....ACLU officials said the latest batch of documents released by the FBI indicated the agency's interest in a broader array of activist and protest groups than they had previously thought....The documents incdicate that in some cases the GBI has used employees, interns and other confidential informants within groups like PETA and Greenpeace..." [The Mote was not mentioned!!] FBI Watched Activist Groups, Files Show.

10127. wonkers2 - 12/20/2005 8:33:15 PM

For several years in my former career I worked fairly closely with two former FBI agents. One, an honors graduate of Northwester University Law School, was an intelligent and thoughtful man, and the best boss I ever had. The other was at the other end of the spectrum--one of the most prejudiced and ignorant people I ever encountered, proud of the fact that he grew up in the same small town in Arizona with Dick Kleindienst, Goldwater-Reagan Republican. To this day I delight in emailing him the Wiz's caricatures of Bush.

10128. jexster - 12/20/2005 8:57:31 PM

FOCUS | Minority Staff House Judiciary Comm.
Report: The Constitution in Crisis

In brief, we have found there is substantial evidence that the president, vice president, and other high-ranking members of the Bush administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to war with Iraq; misstated and manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for said war; countenanced torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, and other legal violations in Iraq; and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of their administration.

Fill Report pdf

10129. jexster - 12/20/2005 8:59:22 PM

My bro sez Cornyn's REAL dumb

'sides I think we're done with Texas presidents for a while

Fool us twice

10130. jexster - 12/20/2005 10:01:24 PM

Via Josh Marshall

DefenseTech.org
Wiretap Mystery: Spooks React


A few current and former signals intelligence guys have been checking in since this NSA domestic spying story broke. Their reactions range between midly creeped out and completely pissed off....

10131. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/20/2005 10:14:12 PM

He's dumb and he can be as ugly as Delay, it seems--this fool was a judge?

Civil liberties don’t matter much ‘after you’re dead,’ Cornyn says on spy case

10132. jexster - 12/20/2005 11:27:08 PM

Die fahne hoch!

10133. jexster - 12/20/2005 11:31:50 PM

10134. jexster - 12/21/2005 7:08:05 AM

Bush's Wartime Dictatorship
The threat of presidential supremacism
by Justin Raimondo

In defending his edict authorizing surveillance of phone calls and e-mails originating in the United States, President Bush reiterated legal arguments, long made by his intellectual Praetorians, that imbue the White House with wartime powers no different from those exercised by a Roman emperor. As Barton Gellman and Dafna Linzer pointed out in the Washington Post the other day:

"Bush's constitutional argument, in the eyes of some legal scholars and previous White House advisers, relies on extraordinary claims of presidential war-making power. Bush said yesterday that the lawfulness of his directives was affirmed by the attorney general and White House counsel, a list that omitted the legislative and judicial branches of government. On occasion the Bush administration has explicitly rejected the authority of courts and Congress to impose boundaries on the power of the commander in chief, describing the president's war-making powers in legal briefs as 'plenary' – a term defined as 'full,' 'complete,' and 'absolute.'"

10135. wonkers2 - 12/21/2005 11:18:12 AM

Abramoff about to sing?

10136. thoughtful - 12/21/2005 11:27:15 AM

Why did the nyt sit on this story for a year...did they know about this before the last election? If so why oh why did they hold the story! We need a big dose of truth here!

10137. jexster - 12/21/2005 11:33:31 AM

Not a very Merry for influence peddlers and peddelees is it now...



Tom and Robert cut up for the camera

10138. jexster - 12/21/2005 11:48:12 AM

Several people involved in various aspects of the case agreed to be interviewed as long as their names and affiliations were not made public.


Justice Department officials are prohibited from discussing continuing cases as a matter of course

Perhaps it's just too early in the morning, but that reads to me like Justice dept officials are leaking on DeLay/Abramoff

10139. robertjayb - 12/21/2005 2:34:58 PM

FISA court judge quits...(WaPo)

A federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of President Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying program, according to two sources.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, sent a letter to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. late Monday notifying him of his resignation without providing an explanation.

10140. Ms. No - 12/21/2005 2:41:42 PM

Oh, great idea. You're a man of conscience so you're going to quit in protest so that some right-wing fanatic who won't bat an eyelash at the Administrations shennanigans can be appointed in your stead.

That's helpful.

10141. judithathome - 12/21/2005 3:59:31 PM

Well, sometimes it's just that you've had enough and can't stand the hypocrisy any longer. Maybe he wants to look at himself in the mirror each morning while shaving without the urge to cut his throat.

10142. judithathome - 12/21/2005 4:00:55 PM

More from the link:



Two associates familiar with his decision said yesterday that Robertson privately expressed deep concern that the warrantless surveillance program authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable and may have tainted the FISA court's work.

Robertson indicated privately to colleagues in recent conversations that he was concerned that information gained from warrantless NSA surveillance could have then been used to obtain FISA warrants. FISA court Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who had been briefed on the spying program by the administration, raised the same concern in 2004 and insisted that the Justice Department certify in writing that it was not occurring.

"They just don't know if the product of wiretaps were used for FISA warrants -- to kind of cleanse the information," said one source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the FISA warrants. "What I've heard some of the judges say is they feel they've participated in a Potemkin court."

10143. jexster - 12/21/2005 4:35:36 PM

They Hate Our Freedoms
Sen Robert Byrd Floor Speech - Salon

10144. jexster - 12/21/2005 4:43:04 PM

Damn..woulda thunk it

Bush lied

Officials Fault Case Bush Cited
Internal breakdowns, not shortcomings in spy laws, were at play before Sept. 11, they say


I haven't quite figured this one out.

Why do we need ANY part of the "PATRIOT" Act?

10145. jexster - 12/21/2005 4:46:57 PM

link

The incident Bush referred to involved at least six communications between the hijackers in San Diego and suspected terrorists overseas.

The current and former counter-terrorism officials, who requested anonymity, said there were repeated phone communications between a safe house in Yemen and the San Diego apartment rented by Alhazmi and Almihdhar. The Yemen site already had been linked directly to the Al Qaeda bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998 and to the 2000 bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole in Yemen, several current and former U.S. counter-terrorism officials familiar with the case said.

Those links made the safe house one of the "hottest" targets being monitored by the NSA before the Sept. 11 attacks, and had been so for several years, the officials said.

Authorities also had traced the phone number at the safe house to Almihdhar's father-in-law, and believed then that two of his other sons-in-law already had killed themselves in suicide terrorist attacks. Such information, the officials said, should have set off alarm bells at the highest levels of the U.S. government.

Which it would have had Bush paid attention to Richard Clarke and fucking read his PDB's

10146. jexster - 12/21/2005 4:48:32 PM

10126...

Wonk we'll have to turn up the radicalism around here.

I am not now nor have I ever been a member of a Gay Law Student Assn


I went to CUA law school
The fucking Pope's university

10147. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/21/2005 5:29:46 PM

10148. jexster - 12/21/2005 5:48:01 PM

"You don't ever benefit from illegal acts" - Michael Bloomberg

10149. Ms. No - 12/21/2005 6:47:10 PM

Jude,

I can understand those feelings but in the broader scope of things I would hope he'd feel an obligation to maintain his seat and bring corruption to light rather than say "It's corrupted and I'm leaving," and then rely on anonymous friends to voice his concerns to reporters.

We need good people on the inside to help turn the tide and this resigning in indignation thing isn't helpful. When was the last time a Republican resigned in outrage rather than fight for his agenda? It seems to be the MO for Dems all too often.

All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

10150. jexster - 12/21/2005 10:52:18 PM

Effective Control of the Senate Has Passed to Harry Reid


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Prodded by a majority of the U.S. Senate, Republican leaders on Wednesday stepped up efforts to resolve an impasse over key provisions of the anti-terrorism Patriot Act set to expire in 10 days.






Fifty-two of the 100 senators, including eight Republicans, signed a letter in support of a Democratic-led bid to extend the provisions for just three months to provide time to resolve differences in a dispute pitting civil liberties against national security in the war on terrorism

10151. jexster - 12/22/2005 2:29:21 AM

Juan Cole sez



For real news, go to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Robert Scheer points out that Iran yet again won the Iraqi elections. (It should be remembered that Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish leader, is also a close ally of Tehran.)

Private militias continue to threaten stability in Iraq.

10152. thoughtful - 12/22/2005 10:19:08 AM

Well the worst part of this imperial presidency is the excuse of needing war time powers, but by their own admission, the war on terror is unwinnable...thus the expansion of powers to the president is permanent.

Just as Cheney wanted it.

10153. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/22/2005 12:18:47 PM

10154. jexster - 12/22/2005 12:45:07 PM

If you liked the PATRIOT ACT
You'll love

Get Smarter
Fiore

10155. jexster - 12/22/2005 1:03:52 PM

Unchecked Presidential Power
Minneapolis Star-Tribune

10156. jexster - 12/22/2005 1:14:20 PM

This isn't about the spying, although that's a major issue in itself. This is about the Fourth Amendment protections against illegal search. This is about circumventing a teeny tiny check by the judicial branch, placed there by the legislative branch, placed there 27 years ago -- on the last occasion that the executive branch abused its power so broadly.

In defending this secret spying on Americans, Bush said that he relied on his constitutional powers (Article 2) and the joint resolution passed by Congress after 9/11 that led to the war in Iraq. This rationale was spelled out in a memo written by John Yoo, a White House attorney, less than two weeks after the attacks of 9/11. It's a dense read and a terrifying piece of legal contortionism, but it basically says that the president has unlimited powers to fight terrorism. He can spy on anyone, arrest anyone, and kidnap anyone and ship him to another country ... merely on the suspicion that he might be a terrorist. And according to the memo, this power lasts until there is no more terrorism in the world.

"terrorism." Of course every great na­tion needs a great enemy, but there's a problem: although there are terrorist modes of action, ter­rorism itself does not exist. "The use of extreme violence against disarmed populations outside any context of declared war" (a definition of ter­rorism) is a tactic of opportunity, a mode of op­eration, which includes everything and its op­posite, from Corsican guerrillas to the French, Algerian, and Palestinian resistance. Just as the ideas of my enemy were once ideology, so the violence of my dissidents will now be terrorism.

This adverb mistaken for a noun promises a hundred years' war-interminable because neither armistice nor capitulation is possible-in which the Empire, lacing up its boxing gloves to battle a swarm of flies, will exhaust its strength in a perpetually recommencing fight against everybody and nobody.

"Democracy" is the second of these magic words. Ultra- sovereignist, the American hypernation reserves for itself the exclusive right to patriotism but intends to export "democracy" wherever and whenever it suits its interest. "Democracy" is the contemporary equivalent of the old "civilization," which brought to the backward peoples of the world the European colonialism of the nineteenth century, the humanitarian character of which has been largely forgotten. Then, too, the colonialists were sup­posedly rescuing the oppressed from tyranny, slavery, and fanaticism. But since the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans, democracy at home has never gotten in the way of prisons for recal­citrant foreigners or napalm for foreign dissidents.

And indeed, "one man, one vote" in the Middle East is not in the interest of the United States. If tomorrow the Americans could wave a magic wand and democratize Iraq, they would have to pack their bags the next day. For, as a former Israeli foreign minister has said, the choice in this region is not between democracy and dictatorship but between secular dictatorship and Islamic democracy.

The third source of hypnosis is "weapons of mass destruction." On September 11 it was nine­teen men with box cutters. The Pentagon was preparing for cyberterrorism and got pocket knives. Tomorrow, it will be a rifle shot, a mortar shell, or a hunk of TNT. It is with the archa­ic and the artisanal that the best-armed country in the world-5 percent of the population, nearly 50 percent of the total military expenditure should be concerned. The United States, a nation of engineers, is in thrall to a technological illusion and thinks of arms rather than men, visible devices rather than interior dispositions (belief in the afterlife is undetectable via infrared). The alliance of the two is certainly volatile, but the detonator is belief.

Nor should one underestimate the geographic expansion of legitimate intervention zones. Because any desert and any jungle can harbor a fac­tory for weapons of terror, a superpower must have eyes everywhere in order to be tranquil at home. Every attack it launches on the other side of the world becomes an act of self-defense, and it is therefore possible to be both neo-isolationist and omni-interventionist, as the defensive perimeters of Los Angeles and Chicago are now situated in sub-Saharan Africa, the Red Sea, and perhaps, tomorrow, Cape Horn.
Regis Debray

10157. robertjayb - 12/22/2005 3:36:37 PM

Appeals Court Won't Speed Up DeLay Appeal


AUSTIN, Texas - A Texas appeals court Thursday thwarted former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's bid for a speedy trial.

The money laundering and conspiracy case against the Republican congressman has been on hold while prosecutors appeal a judge's dismissal of some of the charges.

DeLay's attorneys asked the 3rd Court of Appeals to speed up the appeals process by shortening the filing periods from 20 days to five days. But the court said no.

DeLay has been pressing for a quick resolution to his case so he can regain his post as majority leader before his colleagues call for new leadership elections next month.

Keep the cockroach tied down!

10158. judithathome - 12/22/2005 5:45:28 PM

DeLay has been pressing for a quick resolution to his case so he can regain his post as majority leader before his colleagues call for new leadership elections next month.

Oh yeah...that's just what they need. Another lawbreaker in power.

He can't possibly think they are going to welcome him back with open arms, can he? Doing so would send the message that the Republicans are just as morally bereft as everyone is beginning to think they are.

10159. jexster - 12/22/2005 8:15:51 PM

Tbis will ruin your cockroach's Crimmus there Texicans

Abramoff May Testify against Dozens in Congress

Jack Abramoff, the Republican lobbyist under indictment for fraud in South Florida, is expected to complete a plea agreement in the Miami criminal case, setting the stage for him to become a crucial witness in a broad federal corruption investigation, people with direct knowledge of the case said.

10160. Max Macks - 12/23/2005 3:18:39 PM

Tom Delay and Karl Rove
I always picture them together

I also like to picture them behind bars
where the both belong

10161. Max Macks - 12/23/2005 3:40:27 PM

The Truth- with jokes> Al Franken

I got this book I requeted at public library yesterday.

It has too many pages to read in full but I'm
skimming around

A chapter on how Rove designed the Bushspeak to keep
the country frightened is funny and depressing .

Have any of you read this book?

10162. anomie - 12/23/2005 8:22:49 PM

I read the "Lies and Lying Liars..." one. Also funny.

10163. jexster - 12/24/2005 12:37:59 AM

A Real War on Christmas
>Fear overshadows Christmas joy in Baghdad


BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The biggest celebration of the year for Christians is only a day away, yet the Virgin Mary Church in Baghdad wears a deserted, almost forlorn look.

The festive lights and glittery decorations of years past are nowhere to be seen.

A small, unshapely tree with silver and purple ornaments stands near the pulpit -- a poor substitute for a traditional giant Christmas tree that, in years past, was decorated to the sounds of young men and women singing hymns.

Just six women came to evening prayers a few days ahead of Christmas, leaving rows of pews empty in the dimly lit church.

It wasn't always this way.

"We used to celebrate this occasion by praying, and hundreds of believers would gather and wish each other well in the church lobby," said Father Boutros Haddad, the priest at the church in Baghdad's predominantly Christian neighborhood. "But we've stopped this because of the security situation."

Yet another somber Christmas is rolling by for
Iraq's roughly 600,000 Christians, who enjoyed relative freedom under Saddam, but now live in fear of attacks from increasingly powerful Islamist groups and militias.

Since Saddam's downfall, churches have been bombed, Christian-run liquor stores attacked and many more in the small community killed or kidnapped.

10164. jexster - 12/24/2005 3:09:07 AM

Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report


WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 - The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries, they said.

As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said.


Many fault the NyT for sitting on this story. One even went so far as to claim that had the paper done its job, Bush would not be president today.

I wonder. In fact, I doubt it. I don't think most people fail to grasp how truly bizarre the post 9/11 period has been.

I don't think it would have made any difference. Perhaps even timely reporting would probably have been seriously counterproductive. Surely when Bush called Sulzberger in and read him the riot act, Bush left little doubt that he'd turn the Great GOP Shit Machine loose to brand the Times and the rest of the "liberal media" as traitors.

Of course, he's trying the same old tactics today but with little success precisely because Bush's 9/11 fearmongering doesn't work any longer.

In the event, then, I think that reporting from an embarrassed and angry NyT today is far more effective now than it would have been 2 years or so back.

Or even one year ago. Remember what the slime machine did to Rather last year? Then recall Newsweek's korna flushing and Gitmo abuse reports early this year. Newsweek stood up to Bush and this was a watershed event, a turning point after which the MSM rediscovered its spine.

10165. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/24/2005 2:05:05 PM

The ever evasive Novakcula is grilled in these video snipits of Blitzer's interview of Bob Novak's final appearance on CNN.

10166. jexster - 12/24/2005 3:20:06 PM

The War Crimes of "Christian" Warriors

I think that the current era of Bush foreign policy will be seen across the political spectrum as a grand strategic failure. (This is true even if one doesn’t go as far as former head of the National Security Agency, Retired Lt. General William Odom, who argues that "The invasion of Iraq, I believe, will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history.") I seriously doubt that any future president will model his or her foreign policy on Bush’s post-911 emphasis on preemption, unilateralism, and conservative hegemony. The Iraq war will be seen as our era’s Smoot-Hawley Tariff – an icon of disaster
G. John Ickenberry Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University.

10167. jexster - 12/24/2005 3:56:24 PM

From a friend..

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10482133/?GT1=7516


I tried to watch your "Santa Tracker," but was initially told "The Clip yourequested is unavailable." However, after letting it sit for about three minutes. I received the following message from NORAD:
" We're sorry to inform you, that your unpatriotic activities this year (asdocumented by the NSA on 1/13/05, 2/14/05, 3/22/05, etc) make you ineligible for a visit by St Nicholas, Santa Claus, or indeed any other services
from FEMA. Please shut down your computer(s) immediately, turn off all lights in your residence, set your furnace on "low" and assume the position against the wall, with your legs spread out and your arms above your head.
Uniformed officers from the Dept of Homeland Security are on their way to your residence, and should arrive at your front door in approximately three minutes. Do not attempt to flee, or bar the door, as that will only piss
the officers off, and they will kick down your front door.

"You will be taken to an undisclosed location where you will spend the holidays with the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense, and their representatives. Do not bother with a coat, Cuba is quite warm this time of
the year.

And, by all means, Have a very Merry Christmas."

10168. jexster - 12/24/2005 5:47:43 PM

Glad Tidings of High Crime now in Lies


"The fact is, the federal law is perfectly clear," Turley says. "At the heart of this operation was a federal crime. The president has already conceded that he personally ordered that crime and renewed that order at least 30 times. This would clearly satisfy the standard of high crimes and misdemeanors for the purpose of an impeachment."

Turley is no Democratic partisan; he testified to Congress in favor of Bill Clinton's impeachment. "Many of my Republican friends joined in that hearing and insisted that this was a matter of defending the rule of law, and had nothing to do with political antagonism," he says. "I'm surprised that many of those same voices are silent. The crime in this case was a knowing and premeditated act. This operation violated not just the federal statute but the United States Constitution. For Republicans to suggest that this is not a legitimate question of federal crimes makes a mockery of their position during the Clinton period. For Republicans, this is the ultimate test of principle."

Of course, that may be exactly the problem. While noted experts - including a few Republicans - are saying Bush should be impeached, few think he will be. It's not clear that the political will exists to hold the president to account. "We have finally reached the constitutional Rubicon," Turley says. "If Congress cannot stand firm against the open violation of federal law by the president, then we have truly become an autocracy."

Similar fears are voiced by Bruce Fein, a former associate deputy attorney general under President Ronald Reagan. Fein is very much a member of the right. He once published a column arguing that "President George W. Bush should pack the United States Supreme Court with philosophical clones of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas and defeated nominee Robert H. Bork."

Suddenly, though, Fein is talking about Bush as a threat to America. "President Bush presents a clear and present danger to the rule of law," he wrote in the right-wing Washington Times on Dec. 20. "He cannot be trusted to conduct the war against global terrorism with a decent respect for civil liberties and checks against executive abuses. Congress should swiftly enact a code that would require Mr. Bush to obtain legislative consent for every counterterrorism measure that would materially impair individual freedoms."

What alarms Fein is not only that Bush has broken laws but also that he has repeatedly shown contempt for the separation of powers. Fein wants to see congressional hearings that would explore whether Bush accepts any constitutional limitation on his own authority.

"The most important thing to me, in terms of thinking about the issue of impeachment, is to recognize that the Constitution does place a value on continuity," Fein says. "We don't want to have a situation where you make a single error, and you're exposed to an impeachment proceeding."

10169. wonkers2 - 12/25/2005 1:13:37 PM

Wilkerson versus the lawn jockey and the simian.

10170. jexster - 12/25/2005 2:15:41 PM

I know this is off-topic but remember ....it seems like ages ago but try to remember that time in December when Ronski high on Bushevik JUju pranced in here to proclaim the Day of Democracy in EyeRak


Well Ronsk, this bud's for you

Merry Crimmus from the biggest supporters of democracy in EyeRak

Sound familiar? I-Raq n roll, girl



Iran says Khomeini’s “message” conquering Iraq Thu. 22 Dec 2005

Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Dec. 22 – Iran’s powerful Interior Minister said on Wednesday that the echo of Iran’s “Islamic revolution” could be heard in Iraq today, the state run news agency reported.

Speaking in the western city of Hamedan, Hojjat-ol-Islam Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi said, “That which is presently being heard in Baghdad and other Iraqi provinces is the echo of the [1979 Islamic] revolution and the messages of Imam Khomeini”.

“Today, the people of Iraq and their elite have adopted our ideals and models as their own”, the Interior Minister said.

Pour-Mohammad served as Iran’s Deputy Intelligence Minister for years, running the country’s vast secret police operations abroad, including Iraq.


And anytime you care to learn what's going on in the real world

You be sure and let me know

10171. alistairConnor - 12/25/2005 3:49:05 PM

Perhaps even timely reporting would probably have been seriously counterproductive.

I've been thinking along those lines, Jex. For example, if in 2002 the CIA had been open and transparent about the fact that they were flying kidnapped terrorism suspects from place to place in Europe in order to torture them, or if the press had exposed the matter at the time, it might well be that the general sympathy and concensus around the Global War on Abstract Concepts would have got them off the hook. This would certainly have been damaging to freedom and democracy. Likewise with this eavesdropping thing.

One might say that keeping it under wraps was cynical and manipulative on the part of the NYT. But they are serving a higher cause ...

10172. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/25/2005 4:13:20 PM

Toys!

What bothers me is the fact that these gangsters are saying to a complacent bunch of frightened sheep: "Trust us, our brutality will make you safer!"

Anytime someone is tortured, it only cements the resolve of those who oppose them and makes those who support brutality a bigger target of hatred by more people who see the truth.

10173. jexster - 12/25/2005 6:27:47 PM

Merry Crimmus to Ole Cut n Run

Without whom, I don't what I would have done for the last 5 years.


It's been fun

Hasta la vista
WASHINGTON - At every stop on his three-day tour of Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sent a similar message: the U.S. military is not rushing to get out, but it is getting out, nevertheless

10174. jexster - 12/25/2005 6:30:30 PM

Dollars to doughnuts AC - and NO ONE has pointed this out on the MSM or any other media I have seen - you know ole Sulzberger had to be thinkin "I hear this little pissant's threats and I don't give a shit about anything other than whether the story will have impact"

Thanks to Newsweek flushing the Koran-Flusher last spring, that story was published

10175. thoughtful - 12/25/2005 11:05:13 PM

Frank Rich as usual was spot on about the war that isn't a war...on xmas. Whole thing is worth a good read if you can get to the 'select' section. But here's just a taste:

THE good news today is that the great 2005 war on Christmas, the conflagration that launched a thousand op-ed pieces and nearly as many battles on Fox News, is now officially over. And yes, Virginia - Christmas won!

Secularists, Jews, mainline Protestants and all the other grinches failed utterly to take Kriss Kringle down. Except at those megachurches that canceled services today rather than impede their flocks' giving and gorging, Christmas is alive and well everywhere in America. Last night NBC even rolled the dice and broadcast "It's a Wonderful Life" in prime time. With courage reminiscent of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's defiance of Stalin, the network steadfastly refused to redub the final scene's cries of "Merry Christmas!" with the godless "Happy holidays!"...

In his sweeping 139-page opinion, that judge, John Jones III, put his finger on the hypocrisy of many of those most ostentatiously defending faith from its alleged assailants in America. Referring to the fundamentalists on the Dover, Pa., school board, he wrote that it was "ironic" that those who "so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the intelligent design policy." That passage fits much of the dishonesty and cynicism perpetrated in the name of religion in America over the past 12 months....

To those who fear the worst from a born-again president whose base is typified by these holy rollers and the Christmas demagogues of Fox News, a fundamentalist theocracy seems as imminent in America as it does in the "democracy" we've been building in Iraq. Only last week did Ted Haggard, an evangelical preacher much favored by the White House, fan those fears by insisting to a Jewish television interviewer, Barbara Walters, that anyone who worshiped a different God from Jesus Christ would "unfortunately" be consigned to hell.

But it's also possible that 2005 may turn out to be the year the God card was so wildly overplayed in politics and commerce alike that it began to lose its clout with Americans who are overdosing on the strict speech and belief codes of Christian political correctness. That the judge who ruled so decisively in Pennsylvania's revival of the Scopes trial is a Republican appointed by President Bush is almost enough to make the bah-humbug crowd believe in Santa Claus.

10176. jexster - 12/26/2005 1:22:49 PM

How Stands the Empire?
Patrick J. Buchanan

In order to rally people, governments need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate, so we will rally behind them.

~Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Buddhist monk

10177. wonkers2 - 12/26/2005 6:06:40 PM

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

Samuel Johnson

10178. judithathome - 12/26/2005 6:40:33 PM

I adore Frank Rich!!!!!

10179. wonkers2 - 12/26/2005 7:04:41 PM

Me too. He's a clever guy.

10180. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/26/2005 7:30:09 PM

Clever and compassionate–somewhat more of a rarity.

10181. jexster - 12/26/2005 8:17:02 PM

I just heard that hackers broke into Diebold BushWhacker 2000 Series in Florida and changed the results leaving no trace...

10182. jexster - 12/26/2005 8:20:22 PM

I forgot Frank Rich yesterday!

I Saw Jackie Mason Kissing Santa Claus

Coming SOON
To LHC

10183. jexster - 12/26/2005 8:50:33 PM

But it's also possible that 2005 may turn out to be the year the God card was so wildly overplayed in politics and commerce alike that it began to lose its clout with Americans who are overdosing on the strict speech and belief
codes of Christian political correctness. That the judge who ruled so decisively in Pennsylvania's revival of the Scopes trial is a Republican appointed by President Bush is almost enough to make the bah-humbug crowd believe in Santa Claus.

I didn't know that. The judge of the 4th Circuit who slammed the Little Moron's Padilla scam...rumored top of the Bush ScT list..

What a disaster

10184. jexster - 12/26/2005 11:37:13 PM

'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.
– Friedrich August von Hayek

10185. jexster - 12/27/2005 12:51:17 AM

Can't do the Time?

Just don't do the crime
It ain't rocket science

It's the law.


FORUM
Op-eds on legal news by law professors and JURIST special guests...





Not Authorized By Law: Domestic Spying and Congressional Consent


JURIST Guest Columnist Jordan Paust of the University of Houston Law Center says that contrary to assertions by President Bush and the US Department of Justice, post-9/11 Congressional legislation on the use of military force against terrorists does not authorize domestic spying...

Good Tejas Babdist School UofH




George W. Bush and US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales claim that domestic spying in manifest violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was authorized by Congress in broad language in the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) regarding persons responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Similar claims have been made in a December 22 letter from Assistant Attorney General William Moschella to the leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. The claims are patently false.

10186. jexster - 12/27/2005 12:52:41 AM

Shit


Always forgit sump'n like the link

10187. thoughtful - 12/27/2005 11:11:10 AM

Get a load of this one, not behind the NYT select barrier: Rivkin & Casey on "Unwarranted Complaints". These guys are former attorneys for Reagan and BushI and both claim w has done nothing wrong.

I almost died when I saw this excuse:

Overall, this surveillance program is fully within the president's legal authority, is limited in scope (involving communications to or from overseas related to the war against Al Qaeda), and is subject to stringent presidential review.

Subject to stringent presidential review??? Isn't that like Saddam Hussein saying his torture camps are subject to stringent presidential review? That Pinochet's disappearances are subject to stringent presidential review?

Clearly these guys have failed to understand the simplest fundaments of checks and balances!

10188. jexster - 12/27/2005 12:54:26 PM

Our enemies...never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.
– George W. Bush

10189. jexster - 12/27/2005 1:17:28 PM

Questions Questions

MSNBC Tease/Lede: Violence is surging in Iraq. Are the recent elections to blame? We'll ask...

Well DUH another case of spun Bush-shit and American susceptiblity to democracy ju-ju.

Of course the election are to blame, the elections and I wager US meddling in the form of encouragement of the Allawi-losers to take to the streets.

Bush is deathly afraid of the growing influence of Iran, but the problem of course is - the Shia fundamentalists won the elections he ballyhoo'ed and they'll continue to control the government that US forces have been fighting as mercenaries to defend in the on-going civil war.

Fuckt up

10190. PelleNilsson - 12/27/2005 1:47:51 PM

I suggest two new national holidays in order to make the transition to a police state more palatable for the American masses.

(1) Defenders of the Fatherland Day;

(2) The Day of the Workers of the Security Organs.

(Idea stolen from Putin's Rusia.)

10191. jexster - 12/27/2005 2:43:46 PM

Thanx Pelle!

[do we really need more proof of the vast International Swedish Conspiracy?)

Bush looked N2 Pooty-Poot's eyes and saw our future

10192. jexster - 12/27/2005 9:04:32 PM

Real Geek Shit at TPMC

Richard Eichenberg Tufts U
-- Public Opinion on Iraq: Will the "Strategy for Victory" Improve the President's Support?


Ten days on line...lotsa numbers and charts and stats

10193. rdbrewer - 12/28/2005 3:55:48 AM

What was that, like 57/60? I didn't care to go back further.

Asshole.

10194. jexster - 12/28/2005 4:37:44 AM

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - President George W. Bush is spending part of his Christmas holiday reading about the post-presidential years of Theodore Roosevelt and the lives of U.S. troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere

10195. jexster - 12/28/2005 5:04:12 AM

What's Next?

Pedophillia OK for Bush?

10196. alistairconnor - 12/28/2005 8:40:43 AM

Merry christmas to you too RD.

Not a hint of irony intended. It's always nice to see the same old shit.

10197. jexster - 12/28/2005 10:00:28 AM

From Emperor Georgie's Gulag

Defense Lawyers in Terror Cases
Plan Challenges Over Spy Efforts

Watch the doubletalking little fuck release some rather than release details..that's what the lawyers are looking for - hoping for - that their Bush nailed their clients with illegal taps

But where says some is the King of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve as monarchy, that in America THE LAW IS KING. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is. Tom Paine

This nation sits at a crossroads. One direction points to the higher road of the rule of law...The other road is the path of least resistance" in which "we pitch the law completely overboard when the mood fits us...[and] close our eyes to the potential lawbreaking...and tear an unfixable hole in our legal system" - Tom DeLay

10198. jexster - 12/28/2005 10:36:55 PM

What He SHOULD Be Learning In France
François said...
Your series of graphs is an excellent example of what I should be learning to do on my own (I'm a pol. sci. graduate in France). Could you please post a quick methodology? Are you using R? SPSS? Excel? How do you aggregate data?

6:42 PM



Charles Franklin said...
Thanks. I use R for all the figures. The raw data are entered into a spreadsheet (I use OpenOffice.) I convert the spreadsheet to Stata where I clean the data, checking for errors and creating some standard variables such as date of survey. Finally I read the Stata dataset into R, do any statistical analysis there and produce the graphs. Some are R "base" graphics and some use the Lattice library. See Robert Chung's presidential approval pages for more examples of nice R graphics using the presidential approval series.

R is open source. Google "CRAN" for the Comprehensive R Archive Network to download software, documentation and numerous manuals in multiple languages.



chf

10199. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/29/2005 5:24:08 PM

10200. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/29/2005 5:31:36 PM

10201. jexster - 12/29/2005 8:52:23 PM

10202. jexster - 12/29/2005 8:56:46 PM

10203. jexster - 12/29/2005 9:58:31 PM

Culture of Corruption

Lobbyist Abramoff's 'Equal Money' Went to Republicans
By Kristin Jensen and Jonathan D. Salant
Bloomberg.com

Wednesday 21 December 2005

Washington - US President George W. Bush calls indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff "an equal money dispenser" who helped politicians of both parties. Campaign donation records show Republicans were a lot more equal than Democrats.

Between 2001 and 2004, Abramoff gave more than $127,000 to Republican candidates and committees and nothing to Democrats, federal records show. At the same time, his Indian clients were the only ones among the top 10 tribal donors in the US to donate more money to Republicans than Democrats.

Bush's comment about Abramoff in a Dec. 14 Fox News interview was aimed at countering Democratic accusations that Republicans have brought a "culture of corruption" to Washington. Even so, the numbers show that "Abramoff's big connections were with the Republicans," said Larry Noble, the former top lawyer for the Federal Election Commission, who directs the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics.

10204. jexster - 12/30/2005 2:33:31 PM

A year ago, we didn't know that Mr. Bush was lying, or at least being deceptive, when he said at an April 2004 event promoting the Patriot Act that ''a wiretap requires a court order. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.''

A year ago, most Americans thought Mr. Bush was honest.

A year ago, we didn't know for sure that almost all the politicians and pundits who thundered, during the Lewinsky affair, that even the president isn't above the law have changed their minds. But now we know when it comes to presidents who break the law, it's O.K. if you're a Republican.

Krugman - in LHC

10205. jexster - 12/30/2005 9:42:59 PM

. . . or outside the law?
By Bruce Fein
The Washington Times

I have such fond memories of Bruce.

10206. robertjayb - 12/31/2005 12:59:26 AM

Abramoff linked to DeLay group (WaPo)

The U.S. Family Network, a public advocacy group that operated in the 1990s with close ties to Rep. Tom DeLay and claimed to be a nationwide grass-roots organization, was funded almost entirely by corporations linked to embattled lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to tax records and former associates of the group.

During its five-year existence, the U.S. Family Network raised $2.5 million but kept its donor list secret. The list, obtained by The Washington Post, shows that $1 million of its revenue came in a single 1998 check from a now-defunct London law firm whose former partners will not identify the money's origins.

10207. jexster - 12/31/2005 10:22:39 AM

WOW...

How about "no controlling legal authority"?

Worked for Gore!

Boy TommieD up to his ass in alligators..NewsHour says Abramoff may sing as early as this weekend..there gonna be a shitload of GOP congressman goin down if he does

10208. jexster - 12/31/2005 10:25:03 AM

One of the former associates, a Frederick, Md., pastor named Christopher Geeslin who served as the U.S. Family Network's director or president from 1998 to 2001, said Buckham further told him in 1999 that the payment was meant to influence DeLay's vote in 1998 on legislation that helped make it possible for the IMF to bail out the faltering Russian economy and the wealthy investors there.

"Ed told me, 'This is the way things work in Washington,' " Geeslin said.


Yup..That's how it works Reverend

10209. jexster - 12/31/2005 2:39:10 PM

Tweet..Tweet
Abramoff Ready to Sing
Deal could secure testimony against several lawmakers

10210. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/31/2005 6:48:31 PM

Cheers to all!

10211. OhioSTOPAS - 1/1/2006 6:48:11 PM

Bush said today,

"The NSA program is one that listens to a few numbers called from the outside of the United States of known al-Qaida or affiliated people."

Yeah, right. Of bald-faced lying, this is the baldest. We're supposed to believe Bush ignored the FISA warrant requirement because we couldn't get a warrant to wiretap such phone calls???

Meet the new year, same as the old year.

10212. jexster - 1/2/2006 8:30:14 AM

But that is only one of the lies he told...


The NyT reported week before last that the NSA was hoovering ALL US domestic - intl email and phone traffic...


We don't know what he did because we have to trust what he tells us he did and until the NyT broke the story, that was nothing

Now we get the lies PLUS a major push to sweep the whole mess into Pat Roberts't black hole aka Senate Intel Committee


Hope the press sticks with it...have my doubts about Congress

10213. alistairconnor - 1/2/2006 8:38:14 AM

I find the whole "scandal" as funny as hell. For decades, the US has been monitoring all the "foreign" traffic it can get its hands on, i.e. virtually everything. Nobody finds this at all surprising or dangerous...

Except perhaps the foreigners.

10214. robertjayb - 1/2/2006 6:52:56 PM

Bush lies: the media enables...Robert Parry)

George W. Bush’s dysfunctional relationship with the truth seems to be shaped by two complementary factors – a personal compulsion to say whatever makes him look good at that moment and a permissive environment that rarely holds him accountable for his lies.

How else to explain his endless attempts to rewrite history and reshape his own statements, a pattern on display again in his New Year’s Day comments to reporters in San Antonio, Texas? In that session, as Bush denied misleading the public, he twice again misled the public.

10215. jexster - 1/2/2006 7:57:43 PM

Sorry AC ..you foreigners do not count


Our glorious constitution and laws do not apply to you.

Perfectly legal to unreasonably search and seize you

10216. jexster - 1/3/2006 12:00:37 AM

There goes the Praetorian Guard..


WASHINGTON (AFP) - Support for President George W. Bush's Iraq policy has fallen among the US armed forces to just 54 percent from 63 percent a year ago, according to a poll by the magazine group Military Times

10217. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 1/3/2006 2:03:43 AM

From another board . . .



"Gladhes White and The Perps!"

10218. OhioSTOPAS - 1/3/2006 6:09:42 AM

Bush is daring us to impeach him.

10219. alistairconnor - 1/3/2006 6:59:24 AM

What's the process? I was so young at the time, I didn't grasp the details... A simple majority in each house of congress?

10220. thoughtful - 1/3/2006 10:28:39 AM

Latest news is that Abramoff will spill the beans

Some 220 lawmakers received at least $1.7 million in political donations from Abramoff, his associates and nine tribal clients between 2001 and 2004, according to a review of Federal Election Commission and Internal Revenue Service records. Of those, 201 are still in Congress. Republicans received $1.1 million, or 64 percent of the total.

``When this is all over, this will be bigger than any (government scandal) in the last 50 years, both in the amount of people involved and the breadth to it,'' said Stan Brand, a former U.S. House counsel who specializes in representing public officials accused of wrongdoing. ``It will include high-ranking members of Congress and executive branch officials.''

10221. jexster - 1/3/2006 11:42:15 AM

Professor Bruce Jentleson of Duke hath found favour with the Holy One

Cole:
Bruce Jentleson analyzes an Army Times poll of experienced US military personnel in Iraq. Only 54 percent now say that Bush is doing a good job handling Iraq policy, down 9 points from last year, and a quarter thought he is doing badly (or that many would say so; a lot declined to answer). More than half of the respondents said they had deployed precisely to fight in Afghanistan or Iraq. Some 26 percent think the US should not have gone to war against Iraq, though a majority, 56 percent, think it should have. Only 31 percent think the US "very likely to succeed" in Iraq. Slightly more thought it "somewhat" likely to succeed. A fifth, 20%, thought it doomed to failure. I suspect that the 6 percent who declined to answer also weren't the gung-ho types. The approval ratings for Bush are 20 percent higher than the general population, and the reason is simple. Only 13% of the respondents are Democrats. Quck, someone alert David Horowitz! He wants party "balance" in higher education, but there clearly isn't any in the US military (or in the US business world, or among the professional upper middle classes, or in entire suburbs, probably including Horowitz's own . . .) Remember that US taxpayers pay the salaries of all those Republicans in the military. I say we insist that half of the senior officers are Democrats at all times, and for real balance at least one must be a Socialist. And, I say just to check up on them, we do data-mining of the officers' cable television just to see how much Fox Cable News they are watching. More that 50%? Fire'm and promote Dems


Alexander Cockburn's uncompromisingly honest contemplation of both Iraq and newspaper op-eds is fun reading for its polished prose and worldly-wise cynicism. If his scenario, a worst-case one, does play out, it isn't going to be pleasant for anyone, Iraqis or Americans.

10222. jayackroyd - 1/3/2006 11:57:38 AM

What's the process? I was so young at the time, I didn't grasp the details... A simple majority in each house of congress?

The House impeaches. The senate tries. The House is the grand jury, and the senate is the judge and jury. The House vote is a simple majority. The Senate vote, to remove the president from office, is two-thirds. There's no chance this will happne unless there is a sea change in the mid-term elections--which may happen.

10223. jexster - 1/3/2006 11:59:16 AM

Back in the good graces of SF GOP chair..not for long..he's trying to defend the LawBreaker-in-Chief and specifically invited me to

BRING IT ON

Well..well...well

Lincoln asked Congress before the both violated the constitution..What's Georgie's excuse?

...that was a REAL war

Boy you Republicans and your Lincoln hallucinations

RNC Ouija board??

Be careful what you ask for ...cause UR just about to get it.

PS =- Abramoff has cut a deal and is singing like a canary...This must be your lucky day Mr. Chairman

10224. jexster - 1/3/2006 12:10:25 PM

My Corps, Your Corps Our Corps

Marine Corps

1 hour, 5 minutes ago
Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), a key Democratic voice who favors pulling U.S. troops from Iraq, said in remarks airing on Monday that he would not join the U.S. military today.
A decorated Vietnam combat veteran who retired as a colonel after 37 years in the U.S. Marine Corps, Murtha told ABC News' "Nightline" program that Iraq "absolutely" was a wrong war for President George W. Bush to have launched.
"Would you join (the military) today?," he was asked in an interview taped on Friday.
"No," replied Murtha of Pennsylvania, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees defense spending and one of his party's leading spokesmen on military issues.
"And I think you're saying the average guy out there who's considering recruitment is justified in saying 'I don't want to serve'," the interviewer continued.
"Exactly right," said Murtha, who drew White House ire in November after becoming the first ranking Democrat to push for a pullout of U.S. forces from Iraq as soon as it could be done safely.
At the time, White House spokesman Scott McClellan equated Murtha's position with surrendering to terrorists.
Since then, Bush has decried the "defeatism" of some of his political rivals. In an unusually direct appeal, he urged Americans on December 18 not to give in to despair over Iraq, insisting that "we are winning" despite a tougher-than-expected fight.
Murtha did not respond directly when asked whether a lack of combat experience might have affected the decision-making of Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and their former top deputies.
"Let me tell you, war is a nasty business. It sears the soul," he said, choking up. "And it made a difference. The shadow of those killings stay with you the rest of your life."

10225. jexster - 1/3/2006 12:26:02 PM

I didn't even know it was a crime..For an influence peddler to "deprive a client of his honest services:"

ABRAMOFF pled guilty as charged

10226. jexster - 1/3/2006 3:36:48 PM

No one has deputized America to play Wyatt Earp to the world.
– Patrick J. Buchanan

10227. jexster - 1/3/2006 3:39:05 PM

"[T]he government should be spying on all Arabs,
engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport,
dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East
and sending liberals to Guantanamo"
Ann Coulter

10228. thoughtful - 1/3/2006 5:04:25 PM

The big question in my mind is, if this is how fast and loose they're playing with the Constitution that's being leaked..what on earth are they doing that isn't being leaked???!!!???

10229. Max Macks - 1/3/2006 6:21:51 PM

Maybe finally the crooks and liars in the Bush Gang

will be exposed.

re. Bush's latest lies re. the wire tapping

Was it Murtha who said, "he [Bush) hasent told the
truth about anything so why should I believe him now'?

10230. jexster - 1/3/2006 6:38:20 PM

Tom DeLay Stands by his man

That's what Dick DeGuerin just said..

There's folks that stand by their frens in tymes uv trubble, Tom DeLay stands by his friend Jack

He must be a HOMO

10231. jexster - 1/3/2006 6:42:25 PM

Yea T'ful ...a friend says to me "yea well it's gonna take a long time"...

Sure...it may take 8-9 months to get some indictments out

Maybe even 10

10232. jexster - 1/3/2006 7:48:38 PM

Denny Hastert just gave back 64,000

Charlie Cook: "The Democrats are in the minority. Why would you want to buy the minority? You'd have to be a fool to pay for no power"

Ambramoff had 20 million to spread around. That buys a lot of congressmen.

Charlie Cook: "Max 30 years on the counts he did plead to. If they wanna get it down to 9-11 he's gonna have to do a lot of singing. He's gonna sing"

10233. lemwalker - 1/3/2006 11:03:24 PM

Ambramoff might only sing "songs" he is asked to. May not recite the whole play list.

10234. arkymalarky - 1/3/2006 11:10:21 PM

Hey Lem! Hope you had a good holiday!

I've been wondering that about Abramoff. If he's undergone some kind of conversion of conscience, which is how his comments sound, no telling what will come out of it. It doesn't seem likely he'd change after all he's done, but you never know. A number of top Watergate people did. I'm very interested to see how the national darling Christian Ralph Reed ends up when this is done.

10235. jexster - 1/3/2006 11:39:15 PM

Hiya Lem


That canary's gonna have to work for his bird feed

10236. thoughtful - 1/4/2006 10:36:33 AM

Yes exactly. Who's going to pay him off to keep his mouth shut? Clearly this guy can be bought. Time = money. How much more time to retire how much richer? Y'know investments only grow over time, esp when they're in a bank in the cayman's staying warm.

Not clear we'll ever get the full story out of this one. It's all a matter of how much evidence the feds have to verify what he's telling them and how complete he's being.

Regardless, this will prove to be most interesting.

As someone said on the radio this a.m. though, it's not enough to show that someone rec'd gifts from this guy as that's done all the time. They have to tie it directly to a quid pro quo...much harder to prove. We've run into that in earlier cases...how do you prove that a senator who voted x on this legislation wouldn't have done so without the gifts anyway? How do you prove that he directed his vote specifically as a result of the gift?

10237. jexster - 1/4/2006 2:29:35 PM

Abramoff's Link to Israeli Terrorists

10238. jexster - 1/4/2006 2:32:59 PM

Yea it is not enuf to show contributions and votes or is it?

This is a case where the sheer mass of circumstance overcomes the presumption of innocence. It won't require much direct evidence. Besides, the boyz seemed to have been inordinately fond of their Blackerry's

10239. jexster - 1/4/2006 2:33:21 PM

Maybe the NSA has some intercepts

10240. jexster - 1/4/2006 2:50:51 PM

RU Ready to Rumble!!!

The Eyes of Tejas


Fanfare, Tribute to Troy and Fight On

10241. jexster - 1/4/2006 2:52:38 PM

OOOPS wrong thread

10242. jexster - 1/4/2006 3:26:12 PM

Bush to Give Away Abramoff Donations

Abramoff raised at least $100,000 for President Bush's 2004 re-election effort, earning the honorary title "pioneer" from the campaign.

10243. thoughtful - 1/4/2006 4:07:59 PM

Oh this is rich. Cheney is now saying that if the eavesdropping were in place they could've prevented 9/11 from happening.

How rich.

This from the administration that, when it rec'd a PDR that said "Bin Laden determined to attack within the US" went to texas to cut brush.

Uh-huh.

10244. judithathome - 1/4/2006 4:43:24 PM

Here's something really good! Bill O'Reilly being put in his pinheaded little place by David Letterman...after watching this clip, I''ve become an instant fan of Dave's...be sure to watch all the way to the end.

O'Reilly Has No Control Over the Interview So Dave Scores Again and Again

And by the way, the story Bill led with is as bogus as his "war on Christmas". The song he is talking about was an original song in a play about a Christmas tree.

10245. judithathome - 1/4/2006 4:50:07 PM

Here's the story, from a post at Atlantic refugees:

MON., DEC 26, 2005 - 10:55 PM
Lampert Smith: Ridgeway Christmas stolen


In case you missed it in the holiday swirl, I'm pleased to announce that Christmas arrived in Ridgeway the way it always does, with children's voices raised in song.

Of course, police cars cruised the streets of the Iowa County village and buses idled outside the holiday concert held a week ago at Ridgeway Elementary School, in case the school had to be evacuated. Proud grandmas and grandpas had to be on an approved list to get in, and a video camera was trained on the crowd in case of violence.

An overreaction? I don't think so. The school was so overwhelmed with angry calls that teachers and administrators had to use cell phones just to carry on normal business. Given that the school received thousands of nasty e- mails from all over the country, the security was prudent.

The nasty-grams and calls were prompted by an Orlando, Fla., group called Liberty Counsel, which went nationwide with charges that the school had changed the lyrics of "Silent Night" as part of a plot to secularize Christmas.

The fact that this was wrong didn't stop Ridgeway school officials from being denounced everywhere from Bill O'Reilly's show to the Rev. Jerry Falwell's online column, where Falwell wrote they were "blindly determined to kill off Christmas in the classroom."

Actually, it turned out that the changed lyrics of "Cold in the Night" are part of a copyrighted Christmas play called "The Little Tree's Christmas Gift." It was written by Dwight Elrich, music director at Bel Air Presbyterian Church in California, the church attended by former President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy. Elrich was astounded his play about a lonely Christmas tree was seen as anti- Christmas.

"I'm a choir director in a church," he told The Washington Post. "I do Christmas carols in retirement homes! I perform 'Silent Night' 40 or 50 times each year! I thought the play was a really charming, wonderful, positive story about love and acceptance. . . . Removing it from the Christian tradition was something I never thought anyone could ever come up with. We were telling a story about a little tree, so we used a familiar tune to help the kids get it."

The play has been performed in hundreds of churches and schools, including Ridgeway, where there wasn't a problem until a father at the school complained to the Liberty Counsel.

The Liberty Counsel declared victory when the school announced that children would sing the traditional lyrics to "Silent Night," and the girl playing the lonely Christmas tree would merely recite the words to "Cold in the Night" during the play. Falwell congratulated Ridgeway for having a Christmas epiphany like Ebenezer Scrooge. And the national spotlight in the far-right's imaginary "war against Christmas" moved on.

But the children of Ridgeway still had a concert to perform. And last Tuesday, they did, singing "Silent Night" and other traditional carols, as well as performing the play.

"It was unbelievable," said Tracey Gross, of the security surrounding the concert. "I thought I was going to get frisked."

Gross, a UW-Platteville student who had attended the Ridgeway school herself, had to give the names of the niece and nephew she was there to see, and have her name checked off a list, before being allowed in the door.

"It was just awful," agreed Ridgeway parent Barb Wineke, whose son was in the Christmas tree play. "It didn't seem like Christmas in Wisconsin. They had a camera on the crowd the whole time. To have to go through all of this for a small-town Christmas program is just ridiculous."

So that's how Christmas came to small-town Wisconsin this year, with police escorts and security cameras, all thanks to a group that claims to be dedicated to restoring traditional values. Near a press release claiming victory in the Ridgeway matter, The Liberty Counsel has a handy link on its Web site for making tax-deductible donations to its "Christmas Campaign."

10246. jexster - 1/4/2006 5:24:10 PM

Yea there sending out the heavy artillery - Old Crusty the Clown...

What a crock of shit

I mean an extra special crock

Those asswipes have run through the choice shit

10247. jexster - 1/4/2006 5:24:13 PM

Yea there sending out the heavy artillery - Old Crusty the Clown...

What a crock of shit

I mean an extra special crock

Those asswipes have run through the choice shit

10248. wonkers2 - 1/4/2006 6:57:30 PM

Governor Jennifer Granholm signed a bill banning torture in Michigan! The bill was passed by the legislature after a prosecutor complained that he had to settle for an indictment of kidnapping and abuse in a case in which a man tortured his wife. Life in prison will be the sentence for torture convictions. Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney had better not come to Michigan!

10249. jexster - 1/4/2006 7:22:06 PM

Run rats run...watch the rats run

Bush, GOP Lawmakers Dump Abramoff Donations

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent 11 minutes ago
President Bush and numerous House Republicans hastily jettisoned campaign donations from Jack Abramoff on Wednesday as party officials pondered the impact of a spreading scandal on their 2006 election prospects.
"I wish it hadn't happened because it's not going to help us keep our majority," conceded Rep. Ralph Regula (news, bio, voting record), R-Ohio.
As Abramoff pleaded guilty to a second set of felony charges in as many days, this time in Florida, officials said Bush's 2004 re-election campaign intended to give up $6,000 in donations from the lobbyist, his wife and a client.
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas — facing legal problems of his own — took similar steps. So, too, his leadership successor, Rep. Roy Blunt (news, bio, voting record) of Missouri, and Rep. Eric Cantor (news, bio, voting record) of Virginia, another member of the GOP leadership.
"While we firmly believe the contributions were legal at the time of receipt, the plea indicates that such contributions may not have been given in the spirit in which they were received," said Burson Taylor, a spokeswoman for Blunt.
Others announcing plans to give up Abramoff-related donations included Reps. Bud Shuster and Melissa Hart, both Pennsylvania Republicans.
And a political action committee controlled by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said it planned to return $2,000 it received from the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe, one of the tribes Abramoff represented.
The Republican rush to shed cash that once was eagerly sought underscored the potential political problem the party faces at the dawn of an election year.
"You can't have a corrupt lobbyist unless you have a corrupt member (of Congress) or a corrupt staff," former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich said in a lunchtime speech. "This was a team effort."
Regula, who came to Congress in 1973 and survived post-Watergate elections that crippled his party, said the implications of the Abramoff plea deals could be devastating for the GOP. "I was in the minority for 22 years and the majority for 11, and having tried it both ways, I definitely prefer the majority."
For their part, House Democrats have signaled they intend to make ethics an element in their drive to gain a majority in next fall's elections.
"It's more important for these Republicans to come clean with the American people about ....what (they) did for Jack Abramoff and his special interest friends in return for those campaign contributions," said Sarah Feinberg, a spokeswoman at the House Democratic campaign organization.
Federal prosecutors, armed with subpoena power and a newly cooperative witness, want answers to similar questions, according to the guilty plea that Abramoff entered on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Washington.
In a section of court papers headed "corruption of public officials," Abramoff acknowledged he had worked to provide "things of value to public officials in exchange for a series of official acts and influence. ..."
Among others, the material refers to Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record), R-Ohio, and his former chief of staff, Neil Volz, as well as to Tony Rudy, who was a top aide to DeLay at the time of the events described in the papers.
DeLay and Ney, who have both declared their innocence of wrongdoing, announced separately during the day they would give to charity money they received as campaign donations from Abramoff or his clients.
Republicans scrambled to distance themselves from Abramoff on the day the lobbyist pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Miami to conspiracy and wire fraud stemming from his 2000 purchase of SunCruz, a gambling boat fleet.
Court papers say Ney placed a statement related to SunCruz, drafted by Abramoff's partner, Michael Scanlon, in the Congressional Record. The statement, the court papers say, was calculated to pressure the owner of SunCruz to sell on terms favorable to Abramoff.
People familiar with the investigation said federal investigators are interested in questioning Abramoff about his dealings with DeLay and Ney as well as other lawmakers and officials. Those include Rep. John Doolittle (news, bio, voting record), R-Calif., Rudy and Sen. Conrad Burns (news, bio, voting record), R-Mont., as well as former deputy Interior Secretary Stephen Griles and former top Bush administration contract officer David Safavian, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Abramoff's information is likely to be submitted to a federal grand jury.

The money being returned paled in comparison to the totals raised.

10250. jexster - 1/4/2006 7:22:53 PM

10251. jexster - 1/4/2006 7:24:53 PM

What about Gore and the Buddhist temple TD!

Fuckin imbecile

10252. jexster - 1/4/2006 7:31:29 PM

Ein Reich, Ein Fuehrer Wonk

Tell that sorry excuse for a governor....to bite the big one

Bush Prepares to Bypass New Torture Ban

When President Bush last week signed the bill outlawing the torture of detainees, he quietly reserved the right to bypass the law under his powers as commander in chief.

10253. jexster - 1/4/2006 7:41:48 PM

10254. Max Macks - 1/4/2006 9:16:50 PM

> Oh this is rich. Cheney is now saying that if the eavesdropping were in place they could've prevented 9/11 from happening.

How rich.

> This from the administration that, when it rec'd a PDR that said "Bin Laden determined to attack within the US

Thougtful I have had the same thought .

10255. Max Macks - 1/4/2006 9:23:47 PM

Knowing how the Bush Gang operates , if I were
Abramhoff I would be wearing a bullet proof vest.

Bush said to have received $100,000
for eletion expenses and will return $6,000

Does anyone really think he got only 100 thou
from Abramhoff !!

Really funny those sleeze balls returning the money
they got . or returning what they say they got
which means only the $$$$ that can be traced.

10256. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 1/4/2006 11:17:19 PM

10257. Magoseph - 1/5/2006 4:21:59 AM

In the New York Times today:
Abramoff walks out of a D.C. courthouse in his pseudo-Hasidic homburg, and all that leading Republicans can do is promise to return his money and remind everyone that some Democrats are involved in the scandal, too.

That's a great G.O.P. talking point: some Democrats are so sleazy, they get involved with the likes of us.

That last line is why I still read David Brooks.

10258. thoughtful - 1/5/2006 10:23:13 AM

Ah yes, what comes around goes around.

When clinton was getting his knob polished the dems cried, well gopers cheat too. GOPers replied, it doesn't make it right.

Now when gopers get caught with their hand in the till, they cry well dems cheat too. Same response applies...doesn't make it right.

10259. thoughtful - 1/5/2006 10:56:29 AM

wonkette has made the op-ed of today's NYT. That gal can write...some samples:

THE bad guy with a fondness for quoting the most extortionary lines of "The Godfather" walks out of the courtroom dressed like a film noir villain. He was there because his pretty-boy partner had already dropped a dime on him. Lying, cheating, stealing, gambling ... and Indians. By Washington standards, the Jack Abramoff scandal is about as theatrical as you can get without having sex in the headline....

Mr. Abramoff's connections seem infinite; attempts to follow the money give you something looking less like a flow chart than like spaghetti. Delicious, felonious spaghetti....

For one thing, Mr. Abramoff may go down as the first man in American history too corrupt to be a lobbyist.

10260. thoughtful - 1/5/2006 1:46:54 PM

I'm getting that sense of deja vu all over again vs. the nixonian 70s. This from brad de long's site:

A Riddle Inside a Mystery Wrapped in an Enigma...
So what led Andrea Mitchell to ask this question? And what made NBC disappear it from the transcript?

Eschaton : The Mystery of the Missing Question: So, on an NBC transcript of an interview by Andrea Mitchell of James Risen we had this exchange:

Mitchell: Do you have any information about reporters being swept up in this net?

Risen: No, I don't. It's not clear to me. That's one of the questions we'll have to look into the future. Were there abuses of this program or not? I don't know the answer to that

Mitchell: You don't have any information, for instance, that a very prominent journalist, Christiane Amanpour, might have been eavesdropped upon?

Risen: No, no I hadn't heard that.

The first Q&A is there, the second has been disappeared. Why


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And John Aravosis writes:

AMERICAblog: Because a great nation deserves the truth : What it means to John Kerry, Wesley Clark, and Bill Clinton if Bush wiretapped CNN's Christiane Amanpour by John in DC - 1/04/2006 03:23:00 PM: NBC's Andrea Mitchell - based on some information she clearly hasn't yet made public - is asking if Bush specifically wiretapped CNN's Christiane Amanpour. The fact that the question was asked so publicly and so specifically means that Mitchell knows something.

Why would Bush do this? Because, as I reported a few weeks ago, journalists have some of the best contacts out there and it's not unusual for journalists to talk to both sides of the story, or in this case, the good guys and the "evil doers." What a better, if not illegal, way to find the terrorists and their associates?

But before you say "yeah, go for it," consider the implications of tapping Christiane Amanpour's phones:

1. Such a wiretap would likely include her home, office, and cell phones, and email correspondence, at the very least.

2. That means anyone Christiane has conversed with in the past four years, at least by phone or email, could have had their conversation taped by the US government.

3. That also means that anyone who uses any of Christiane's telephones or computers (work or home) could also have had their conversation bugged.

4. This includes Christiane's husband, former Clinton administration senior official Jamie Rubin, who was spokesman for the State Department.

5. Jamie Rubin was also chief foreign policy adviser to General Wesley Clark's presidential campaign, and then worked as a senior national security adviser to John Kerry's presidential campaign.

6. Did Jamie Rubin ever use his home phone, his wife's work phone, his wife's cell phone, her home computer or her work computer to communicate with John Kerry or Wesley Clark? If so, those conversations would have been bugged if Bush was tapping Amanpour.

7. Did Jamie Rubin ever in the past four years communicate with any elected officials in Washington, DC - any Senators or members of the US House? Any senior members of the Democratic party?

8. Has Rubin spoken with Bill Clinton, his former boss, in the past 4 years?

Now you understand how potentially broad a violation of privacy the Bush doctrine on illegal domestic spying really is. Everyone who's anyone is a degree or two of separation away from a terrorist.

10261. jexster - 1/5/2006 2:02:02 PM

I hope they got a reporter. That oughta give the story a new pair of legs

10262. jexster - 1/5/2006 3:08:43 PM

NSA Destroyed Evidence of Domestic Spying

The National Security Agency, the top-secret spy shop that has been secretly eavesdropping on Americans under a plan authorized by President Bush four years ago, destroyed the names of thousands of Americans and US companies it collected on its own volition following 9/11, because the agency feared it would be taken to task by lawmakers for conducting unlawful surveillance on United States citizens without authorization from a court

Evidence of a guilty mind

10263. jexster - 1/5/2006 3:21:16 PM

The problem is that power corrupts, and we simply have too much of it
Rep Jeff Flake (R-AZ)

10264. thoughtful - 1/5/2006 3:27:40 PM

I was listening to air america briefly while in the car at lunch and al franken was juxtaposing clinton's "I did not have sexual relations with that woman Ms Lewinsky" with Bush's "Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires-a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so."

And he was asking, what's the difference? They both lied to the american people.

Franken clearly forgot the first rule of american politics: IOKIYAR.

It's ok if you're a republican.

10265. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 1/5/2006 6:17:47 PM

It's still painful to remember . . .

10266. robertjayb - 1/5/2006 8:02:37 PM

Florida supremes kick school vouchers...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida Supreme Court struck down a statewide voucher system Thursday that allowed children to attend private schools at taxpayer expense — a program Gov. Jeb Bush considered one of his proudest achievements.

It was the nation's first statewide voucher program.

In a 5-2 ruling, the high court said the program undermines the public schools and violates the Florida Constitution's requirement of a uniform system of free public education.

Voucher opponents had also argued that the program violated the separation of church and state in giving tax dollars to parochial schools — an argument a lower court agreed with. But the state Supreme Court did not address that issue.

10267. arkymalarky - 1/5/2006 8:34:56 PM

I love it.

10268. jexster - 1/5/2006 10:56:35 PM

Bush seems to have lost a track.

In his televised speech he claimed he had a "three-pronged" strategy for victory - stand up, stand down, rebuild

Today, he spoke of a "dual track".

The missing track - Iraq reconstruction assistance


Other countries are invited to do that

10269. thoughtful - 1/6/2006 10:31:26 AM

Iraq reconstruction assistance?
Whatever happened to the war that would pay for itself with iraqi oil money?
hahahahahahahahha

10270. jexster - 1/6/2006 12:08:03 PM

"If somebody comes up to me and starts speakin Texin, ah know he's inter-rested in the Texis culture. If somebody takes the trouble to learn Arabic, that person's inter-rested in the Arabic culture" George W. Bush 1/06/06

10271. wonkers2 - 1/6/2006 12:17:12 PM

Supreme Court nominee Alito campaigned as a Princeton alumnus against the admission of women to his alma mater and in favor of increased affirmative action in the admission of children of Princeton alumni. However, he has consistently opposed affirmative action for minorities. He's obviously not likely to have a progressive influence on Supreme Court decisions.

10272. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 1/6/2006 1:35:07 PM

He reinforces the stereotype of Italian-American as gangster in a different way. Although overly-ambitious exploitation isn't programmed ethnically.

10273. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 1/6/2006 1:50:55 PM

10274. robertjayb - 1/6/2006 4:32:20 PM

Sign posts on the road to fascism...(Tacoma News Tribune)

WASHINGTON – As it hunted down tax scofflaws, the Internal Revenue Service collected information on the political party affiliations of taxpayers in 20 states.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a member of an appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the IRS, said the practice was an “outrageous violation of the public trust” that could undermine the agency’s credibility.

IRS officials acknowledged that party affiliation information was routinely collected by a vendor for several months. They told the vendor last month to screen the information out.
.................................................
.................................................

James Moore, author of Bush's Brain, an account of Karl Rove's influence on George Bush, has been placed on a no-fly list.

10275. jexster - 1/6/2006 5:16:09 PM

GOP SENATORS: He Ain't No Honest Abe
3 GOP senators blast Bush bid to bypass torture ban
Reject assertion he has right to waive rules to protect US security


WASHINGTON -- Three key Republican senators yesterday condemned President Bush's assertion that his powers as commander in chief give him the authority to bypass a new law restricting the use of torture when interrogating detainees.

John W. Warner Jr., a Virginia Republican who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, issued a joint statement rejecting Bush's assertion that he can waive the restrictions on the use of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment against detainees to protect national security.

10276. jexster - 1/6/2006 5:26:24 PM

Time magazine's reporting that Duke Cunningham (R-Ca) wore a wire!!

TPMC Auction House

10277. robertjayb - 1/6/2006 6:22:54 PM

jexster, I'm shocked. TIME link here...

10278. jayackroyd - 1/6/2006 9:25:51 PM

10275

The central question is whether the republican senators will step up here. The president has essentially dismissed the separation of powers as irrelevant in time of imperially declared "war". Whether the republican senators will tolerate this is a very important question for the future of the republic.

I saw a most satirical piece on whether the amendment limiting Presidential terms applied in a time of "war." I wonder what Bush's view on this question is.

10279. robertjayb - 1/7/2006 3:02:35 AM

Friday night TV talkers seemed universally negative on Tom DeLay's prospects for resuming a leadership position, no matter the outcome of his legal situation.

Tony Blankley on McLaughlin said a party of GOP bigfeet was
preparing to call on DeLay with the bad news, soon.

10280. wonkers2 - 1/7/2006 3:04:31 AM

As the old boys say, Abramoff and DeLay have crapped in the GOP's mess kit.

10281. wonkers2 - 1/7/2006 3:17:16 AM

Grounds for Impeachment!

10282. wonkers2 - 1/7/2006 3:40:49 AM

GOP Rebels Call For DeLay Ouster

10283. judithathome - 1/7/2006 2:19:52 PM

Looks like we're safe fron the dealings of 81 year old retired professors, thanks to Bush and his illegal snooping.

Not only internet and phones are tapped...they're in our mail, too

In the 50 years that Grant Goodman has known and corresponded with a colleague in the Philippines he never had any reason to suspect that their friendship was anything but spectacularly ordinary.

But now he believes that the relationship has somehow sparked the interest of the Department of Homeland Security and led the agency to place him under surveillance.

10284. jexster - 1/7/2006 2:47:44 PM

Lawyers in Love: Basis for Spying in U.S. Is Doubted
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 - President Bush's rationale for eavesdropping on Americans without warrants rests on questionable legal ground, and Congress does not appear to have given him the authority to order the surveillance, said a Congressional analysis released Friday.

The analysis, by the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan research arm of Congress, was the first official assessment of a question that has gripped Washington for three weeks: Did Mr. Bush act within the law when he ordered the National Security Agency, the country's most secretive spy agency, to eavesdrop on some Americans?

The report, requested by several members of Congress, reached no bottom-line conclusions on the legality of the program, in part because it said so many details remained classified. But it raised numerous doubts about the power to bypass Congress in ordering such operations, saying the legal rationale "does not seem to be as well grounded" as the administration's lawyers have argued.

10285. robertjayb - 1/7/2006 2:58:28 PM

DeLay to quit as majority leader...(AP)

Embattled Rep. Tom DeLay decided Saturday to give up his post as House majority leader, clearing the way for new leadership elections among Republicans eager to shed the taint of scandal, two officials said.

These officials said DeLay, R-Texas, was preparing a letter informing fellow House Republicans of his decision. These officials spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they did not want to pre-empt the formal announcement.
................................................

DeLay intends to remain in Congress, these officials said, and plans to seek a new term in November.

DeLay acted hours after a small vanguard of Republicans circulated a petition calling for leadership elections and citing DeLay's legal problems as well as his long ties to Abramoff.

10286. robertjayb - 1/7/2006 3:03:25 PM

Toldja he was gutshot. Now drag him off into the weeds. If buzzards don't get him, worms will.

10287. jexster - 1/7/2006 3:17:46 PM

We with family in T22 do not appreciate outlanders making fun of us

10288. jexster - 1/7/2006 3:18:59 PM

National Strategery for Victory Status Report -

Dark Realities - The Worst Is Yet to Come

10289. jexster - 1/7/2006 4:21:50 PM

"During my time in Congress, I have always acted
in an ethical manner within the rules of our body
and the laws of our land.
I am fully confident time will bear this out."
Tom DeLay in a letter to Fellow Republicans
1/6/2005

10290. judithathome - 1/7/2006 4:56:12 PM

Hahahahahhahahahahha!!!!!!

10291. jexster - 1/7/2006 5:00:13 PM

Politics of Upheaval : Santorum Running Scared

Asks Bush for Panel on IraQ

10292. robertjayb - 1/7/2006 5:03:06 PM

Attention Republican women! Volunteers needed to support the troops. Not you. Ann! (Stars and Stripes)

ARLINGTON, Va. — For the first time, the Department of Defense has specifically made it a crime for a servicemember to patronize a prostitute. The punishment: up to a year in prison, forfeiture of pay and dishonorable discharge.

The formal order came in a presidential executive order signed without fanfare Oct. 14, directing changes in the Manual for Courts-Martial. It is part of an assault the military has been waging against human trafficking.

10293. jexster - 1/7/2006 11:20:51 PM

Gutshot: Officials Focus on a 2nd Firm Tied to DeLay

10294. jexster - 1/7/2006 11:23:07 PM

"It's a double-edged sword, being known as DeLay Inc.," said one Republican lobbyist. "They are on the sharp edge of the sword now."

10295. wonkers2 - 1/8/2006 12:01:22 AM

DeLay is dead meat!

10296. wonkers2 - 1/8/2006 12:23:01 PM

Fagin and the Artful Dodger

"Dick Armey, the former GOP House majority leader, who now works for the firm DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary and who clashed with Mr. DeLay in the House, invoked Charles Dickens, likening Mr. Delay to Fagin and Mr. Buckham to The Artful Dodger in "Oliver Twist.

"'Tom DeLay sent Buckham downtown to set up shop and start a branch office (Alexander Strategy)on K Street,' Mr. Armey said. 'The whole idea was, 'What's in it for us?' That's what I thought at the time, and I've seen nothing in the way they've conducted themselves since then to dissuade me from that point of view.'"

Focus on Second Firm With DeLay Connections.

10297. jexster - 1/8/2006 1:20:03 PM

"Pat Robertson is God's punishment for creating televangelists."
Laurie Fosner
www.notfittoprint.com

10298. robertjayb - 1/8/2006 3:17:34 PM

Knight Ridder reports Bush's use of "bill-signing statements" to assert dubious authority over legislation.

...Bush has used signing statements to reject, revise or put his spin on more than 500 legislative provisions. Experts say he has been far more aggressive than any previous president in using the statements to claim sweeping executive power - and not just on national security issues.

"It's nothing short of breath-taking," said Phillip Cooper, a professor of public administration at Portland State University. "In every case, the White House has interpreted presidential authority as broadly as possible, interpreted legislative authority as narrowly as possible, and pre-empted the judiciary."

Signing statements don't have the force of law, but they can influence judicial interpretations of a statute. They also send a powerful signal to executive branch agencies on how the White House wants them to implement new federal laws.

10299. jexster - 1/8/2006 3:27:48 PM

1/8/06 Comment #544: Do We Live in the United States of Amnesia? .. or .. Why the Iraq War May Cost More Than $1 Trillion,
by Chuck Spinney
Defense and the National Interest

10300. jexster - 1/8/2006 3:58:40 PM

FOCUS | DeLay Blocked Federal Investigation of Crony
LA Times

In a case that echoes the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal, two Northern California Republican congressmen teamed up with disgraced Congressman Tom DeLay to use their official positions to try to stop a federal investigation of a wealthy Texas businessman who provided them with political contributions.

10301. Ronski - 1/8/2006 6:49:35 PM

10302. robertjayb - 1/8/2006 7:06:07 PM

heh. excellent.

10303. jexster - 1/8/2006 7:55:01 PM

On War #146:
Conversation with der Allerhoechste,
by William S. Lind

10304. jexster - 1/8/2006 7:56:29 PM

Ooops supposed to go in LHC

THat was good Ronsk

10305. jexster - 1/8/2006 9:03:48 PM

Wanna Know All About Bush's Spy Program?

Read Popular Mechanics
Inside Echelon

EYES ONLY

Don't tell Al-Qaeda

10306. arkymalarky - 1/8/2006 9:16:42 PM

I agree, good one Ronski. I had to save that one.

10307. arkymalarky - 1/8/2006 9:17:31 PM

Oh, did anyone see David Letterman rip Bill O'Reilly a new one? I saw it on the news. Letterman comes on after my bedtime. I was amazed.

10308. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 1/8/2006 10:25:18 PM

Try this link arky and click on to view the encounter . . .

Dave & Bill O'Reilly


It's a hoot!

10309. jexster - 1/8/2006 10:28:42 PM

Teenage wasteland

10310. wonkers2 - 1/8/2006 11:17:48 PM

I tried to play it but couldn't successfully download MP3.

10311. jexster - 1/9/2006 12:42:51 AM

You missed a good one...Letterman wasn't in a ho-ho mood

10312. arkymalarky - 1/9/2006 12:43:22 AM

They played it--I think on MSNBC news, but it may have been CNN. I switch back and forth between the two while I'm working (or playing when I should be working). They may show it again. I'll bet Keith Olberman is chomping at the bits to show it on his show, and probably Jon Stewart, as well.

10313. jexster - 1/9/2006 12:45:23 AM

If the president has commander-in-chief power to commit torture, he has the power to commit genocide, to sanction slavery, to promote apartheid, to license summary execution
-- Harold Hongju Koh, Dean Yale Law School

10314. concerned - 1/9/2006 1:06:51 AM

Mr. Hongju Koh probably has first hand experience of genocide, slavery, apartheid and summary execution and not a great deal else.

10315. jexster - 1/9/2006 1:56:49 AM

The Wiretappers That Couldn't Shoot Straight


Now in LHC

Happy New Year TD

Can't tell your scandal without a scorecard

So here's yours


CIA gate
NSA gate
PlameGate
DeLayGate
AIPAC SpyGate

Not to mention, the Icon of Disaster

Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq

10316. jexster - 1/9/2006 2:30:09 PM

Tejas Gov. Race Runs Wild
Republicans fought for years to win control of Texas. Now they rule and are ripping one another in a ruthless race for governor



Top Contenders

10317. jexster - 1/9/2006 2:41:19 PM

Ahm onna dee-wussify Texis if ah gotta do it one wuss at a tayme

10318. robertjayb - 1/9/2006 3:07:37 PM

Poor Tom. Can't catch a break...

The state's highest criminal court on Monday denied Rep. Tom DeLay's request that the money laundering charges against him be dismissed or sent back to a lower court for an immediate trial.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied the requests with no written order two days after he announced he was stepping down as House majority leader. DeLay had been forced to temporarily relinquish the Republican leadership post after he was indicted on money laundering and conspiracy charges in September.

DeLay, who denies wrongdoing, had been trying to rush to trial in Texas in hopes of clearing his name and regaining the position.

10319. jexster - 1/9/2006 3:12:18 PM

Let the dead bury their dead Rohburht....you gotta get Kinky on TV

10320. jexster - 1/10/2006 6:49:16 AM

Cole:

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Great Justices Installed by Bush

As the Alito confirmation hearings begin, it is worth considering some of the judicial consquences of George W. Bush's various campaigns.

When the US overthrew the Taliban and installed the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, the Bush administration implied that everything had changed.

What few observers seem to have noticed is that Hamid Karzai immediately appointed as Afghanistan's chief justice, Fazal Hadi Shinwari, whose philosophy of life was little different from that of the Taliban!

One can only imagine that Bush, who kept thousands of troops in the country and oversaw the evolution of the Afghanistan government, had no objections to the man's judicial philosophy.

Among Shinwari's rulings:

Amputation of hands and stoning to death will continue to be the punishment for thieves and adulterers in post-Taliban Afghanistan, country’s new Chief Justice Fazal Hadi Shinwari was reported today as saying.

Afghan Chief Justice Bans Cable TV.

Afghan chief justice wants co-ed schools to be shut.

Fatwa for "Blasphemy" Journalists: The supreme court proposes the death penalty for two journalists who criticised Islamic practice.

Was all this to make his own nominees to the Supreme Court, who merely want to install a king-president over Americans, uphold the privileges of rich white males, and work against women's rights and one-person, one-vote rights for racial minorities, good in comparison?

10321. thoughtful - 1/10/2006 7:03:29 PM

Bremer...a mystery inside an enigma.

He was set up as the fall guy, but don't blame w. it's not his fault. after all, w supported him throughout this episode:

Mr Bremer accuses Pentagon officials of setting him up to take the fall for the postwar failures in Iraq, even though the decision to disband the army was personally approved by Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary, and cleared by Mr Rumsfeld and President George W. Bush.... [H]e defends the decision, insisting that reconstituting a Sunni-led Iraqi army would have plunged the country into civil war. He says that military leaders, including the commanding US general John Abizaid, exaggerated the readiness of Iraqi police and military forces in an effort to justify reducing the US troop presence.... In one particularly bleak moment in October 2003, Mr Bremer pleaded with the president to back him in this internal struggle. "I'm concerned that a lot of the Pentagon's frenetic push on the political stuff is meant to set me up as a fall guy," he told Mr Bush at the White House... the president looked puzzled.... Mr Bremer lauds the president for backing him in most of these battles...


From delong's site, original source: financial times.

10322. wonkers2 - 1/10/2006 8:41:00 PM

I heard Bremer touting his book on Terri Gross today. He still thinks invading Iraq was the right thing to do. And I didn't hear him admit many mistakes of his own. He blamed Doug Feith for opposing enough troops and advocating a quick pull-out.

10323. wonkers2 - 1/10/2006 8:41:51 PM

He said that Feith was the one that was trying to make him the fall guy.

10324. jexster - 1/10/2006 9:28:40 PM

Scapegoat for Bush?

10325. wonkers2 - 1/10/2006 10:49:28 PM

The wheels have come off the Chilean social security system privatized on the advice of the "Chicago Boys" and touted by Bush as a model for the United States. Low returns, high costs and poor coverage

10326. robertjayb - 1/11/2006 12:46:46 AM

Suppose this will prove a "teaching moment" for george and his pals?

Me, I doubt it.

10327. jexster - 1/11/2006 11:33:52 AM

National Security Agency mounted massive spy op on Baltimore peace group, documents show

10328. wonkers2 - 1/11/2006 11:48:31 AM

Me, too.

NSA spying on Quaker peace march is a perfect example why the NSA and FBI can't be trusted. These agencies tend to attract morons or, at best, people with little or no judgment or perspective.

Mr. NSA, come and get me!! I Marched in Detroit before the invasion of Irak.

10329. jexster - 1/11/2006 3:14:06 PM

I hope they have a file on me

10330. jexster - 1/11/2006 3:16:11 PM

Abramoff and the Israeli Connection
Washington sleazebag funneled money to Israel's "settler" movement

10331. wonkers2 - 1/12/2006 10:23:42 AM

Maureen Dowd today on Alito hearing:

"About the judge's memory lapses, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican, drolly noted, 'And I hope you'll understand if any of us come before a court and we can't remember Abramoff, you'll tend to believe us.'"

Alito's listing, with pride, on his application for a job in the Regan Justice Department, his membership in Concerned Alumni of Princeton and his bragging about other far out positions on decisions on one person one vote, abortion and the like tells as much about attorney general Ed Meese and his gang in the Justice Department as it does about Alito.

I was personally acquainted with an attorney appointed by Regan to the position of Chief Counsel to the EEOC. He was a young attorney from Grosse Pointe and the GM legal staff who definitely was not a supporter of civil rights legislation. Reportedly, he got the job because his older brother was partner in a Philadelphia law firm which had "juice" with the GOP. Clarence Thomas may have been head of the EEOC at the time.

10332. wonkers2 - 1/12/2006 11:44:03 AM

A faint ray of hope in Iraq

10333. RickNelson - 1/12/2006 11:46:45 AM

God knows I miss home. Why did I just hang around Poems Fray and get sucked into those mindless drooling womps around the old Fray? I got so busy, got so strung on by some good poems, then just lost my way.

I miss ya all. Sorry to be gone so long.

10334. RickNelson - 1/12/2006 11:50:15 AM

I read about that wonkers. One thing that caught me back at Slate were the summeries of today's papers. However, the discussions are wound around too many wacko biases.

I think the ray of hope you see isn't exactly mostly hope.

10335. wonkers2 - 1/12/2006 11:56:26 AM

Welcome back, Rick. You may well be right.

10336. wonkers2 - 1/12/2006 11:59:53 AM

The lead editorial in NYT today ripped Alito up pretty bad, questioning his honesty, pointing to evidence of his extremism, his opposition to Roe v. Wade and unwillingness to agree that it's settled law as Robertson did in his hearing, his support for an "imperial presidency," and his "insensitivity to the rights of ordinary Americans." This could embolden the Democrats to filibuster. Probably a long shot, and, if unsuccessful, counter-productive.

10337. RickNelson - 1/12/2006 12:02:18 PM

of course I meant summaries.


I'm excited to be posting.


I can't stay long, I only get about 30 min. to an hour a morning to run around the net.

I think Alito is the worst possible choice, I think Iraq will have a civil war between insurgents, the govt. and sunni vs shiite factionism. I think lobbying has again shown the wolf in sheeps clothing that it truly is, I think the new medicare drug program is and will continue to be poorly managed. Owing to the 2005 GAO report that on page 32 clearly states the Bush administration is missmanaging and without a head.

10338. RickNelson - 1/12/2006 12:04:28 PM

exactly wonkers, Alito and his Princeton connection to CAP is obvious bias on his part toward affirmative action and womens rights. His aloof approach to and transparent opposition to Roe v Wade will send waves of regret through history if he's appointed.

10339. Max Macks - 1/12/2006 2:45:24 PM

Georgy(and Teddy K) porgy pudding and pie (whatever)

teased Alioto and made his wife cry.

I suppose this will make good copy.

Can someone tell me when the 3 brances of our government
were controlled by one party.

Many were trying to tell voters way back
when Gore was running against Bush that i was
the Supreme court they should be concerned about

Well the sheep are not getting their wolves.

Sclalito is what some are calling him

10340. judithathome - 1/12/2006 6:49:30 PM

I don't know why they are botering with these hearings...he's going to be passed, no matter what. This is the only reason they put Bush in office, after all.

10341. Ms. No - 1/12/2006 6:55:40 PM

He should be voted down for his views on the powers of the Executive Branch alone.

I don't know why the Dem's are afraid of the nuclear option. It's not like they'll never be in the majority again and I'd love to see the look on Frist's face when he finally figures out that he's salted his own damn field with this partisan bullshit.

10342. judithathome - 1/12/2006 7:13:06 PM

No shit!

10343. jexster - 1/13/2006 12:44:24 PM

A shadowy US military unit called Task Force 6-26 has been implicated in torture in Iraq. But the records show false names and 3/4s of the computer files somehow got erased, making it impossible for investigators to follow the trail. The ACLU, which got the documents released, thinks the trail goes high into the Department of Defense, since someonw authorized the creation and functioning of the task force.

10344. jexster - 1/13/2006 1:40:24 PM

IN You're Being Watched the Los Angeles Times explores the myriad ways that Big Brother Bush is spying on you

10345. wonkers2 - 1/13/2006 1:56:17 PM

The real Alito:

"Let me give you three examples of his instinct to defer to government power.

"The first is a memo he wrote in 1984 as assistant to the solicitor general, analyzing a case where police saw a burglary suspect running across a backyard.

"The suspect reached a fence and an officer called out, 'Police! Halt!' whe the suspect tried to climb the fence, the officer shot him in the back of the head, killing him. The suspect, Edward Garner, was an eighth-grader with a stolen purse and $10 on his body. He was not armed and the officer did not think he was. The sole reason for his killing was to prevent his escape.

"Judge Alito's memo, speaking for no one but himself, said, 'I think the shooting can be justified as reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.' In a remarkable passage he argued that using deadly force to stop a fleeing suspect rests on, and I quote, 'the general principle that the state is justified in using whatever force is necessary to enforce its laws.' In 1985 the Supreme Court rejected this view.

"Second, in a 2004 case, the FBI installed a secret video camera in a suspect's hotel room. This was done without a warran t on the ground that the FBI turned on the camera only when the target allowed an undercover informant into the room. Judge Alito accepted this logic, even though the camera remained in the room day and night. The dissent called the surveillance Orwellian, limited only by the government's self-imposed restriant. Judge Alito seemed not to grasp that the concept of a warrant puts a judge between the citizen and the police precisely because our privacy is too precios to entrust to law enforcement alone. The NSA program of warrantless eavesdropping is also being defended by assurances of executive self-restraint.

"Finally,in 1997 there was a capital case where two Reagan appointees, both former prosecutors, found a misleading jury instruction unconstitutional. Judge Alito said the instruction was ambiguous and inadvisable, but adequate to convict the defendant of first degree murder. He also said the court should not have heard the claim at all, because defense lawyers did not argue it in prior appeals. But the state never raised this argument to the inmate's claim; Judge Alito raised it himself. The court chided him for nearly crossing the line between a judge and an advocate.

Professor Goodwin Liu, U Cal, Berkeley
NYT 1-13-06

10346. thoughtful - 1/13/2006 2:10:59 PM

From Brad delong's site, his comments on a DCDL blog post...delong's comments are before/after the dashes:

When the Going Gets Weird, the Weird Turn Pro

This is genuinely weird:
----------------------------------
This Is a Defense of Alito?: I admit I haven't been following every twist and turn of the issue of Alito's membership in Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP), but I really don't understand Arlen Specter's point here:

"Judge Alito's name never appeared in any document," Specter said. "It was not mentioned in any letters to or from the group's founder or executive director, did not appear on any canceled checks for subscriptions, was nowhere to be found on any articles, lists of board members or contributors, and was not in any minutes or attendance records from CAP meetings," Specter said.

He quoted CAP founder William Rusher as saying: "I have no recollection of Samuel Alito at all. He certainly was not very heavily involved in CAP, if at all."

Is the Republican position now that Alito was never a member of CAP at all, but just lied about being a member when he was applying for a job in the Reagan Justice Department?
------------------------
In a word, yes. The Republican line-of-the-day is essentially that he badly needed right-wing street cred, and claiming membership in CAP was a way to do that. Now, of course, Alito badly needs centrist street cred.


My comments on it are that if there is no record of him ever belonging to that organization then he lied about being a member. This is consistent with his remark to Feinstein about saying what's necessary to get a position...which is exactly what he's doing now. That alone should be adequate to show he's not a fit candidate for the SC. He's willing to lie just to get a job. What will he do once he's in the job and the restraints are off???

As bad as having to live with the incompetents and crooks bush appoints for the next 3 years, it's not as bad as having to live with the incompetents and crooks he appoints for a lifetime.

This is not good.

10347. thoughtful - 1/13/2006 3:11:43 PM

I know where I work, lying about anything on your resume is grounds for getting fired.

10348. jexster - 1/13/2006 4:59:18 PM

Your President Speaks


The Merkel Press Conf

10349. thoughtful - 1/13/2006 7:58:00 PM

This just in from CNN:

-- Republican Bob Ney is in talks to quit a key committee chairmanship, which would make him the 2nd casualty of the Abramoff scandal.

10350. jexster - 1/13/2006 9:31:24 PM

The Impeachment of George W. Bush
By Elizabeth Holtzman



Finally, it has started. People have begun to speak of impeaching President George W. Bush - not in hushed whispers but openly, in newspapers, on the Internet, in ordinary conversations and even in Congress. As a former member of Congress who sat on the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon, I believe they are right to do
so.

10351. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 1/13/2006 9:45:50 PM

10352. concerned - 1/14/2006 5:30:05 AM

My comments on it are that if there is no record of him ever belonging to that organization then he lied about being a member.

I understand CAP doesn't have records of many of its prior members from back then. But if calling Alito a liar without justification makes your day, don't let me stop you.

10353. OhioSTOPAS - 1/14/2006 10:52:04 AM

Okay, then he was a member. Why did he point with pride to his membership in this odious organization?

One or the other, Concerned. Liar or prick.

10354. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 1/14/2006 12:53:31 PM

But if calling Alito a liar without justification makes your day, don't let me stop you.

A distinction: Wondering if Alito was willing to lie in order to gain favor, acceptance and credence with gatekeeprs is more about character and integrity and isn't the same as "calling Alito a liar."

10355. jayackroyd - 1/14/2006 5:40:56 PM

10352

concerned--the problem you've got is either he lied then or he's lying now. In either case, you've got a candidate for lifetime position who will lie to get a job. In any other realm, would you hire that person?

10356. concerned - 1/15/2006 3:00:34 AM

I don't intend to simply ignore the likelihood that he was a member in some perhaps transient way but that after thirty years, CAP may not have maintained such records. In any event, the case for calling Alito a liar in this matter is far short of being beyond any reasonable doubt.

I've never joined a political party, but because I once donated $200 to GWB's reelection campaign, I've gotten letters for months from various groups associated with the Republican Party claiming I'm somehow a Republican. If I now deny that I'm a Republican, would you call me a liar?

10357. concerned - 1/15/2006 3:13:59 AM

10358. concerned - 1/15/2006 3:17:35 AM

10359. OhioSTOPAS - 1/15/2006 9:28:47 AM

"I've never joined a political party, but because I once donated $200 to GWB's reelection campaign, I've gotten letters for months from various groups associated with the Republican Party claiming I'm somehow a Republican. If I now deny that I'm a Republican, would you call me a liar?"

If you had previously boasted about being a member of the Republican Party and expressly cited your membership as illustrative of your views and a reason for hiring you for a policy position, YES!

10360. wonkers2 - 1/15/2006 10:26:53 AM

BTW, good to see concerned back! We are believers in a little diversity.

10361. jexster - 1/15/2006 3:10:54 PM

Poll Has DeLay Behind Rival in House Seat Bid

Republican Tom DeLay trails a Democratic challenger for his seat in the House and is viewed favorably by 28% of those people questioned in a poll of his Houston-area congressional district, the Houston Chronicle reported.

10362. judithathome - 1/15/2006 3:14:23 PM

If I now deny that I'm a Republican, would you call me a liar?

I never thought you weren't. ;-)

10363. jexster - 1/15/2006 3:28:56 PM

Indeed Wonk... . Give me Ace, Niner, TD, the Hebo-fascist settler and his JAP, give me a frothing Bushevik with a spine and half a brain so she's too dumb to feel pain. Hell give me Rosie. Give me at least 70% disagreement and 80% disagreeable.

On the Nitol scale of dull, singing in an amen chorus and watching paint dry - toss-ups.

Besides, I have always been fond of TD, the more now that he's converted and made Hajj pilgrimage


Many are Called TD but few....

10364. jayackroyd - 1/15/2006 4:00:02 PM

In any event, the case for calling Alito a liar in this matter is far short of being beyond any reasonable doubt.

You're missing the point. Either he lied when he said in 1985 that he was a member (and chose to select that particular membership to highlight) or he's lying now. But he can't have it both ways--being a member to curry favor with Reaganites, and then not being a member to paper over his ideology. My point is that no matter the truth of the tale, he's told it both ways.

10365. jexster - 1/15/2006 4:25:59 PM

HOUSTON - Barely one of every five of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's constituents would vote for him if the election were held now, according to a newspaper poll released Saturday.

10366. wonkers2 - 1/15/2006 5:09:19 PM

Besides that, his exterminator's license was revoked!

10367. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 1/15/2006 11:05:01 PM

10357. Great Kennedy visual, connie! The right has improved a bit, but the Chappaquiddick postcard is more like the ugly-minded Repugs we have all come to know. And for you to post it is confirmation enough that you're one of em'!

10368. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 1/15/2006 11:22:07 PM

10369. concerned - 1/16/2006 1:32:41 AM

Re. 10364 -

Can you provide a cite that Alito is now claiming he never was a member of CAP?

10370. concerned - 1/16/2006 1:33:25 AM

Re. 10367 -

And your stuff isn't 'uglier' than that?

10371. concerned - 1/16/2006 1:45:19 AM

For instance the 'Ruthless Bastards' comic is clearly worse than the Chappaquiddick visual in almost every way.

10372. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 1/16/2006 2:05:42 AM

Cappaquiddick was a tragedy and that dead girl's family is sullied by your poor taste and stupidity.

Moreover, every one of these corrupt thugs are "Ruthless Bastards!"

10373. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 1/16/2006 2:07:16 AM

That should be: is a ruthless bastard!

10374. robertjayb - 1/16/2006 2:49:03 AM

Sounds a lot like government-run health care...

With tens of thousands of people unable to get medicines promised by Medicare, the Bush administration has told insurers that they must provide a 30-day supply of any drug that a beneficiary was previously taking, and it said that poor people must not be charged more than $5 for a covered drug.

The actions came after several states declared public health emergencies, and many states announced that they would step in to pay for prescriptions that should have been covered by the federal Medicare program.

Republicans have joined Democrats in asserting that the federal government botched the beginning of the prescription drug program, which started on Jan. 1.

Another glorious accomplishment for the Bush Administration...

10375. concerned - 1/16/2006 3:36:08 AM

Re. 10372 -

Chappaquiddick was a drunken crime, for your information, and Teddy was able to swim out of taking any consequences for it because of pull with his liberal political cronies.

10376. concerned - 1/16/2006 3:37:49 AM

WoW -

Please save your self referential farting about 'stupidity' etal for your political cronies.

10377. concerned - 1/16/2006 3:40:37 AM

Besides the crime itself, the real tragedy is that Ted Kennedy was not convicted for killing Mary Jo Kopechne and that the ilk of WoW is comfortable with that.

10378. concerned - 1/16/2006 3:42:33 AM

Anyone who attempts to portray it as merely an 'accident' has drizzleshit for brains.

10379. concerned - 1/16/2006 3:48:46 AM

- The mysteries of the case continue to haunt Ted Kennedy as well as the authorities who investigated them. Charges of ineptitude and lack of diligence abounded, as did insinuations that the machinery of justice crumbled beneath the power and prestige of the Kennedy family. George Killen, former State Police Detective-Lieutenant, and chief of a never-revealed investigation, lamented that the failure to bring the case to a satisfactory conclusion was "the biggest mistake" of a long and distinguished police career. Senator Kennedy, he said, "killed that girl the same as if he put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger."

from: Senatorial Privilege by Leo Damore

WoW, of course, definitely does not want to see justice done here as evidenced by his slinging ad-hominems at whomever brings this up.

10380. concerned - 1/16/2006 3:51:10 AM

- Senator Kennedy's driver's license had expired on February 22, 1969 (nearly 5 months before the accident) and had not been renewed.
- Although driving with an expired license was only a misdemeanor, it did provide the evidence of negligence needed to prove a manslaughter charge in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne.
- The license problem was "fixed" by officials at the Registry of Motor Vehicles, under the direction of Registrar Richard McLaughlin, before the legal proceedings began.

10381. concerned - 1/16/2006 4:02:04 AM

Confirmed drinks that Ted Kennedy had the evening he killed Mary Jo Kopechne (he probably had more - these were only those confirmed by himself and others):

4:30 PM
( 3 ) - Rum and Cokes aboard the Bettawin - (witness: Stan Moore )

6:00 PM
( 2 ) - Heineken Beers at the Shiretown Inn - ( witness: Joseph Gargan )

7:00 PM
( 1 ) - Rum and Coke in hot tub at Lawrence Cottage - ( witness: Jack Crimmins )

8:30 PM
to
11:15 PM
( 2 )* - Rum and Cokes at the Party - ( witness: Ted Kennedy )
*Because this number is based on Kennedy's inquest testimony, it chould be viewed with some skepticism. The actual number of drinks was probably greater.

"Any person who wantonly or in a reckless or grossly negligent manner did that which resulted in the death of a human being was guilty of manslaughter, although he did not contemplate such a result." In other words, negligence in exposing another to injury by doing an act, supplied all the intention the law required to make a defendant responsible for the consequences.

- "It's automatic in Massachusetts when a person is killed in an accident for the prosecutor to bring an action for criminal manslaughter." ~ Joseph Gargan

No criminal action was ever brought against Senator Kennedy, despite all the above factors and that his testimony regarding the accident directly contradicted many facts otherwise established. For instance, no autopsy was performed on the victim.

- Frieh was beginning to doubt the validity of the medical examiner's diagnosis. The lack of water evacuated from the body was "unusual" in a drowning case. Frieh suspected that instead, the accident victim may have suffocated to death. His observations strongly supported scuba diver John Farrar's theory that Mary Jo Kopechne had survived in the submerged automobile by breathing a pocket of trapped air, and had died by suffocation only after the oxygen had been depleted.

This puts the lie to Kennedy's claims that he tried to rescue her.

10382. concerned - 1/16/2006 4:03:44 AM

Deal with that, WoW.

10383. concerned - 1/16/2006 4:54:18 AM

Now Alito may or may not have fibbed 20 years ago about being a member of CAP. But anything he might be guilty of here is worlds better than the lies that Ted Kennedy told about killing May Jo Kopechne.

10384. alistairconnor - 1/16/2006 7:33:55 AM

Gee, has Ted Kennedy been nominated for the Supreme Court too?
I must have missed that.

10385. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 1/16/2006 10:18:30 AM

Poor connie is as vicious and ruthless as those other bastards–you know, the same Christian guys, filled with the love of Jesus, who were going to bring integrity to government.

10386. judithathome - 1/16/2006 12:10:53 PM

So Ted Kennedy lied and committed a crime and that is supposed to absolve Alito?

Sounds rather Republican to me...

And Concerned, had you been listening to the hearings instead of feverishly looking up stuff on Kennedy, you'd have heard for yourself what Alito lied about.

10387. jexster - 1/16/2006 1:14:15 PM

Double Dutch Duh

Louisiana studies Dutch dams





Louisiana officials believe lessons can be learnt from the Dutch
Historical roles were reversed when top officials from hurricane-stricken Louisiana visited Zeeland province in the Netherlands this week.


The delegation was led by Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and included senators Mary Landrieu and David Vitter.

In 1953, Zeeland was devastated by a flood disaster even worse than the one in New Orleans.


Two thousand people were killed, and the system of dykes protecting the islands and peninsulas in Zeeland's river delta collapsed in nearly 500 places.

After the disaster, Dutch delegates visited Louisiana to marvel at the state-of-the-art levees placed along the Mississippi River in the 1920s and '30s.

Realising that tragedy could perhaps have been prevented, the delegates returned home vowing they would never again be taken by surprise.



Zeeland's pioneering Delta Project was a direct result of these considerations.


Click to see Dutch flood barrier
While the likelihood of a Katrina-like disaster in New Orleans had been estimated at once every 200 or 300 years, the Delta Project was designed to push the envelope and withstand flood conditions occurring once every 10,000 years.

Dutch expertise

It is because of thinking like this that "worldwide, the greatest expertise in flood control lies in the Netherlands," according to a leading US science writer, Mark Fischetti.


The Netherlands' most vulnerable areas


Enlarge Map


Mr Fischetti told Radio Netherlands the US had until now failed to make use of that expertise, despite the earlier history of exchanging know-how.

"Since the Dutch system has been built," he said, "the [US] Army Corps, as far as I understand from my own reporting, has not really sought any advice from the Dutch."

10388. jexster - 1/16/2006 1:29:50 PM

Yeah Judith funny thing about that...A Republican told me just the other day that Democrats believed in throwing money at problems..

Then showed him graphs of spending, outlays, pork and the two trillon dollar Icon of Disaster

They have their old tired slogans and that's that

10389. jexster - 1/16/2006 1:31:21 PM

That's that
That was then
This is now

Cole - Iraq the Model:



A new Zogby telephone poll shows that Bush's approval rating has dipped back down to 39 percent. Only 34 percent think he is doing a good job on Iraq.

10390. concerned - 1/16/2006 1:33:44 PM

To WoW, I'm considered 'vicious and ruthless' because I'm not afraid to deal with facts. Maybe that's part of his problem.

10391. jexster - 1/16/2006 1:36:05 PM

Wiz don't know vicious or ruthless TD...that's for sure

10392. alistairconnor - 1/16/2006 1:47:10 PM

Well duh Jex... I was there last summer. Impressive damn installations. We drove across the Oosterschelde. I wanted to visit, but the girls preferred the pirate museum... outvoted.

(Was struck by irony ... they used to pump the water out with windmills. Now they use electic pumps. And build aeolian generators along the top of the dams...)

Told you at the time. NO should have called in thousands of
* dutch engineers
* irish cops
* french doctors

10393. thoughtful - 1/16/2006 1:59:17 PM

Well, let's just see what Alito actually said about CAP:

Alito forcefully distanced himself Wednesday from any connection to the conservative group called Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP), an organization whose stances on coeducation and affirmative action had up to that point dogged his confirmation hearings for a seat on the Supreme Court.

"I disavow them. I deplore them. They represent things that I have always stood against and I can't express too strongly," Alito said in response to senators' questions during the third day of his confirmation hearings.

He also suggested that he put the group on his 1985 application to Ronald Reagan's Justice Department to establish his conservative credentials. "You have to look at the question that I was responding to and the form that I was filling out," he said. "I was applying for a position in the Reagan administration. And my answers were truthful statements, but what I was trying to outline were the things that were relevant to obtaining a political position."

There is no evidence that he belonged to the group that has surfaced as yet, so we only have his word in 1985 that says he was a member.

So was he lying then when he claimed membership in a group that stands for nothing he agrees with as a way of filling out his conservative credentials? Or is he lying now in saying he never agreed with their positions?

Or perhaps the third choice would be more satisfying: that he has no integrity whatsoever and will do/say anything to please his hiring managers just to get a position.

Or the 4th option, the guy is nuts and joins groups he deplores for no good reason.

None of these options suggest to me that this guy is good SC material.

10394. concerned - 1/16/2006 2:02:32 PM

Well, thoughtful, at least you allow for more options than Jay does:)

10395. Ms. No - 1/16/2006 2:38:37 PM

I always know I've backed my neighbor into a corner when he starts frothing at the mouth about Chappaquiddick.

Chappaquiddick has fuck-all to do with anything.

10396. concerned - 1/16/2006 2:55:55 PM

Absolutely wrong. It is one of the most blatant US examples over the last 50 years, bar none, of high level irresponsibility, corruption and coverup in US politics.

10397. Ms. No - 1/16/2006 3:27:18 PM

So says anyone when asked about corruption and coverups in the GOP.

It's like Osama Bin Laden saying "Well, what about Ted Kazinski?" when asked to account for his crimes.

The Unibomber crimes don't mitigate those of Osama bin Laden just as Ted Kennedy's supposed crimes don't mitigate those of George W. or Delay, or Ney or any other goverment official suspected of wrongdoing.

It's a cheap attempt to direct focus away from legitimate inquiries into misconduct.

Or do you think that we should ignore evidence of wrongdoing because justice may not have prevailed in the past?

10398. judithathome - 1/16/2006 3:36:05 PM

Absolutely wrong. It is one of the most blatant US examples over the last 50 years, bar none, of high level irresponsibility, corruption and coverup in US politics.

I'd like to respond but I am too busy trying to keep from choking on my Diet Coke.

So I guess this absolves Bill Clinton! Who would have thought it...Concerned is saying Bill Clinton is responsible, not corrupt, and a good politician!!

10399. jexster - 1/16/2006 3:42:48 PM

United States Code Title 50, Chapter 36, Subchapter 1
Section 1809. Criminal sanctions

(a) Prohibited activities
A person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally-

(1) engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute

Good topic TD!

What is the worst the most blatant US examples over the last 50 years, bar none, of high level irresponsibility, corruption and coverup in US politics.

I nominate:

Watergate
Iran Contra
The Icon of Disaster
The Bush Putsch (above)
and
Anything that comes out of Bulldog's Office

10400. jayackroyd - 1/16/2006 6:27:08 PM

concerned--

For a long time I've wondered why this kind of argument--"Okay, Alito's a liar. Kennedy's a murderer, so there." is so popular on the right. It's profoundly illogical. Sure there are bad guys on both sides of the ideological fence. But that doesn't excuse bad behavior. Or are you willing to let Kennedy off the hook if Alito gets a pass? What is this style of argument meant to demonstrate?

We're seeing it now on the President breaking the law. The first talking point from the RNC is that Clinton did it too. (That happens to false, but that's not the point.) It's not okay for the president to break the law. It wasn't okay for Nixon to tap his political enemies any more than it was okay for Johnson to do it. I simply don't understand what this kind of argument is intended to prove.

It's not the same as the RNC defense for the K-Street corruption. In this case, the argument makes sense. The position is essentially that part of being involved in politics is taking bribes, everyone does it, and in particular Democrats have taken bribes from Abramoff. It's not true and it's pretty lame (Republican Pioneers don't give to Democrats any more than Susan Sarandon gives to Republicans), but at least the argument makes sense.

Can you explain what this style of argument is intended to demonstrate, and why you see it from the right, but not the left?

10401. jayackroyd - 1/16/2006 6:30:04 PM

Another thing I've wondered about is why right wing bloggers are so much less likely to have commentary on their sites--and why they police content so closely when they do support commentary, like the freepers do. I see some censorious behavior at say, TPMCafe in the rating of people's comments on the basis of political content rather than quality of argument, but there's not much of it, and it's derided by most partipants. It's interesting that there are such basic differences in style tied to ideological positions.

10402. thoughtful - 1/16/2006 7:56:11 PM

Well, let's see. Kennedy's drunk and murders someone in a motor vehicle accident and because of politics isn't held to account.

Laura Bush isn't drunk and murders an ex boyfriend in a motor vehicle accident and because of politics isn't held to account.

Hmmmm.

Concerned perhaps you can tell me why Kennedy's is worse?

10403. jayackroyd - 1/16/2006 8:03:16 PM

Gore apparently gave a very strong speeck today. Here's an excerpt I thought was on the money:

Fear drives out reason. Fear suppresses the politics of discourse and opens the door to the politics of destruction. Justice Brandeis once wrote: "Men feared witches and burnt women."

The founders of our country faced dire threats. If they failed in their endeavors, they would have been hung as traitors. The very existence of our country was at risk.

Yet, in the teeth of those dangers, they insisted on establishing the Bill of Rights.

Is our Congress today in more danger than were their predecessors when the British army was marching on the Capitol? Is the world more dangerous than when we faced an ideological enemy with tens of thousands of missiles poised to be launched against us and annihilate our country at a moment's notice? Is America in more danger now than when we faced worldwide fascism on the march-when our fathers fought and won two World Wars simultaneously?

10404. thoughtful - 1/16/2006 8:05:37 PM

jay it's silly to claim that "well he did it too" argument as the sole pervue of gopers when dems employed it liberally as well. remember how they delighted at gingrich's cheating during monicagate. As i recall the goper retort was, it doesn't make it right....same retort you're employing now.

What's old is new again.

10405. thoughtful - 1/16/2006 8:08:17 PM

frank rich yesterday talked about the abramoff deal being like an enron redux with fake organizations passing funds. The problem is this story is more tangled than a plate of spaghetti and the short-attentioned american public will soon tire of it. The story needs a character or 2 or 3....like WJC, monica, and linda tripp. Much beyond that and the eyes glaze. That alone may be the undoing of the investigation as without the press hawking it or sex to keep public interest going, it may just land flat.

10406. concerned - 1/16/2006 8:44:57 PM

Re. 10400 -

FWIW, I don't believe Kennedy is a murderer, but he should have been indicted for felony manslaughter regarding Chappaquiddick because that is unambiguously what Massachusetts law required.

I also don't believe it can be fairly assumed at this point that Alito lied either in 1985 or currently about CAP or that GWB is breaking any laws.

Regarding Abramoff, as a centrist, I'm not taking it for granted that Republicans will get off any easier than Democrats on this one.

10407. arkymalarky - 1/16/2006 8:48:21 PM

Regarding Abramoff, as a centrist, I'm not taking it for granted that Republicans will get off any easier than Democrats on this one.

Hahahahaha! Ya think?

10408. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 1/16/2006 11:24:02 PM

Talke about delusions! If connie's a "centrist," I'm the Pope!

10409. judithathome - 1/17/2006 12:14:44 AM

If Connie is a centrist, then I'm Elvis Presley's dead mother.

10410. judithathome - 1/17/2006 12:15:51 AM

If Connie is a centrist, then George Bush is a member of Mensa.

If Connie is a centrist, then pigs fly.

10411. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 1/17/2006 1:00:33 AM

10412. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 1/17/2006 2:08:12 AM

Something to think about...

A billion............

A billion seconds ago, it was 1973.....

A billion minutes ago–Jesus was alive...

A billion hours ago, our ancestors were living in the Stone Age...

A billion dollars ago was only–8 hours and 20 minutes–at the rate the Bush administration spends money....

Frightening!

10413. jayackroyd - 1/17/2006 4:27:28 AM

jay it's silly to claim that "well he did it too" argument as the sole pervue of gopers when dems employed

No, I tried to distinguish the "that's being hypocritical" argument from the "Kennedy's a drunk" argument. Gingrich wahs being profoundly hypocritical when e wanted to impeach Clinton for shtupping a staffer when he was shtupping a staffer. That's different from saying that "everybody takes money" when A) everybody doesn't and B) the republicans did.

10414. thoughtful - 1/17/2006 10:36:09 AM

Oh I see. Then I disagree with that as well as tho not EVERY one takes money, if given the chance a LOT of dems would've. It's only that, when you're not in power, what have you got to sell? In fact, when they were in power, a lot of them did.

Wasn't it you who made the point several years back about how very few senators have refused to enrich themselves in their jobs?

Corruption is truly bipartisan.

10415. thoughtful - 1/17/2006 12:09:36 PM

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Now apparently Ted Kennedy who so forcefully grilled Alito about his membership in CAP has a CAP problem of his own. Seems many years ago he joined the owl club which excludes women. In fact the group was thrown off campus over 20 years ago because of it. He says he's not a member, just been paying his dues right along...

10416. RickNelson - 1/17/2006 12:43:59 PM

The Alito hearings show how Kennedy and Biden are of no use to the Dem. party. Schumer seemed the only Dem. on track with his Alito's political agenda and law interpretation in mind.

Alito, is likely to be confirmed, to the disgrace of the Dem party.

10417. arkymalarky - 1/17/2006 12:51:45 PM

The Dems are weak, but Alito--to the extent he's a wrong choice for the country--is the fault of the Republicans and the majority of Americans who elected him.

Democrats have to do what they can to gain a majority in at least one House in '06, but self-recrimination and focus on old fogey like Biden and Kennedy who are much less relevant than they believe themselves to be, don't help much.

Gore has set the tone the Democrats need to take, and Republicans showed their fear of that tone coming on top of their serious party problems with their response, from Ken Mehlman, no less. The best weapon is a strong, clear message that appeals to Libertarians and those Republicans like Bob Barr who are truly afraid of the direction the Bush and Corporate Republicans are taking this country--to say nothing of the Religious Right, who have been appalled at the executive power grab themselves, for other reasons.

10418. arkymalarky - 1/17/2006 12:52:58 PM

who elected Bush, that is.

10419. wonkers2 - 1/17/2006 12:55:44 PM

Rick, I think you overstate the case. There was nothing the Dems could have done to prevent Alito's confirmation. I found Kennedy's performance in the Alito hearings quite convincing. Biden is a bit garrulous for my taste, but both he and Kennedy are party stalwarts. To say that they are of no use to the Democratic Party is way off the mark.

10420. arkymalarky - 1/17/2006 12:56:30 PM

In short, the Republicans have dropped the ball and Democrats need to quit standing over it, arguing about what they should do. Someone pick it up and lead the rest of us toward the opposite goal, dammit. And that doesn't have to be the next Democratic candidate for president, necessarily.

10421. arkymalarky - 1/17/2006 12:58:47 PM

I don't think they're much use. Things like what Thoughtful just reported make me cringe, but the fact is they're doing exactly what they--and Hillary Clinton--need to do, and that is fight in the Senate trenches where they have clout (and are mostly out of sight), even when Dems are in the minority. THe Dems have much better frontmen they should be using than those three.

10422. jexster - 1/17/2006 1:09:19 PM

Bush to be put down?

The Supreme Court has upheld euthanasia statute.

10423. RickNelson - 1/17/2006 1:13:22 PM

We'll see some of this differntly, but I agree with Arky that Gore and for me Schumer need take that ball to the hoop with a slam dunk.

10424. arkymalarky - 1/17/2006 1:16:14 PM

Yup.

10425. jayackroyd - 1/17/2006 1:29:25 PM

10414

I used to be in the pox on both their houses camp. But the sheer magnitude and brazenness of the K Street project has radicalized me. The Republicans were openly peddling not merely access, but contracts and earmarks. Jim Wright was a piker. They were participating in massive money laundering schemes to take not campaign contributions, but cash money, and in-kind benefits amounting to millions of dollars.

Abramoff is said to have disbursed 80 million dollats. It makes Jim Wright's book scheme look like a lemonade stand.

Not that Wright shouldn't have gone down. But this is a couple of orders of magnitudes bigger.

Moreover, part of the deal here is that the president signs these Treasuty looting bills, and the Congress gives him a pass on oversight, and looks past his shredding of the constitution. We're living through an enormous failure of governance that can only be corrected by a huge change in the mid-terms.

The Medicare drug plan may do the trick. That's a lot of voters whose lives have just been changed for the worse in palpable way--for no apparent purpose other than raising the bottom lines of big pharma.

However, as you've pointed out, the votes are being counted by machines that have no audit trail.....

10426. wonkers2 - 1/17/2006 1:30:58 PM

The Owl Club hardly equates with the Concerned Alumni of Princeton. For many years I belonged to a sail club that didn't admit women--until the rule was changed so that the commodore's daughter could join. I seconded and supported the motion to change the constitution to allow women members. I don't believe the fact that I belonged to the club for ten years or so when women weren't allowed to join is a particular blot on my escutcheon. I would be interested to hear Ted Kennedy's side of the story before condemning him along with Alito for bigotry. What about all the golfers who play at Augusta National?

10427. RickNelson - 1/17/2006 1:34:11 PM

Is there evidence, yet, that voting in American polls is tampered with?

It would be nice to have an audit trail, but how and by whom and with what money is always an overpowering force.

10428. RickNelson - 1/17/2006 1:40:12 PM

Consider the GAO report, such as the remarks on page 32 giving news of grave consequences for this administrations money mismanagement, as vindication of all concerned with improper use of tax and lobby dollars.

10429. wonkers2 - 1/17/2006 1:40:48 PM

Ted Kenndey and the Owl Club.

10430. jexster - 1/17/2006 1:44:38 PM

Impeachment is in the Air

A new Zogby poll will be released tomorrow showing that by a 52% to 43% margin, Americans believe that Congress should consider impeaching George W. Bush if he wiretapped the people of this country without court approval The poll, with a plus or minus margin of error of 2.9%, shows that 66% of Democrats, 59% of independents, and 23% of Republicans support impeachment for wiretapping. Majorities favored impeachment across the country: the East (54%), South (53%), and West (52%), Central states (50%). The significance of this poll can be seen by way of comparison with public attitudes in the months before the impeachment of Clinton. In August and September 1998, sixteen major polls found that only 36% supported hearings to impeach Clinton. [via Impeachmnet.org]

10431. wonkers2 - 1/17/2006 1:45:17 PM

Kennedy has authored or supported nearly every piece of civil rights legislation since he was elected to the Senate. Alito has opposed women's and minority rights every step of the way. As the above article points out Kennedy authored the bill that led to the expulsion of men only clubs from campuses across the land and to the establishment of other rights for college women. His record on such issues is unequalled in the Senate.

10432. jayackroyd - 1/17/2006 1:45:37 PM

There is pretty good pile of evidence that there was tampering in Ohio last election. The more paranoid among us (I haven't joined that group yet, but when you have a president declaring he doesn't have to follow the law, it gets harder to stay out of that group) believe that exit polls were right, not the official ballot counts.

There is no earthly reason for a voting machine to not print a receipt and retain a paper record of the vote, and there are obvious reasons for doing so--which you can observe every time you use an atm. The people who produce this software also produce gambling machines, which have very secure audit systems. I've yet to hear an explanation as to why machines that cannot be audited makes sense, from anyone.

10433. jexster - 1/17/2006 1:45:53 PM

Jay funny now I more of the Pox On Both camp myself...

Throw all the bums out and start over

10434. jayackroyd - 1/17/2006 1:49:42 PM

Josh Marshall has an especially thoughtful post about the inter-relatedness of incompetence, secrecy and authoritarian government, as practiced by the administration.

The point though is that they are directly connected. Authoritarianism and secrecy breed incompetence; the two feed on each other. It's a vicious cycle. Governments with authoritarian tendencies point to what is in fact their own incompetence as the rationale for giving them yet more power. Katrina was a good example of this.

10435. RickNelson - 1/17/2006 1:51:09 PM

I just recall questions of the Ohio problems.

I would consider the 2000 Florida pres. elec. to be among the worst case of systematic polling problems.

I agree that an audit receipt seems a simple device to enact.


Now who is responsible in each state, and via what means is change enacted?

10436. RickNelson - 1/17/2006 1:54:27 PM

Whomever Josh Marshall is, he's right on!

10437. RickNelson - 1/17/2006 1:56:59 PM

Ahhh, the "Talking Points Memo":

I get a point for looking around.

10438. RickNelson - 1/17/2006 1:58:27 PM

Do any of the Threads have a link to the GAO report. If not I would like it, it's an excellent reference for just how inept the current administration's performance is.

10439. thoughtful - 1/17/2006 2:47:32 PM

10434, normally i would object to the misuse of the trademarked Thoughtful™ name, but being assoc with the likes of josh is ok by me.
:-)

10440. thoughtful - 1/17/2006 2:50:15 PM

yeah, yeah, jay. I agree that the orders of magnitude are larger and certainly more efficiently executed, but how many in the dem camp, before abramoff blew up, were kicking themselves for not coming up with the k street project first?

10441. thoughtful - 1/17/2006 2:54:07 PM

Hubby's solution on the voting is very simple and very effective. Have an electronic voting machine that prints 2 copies of your votes...one you put in a box at the end of the line and one you keep as your own receipt.

This way, should there be questions about the vote or the machines should crash and destroy their memory, there'd be a hard copy record to recount.

Seeing as everything from the grocery checkout to the gas pumps are able to give you a receipt off your electronic choices, this should not be difficult to do.

10442. jexster - 1/17/2006 3:03:14 PM

Bush Tells the Truth!!

See Lies

Message # 4726 in thread 161

and stop the fucking presses

10443. thoughtful - 1/17/2006 3:13:07 PM

Interesting news:

The Supreme Court delivered a rebuff to the Bush administration over physician-assisted suicide today, rejecting a Justice Department effort to bar doctors in Oregon from helping terminally ill patients end their lives under a 1994 state law.

In a 6-3 vote, the court ruled that then-U.S. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft overstepped his authority in 2001 by trying to use a federal drug law to prosecute doctors who prescribed lethal overdoses under the Oregon Death With Dignity Act, the only law in the nation that allows physician-assisted suicide. The measure has been approved twice by Oregon voters and upheld by lower court rulings.

And even more interesting, perhaps:

hief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., dissenting for the first time since he joined the court in September, sided with the two most conservative justices -- Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas -- in voting for the minority view.

Shades of things to come, and alito isn't even on board yet.

Kiss your civil liberties good bye.

10444. thoughtful - 1/17/2006 3:17:20 PM

The other night I was up for a few minutes before I fell back to sleep and heard only about 3 min of bremer's appearance on tim russert's show. My conclusion is he's backing away from even stuff he said in his book because the bushies have gotten to him. He already refused to put any blame on w even though the implication for that is clear. Now he's backing away from even more.

He's chickensh*t.

10445. jayackroyd - 1/17/2006 3:28:01 PM

Hubby's solution on the voting is very simple and very effective. Have an electronic voting machine that prints 2 copies of your votes...one you put in a box at the end of the line and one you keep as your own receipt.

You also want a register tape inside the machine, as ATMs have.

on the K Street project, a TNR editorial closes with a paragraph that i think summarizes the issue very well:

The second, and larger, conceptual error has been a failure to place Abramoff within the context of the Republican Party's takeover of K Street. The GOP domestic agenda has evolved to the point where it is almost completely indistinguishable from the accumulated whims of its funding base. Republicans explicitly wanted to destroy the old bipartisan arrangement, whereby lobbies cultivated ties with both parties, and replace it with one in which lobbies gave their exclusive loyalty to Republicans. GOP leaders called this effort the "K Street Project," and they cajoled and threatened lobbying firms to hire and donate only to them. Abramoff was the poster boy for the new breed of lobbyist/activist, loyal to his clients and his party. (Of course, in reality, it turned out Abramoff was loyal only to himself.) The implicit, and sometimes explicit, terms of this arrangement held that the riches lobbyists bestowed upon Republicans would be returned manifold in the form of favorable legislation. As a result of the success of the K Street Project, the lines separating lobbyists from GOP leadership all but disappeared. Abramoff thrived precisely because he recognized something that the Washington press corps still seems unable to: that the Republican Party's alliance with K Street made it deeply and thoroughly corruptible.

The reason there is so little policy coherence in this administration and this Congress is because they are simply doing the bidding of the organizations that give them money.

10446. thoughtful - 1/17/2006 3:31:08 PM

That is an important point, jay. Certainly the medicare rx bill is a perfect example of junk legislation because it was written by the lobbyist to serve their individual desires, not to serve the american people.

10447. robertjayb - 1/17/2006 4:23:18 PM

thoughtful,

re Bremer: I got the same impression from his appearance on Charlie Rose. Not exactly a profile in courage.

10448. jexster - 1/17/2006 4:44:54 PM

Stop the presses again....Bush lied again

Spy Agency Data After Sept. 11 Led F.B.I. to Dead Ends

Sorry Georgie...fool me once..fool me twice, we won't get fooled again

You fucking moron

10449. jexster - 1/17/2006 4:55:37 PM

Please stop with Alito nonsense...As I pointed out in Nov. 04, the Democrats only have a limited agenda/public interest window...they can't fight very many battles ..one, two tops...

The more they talk about Alito, the more the Losers will lose

Spy Agency Data After Sept. 11 Led F.B.I. to Dead Ends

Iraq
Iran
Bush Putsch
and don't forget Bulldog Lindsay

So why in the hell are those nitwits wasting time on Alito?

Good god gertrude..they're Bush's only salvation

10450. wonkers2 - 1/17/2006 7:09:57 PM

Just about every word out of Bush's mouth is a lie, including the ands and thes.

10451. wonkers2 - 1/17/2006 7:54:58 PM

Grab your ass! In his first big case Chief Justice Roberts voted with Scalia and Thomas in Attorney General Ashcrofts suit to invalidate the Oregon assisted suicide statute. The majority ruled 6 to 3 against Asscroft. Alioto's approval by the Senate does not bode well for the nation.

Apparently, the "conservatives" on the Supreme Court only support states rights when it suits them.

Excerpts from Decision.

10452. concerned - 1/17/2006 8:02:36 PM

Re. 10449 -

What? Giving up on CAP already? You spineless chicken$#!+.

10453. wonkers2 - 1/17/2006 8:48:19 PM

Alito's bragging on his application for a job working for Ed Meese, one of the bigger assholes in the Regan administration, says more about the Regan administration than it does about Alito. Most people tailor their resumes in accordance with their beliefs about what will impress their potential employer. In this case, Alito listed a racist organization on his application to a racist administration. If in the unlikely event that he had also been a member of NAACP or ACLU he would no doubt have omitted these organizations from his application.

10454. wonkers2 - 1/17/2006 8:53:59 PM

The tone for Alito's application to the "Justice" Department was set clearly by Regan himself when he kicked off his 1980 presidential campaign with a states rights speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where Cheney, Schwerner and Goodman and had been murdered by the KKK in 1964.

10455. wonkers2 - 1/17/2006 8:59:29 PM

R.I.P. James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner.

10456. wonkers2 - 1/17/2006 9:01:00 PM

concerned, just out of curiosity, what's your personal opinion about the Oregon Assisted Suicide case?

10457. jexster - 1/17/2006 9:42:50 PM

I don't recall participating TD

10458. jexster - 1/17/2006 9:42:53 PM

I don't recall participating TD

10459. jexster - 1/17/2006 9:43:19 PM

Getting old tho...perhaps you can remind me

10460. jexster - 1/17/2006 9:46:32 PM

God I did forget something TD...

I forgot to add K Street project to the list of things Dems should be howling about

AND
How could I forget

A new Zogby poll will be released tomorrow showing that by a 52% to 43% margin, Americans believe that Congress should consider impeaching George W. Bush if he wiretapped the people of this country without court approval ,,,In August and September 1998, sixteen major polls found that only 36% supported hearings to impeach Clinton. [via Impeachmnet.org]

10461. jexster - 1/17/2006 10:57:54 PM

We Don't Need a New King George
How can the President interpret the law as if it didn't apply to him?
By ANDREW SULLIVAN
Time Magazine

I don't know the answer to that one TD. See, I don't know everything

"A somewhat legal law is a little like a somewhat pregnant woman"

10462. thoughtful - 1/18/2006 11:01:43 AM

About the latest sc court decision, does the vote against assisted suicide which was voted for several times by people in the state and upheld by lower courts constitute 'activist judges' who are making legislation rather than upholding current law???

10463. concerned - 1/18/2006 12:19:15 PM

Re. 10426 -

Hardly equates is right - the Owl club and your yacht club are guilty of overt, blatant, gross, outright discrimination based on sex, which is worse than can be said about CAP.

10464. jayackroyd - 1/18/2006 12:23:19 PM

Atrios sends me to AmericaBlog to read this WaPo quote on Republican "reform":
-------------------
According to lobbyists and ethics experts, even if Hastert's proposal is enacted, members of Congress and their staffs could still travel the world on an interest group's expense and eat steak on a lobbyist's account at the priciest restaurants in Washington.

The only requirement would be that whenever a lobbyist pays the bill, he or she must also hand the lawmaker a campaign contribution. Then the transaction would be perfectly okay.

"That's a big hole if they don't address campaign finance," said Joel Jankowsky, the lobbying chief of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, one of the capital's largest lobbying outfits.

10465. jayackroyd - 1/18/2006 12:24:31 PM

10463

So you agree that Alito's membership in CAP is an issue, one that should deny him a seat? And that MA voters should vote out Kennedy for the same reason?

10466. wonkers2 - 1/18/2006 12:26:42 PM

Maureen Dowd was particularly sharp-tongued this morning.

"This trio (Gore, Kerry, Clinton)...Two of them, who could have stopped W. and Dick Cheney before they undid 230 years of American democracy, didn't because they allowed themselves to be painted as girly men. The other a manly girl, has been so cautious and opportnistic about weighing in on everything from Schiavo to Alito and Iraq that when she finall sang out on Monday and railed against W., she sounded mor soprano than basso profundo."

"Mr. Kerry and Senator Clinton held the president's coat as he rushed to war."

"The Dems chronic impotence led to the Republican's reign of incompetence."

"Mr. Cheney, lumbering around in unreality, continues to be unapologetic as the chorus of Dem complaints gets louder. Above the law is where he wants to be. Even when he can easily--and retroactively--get snooping warrants, he doesn't want their stinking warrants."

10467. concerned - 1/18/2006 12:35:45 PM

Re. 10463 -

I agree that Owl Boy should have been out because of Chappaquiddick, and failing that, should not have been a blatant hypocrite and fool about CAP, but he's your man.

You don't have a case that Alito ever lied about CAP.
Period.

10468. concerned - 1/18/2006 12:36:35 PM

My last was re 10465.

10469. concerned - 1/18/2006 12:42:35 PM

Re. 10425 -

Jay has always been in the 'pox on the Republican House' camp based on the 90%-10% partisan skewing of his posts in the Mote.

10470. wonkers2 - 1/18/2006 1:01:04 PM

As somebody pointed out yesterday on one of the talk shows, when Kennedy joined Harvard's men only Owl Club, Harvard admitted only men. It was many years later, after women were admitted to the university that the Owl Club was expelled from the university. There has been no claim that the Owl Club opposed the admission of women or minorities to Harvard as did Alito's CAP at Princeton. There is no comparison between Kennedy's membership in Owl and Alito's bragging about CAP on his application for a job in the racist Reagan Justice Department.

10471. wonkers2 - 1/18/2006 1:04:07 PM

Kennedy has been a leading proponent of civil rights throughout his career. Alito has pretty consistently been on the wrong side of issues involving women, minorities, the handicapped, etc.,in his court decisions as well as in his own words on his job application, speeches and other writings.

10472. jayackroyd - 1/18/2006 1:15:59 PM

10467

I continue to wonder about this style of argument. It's utterly illogical. Alito lies (and there's no question about that--he either lied to Reagan's administration or he lied to the committee) about membership in a bigoted, sexist organization. So you pull out an example of a democrat who belonged to an all-male club. (I didn't know, until wonk mentioned it, that it was a Harvard finals club, which are certainly bastions of sexism and racism. {I remember one that was reasonably open, but that's it.})

And then you say "So there. Approve Alito."

Huh? How does this make any sense at all? But it's one of the evergreen argument tropes for conservatives. I don't understand why they make it. I don't understand why they think its persuasive. Can someone explain?

10473. concerned - 1/18/2006 1:20:39 PM

Jay -

You've neither shown that Alito has ever denied membership in CAP, nor that he wasn't technically a member of CAP at some time, even though he clearly never had any real involvement in the organization's activities.

Given this, why are you wasting everybody's time calling him a liar?

You're only making yourself look like a liar and partisan hack.

10474. concerned - 1/18/2006 1:30:23 PM

Re. 10470 -

So how does that in any way excuse Kennedy's continuing to be a dues paying member of the Owl Club when it continued to exclude women long after Harvard became coeducational?

Why are you lying about CAP's attitude toward women and minorities admissions at Princeton, since CAP never opposed the admission of women and minorities to that institution as you claim?

10475. jayackroyd - 1/18/2006 1:34:24 PM

Because, concerned, in 1985 he said that he was an involved member in CAP. I don't know whether he lied to the Reagan administration or to the committee. But he lied to somebody.

I'm not making excuses for Kennedy. I'm saying that your argument is incoherent--saying that Kennedy did something bad doesn't make it the case that Alito didn't.

It's like Gonzales (falsely) saying that Clinton violated FISA. Even if it were true, it's still wrong for the president to violate the law. Bush, Clinton, Nixon whoever.

I simply don't understand this style of argument.

10476. wonkers2 - 1/18/2006 2:12:03 PM

Kennedy's continuing to pay dues to the Owl Club is a tiny gotcha of a leader on women's and minority issues. Alito's approach to civil rights is a major flaw. There is no comparison.

10477. jayackroyd - 1/18/2006 2:17:14 PM

Well, wonk, I'd say you can't have it both ways. However, what's really going on here is not actual CAP membership. Because Alito won't state his positions, one is forced to look at evidence from his past, and this happens to be evidence that supports what we all know to be true--that he is not a supporter of the Civil Rights Act, of women's rights, or of Row. The Democrats did a very poor job of demonstrating this, and it is pretty damned lame to have to rest on a club membership for your argument.

That said, he still lied.

10478. wonkers2 - 1/18/2006 2:36:54 PM

Well, the Dems didn't rely only on the CAP business. I watched most of the hearings, and they also did a pretty good job of revealing Alito's attitudes on a civil rights presidential power, etc., from his decisions and speeches. The basic problem was the GOP majority in the Senate and the fact that Alito was a credible nominee, albeit quite conservative. I think the Dems did the best they could with what they had to work with. Not filibustering Alito was a wise decision. It was better not to schedule a losing battle.

10479. jexster - 1/18/2006 3:06:10 PM

Has Al Gore become a conservative? His recent speech to the Liberty Coalition, a group of conservatives and liberals united in opposing the growing authoritarianism that drives this administration, sounded as if it had been written by some disgruntled paleoconservative. With his frequent references to the Founders and their philosophy of strictly limitedgovernment, his embittered lament at the rapid erosion of individual liberties against the Leviathan State, and his openly anti-interventionist critique of our foreign policy of preemptive aggression, one might have imagined he had suddenly started channeling Robert A. Taft. You know we are witnessing a defining moment in American politics when a leader of the Democratic Party starts talking like an Old Right Republican.

In a wide-ranging and withering critique of the president's domestic "unilateralism," Gore lit into this administration's insistence that the president must become a virtual dictator in wartime – and that we are, for all intents and purposes, permanently at war on account of the "war on terrorism."


Gore Channels Taft
It was a great speech

10480. thoughtful - 1/18/2006 3:06:14 PM

From Economist's View blog quoting a martin wolf (financial times) article about Bill Lewis' conclusions from the McKinsey Institute on what it is that makes economies grow and why so few nations are able to achieve it:

Policymakers need to understand that the aim of policy must not be to nurture specific producers, but to promote the interests of consumers and, so, competition. Openness to the world economy matters most for this reason. International competition explains, for example, why the export sectors of Japan and South Korea are so productive, while the rest of their economies are not....

Free and fair competition sounds simple to achieve. Nothing is further from the truth: competition upsets intellectuals who glory in the notion of state benevolence, bureaucrats who administer government programmes, businesses that receive state favours and, in short, all those who gain, directly or indirectly, from distortions. Competition benefits often-despised outsiders against those who are well-connected and entrenched. It also requires the courts and government to work honestly. The surprise may rather be that some countries became rich than that so many are poor.




Interesting lesson for the likes of bush&co who have done so much to benefit existing producers at the expense of competition and consumers...from the financial services industry, to energy, to big pharma and so on. If Lewis/Wolf are correct in their contention then the US growth path is bound to deteriorate until the focus in govt once again turns to increased competition and away from crony capitalism.

10481. jayackroyd - 1/18/2006 3:49:13 PM

This is just a reiteration of the fact that if you don't practice good public policy, there are negative consequences. I think we're at a moment in time when good public policy entails a reversal of the tendency toward using private agencies to accomplish public good. The various health care experiments have all failed, except for two, the VA and Medicare.

People are paying enormous premiums for internet access and telephone services.

The US should start a program of taking health care public by first, floating a catastrophic insurance program that is mandatory if you have no other insurance.

The US should emabark on a program, like the highway system, of establishing free wifi everywhere. There are miles of dark fiber that could be lit, and the systems have become very robust. There's no more reason for telco ownership of the internet than there is for anyone owning GPS. Both were developed using government money, and both should be free to taxpayers.

Any such programs (I'll think of more) should not legally enjoin competition from private companies. But they should set a reasonable high bar for service delivery. The USPS has benefited, from a consumer's perspective, from competition with other delivery services.

But this coupling of private businesses with the Treasury's coffers has run its course, and if we don't fix it soon, we're gonna end up like Japan, with its crony banks and MITI-promoted boondoggles.

10482. thoughtful - 1/18/2006 3:55:59 PM

actually that'd be one of the few constitutional amendments I'd support...abolish the USPS

10483. wonkers2 - 1/18/2006 5:00:53 PM

Jay, I believe it was St. Thomas Aquinas (or Augustine) who said "Seldom affirm, never deny, always distinguish." Kennedy's membership in Owl is clearly distinguishable from Alito's membership or claimed membership in CAP. Owl is inconsistent with Kennedy's record and personal beliefs whereas Alito's CAP membership or claim of membership reinforces Alito's very different record and apparent beliefs on various issues of concern to women and minorities. Moreover, no evidence has been produced which indicates that Owl engaged in any odious lobbying activities against minorities and women at Harvard which of course CAP was notorious for doing at Princeton. Finally, Kennedy joined Owl when there were no women at Harvard and at a time when objections to men only organizations had not surfaced (as was the case with Bush's membership in Skull and Bones at Yale) whereas, CAP was apparently formed for the specific purpose of keeping women and minorities out of Princeton. Therefore, I submit that Kennedly's and Alito's situations are not remotely comparable and that I CAN have it both ways.

10484. jexster - 1/18/2006 6:20:01 PM

Wonk you old Thomist you!


They didn't teach you that at St. James

10485. jexster - 1/18/2006 6:20:58 PM

But what part of Message # 10449 are you having trouble with?

10486. concerned - 1/18/2006 6:40:31 PM

Re. 10475 -



My point is that Alito may have been a member of CAP, yet without there being a surviving formal record of that within the organization. If you don't allow for this not unlikely possibility, sicne you cannot disprove it, you are either being stupid or dishonest.

10487. thoughtful - 1/18/2006 6:46:57 PM

Oh I see, concerned ...just like you don't allow for the not unlikely possibility that Broaddrick was lying about being raped by WJC and since you can't disprove it, you are either being stupid or dishonest.

Clear case of IOKIYAR...it's ok if you're a republican.

10488. wonkers2 - 1/18/2006 6:54:51 PM

Nope, they didn't teach me that at St. James. I learned it from George B. Morris, Jr. a Notre Dame undergrad and lawyer who was labor relations VP at General Motors. He used it when somebody came to him with a simplistic, ill-considered conclusion or recommendation. And we went back to the drawing board with our tails between our legs. On his desk was a model of a top of the line Cadillac commemorating a real one which he and some other Catholic bigwigs at GM had given to the Pope.

10489. wonkers2 - 1/18/2006 7:00:37 PM

The Dems had to stretch Alito's neck in the hearings in because every organization in their base constituency opposed his confirmation--NAACP, NARAL, ACLU, etc. and as well because the vast majority of DEM senators were opposed to his appointment.

10490. jayackroyd - 1/18/2006 9:00:52 PM

My point is that Alito may have been a member of CAP, yet without there being a surviving formal record of that within the organization.

And my point is that he told the Reagan administration that he was an active member. Perhaps that claim was a lie. Perhaps the current claim that he was not an active member was a lie.

I don't know. I do know that he lied.

10491. arkymalarky - 1/19/2006 12:06:02 AM

I think we're at a moment in time when good public policy entails a reversal of the tendency toward using private agencies to accomplish public good

Amen. What's been going on since Bush has been in control is that government money has been diverted to corporations at the expense of every system they touch. Inefficiency doesn't simply mean excessive red tape and bureaucracy, leaving some room for voters to have an impact. Now it means the corporations make much more money than they would have in a truly competitive open market--like the pharmaceutical companies, but they're only one example among very many in almost every area of government public service. This goes far beyond privatization to granting a select few, assisted by the K Street Lobby, getting the lion's share of govt funds. The fact that the first thing they did in Iraq was secure the oil fields, and the first thing they did after Katrina was hand huge no-bid contracts to non-Louisiana businesses. Though people squawked at this and the media covered it in the beginning, I haven't heard a peep about it in quite some time.

10492. wonkers2 - 1/19/2006 12:12:07 AM

As I recall Alito offered several different versions on CAP. The whole thing doesn't pass the smell test. They even dragged Ed Meese for bloviation duty on the Chris Matthews show. Next to John Mitchell and John Ashcroft, Meese was the worst Attorney General in memory. This was in the middle of the period when the racists in the South switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party. I say good riddance!

10493. concerned - 1/19/2006 12:20:53 AM

Ok, Jay. Have it your way. Alito was probably less than fully forthcoming at some time during the last 25 years about his involvement in CAP. Does that make him unworthy to be a justice in the Supreme Court? I remain unconvinced.

10494. concerned - 1/19/2006 12:24:39 AM

After all, I don't believe membership in a club can be assumed to automatically equate to a specific set of 'moral turpitudes', if you will.

10495. concerned - 1/19/2006 12:39:18 AM

In the final analysis, most politicians cannot kill people, be impeached, rape their grandmothers, have belonged to the KKK or the Nazi or Communist Party, but of the ones who do and hope to keep their careers, they're all Democrats!

10496. wonkers2 - 1/19/2006 12:42:21 AM

You're right. More important than CAP to defining his turpitudes were his court decisions and other writings which apparently (I haven't read them) exhibited tendencies to support a beyond-the-mainstream view of presidential power, to support the rights of corporations over the rights of individuals, and a desire to consign Roe v. Wade to the ashcan. His proud claim to being a CAP member merely tends to confirm his instinct to deny the rights of minorities, women, gays, the handicapped, et al.

10497. jayackroyd - 1/19/2006 1:19:30 AM

Ok, Jay. Have it your way. Alito was probably less than fully forthcoming at some time during the last 25 years about his involvement in CAP. Does that make him unworthy to be a justice in the Supreme Court? I remain unconvinced.

No, it doesn't. But the process that we now go through leaves us with very weak beer to make that assessment. That's why relatively trivial things like club memberships become important. Alito won't say what he thinks about the Civil Rights Act, or Roe v Wade. We're forced to infer his views from, as wonk says, his previous opinions and other issues that are undeniable. His CAP membership, and his viewing that as something to promote is all we have to work with in assessing him. And, I have to say, that his claim that the reason he mentioned in 1985 was to get a job doesn't sell well when he says it's not important now that it won't help him get this job.

10498. wonkers2 - 1/19/2006 1:28:00 AM

Con, you didn't respond to my query about your personal view of Roberts's vote with Scalia and Thomas on the assisted suicide case? Roberts's vote actually surprized me. I had given him more credit than that. Maybe he was reluctant to bite so soon the hand that fed him.

10499. concerned - 1/19/2006 1:52:31 AM

Re. 10498-

No, I didn't because I haven't yet sufficiently researched this decision. I hope to follow up on it soon to give you my considered opinion, but life is stressful and busy for me nowadays.

10500. robertjayb - 1/19/2006 2:10:30 AM

David Broder on Al Gore's challenge...(WaPo)

10501. thoughtful - 1/19/2006 11:11:56 AM

Broder is not a guy i usually agree with but this piece isn't bad as far as it goes. He only touches upon the deep issue of the balance of powers which is something the bushies have chopped away at since taking office. From the SC appointing him president to congress' supporting anything the pres wants to the moralizing to squelch dissension (it'll hurt our troops in a time of war) to the rubber stamping of SC nominees who have no problem with growing executive power, the bushies and the gop cabal have been on a rapid and successful march toward an imperial presidency.

Broder misses the point about the intelligence around the iraq war...it was desired from the get go and anyone not supporting that goal was torpedoed. Remember this is the crowd that believes you create your own reality. Broder misses the point that torture wasn't an accident resulting from insufficient controls and discipline, but was bush admin policy as justified by the likes of AG Gonzales...again remember that dissension isn't allowed, so Gonzales would not have come up with such justification unless requested to do so. Same as with the unwarranted wiretaps...at first WH lawyers said it was illegal, but then later were convinced that it was not.

Even simple things like Jon Stewart's riff on w saying that debate and discussion are what democracy is all about and then goes on to define what debate and discussion is allowable gives insight into the thinking of this administration.

From W's comments that the constitution is just a gd piece of paper to his quote that a dictatorship would be much easier, so long as I'm the dictator...all point to a philsophy of imperial power to the presidency. His actions all point to a desire to achieve an imperial presidency, and the weak-kneed congress and press have been playing exactly into his hands.

This is serious stuff. This makes the threat to our liberty from the likes of al qaeda seem like small potatoes. And unless the keystone kop party AKA democrats get their act together, there will be no stopping w&co from achieving their goal.

10502. thoughtful - 1/19/2006 11:40:39 AM

From bob herbert's oped in today's nyt on the NSA spying:

In a separate interview yesterday, Bill Goodman, the legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, spelled out his belief that the government was using the cover of terror investigations to spy on the private conversations of law-abiding individuals.

"I think they are engaging in surveillance that they don't want even the FISA judges to see. They don't want them looking over their shoulders and seeing that they are doing things like listening in on attorney-client conversations, listening in on journalists talking to their sources, engaging in the kind of Big Brother tactics that will turn this society from a free one into an authoritarian one."


This administration has given us no reason to believe that Bill Goodman is wrong.

10503. thoughtful - 1/19/2006 11:51:55 AM

Not behind the paid portion from yesterday's NYT is an op-ed worth reading about the gop MO of trashing veterans because they disagree with admin policy. (Just another example for #10501 above.) Good because it so lays it out. It promises that this tactic will come back to haunt the gopers, but i'm not so sure.

IT should come as no surprise that an arch-conservative Web site is questioning whether Representative John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has been critical of the war in Iraq, deserved the combat awards he received in Vietnam.

After all, in recent years extremist Republican operatives have inverted a longstanding principle: that our combat veterans be accorded a place of honor in political circles. This trend began with the ugly insinuations leveled at Senator John McCain during the 2000 Republican primaries and continued with the slurs against Senators Max Cleland and John Kerry, and now Mr. Murtha.

Military people past and present have good reason to wonder if the current administration truly values their service beyond its immediate effect on its battlefield of choice. The casting of suspicion and doubt about the actions of veterans who have run against President Bush or opposed his policies has been a constant theme of his career. This pattern of denigrating the service of those with whom they disagree risks cheapening the public's appreciation of what it means to serve, and in the long term may hurt the Republicans themselves.


Yup. Support our troops so long as they do our bidding. Support our troops, but cut veteran's benefits and health care. Support our troops, but don't bother giving them the armored vehicles and equipment they need.

10504. jayackroyd - 1/19/2006 12:19:20 PM

This makes the threat to our liberty from the likes of al qaeda seem like small potatoes.

That's it in a nutshell. All al qaeda can do is kill some of us. There's no chance they can change the principles we believe in. But this adminstration is on a track to systematically subvert those principles.

I don't think it'll hold. Perhaps if they hadn't also tried to cash in as well as devalue the Constitution in the name of security, they might have pulled it off. But the combination of domestic spying with systematic corruption will have a larger effect in the mid-terms than says the conventional wisdom.

People are not as partisan as the pundits who write about them. They want things to run well more than they want them to be run by one side or the other. Witness Bloomberg's popularity in New York, as one example. Or the resilience of support for Clinton in the face of a contrived shitstorm.

10505. robertjayb - 1/19/2006 12:24:15 PM

David Broder on Al Gore's challenge...(WaPo)

10506. robertjayb - 1/19/2006 12:24:34 PM

David Broder on Al Gore's challenge...(WaPo)

10507. thoughtful - 1/19/2006 12:35:57 PM

rjb...having a groundhog day?

10508. thoughtful - 1/19/2006 12:37:11 PM

speaking of al qaeda, apparently a new tape has been released supposedly of bin laden claiming plans for a new attack on america are already under way.

Let me see how that goes? We fight them there so we won't have to fight them here, right?

10509. RickNelson - 1/19/2006 12:41:04 PM

thoughtful,

yeah fighting them there is supposed to keep our targets over there. but it's obvious that stirring the whirlwinds of fear among the faithful has brought success to w.

10510. thoughtful - 1/19/2006 12:53:35 PM

what really irritates me about this balance of power issue is the gop in congress. They aren't all wingnuts. Where are the more libertarian, the old-fashioned conservatives who view a small govt as a good govt? Where are those freedom fighters who recognize that congress' role is critical in the balance of power. Dems have never been very organized so I don't fault them as much, but the moderate/old line conservatives have really proved to be ball-less in the face of w&co. That scares me more than anything.

If they had guts, they'd be as insistent on honest and forthright answers from alito as the dems were...not because they might disagree with his answers, but because his nonanswers disrespect the critical role the senate is supposed to be playing in terms of assuring that the sc nominee is in line with the american public congress is representing. They have clearly failed in their task.

And to have the talking heads in the news say, well bush said he would appoint conservatives and he's keeping his promise says nothing about the abject failure the senate has been in performing its duty.

10511. jayackroyd - 1/19/2006 1:43:10 PM

speaking of al qaeda, apparently a new tape has been released supposedly of bin laden claiming plans for a new attack on america are already under way

I'm just thanking the political gods that they're attempt to reignite public fear is taking this form (and the killing of a dozen people in a bombing in a sovereign state looking for the 300th number 2 man in al qaeda) and not an invasion of Syria or bombing in Iran. I'm worried about what's gonna happen going forward--there is no good news on the horizon for Bush or for the republicans. Fitzgerald is still out there. The K-Street scandals are legion--see TPM for a couple more stories--and are indefensible. The wiretap defense has been laughable. Cheney's no healthier, and Rumsfeld's no younger. Even with the press as ballless as it has been, there's no way he's gonna see rising poll numbers unless he creates some news that, while not good, will raise his support levels.

On the Pakistani missile attack (I assume it was a missile), that's a key element in Syriana--the targeting of an inconvenient individual, in the midst of other people, including women and children by a cruise missile. I dismissed that as an unrealistic Hollywood exaggeration. Wrong again.

10512. jayackroyd - 1/19/2006 1:47:12 PM

Where are the more libertarian, the old-fashioned conservatives who view a small govt as a good govt?

Armando at DailyKos had a riff on the same theme yesterday. Where are the pro-choice republicans? Snowe, Chaffee, Collins, Specter. They're all apparently going to vote to confirm. So that's also been a lie. I'm particularly disappointed in Snowe--I've always thought highly of her, and don't see how it helps her to toe this administration's line. Mainers value indpendence in their politicians.

10513. jexster - 1/19/2006 1:49:55 PM

Osama Promises US Attacks
Offers Truce and Help to Rebuild Afghanistan and EyeRak n Roll

Such a deal!

10514. jexster - 1/19/2006 2:25:06 PM

10515. jexster - 1/19/2006 2:28:23 PM

Ya know thoughtful I heard something encouraging last night. Lehrer interview Harry Reid, who mentioned that the Republicans had tried to Swift Boat Murtha claiming - take a wlid guess - that he didn't earn his medals, wasn't injured, didn't deserve the Bronze Star - someone else was the hero, Murtha got the credit.

Geez..these guyz have run out material...but the worst of it for them - I had not heard anything of this until Reid brought it up.

Swift Boats sunk.

10516. jexster - 1/19/2006 2:29:44 PM

I suppose Snowe is voting to confirm because this vote is the only good news that Bush will have.

In the GOP, Joe Lieberman's walk the plank

10517. jexster - 1/19/2006 3:32:02 PM

Bush Wiretaps Violated National Security Act of 1947 - CRS

10518. thoughtful - 1/19/2006 3:47:33 PM

jex, did you miss my #10503? it talks about the 'swift boating' of murtha

10519. jayackroyd - 1/19/2006 3:57:10 PM

it's worth mentioning that Webb (the guy who wrote that op-ed) is a former Reagan staffer. The republicans have had very solid support from military voters. Tarnishing medals as a routine form of political attack endanges that support. Especially when you go after a marine. IME, Marines are Marines first, then Americans, and then members of parties.

10521. thoughtful - 1/19/2006 6:47:31 PM

is there a reason why i can't see RJB's post #10520? all there is below j's post is a blank area.

10522. judithathome - 1/19/2006 8:07:34 PM

Today a huge story about the report on Cisneros...yes, the Special Prosector is still after Cisneros. And low and behold, it includes smears against Clinton. Who'd athunk it?

10523. wonkers2 - 1/19/2006 8:09:54 PM

Picking Barrett for Special Prosecutor was one of Janet Reno's worst mistakes. The episode ruined the career of a talented young bright light in the Democratic Party.

10524. judithathome - 1/19/2006 8:12:11 PM

Cisneros Report Reveals Internal Struggles

The independent counsel who investigated former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros contended in his final report Thursday that the Justice Department and IRS blocked his efforts to probe possible Cisneros tax violations.

People who worked in the Clinton administration denied the allegations by prosecutor David M. Barrett, whose $20 million, decade-long probe was the longest ever under the post-Watergate reform law. It eclipsed the multiyear investigations by Ken Starr of the Clintons and Lawrence Walsh of the Iran-Contra affair.

Robert S. Litt, one of the Justice Department officials involved, called Barrett's suggestions of obstruction "a scurrilous falsehood," adding that the report was "a fitting conclusion to one of the most embarrassingly incompetent and wasteful episodes in the history of American law enforcement."

10525. concerned - 1/20/2006 1:15:29 AM

re. 10522 -

JAH-

I didn't know it was possible to smear Xlowntoon.

Say, JAH - you know what you get when you cross Ray Nagin and The Swimmer?

10526. concerned - 1/20/2006 1:17:49 AM

Chris Matthews called bin Laden 'an over the top Michael Moore'.

If you put them together, they would be the Laurel and Hardy from Hell.

LOL LOL

10527. concerned - 1/20/2006 1:23:54 AM

For Hanumas Kwanzaadan, one of my sisters gave me a Xlowntoon 'action figure' as a gag gift.

I asked her, "Hey, where's the Monica Lewinsky action figure?"


It really happened.

10528. concerned - 1/20/2006 1:30:59 AM

speaking of al qaeda, apparently a new tape has been released supposedly of bin laden claiming plans for a new attack on america are already under way.

Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and human filth.

10529. judithathome - 1/20/2006 1:37:46 AM

Yeah...sometimes they go awry and others, they go as planned.

10530. concerned - 1/20/2006 1:43:41 AM

Well, as long as bin Laden can only manage to crawl out from under his rock once every year or two, there's not much to worry about.

10531. judithathome - 1/20/2006 1:47:29 AM

You really think so? He has a proven track record, after all...and despite the fact he's been under a rock, it seems to be one we can't readily locate.

10532. concerned - 1/20/2006 1:55:34 AM

I was being rather facetious, of course, but I'd love to see GWB take this opportunity to publicly refer to bin Laden in terms such as a 'miserable excuse for a human being'.

10533. concerned - 1/20/2006 1:57:24 AM

Say, JAH: aren't you wondering what you'd get if you crossed Ray Nagin with Ted Kennedy?

10534. concerned - 1/20/2006 2:28:50 AM

Where'd everybody go? Have I got spinach stuck in my teeth or something?

10535. alistairconnor - 1/20/2006 6:02:17 AM

Oh so it's spinach? Everyone assumed it was X's excrement...

10536. alistairconnor - 1/20/2006 6:03:22 AM

Erratum : for "X", please read "W".

That rather de-fuses the gag. Oh well.

10537. jayackroyd - 1/20/2006 9:41:12 AM

Hey, it's a special moment. I agree with concerned. The attention paid to Bin Laden is mistaken. Taking down the Taliban and monitoring his communications has so diminshed him that he's not worthy of attention. There are nukes in Iran and North Korea being developed. That's worthy of attention.

10538. RickNelson - 1/20/2006 11:38:46 AM

I'm sure North Korean refugees, especially those being forcably repatriated by China, is something that demands more attention.

10539. RickNelson - 1/20/2006 11:56:20 AM

It's not funny that the governments own legal checkers are going along with W. It's a conflict of interest to have them involved with the legal ramifications of anything like this. This is a constitutional question at its heart and need be in for a SCOTUS opinion, pronto.

10540. RickNelson - 1/20/2006 11:56:53 AM

The like this, is wire tapping.

10541. thoughtful - 1/20/2006 11:58:34 AM

Could it be that even the evangelicals are starting to wake up to w? From today's nyt oped...not behind the $ wall:

IN the past several years, American evangelicals, and I am one of them, have amassed greater political power than at any time in our history. But at what cost to our witness and the integrity of our message?....

The single common theme among the war sermons appeared to be this: our president is a real brother in Christ, and because he has discerned that God's will is for our nation to be at war against Iraq, we shall gloriously comply....

Such sentiments are a far cry from those expressed in the Lausanne Covenant of 1974...[which] affirmed the global character of the church of Jesus Christ and the belief that "the church is the community of God's people rather than an institution, and must not be identified with any particular culture, social or political system, or human ideology."...

What will it take for evangelicals in the United States to recognize our mistaken loyalty? We have increasingly isolated ourselves from the shared faith of the global Church, and there is no denying that our Faustian bargain for access and power has undermined the credibility of our moral and evangelistic witness in the world. The Hebrew prophets might call us to repentance, but repentance is a tough demand for a people utterly convinced of their righteousness.

10542. RickNelson - 1/20/2006 12:04:18 PM

it's been painfully obvious that church and state have had merging of their ways.

it's sickening to have politics in the church.

10543. concerned - 1/20/2006 12:44:46 PM

10544. concerned - 1/20/2006 12:48:30 PM

10545. RickNelson - 1/20/2006 1:48:38 PM

yyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaggghhhhharrrghhhh!!

10546. robertjayb - 1/20/2006 2:41:19 PM

Molly Ivins is not for Hillary...

AUSTIN, Texas (Creators Syndicate) -- I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.

Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.
..................................................


Bush, Cheney and Co. will continue to play the patriotic bully card just as long as you let them. I've said it before: War brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were "German dogs." They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds.

10547. wonkers2 - 1/20/2006 2:57:55 PM

I'm not a big Hillary fan, but I have trouble comprehending what nearly everybody seems to find objectionable about her likening the GOP-controlled Congress to a plantation. It strikes me as a perfectly good analogy. One of the talking heads the other day pointed out that Gingrich used the exact same analogy for the Dem-controlled Congress before he took over.

10548. jayackroyd - 1/20/2006 3:59:15 PM

I don't have a problem with the plantation quotation. But I do feel precisely as rjb does--the strategy of knee-quaking devotion to the polls has proven to fail. People blame Clinton for that, but Clinton is a great politician--Reaganesque in his ability to communicate and persuade. He also cared about policy, and ran a very transparent and honest administration. It wasn't because he was a centrist that he was successful. It was because he was a leader. Hilary does not have those qualities.

Not many do. Kerry doesn't. Gore doesn't. Bush doesn't. Looking over the field of democrats, I see only Obama and Feingold who may have it. I don't know the governors well enough to really comment, but the so many of the senators are a bunch of dialin' for dollars Beltway gasbags.

10549. thoughtful - 1/20/2006 4:46:17 PM

Reagan "ran a very transparent and honest administration."

well i guess that depends on your definition of the word 'honest'.

See Daily Kos for a list of the crimes and convictions committed by the reagan crowd. According to the person assembling the list, Clinton 1, Nixon 8, Reagan 138. Now granted I don't think she's counting fairly if you include investigations, though most of those in the clinton admin amounted to nothing, so investigations which could be politically motivated shouldn't count, but certainly convictions/deals should.

10550. thoughtful - 1/20/2006 4:50:47 PM

In fact it was the fact that reagan managed to keep from getting tarnished despite his troubled administration that led pat schroeder to call him the teflon president...nothing stuck to him. So truly he was a great communicator.

Proof that when it comes to the american electorate words speak louder than actions...a little thing that w has been playing on mightly. Vow supporting the troops while cutting vet benefits; stand in the ruins of the WTC and declare aid to NYC and then welch on the deal; make multiple trips to NO promising the biggest rebuilding effort in history and then give no funds or leadership so actual rebuilding can proceed, Mission Accomplished banners despite escalating US dead and wounded soldiers in Iraq, and so on.

10551. concerned - 1/20/2006 4:52:46 PM

Only a handful of those were part of the Reagan administration. And which orifice was that '138' figure decomposed out of? What garbage.

10552. concerned - 1/20/2006 4:54:15 PM

To suggest that only one person in the Xlowntoon administration was ever investigated is a lie meant for gullible idiots.

10553. thoughtful - 1/20/2006 5:00:29 PM

con'd, do you even read what I write? I've already commented on it that her numbers are screwy.

Granted more were investigated in the wjc admin, but how many were convicted? A lot of those investigations including the cisneros case were politically motivated and led to dead ends. Not so in reagan's administration and a lot of those were fairly senior people...Nofziger, Deaver, Watt, Poindexter, McFarlane...

10554. jayackroyd - 1/20/2006 5:03:50 PM

Reagan "ran a very transparent and honest administration."

Well I screwed that post up if you thought that's what I meant. Clinton ran a very transparent and honest administration. He's the only president in my memories whose budget estimates were not considerably more optimistic than the CBOs.

10555. thoughtful - 1/20/2006 5:06:46 PM

Here apparently is the source of the 138:

In his 1991 book "Sleepwalking Through History: America in the Reagan Years," journalist Haynes Johnson came up with an unflattering statistic: "By the end of his term, 138 Reagan administration officials had been convicted, had been indicted, or had been the subject of official investigations for official misconduct and/or criminal violations."

And of course since w pulled the plug on releasing presidential records, we'll have to wait for a genuinely open administration to come in to find out the full extent of the rot that permeated the reagan administration.

10556. concerned - 1/20/2006 5:08:44 PM

Here's some balanced numbers from prorev.com as compared to the embarrassing garbage you cited.

RECORDS SET

- The only president ever impeached on grounds of personal malfeasance
- Most number of convictions and guilty pleas by friends and associates*
- Most number of cabinet officials to come under criminal investigation
- Most number of witnesses to flee country or refuse to testify
- Most number of witnesses to die suddenly
- First president sued for sexual harassment.
- First president accused of rape.
- First first lady to come under criminal investigation
- Largest criminal plea agreement in an illegal campaign contribution case
- First president to establish a legal defense fund.
- First president to be held in contempt of court
- Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions
- Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions from abroad
- First president disbarred from the US Supreme Court and a state court

* According to our best information, 40 government officials were indicted or convicted in the wake of Watergate. A reader computes that there was a total of 31 Reagan era convictions, including 14 because of Iran-Contra and 16 in the Department of Housing & Urban Development scandal. 47 individuals and businesses associated with the Clinton machine were convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes with 33 of these occurring during the Clinton administration itself. There were in addition 61 indictments or misdemeanor charges. 14 persons were imprisoned. A key difference between the Clinton story and earlier ones was the number of criminals with whom he was associated before entering the White House.

Using a far looser standard that included resignations, David R. Simon and D. Stanley Eitzen in Elite Deviance, say that 138 appointees of the Reagan administration either resigned under an ethical cloud or were criminally indicted. Curiously Haynes Johnson uses the same figure but with a different standard in "Sleep-Walking Through History: America in the Reagan Years: "By the end of his term, 138 administration officials had been convicted, had been indicted, or had been the subject of official investigations for official misconduct and/or criminal violations. In terms of number of officials involved, the record of his administration was the worst ever."


STARR-RAY INVESTIGATION

- Number of Starr-Ray investigation convictions or guilty pleas (including one governor, one associate attorney general and two Clinton business partners): 14
- Number of Clinton Cabinet members who came under criminal investigation: 5
- Number of Reagan cabinet members who came under criminal investigation: 4
- Number of top officials jailed in the Teapot Dome Scandal: 3

CRIME STATS

- Number of individuals and businesses associated with the Clinton machine who have been convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes: 47
- Number of these convictions during Clinton's presidency: 33
- Number of indictments/misdemeanor charges: 61
- Number of congressional witnesses who have pleaded the Fifth Amendment, fled the country to avoid testifying, or (in the case of foreign witnesses) refused to be interviewed: 122

SMALTZ INVESTIGATION

- Guilty pleas and convictions obtained by Donald Smaltz in cases involving charges of bribery and fraud against former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy and associated individuals and businesses: 15
- Acquitted or overturned cases (including Espy): 6
- Fines and penalties assessed: $11.5 million
- Amount Tyson Food paid in fines and court costs: $6 million

CLINTON MACHINE CRIMES
FOR WHICH CONVICTIONS
HAVE BEEN OBTAINED

Drug trafficking (3), racketeering, extortion, bribery (4), tax evasion, kickbacks, embezzlement (2), fraud (12), conspiracy (5), fraudulent loans, illegal gifts (1), illegal campaign contributions (5), money laundering (6), perjury, obstruction of justice.

OTHER MATTERS INVESTIGATED BY SPECIAL PROSECUTORS
AND CONGRESS, OR REPORTED IN THE MEDIA

Bank and mail fraud, violations of campaign finance laws, illegal foreign campaign funding, improper exports of sensitive technology, physical violence and threats of violence, solicitation of perjury, intimidation of witnesses, bribery of witnesses, attempted intimidation of prosecutors, perjury before congressional committees, lying in statements to federal investigators and regulatory officials, flight of witnesses, obstruction of justice, bribery of cabinet members, real estate fraud, tax fraud, drug trafficking, failure to investigate drug trafficking, bribery of state officials, use of state police for personal purposes, exchange of promotions or benefits for sexual favors, using state police to provide false court testimony, laundering of drug money through a state agency, false reports by medical examiners and others investigating suspicious deaths, the firing of the RTC and FBI director when these agencies were investigating Clinton and his associates, failure to conduct autopsies in suspicious deaths, providing jobs in return for silence by witnesses, drug abuse, improper acquisition and use of 900 FBI files, improper futures trading, murder, sexual abuse of employees, false testimony before a federal judge, shredding of documents, withholding and concealment of subpoenaed documents, fabricated charges against (and improper firing of) White House employees, inviting drug traffickers, foreign agents and participants in organized crime to the White House.

ARKANSAS ALTZHEIMER'S

Number of times that Clinton figures who testified in court or before Congress said that they didn't remember, didn't know, or something similar.

Bill Kennedy 116
Harold Ickes 148
Ricki Seidman 160
Bruce Lindsey 161
Bill Burton 191
Mark Gearan 221
Mack McLarty 233
Neil Egglseston 250
Hillary Clinton 250
John Podesta 264
Jennifer O'Connor 343
Dwight Holton 348
Patsy Thomasson 420
Jeff Eller 697

10557. thoughtful - 1/20/2006 5:08:47 PM

oh sorry jay...i reread the post and realized i misread.
my apologies, though it did lead me to dig up some interesting stuff on reagan admin.

10558. concerned - 1/20/2006 5:13:47 PM

Rationally speaking, the 138 Reagan figure was principally resignations unrelated to any investigation or indictment.

10559. concerned - 1/20/2006 5:15:51 PM

That was in the heyday of MSM allegations consisting of nothing more than the writer's biased perception of 'an appearance of impropriety'. Instant 'ethical cloud' in six column inches of the NYT.

10560. thoughtful - 1/20/2006 5:19:08 PM

con'd the stats posted in your cite are even more screwed up as they are arbitrarily including 'business assoc.' and 'friends' the definitions of which can be extended to both horizons in either direction. That makes no sense.

As I said before, investigations shouldn't count as they can be politically motivated. However convictions or deals should. Theoretically so should pardonings as there is a presumption of guilt in order to be worthy of a pardon. And it should be limited to those who were convicted of crimes in office to be an apples to apples comparison.

And as far as the can't/don't remembers, that's also a function of the number of investigations which mean nothing and make no allowance for the idiocy of the questions being asked, esp since it can easily be skewed by those who were excused from or refused to be sworn prior to testifying as in the case of w/cheney during the 9/11 hearings or the energy ceos who spoke to congress not under oath.

So as far as I can tell, we still don't have any good numbers here.

10561. PelleNilsson - 1/20/2006 5:25:24 PM

Don't forget that concerned is a centrist and impartial observer.

10562. thoughtful - 1/20/2006 5:38:54 PM

oh absolutely! So long as one sets the midpoint on Dick Cheney.

10563. concerned - 1/20/2006 8:04:33 PM

Re. 10560 -

Criticize as you might, they're still necessarily better than your cite's figures, as I explained.

10564. jayackroyd - 1/20/2006 9:43:20 PM

No worries thoughtful. In my view it's the burden of the writer to be clear, and I wasn't.

concerned--your list is an obviously exaggerated, overblown collection of side issues.

But what gets me is that it doesn't seem to me that this administration has addressed, effectively, any of the issues on the conservative agenda other than the projection of American military force into the mideast. And, in that regard, it has done so poorly. What do you find, I dunno, admirable about this administration? What have they accomplished?

There's one thing I'll take off the table. The very rapid, very effective, very efficient elimination of the Taliban in Afghanistan unquestionably made Americans safer and advanced the interests of American values in the world. But, other than that, what do you have?

10565. jexster - 1/20/2006 11:19:31 PM

Afghanistan's Still On the Table...It is just forgotten and Spring is coming

Last June Bush told Blair that more British troops were needed in Afghanistan - "on the brink of strategic disaster"

No improvement since - Afghan rebels are beginning to pick up on Iraq insurgent tactics. And it isn't even spring fighting season


Sure Osama has no base of ops to speak of but there are plenty of training opportunities and safe areas there, in Iraq, in Pakistan, in Chechnya, in Uzebekistan, in Lebanon, in Germany, France, Britain, the US ...

10566. jexster - 1/20/2006 11:28:55 PM

Bill Kennedy 116
Harold Ickes 148
Ricki Seidman 160
Bruce Lindsey 161
Bill Burton 191
Mark Gearan 221
Mack McLarty 233
Neil Egglseston 250
Hillary Clinton 250
John Podesta 264
Jennifer O'Connor 343
Dwight Holton 348
Patsy Thomasson 420
Jeff Eller 697

Perhaps if Starr and the GOP Congress hadn't wasted the taxpayer's money on a 7 year fishing expedition that yielded NOTHING...the witnesses might have remembered more


If the GOP Congress were a fraction as zealous in executive branch oversight ...

10567. jexster - 1/21/2006 12:05:03 AM

The only president ever impeached on grounds of personal malfeasance


That's what you call the cigar up the twat?

10568. wonkers2 - 1/21/2006 12:34:10 AM

Jay, got news for you. The Taliban hasn't been eliminated from Afghanistan.

10569. concerned - 1/21/2006 2:14:57 AM

Re. 10566 -

It's called a 'coverup' by the Xlowntoonians, rejexst. 14 or so Starr convictions='nothing'? Over 100 people leaving the country to avoid subpoenas and indictments='nothing'?

You're about the only person on the face of the earth who would think that.

10570. jexster - 1/21/2006 3:51:48 AM

Espy and Cisneros - they weren't Ray-Starr prosecutions

MacDougalls - you gotta be kidding.

Who else?

And who are those 100 folks on the lamm?

Just for starters.


GIGO

As far as the 14 who left the country"

10571. thoughtful - 1/21/2006 12:34:49 PM

Listening to cspan this am with the dem hearings on the wiretapping issue. Some very good and powerful points made, most of which have already been made. But one atty made a very interesting observation. w&co are proclaiming that they needed secret warrantless wiretaps so al qaeda didn't know they were listening. Well al qaeda has known the US has been listening for years. This is not news to them. In fact they've gotten very sophisticated in making sure their communications were nonelectronic or cleverly disguised for years, even before 9/11. Besides which, does al qaeda give a rat's tail about whether the listeners have warrants or not? Of course not. It is meaningless to them. So then exactly from whom must these secrets be protected? Who is it they don't want knowing they're listening? Who would care whether the feds have probable cause and a right to invade privacy? Exactly. The American people.

10572. jexster - 1/21/2006 3:43:39 PM

Abramoff Funnels Funny Chinese Money to GOP

10573. jexster - 1/21/2006 7:07:26 PM

Republicans or the Mafia: Making Sense of Today's GOP

10574. jexster - 1/21/2006 7:09:42 PM

Thoughtful check out

Fear of spying
Democratic strategists say opposing Bush on NSA spying makes the party look weak. Of course, that's what they said about Iraq.

10575. wonkers2 - 1/21/2006 7:55:21 PM

I agree with Joe Klein and Elaine Kamarck who want a party with balls.

10576. robertjayb - 1/22/2006 1:32:00 AM

Florida official tests Diebold vote machines: They failed...

(WaPo)---As the Leon County supervisor of elections, Ion Sancho's job is to make sure voting is free of fraud. But the most brazen effort lately to manipulate election results in this Florida locality was carried out by Sancho himself.

Four times over the past year Sancho told computer specialists to break in to his voting system. And on all four occasions they did, changing results with what the specialists described as relatively unsophisticated hacking techniques. To Sancho, the results showed the vulnerability of voting equipment manufactured by Ohio-based Diebold Election Systems, which is used by Leon County and many other jurisdictions around the country.

10577. concerned - 1/22/2006 2:58:18 AM

Re. 10576 -

We already know how anti-democracy Lefties, particularly those in Florida, are good at subverting and messing up the electoral process. They shouldn't be pointing fingers at others.

10578. jexster - 1/22/2006 3:09:43 AM

I think we had that discussion five years ago.

Anything new TD?
How was Hajj?

10579. jayackroyd - 1/22/2006 2:57:08 PM

concerned--

I don't see how anybody can possibly make any case for the way these voting machines are designed. Slot machines have a better audit trail. How can you possibly justify having an electronic voting machine that doesn't have an audit trail or a backup system for recording votes? What possible motive can there be for this obviously flawed design? If you think that anybody has rigged elections, you should be all for methods that make it difficult, not easy.

10580. jayackroyd - 1/22/2006 3:47:23 PM

Brad Delong has me in stitches again with ubergeek humor. The post is reference to one of the earliest computer games, Adventure, which was an entirely text based (80 column green screen written for Unix) affair. The game consisted of a maze with monsters and prizes in it, and you interacted by using key words.

10581. robertjayb - 1/22/2006 4:08:17 PM

The New Fascism," by Wm. Rivers Pitt...(Truthout)

This new fascism is not fed only by lies, though to be sure the lies are there in preposterous abundance. This new fascism is fed by myths, our myths, the myths by which we rock ourselves to sleep. This new fascism is in truth an elemental fascism, reborn today by a confluence of events; the diligent work of the few, in combination with the passivity of the many, have brought forth this new order.

10582. PelleNilsson - 1/22/2006 4:16:14 PM

Very funny, jay. I remember that game. I used to play it on my Osborne Executive in Amman, Jordan in 1984-85.

10583. jayackroyd - 1/22/2006 4:16:20 PM

thanks for that rjb. But there's something in it that I've been finding profoundly disturbing recently. I've been radicalized by this administration, as I've already said. But I'm finding it increasingly difficult to talk about it. If you don't follow the news closely, you don't realize what is going on. I was reading that piece and nodding my head--but because the idea of the president subverting the constitution in putting himself above the law is unthinkable, it sounds loony to say so. It sounded loony to say that the president would enter into a war of choice under false pretenses. I find the stuff Delay and Bush have done jaw-dropping in their brazenness. But in that very brazenness they've paradoxically acquired cover. People don't believe they would do precisely what they've done.

10584. arkymalarky - 1/22/2006 5:14:28 PM

I played Zork, which is a similar game, for years. Just a little dos program, but fascinating. I showed it to the kids last year and they were hooked for a while. But now the solution is online, and they ev entually did like I did--but I had to wait about ten years--gave up and did the walkthru. I felt guilty when a student would come up to me and say "I played Zork until 4am last night!"

10585. arkymalarky - 1/22/2006 5:19:02 PM

the diligent work of the few, in combination with the passivity of the many, have brought forth this new order.

This frightening truth becomes quickly apparent when you work on one issue, on the state level, and keep running into the same few names--national names and big money groups--over and over and over, behind the scenes just like K Street, not just influencing, but helping construct legislation, spending money on important politicians, etc. When Clinton was governor this was beginning in AR with the Good Suit Club. Some of the same names there are deeply involved in policy pushing today.

10586. arkymalarky - 1/22/2006 5:23:15 PM

I think we're in the most dangerous time for our system in history. The trends are so insidious, so profound, so pervasive, and so subversive, anyone who tries to put dots together is accused of wearing a tinfoil hat, and people who would normally oppose what's happening but aren't sharp enough or informed enough to connect the dots end up supporting things that perpetuate and increase the problem. Kennedy's support of NCLB and vouchers is a good example. He doesn't know enough about those issues to know how what he's done in the name of working in a bipartisan way to advance public education is robbing poor children of universal, good quality, free public education.

10587. arkymalarky - 1/22/2006 5:31:40 PM

A bit on the Good Suit Club, as though it's a great thing for AR.

It hasn't been, but its members have had a tremendous influence on the direction AR has taken educationally and economically with more punitive legislation, less local involvement in public schools, and terrific inequities, with the richest districts in the state concentrated where most of these businessmen's businesses are located--in northwest AR. I and a few others have been railing about this for years, but the one state newspaper is owned by a conservative supporter of these folks, and the "liberal" AR media, while good at exposing individual incidents and shenanigans, is completely clueless wrt the big picture. And liberal Democrats in the state can be very hostile toward the rural poor in AR, who they believe don't know what's good for them and that punitive legislation is just what poorly performing schools need. The Republicans play on that and act like they support simple values that conservative rural people support, so in a way--a significant way--they let liberal Democrat elitists do their dirty work for them, sorta like flushing quail.

10588. arkymalarky - 1/22/2006 5:41:32 PM

Back in Time, before Jack Abramoff

10589. jexster - 1/22/2006 11:09:32 PM

Yes indeed Arky these are parlous times and no time for wussie Democrats.

SOTU Democrats: Get Up and Walk Out

10590. jexster - 1/23/2006 12:17:09 AM

Bushie - UR Doin a Heck of a Job

Iraqi Cleric: Militia Would Defend Iran AP

10591. arkymalarky - 1/23/2006 12:24:28 AM

Crap. Don't know what happened to my post.

My main point was that Democrats need to be the voice of reason, not simply of opposition.

10592. wonkers2 - 1/23/2006 1:43:34 AM

Yes, but they need to be bold enough to say so when they believe reason is on their side without always keeping one eye on the polls.

10593. wonkers2 - 1/23/2006 2:13:10 AM

Public Citizen for which my esteemed nephew works just fired up a new website which may be worth a look. They have been working on the Abramoff scandal for a year or so. Cleanupwashington.org.

10594. wonkers2 - 1/23/2006 2:22:51 AM

I've invited my nephew to become a Motie, but he hasn't yet signed on. However,I have to be careful with such invitations. Can you believe that my young, impudent and frequently disrespectful brother who lurks and occasionally posts, at a family wedding recently, attempted outrageously to out W2 as the infamous Cap'n Dirty?

10595. jexster - 1/23/2006 4:17:06 AM

Damn right Wonk...like they got a pair (no offese Arky)

10596. jexster - 1/23/2006 4:20:42 AM

10594...

May I recommend Risperidone?

10597. jexster - 1/23/2006 4:57:20 AM

Quote of the Day

You know, Osama bin Laden is going to die of kidney failure before he's killed by Karl Rove and his crowd

John Kerry

10598. jayackroyd - 1/23/2006 6:51:42 AM

I think we're in the most dangerous time for our system in history. The trends are so insidious, so profound, so pervasive, and so subversive, anyone who tries to put dots together is accused of wearing a tinfoil hat

Yeah, arky, that's precisely my point. What they're doing is so egregrious that pointing it out makes you sound like a nut. It's beyond belief they'd do what they're doing, but nonetheless...

10599. jayackroyd - 1/23/2006 7:13:39 AM

Molly Ivins sings out.

What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people think the war in Iraq is a mistake and we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) favor raising the minimum wage. The majority (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) want to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.
The majority (77 percent) think we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) think big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. Whom are you afraid of?

10600. thoughtful - 1/23/2006 10:30:02 AM

This google thing is really frightening. Govt wants a week's worth of searches on google plus a million web sites, all in the name of fighting child porn. Yahoo and MS have already complied with the subpoena. Google is resisting and challenging the law in court.

This is frightening stuff. Just as we get the SC loaded with people who see no right to privacy...

The Justice Department has asked a federal judge to compel Google, the Internet search giant, to turn over records on millions of its users' search queries as part of the government's effort to uphold an online pornography law.

Google has been refusing the request since a subpoena was first issued last August, even as three of its competitors agreed to provide information, according to court documents made public this week. Google asserts that the request is unnecessary, overly broad, would be onerous to comply with, would jeopardize its trade secrets and could expose identifying information about its users...

In addition to records of a week of search queries, which could amount to billions of search terms, the Google subpoena seeks a random list of a million Web addresses in its index....

The government's move in the Google case, however, is different in its aims. Rather than seeking data on individuals, it says it is trying to establish a profile of Internet use that will help it defend the Child Online Protection Act, a 1998 law that would impose tough criminal penalties on individuals whose Web sites carried material deemed harmful to minors.

So how does someone classify material harmful to minors? Would a site that allows use of the f word count? Would sites that inform teens of contraceptive choices be deemed harmful? Would sites that disagree with the w's position on the war in iraq be deemed harmful?

Absolutely frightening.

10601. thoughtful - 1/23/2006 10:30:45 AM

Sorry toys.

The italics should've ended before "So how does..."

10602. thoughtful - 1/23/2006 10:31:39 AM

Oh wait a minute...it's jay's toys!

Italics should've started with "The Justice Dept"

10603. wonkers2 - 1/23/2006 10:33:06 AM

Cap'n Dirty sez, "Yeah, Wonkers even worries about the missus accessin' his Google searches!"

10604. thoughtful - 1/23/2006 10:46:05 AM

More depressing news: frank rich is taking a leave for a few months to write a book. I'll miss my weekly dose of sensibility.

At the same time, froomkin has disappeared. He says he's taking family leave for the birth of their child, but for those of us more conspiratorially minded, this comes on the heels of the admin's threats against wapo because of what froomkin has been writing...

I report, you decide!

10605. jayackroyd - 1/23/2006 10:46:09 AM

But the real question is why they're doing it. What are they looking for? Who are they looking for?

10606. wonkers2 - 1/23/2006 11:04:58 AM

Democracy in America, Then and Now, a Struggle Against Majority Tyranny--Toqueville is Especially Relevant Today. Adam Cohen.

10607. thoughtful - 1/23/2006 11:34:37 AM

Well it certainly can't be that they're looking for child porn...I mean aren't the federal agents capable of doing their own google searches to find it?

And if you aren't identifying individuals, how can you establish a profile? I mean don't you need to ID a child porn guy and then look at his web history to see where he's gone to hook up with sites and other participants?

The whole thing is nonsense on its face.

The whole thing smacks of Red Chinese-style govt if I'm less charitable...if I'm more charitable, it smacks of watergate and a desire to peer into dem activities.

But that latter makes no sense as the dems haven't even gotten their act together enough that the gopers should even care....a party without a plan or a strategy.

Where is the gop libertarian wing on all of this???

10608. wonkers2 - 1/23/2006 11:46:56 AM

Lawrence Tribe on the potential long-term effect of widespread domestic spying:

"The more people grow accustomed to a listening environment in which the ear of Big Brother is assumed to be behind every wall, behind every email, and invisibly present in every electronic communication, telephone or otherwise--that is the kind of society, as people grow accustomed to it, in which you can end up being boiled to death without ever noticing that the water is getting hotter, degree by degree.

"The background assumptions of privacy will be gradually eroded to the point where we'll wake up one day, or our children will, and it will seem quaint that people at one time, long ago, thought that they could speak in candor."

Quoted by Bob Herbert NYT 1-23-06

10609. thoughtful - 1/23/2006 12:08:39 PM

Well even the threat of having the govt listening has a chilling effect, which is of course exactly what they want to accomplish. Same thing with threats against the wapo and other w dissenters. Keeping them self-policing is far more effective than trying to do it through actual enforcement.

10610. wonkers2 - 1/23/2006 12:24:50 PM

"Where is the GOP libertarian wing on this?"

Good question. The only one I recall speaking out is former Congressman Bob Barr.

10611. jayackroyd - 1/23/2006 12:33:25 PM

It is absolutely clear that none of the conservative principles republicans talked about when out of power were the least bit sincerely held. The only thing that we have any evidence they care about is looting the treasury. Here's today's example.

10612. jexster - 1/23/2006 2:48:57 PM

Cole at UCLA on Jihadist Terror


Even at their peak of support, Jihadist groups are fringe elements within societies, Cole said. During the question period, he rejected the notion of a so-called U.S. global war on terror springing from, in political scientist Samuel P. Huntington's phrase, a clash of civilizations. Certainly, he said, Jihadist groups and the very different regimes in Syria and Iran do not add up to an enemy for so sweeping a conflict.

"The whole thing is a mirage," he said. "Basically, I think the Washington power elite lost their bugbear when the Soviet Union fell, and the only way they could convince us to let them tax us to spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on military things and to throw all this money to their cronies and to take away our civil liberties is if there's a powerful external enemy."

Cole charged that the federal government had taken advantage of the attacks of 9/11 to raise the specter of "this lurking, menacing civilization out there that's throwing up these threats to the United States."


He debates Larry Diamond today

10613. jexster - 1/23/2006 2:59:52 PM

Jason Leopold | Fitzgerald Eyes Plame-Niger Conspiracy

State Department officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because some of the information they discussed is still classified, indicated that the White House had substantial motive for revealing undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to reporters.

10614. jexster - 1/23/2006 4:05:33 PM

Now why do you think Bush failed to follow thru on his promise to shitcan those involved in the PlameGame?

Target Iraq Action Group:

1. Karl Rove
2 Karen Hughes
3. Condimima Rice
4. Mary Matalin,
5. James Wilkinson,
6. Nicholas Calio
7. Stephen Hadley
8. Lewis "Scooter" Libby


8 very good reasons

10615. jexster - 1/23/2006 4:05:34 PM

Now why do you think Bush failed to follow thru on his promise to shitcan those involved in the PlameGame?

Target Iraq Action Group:

1. Karl Rove
2 Karen Hughes
3. Condimima Rice
4. Mary Matalin,
5. James Wilkinson,
6. Nicholas Calio
7. Stephen Hadley
8. Lewis "Scooter" Libby


8 very good reasons

10616. thoughtful - 1/23/2006 4:41:56 PM

Rove Lays out the roadmap

Funniest thing I've read lately:

Mr. Rove called for civility in politics in his speech to the Republican National Committee, and then for 26 minutes offered a lacerating attack on Democrats that other Republicans said was a road map for how the party would deal with a tough electoral environment as it battled to retain control of both houses of Congress.

More importantly, major chords they plan to strike:

"And he left little doubt that in 2006 - as in both nationwide elections since the Sept. 11 attacks - he was intent on making national security the pre-eminent issue."

Alderman, i think, was on imus this a.m. making the point that dems failed to challenge gopers standing on the security issue. All they needed to do was harp on "where's osama" but they failed to take even that simple step.

But even at that, they still need to lay out a positive plan of action, but they haven't. As it was then and will be next election, it isn't enough to be anti-bush...you have to be FOR something.

And right now, the line up is looking as detestable as it has since 2000. If they had any brains at all, they'd try to recruit colin powell.

10617. jexster - 1/23/2006 5:23:22 PM

The Kriminal Karl told Republicans to Run on IraQ, raising the question "Can Republicans run in a vacuum?"

The answer is in Lies

10618. jayackroyd - 1/23/2006 5:24:57 PM

The trouble is that the remedies that would actually work don't play well as theatre. The complete absence of a republic interest in policy permits them to construct narrative themes that are coherent and focus-grouped. They aren't impeded by the need to actually accomplish thing. Their reliance on fictionalize narrative can only be countered with a different narrative. The one they've chosen, the manly president defending the nation from a looming threat, plays very well on television. It sound bites well, and because it is contentless, it's easy to keep on message.

It also works because people really don't want to believe that the president would, say, purposely, set up a medicare drug plan that isn't intended to effectively get drugs to old people. They don't want to believe that Iraq was invaded in order to frame that narrative--that the war was cynically started for political purposes, in order to win the 04 election. The brazenness, the lying in plain site works paradoxically as a shield--they couldn't possibly be just making this stuff up. There has to some grain of truth there.

There isn't--and that's a mind-numbing thing if you don't play close attention.

10619. jayackroyd - 1/23/2006 5:42:41 PM

A software security expert hacks a diebold voting machine with a "five line Visual Basic program."

10620. judithathome - 1/23/2006 6:10:31 PM

Man, Bush sounds like he is off his meds in today's political ops speech! Anyone catch it?

10621. thoughtful - 1/23/2006 6:22:31 PM

somehow, jay, I suspect that if we had a rove-clone but on the left, he'd cleverly figure out how to portray the gopers as bumbling, ineffective incompetence....just like they made hay out of pics of w at 9/11, they'd make hay out of pics of w at new orleans...that heckuva job brownie. They'd run back door smear campaigns about cheney's daugher being gay, w's girls being drunks, and laura bush being the master of the white house to w's 'girlie man'. They'd run clips about compassionate conservatives showing the increase in the poverty rate, all the programs that have been cut while feeding the rich dogs more tax cuts. They'd run ads with seniors in desperate needs of their meds dealing with pharmacists who tell them they're not covered. They'd run ads of families talking about how they bought their son/daughter kevlar vests in the hope they'd return home alive from iraq. They'd run wild with ads on how the gop represents the biggest threat to civil liberty since the british.

Actually, come to think of it, they'd not even have to resort to lies! The gopers have certainly given them enough material to work with.

10622. thoughtful - 1/23/2006 6:27:41 PM

Tierney's oped was very upsetting. About how the gopers don't want doctor assisted suicide, but they also don't want terminal people getting pain meds. Seems the dea is going after docs who most frequently prescribe opiates simply by number, with no reference to what the patients need. So docs who deal regularly with patients who are terminal or in chronic pain who naturally need to prescribe these meds most frequently in the largest doses aren't able to.

Nice show of compassion there.

10623. Max Macks - 1/23/2006 6:27:44 PM

Bush says he does not remember meeting Abramoff

. oh wait those many photos of the two together.

Bush , "Where is Karl?"

10624. thoughtful - 1/23/2006 6:32:15 PM

I smell a rat....a rovian rat.

How much you want to make a bet that rove is behind these so-called pics of bush/abramoff? Another Dan Rather letter moment...get the press worked up about it, get them to leak it to some news outlet, preferably a leftie one, and then have the pics completely discredited as faked.

Possible.

Very possible.

10625. thoughtful - 1/23/2006 7:17:22 PM

I have to admire the gop for playing the politics game like chess masters. They've gotten all the pieces moving in their favor. But it's starting, just starting to catch up with them.

From today's wapo:

The Justice Department's voting section, a small and usually obscure unit that enforces the Voting Rights Act and other federal election laws, has been thrust into the center of a growing debate over recent departures and controversial decisions in the Civil Rights Division as a whole.

Many current and former lawyers in the section charge that senior officials have exerted undue political influence in many of the sensitive voting-rights cases the unit handles. Most of the department's major voting-related actions over the past five years have been beneficial to the GOP, they say, including two in Georgia, one in Mississippi and a Texas redistricting plan orchestrated by Rep. Tom DeLay (R) in 2003.

The section also has lost about a third of its three dozen lawyers over the past nine months. Those who remain have been barred from offering recommendations in major voting-rights cases and have little input in the section's decisions on hiring and policy.

10626. robertjayb - 1/23/2006 7:18:12 PM

Bush's criminal domestic spying on Americans scheme is now the Terrorist Surveillance Program.

Thought you would like to know.

Feel better now?

10627. jexster - 1/23/2006 7:36:26 PM

For me the most curious aspect of the current debate is the fact that the Administration and NSA would have us believe that the program was target limited and at times so limited that it didn;t even transgress the clear FISA ban on warrantless domestic surveillance.

And they ask us to take it on faith. From that bunch of liars, that is chutzpah



From Your Mouth to Cheney's Ears

In the months before 9/11, thousands of American citizens were inadvertently swept up in wiretaps, had their emails monitored, and were being watched as they surfed the Internet by spies at the super-secret National Security Agency, former NSA and counterterrorism officials said

10628. robertjayb - 1/23/2006 7:36:31 PM

A standard bushie response to concerns about the spying-on-civilians scheme is to assert that if it had been in place prior to 9/11 the highjackers would have been detected.

But our feckless leaders ignored and/or thwarted all manner of clues to the attack including a flat statement in the president's daily briefing.

Maybe if Bush stayed home and read his mail...

10629. arkymalarky - 1/23/2006 7:59:51 PM

Message # 10592 has no relevance to what I said. If you think jerking loudly far left will help the Democrats win, as opposed to strongly and confidently standing for reason and not allowing illegal activities of this administration to stand unanswered--bringing the roaches to light, they will lose as readily as they have for being spineless.

Part of the problem Democrats have is that their strategy is nonexistent, and so is their leadership. Leadership isn't yelling, it isn't Harry Belafonte, it isn't Michael Moore, any more than it's Lieberman or Kerry. I can't name a good Democratic leader offhand. It damn sure isn't Clinton--either one of them. Gore, maybe. A few are beginning to stand out, but it's too early to tell how much they'll do over the next few months to pull the party behind a clear, strong, decisive, and reasoned message. Obama and a tiny handful of others are working on it, but they aren't getting nearly the press the windbags in the Alito hearings and Hillary are getting.

10630. concerned - 1/23/2006 8:04:34 PM

Oh, come on, arky - give the guy a break. Can't you see how he is holding true to LW canons?

10631. arkymalarky - 1/23/2006 8:14:45 PM

Con'd, this country's principles are on the line here. It's imperative that Democrats regain control of at least one house, and if they don't start playing like a team instead of scattering all over the whole damn field, we're all going to lose, no matter what our party persuasion. The Democrats remind me of that Monty Python skit on the history of the Olympics--the race for people with no sense of direction.

10632. robertjayb - 1/23/2006 9:02:00 PM

Ronnie keeps on coming...

Washington (AP) - A former campaign manager of Rep. Tom DeLay who also ran an organization linked to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff was subpoenaed by a Texas prosecutor Monday. Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle filed documents in Austin seeking records from Robert G. Mills in connection with a probe of DeLay, who is awaiting trial in Texas on money laundering charges.

Earle wants information about a $500,000 political contribution made in 1999 by the National Republican Congressional Committee to the U.S. Family Network, a now-disbanded nonprofit advocacy group for conservative ideas. Mills, DeLay's 1996 campaign manager, was president of the U.S. Family Network.

The Washington Post reported that donations to U.S. Family Network came from clients of Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty to federal charges in a congressional corruption investigation.

10633. wonkers2 - 1/23/2006 9:03:06 PM

Arky, let's get specific. What do you think the strong, decisive and reasoned message" should be?

For example, (1) Confirmation of Alito--should they hit harder on his record and character or meekly accept his confirmation as a fait acompli?

(2)What about NSA spying? Should they strongly point out that it violates the FISA Act and the 4th? Amendment or should they bow to the polls which seem to say that most Americans either aren't alarmed about the snooping or even want it to continue in the interest of security?

(2)Should they quit talking about a rational single-payer universal health care system or meekly bow to the inevitable that it's a lost cause politically.

(3) Lobbying abuses--Should the Dems press hard on this issue or soft-pedal it and accept the White House position that both parties are infected by the corruption which isn't so bad anyway?

(4) On Iraq, should the Dems point out that Bush's first strike security policy and invasion of Iraq were a mistake which left the U.S. less secure than before or should they echo Bush's "we're not going to cut and run" statements?

Please go back and re-read your posts which are not very specific in there recommendations.

10634. arkymalarky - 1/23/2006 9:18:14 PM

I never meant to be specific. I'm talking about approach, tone, and strategy. Anyone with principles can stand firmly against Bush's actions wrt anything in that list. If you don't know how I feel about those things, then you haven't been paying attention to my posts since Bush took office. What his administration has done and continues to do to this country turns my stomach. Every day something else--like his Q&A in Kansas today, for instance--makes me upset and angry at the lies and the abuse of power and at the lack of a free media to address it fairly and at the lack of Democrats to stand and expose what's happening.

We can't depend on a "free" press and internet activists to turn things around. When you've got Chris Matthews comparing Michael Moore to Osama bin Laden, you'd best hang up using the press OR Michael Moore to get truth out to the people. It takes leadership to stand on principles effectively and wrench control away from this Corporate Coup that is eating up the Constitution; and if the Democrats can't figure out how to do that, the entire country loses--even the ones who think they're winning.

10635. arkymalarky - 1/23/2006 9:20:19 PM

You're also using the Republican tactic of creating every issue as an either/or. Or you for privacy or terrorism? Are you for bankrupt Social Security or private accounts? Are you for no drug program for seniors or one that is a gimme for pharmaceuticals?

10636. arkymalarky - 1/23/2006 9:21:11 PM

Are you for privacy...

10637. arkymalarky - 1/23/2006 9:25:06 PM

Molly Ivins has it right. The polls on the major issues aren't a problem for the Democrats. Their spineless waffling and their tendency to allow the opposition to define them rather than insisting on defining themselves, in addition to their lack of confidence in dealing with the far left are all contributing to their failures. They act like losers when they aren't, and the Republicans act like winners when they aren't. As long as that situation continues, Republicans will continue to win.

10638. Max Macks - 1/23/2006 9:31:47 PM

10629

Yes that describes the situation as I see it also, arky.

Early on the Dems got conned by Rove and the GOP
in to thinking that if they opposed Bush they would
be "unpatriotic"..and they never seemed to recover
until the John Murtha speech about " a failed policy
wrapped in illusion"...his them like a slap on the side
of the head.

10639. arkymalarky - 1/23/2006 9:38:34 PM

I think you're right Max.

And while I'm at it, I don't oppose Harry Belafonte or Michael Moore, though I don't agree with all they say. I'm listening to Harry Belafonte right now on CNN, and I'm glad he's getting a chance to elaborate on what he's said, even though I don't go as far as he does. But they have nothing to do with what the Democratic Party should be doing, any more than Pat Robertson has anything to do with what the Republican Party is doing (regardless of what he and his opponents may believe about his influence).

10640. arkymalarky - 1/23/2006 9:41:49 PM

To me, Murtha is a perfect example of what's wrong with the Democratic Party. When what's-her-drip got booed down, and rightly so, from the podium after trying to use a dubious quote to call Murtha a coward, the Democratic leadership should have kept the light and heat on that much longer than they did. Instead, it flamed up for a few days and was forgotten. Her actions should not be forgotten. They should be used, along with so many other things her Republican colleagues have done, as CONSTANT, UNFLAGGING REMINDERS of what we've got as an excuse for a government right now.

10641. jexster - 1/23/2006 11:19:27 PM

UR right..although I did perk up at "Murtha's the problem" Jay...these numbnuts, as Molly points out, have been given every opportunity on a golden friggin platter...Bush's best shot is as ever, the feckless opposition

10642. jexster - 1/23/2006 11:23:01 PM

Odom's Attack on Bush's Empire

10643. arkymalarky - 1/24/2006 12:30:24 AM

Another ingenious Rovian Effect, wrt the Kansas event, is having Bush do something any politician or other public figure with two brain cells to rub together should be able to do, and make it seem special and impromptu, even though the people who came had to have a ticket to get in.

The media treats something this basic as though it were as newsworthy as a talking chimp. He's been so isolated and inaccessible that it's actually good publicity for him to appear in front of "real" people and answer unscripted questions from a controlled audience.

10644. wonkers2 - 1/24/2006 12:55:07 AM

Seems to me, if you don't like what the Dems are saying, it's incumbent on you to say what it is you don't like that they are saying and what you think they should be saying. Personally, I am repelled by Hillary Clinton's me too position on Iraq an her creep toward the middle of the road on other issues. She's looking even more like Kerry in his election campaign. On the other hand, everybody jumps on Dean nearly every time he opens his mouth. The pundits treat the whole thing like a game of gotcha and who's scoring PR points rather than who's right on the merits of the issues.

10645. jexster - 1/24/2006 1:05:54 AM

Right on Wonk..or RU Wonk's nephew?

10646. jexster - 1/24/2006 1:06:23 AM

10647. jexster - 1/24/2006 1:09:04 AM

Hillary Clinton War Godess

First she divided the country
Now she's dividing the Party

10648. arkymalarky - 1/24/2006 1:11:04 AM

You still don't get it, and unfortunately many liberal Democrats don't, including those I've worked with personally. And I am a liberal Democrat--very much so. But AS PARTY LEADERS, I may agree with the message, but their delivery is often cringe-worthy and marginalizing, and most importantly, ineffective. You can't get anywhere whining about what pundits do. You have to adjust to the existing environment, not delude yourself in thinking you can bend it to your will with the force of truth.

I never said I didn't agree with the people who've been speaking out, or even whether they should speak out. They should. We're talking about Party Leadership, and in that case it's not about the message, it's about the delivery and the messenger. We know what we see when we look at the Republican Party, but most people see an affable guy who seems ok, if not great. When you are trying to persuade a majority of people to go along with you, you have to target a majority audience. As a Party, Republicans understand that. Democrats don't.

Again, it is not what anyone is saying, it's the fact that there is ZERO party leadership getting a good, simple, unified, winning message out. Until they learn to do that, they will continue to lose. It isn't enough simply to be right. Take the DNC chair. I agree with most of what Howard Dean says, but for the success of the Party it would have been much better if Donna Brazile hadn't dropped out of the running for that job.

The fact is, it is a PR gotcha game and it always has been to one degree or another. Democrats can't continue to bring a knife to a gunfight. If Democrats AS A PARTY are going to stand on principle without doing it effectively they are going to lose, and in doing so they fail the very principles they claim to uphold.

10649. arkymalarky - 1/24/2006 1:21:28 AM

I've done a lot of work with politicians and government the last three years or so, and the people I've worked with are probably the most diverse in the state--statewide, biracial, bipartisan. I am very good with some things. PR is not one of them. My Republican counterpart is much better at that. I may feel that I am on the side of right and should work directly with people and committees to get things done, but it would not be wise for the causes I support to try to use me in that capacity. I was even told by a national advocate that I needed to learn how to do that. But this is not a controlled study, it's real life and real issues, and I don't care to risk them while I'm honing my people skills. I can do panel discussions, interviews, editorials, etc, but I do not work well with individuals or as a spokesperson.

To me, this is simply common sense. Put the people in the jobs who can do them best and look at the whole picture of politics. It's not just about issues. It's about way more than that, even though issues and how they're addressed are the most important. That's why it's crucial that any organization put its supporters in those positions where they will do the most good. Democrats, imo, have not done that in a very long time. Clinton won two terms in spite of the Democratic Party, not because of them.

10650. jexster - 1/24/2006 1:23:24 AM

If the Democrats AS A PARTY are going to stand on principle


Still waiting. We'll cross the effectiveness bridge when we get to it.

10651. jexster - 1/24/2006 1:24:26 AM

To be fair though about Murtha. Harry Reid mentioned him just last week in a big Lehrer interview..the only news show I watch with any regularity

10652. arkymalarky - 1/24/2006 1:30:21 AM

But Jex, it ain't Fox. You're just preachin' to the choir with Lehrer.

I like Harry Reid a lot, and I do think he's where he needs to be. I really liked Tom Daschle, but I think Reid is much more effective.

10653. arkymalarky - 1/24/2006 1:32:09 AM

And btw, it's the job of the Party to put people where they'll be most effective. It's Democratic strategists who mainly suck, imo. I find myself--in my more tinfoil moments--wondering if they're actually Republican plants.

10654. arkymalarky - 1/24/2006 1:33:27 AM

That's an excellent ACLU ad.

10655. jexster - 1/24/2006 6:35:21 AM

Heck of a Job Bushie
White House Was Told Hurricane Posed Danger

WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 - The White House was told in the hours before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans that the city would probably soon be inundated with floodwater, forcing the long-term relocation of hundreds of thousands of people, documents to be released Tuesday by Senate investigators show.

They were told about Osama too. I guess if it isn't in a slogan it don't exist.

10656. robertjayb - 1/24/2006 11:44:40 AM

Bushies may seek to change law they haven't been breaking...

WASHINGTON - (Hearst Newspapers) - President Bush and the nation's No. 2 intelligence official on Monday defended "targeted" post-9/11 domestic spying without court approval, amid hints that the White House may ask Congress for a green light to continue the wiretaps.

Bush said he had constitutional and congressional authority to order the National Security Agency to carry out secret surveillance on two-way international communications between individuals in the U.S., including American citizens, and suspected al-Qaida operatives overseas.

Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, deputy director of national intelligence, said NSA eavesdropping was not "a drift net" ensnaring innocent international communications by ordinary Americans.

But in a potential U-turn by the Bush administration, Hayden, White House senior counselor Dan Bartlett and White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan cracked the door for the first time to the White House asking Congress to revise the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to accommodate "hot pursuit" of fleeting communications by suspected members of al-Qaida -- the ones that are now being targeted by the NSA program without court approval.

10657. thoughtful - 1/24/2006 11:54:36 AM

Nice bunch of posts, arky.

10658. wonkers2 - 1/24/2006 12:37:55 PM

IMO the Dems on the Judiciary Committee did a credible job of exposing what we are getting with Alito. Here's today's editorial from the Detroit Free Press opposing his confirmation. The NYT had a very good editorial yesterday opposing his confirmation. And Patrick Leahy has been speaking out with conviction on the NSA spying issue. Here.

10659. wonkers2 - 1/24/2006 12:45:53 PM

Further, in my opinion, John Edwards is the most convincing spokesman of potential Dem Presidential candidates. His experience in jury trials has equipped him well for speaking out convincingly.

10660. jexster - 1/24/2006 2:01:16 PM

Progress in EyeRak?

Why that's what Georgie says, and Georgie's doin a heck of a job.

Iraqi guerrilla groups attacked US and other targets 34,000 times in 2005, up 30% from the year before. The number of roadside bombs deployed nearly doubled to over 10,000, and the number of casualties was up. Any way you measure it, these statistics indicate that the US has failed miserably in counter-insurgency efforts in Iraq.

Iraqi professionals are fleeing the country, which makes the prospect of rebuilding even dimmer.

A preliminary inspector general report on the US reconstruction effort in Iraq finds it plagued by poor planning and poor implementation, according to the NYT.

US contractors are pulling out of Iraq, as the funds for reconstruction dry up.

10661. jayackroyd - 1/24/2006 4:33:56 PM

Harry Reid steps up.

10662. jayackroyd - 1/24/2006 4:46:07 PM

Digby makes an interesting point:


I know one person who should be very worried about this now that the NSA has revealed that this is not a random program: Grover Norquist. Needless to day, his "leave us alone" coalition should be supportive of a check on executive power and against warrantless wiretaps on principle alone. But Norquist also happens to be married to a Muslim, had contacts with the Taliban going way back and spent considerable time cultivating the Muslim community in the US as a Republican voting block. He is the prime example of an American who the government could find it "reasonable" to monitor without a warrant.

10663. thoughtful - 1/24/2006 5:43:21 PM

Reid's pitch is a nice summary. dems will eat it up, gopers will dis it.

But the question is, he talks about some positive proposals the dems have made, but I, who try to keep up on these things probably more than the average american, hadn't heard of one of them.

Why aren't they making hay of such things? Why aren't they doing as the gopers did when the dems were in control, talk about the obstructionists preventing things like genuine reform, rational energy security, etc etc get passed?

10664. jayackroyd - 1/24/2006 6:08:20 PM

I honestly don't believe they are reported on. Because they have no prayer of being legislated, and because they aren't allowed onto the floor, they don't get reported on.

Remember, we're operating in an environment whether the senate majority leader thinks it's just fine to confirm a Supreme Court justice without a debate.

10665. wonkers2 - 1/24/2006 7:15:30 PM

There was a straight party-line vote on Alito in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

10666. thoughtful - 1/24/2006 7:44:21 PM

c'mon jay, that may be true, but certainly pelosi manages to get air time as do other dems...why aren't they calling press conferences to say, this is what we proposed but were unable to get a hearing on and so on.

They are being criticized by the right and the left that all they are is bush-bashers and have no plan. Well, if they have a plan, let's hear it!

Wasn't it FDR, and i'm paraphrasing liberally, who said don't even mention your opponent....why give him the free air time?

10667. wonkers2 - 1/24/2006 7:44:28 PM

I wonder if Bush and Abramoff were fully clothed in the pictures of them together in the White House which the Administration refuses to release??

10668. thoughtful - 1/24/2006 7:46:02 PM

but i remember even when how. dean was on the daily show and here the favorably inclined jon stewart was asking him, begging him to tell him some positive things the dems would do if they were in charge now and dean offered up nothing...only went back to what bush is doing wrong.

they tried to run on that last time and failed. they MUST do better if they expect to win.

10669. concerned - 1/24/2006 8:10:20 PM

Re. 10659 -

John Edwards - Have Ambulance, will chase.

10670. concerned - 1/24/2006 8:24:53 PM

Re. 10668 -

thoughtful -

Jay's blatant partisan bias used to bother me a bit, because of its somewhat spurious veneer of rationality. But, basically, he more than holds his own compared to most Republican haters.

10671. judithathome - 1/24/2006 8:46:50 PM

John Edwards - Have Ambulance, will chase.

Bush: Have Power, Will Wiretap.

Bush: Have Power, Will Declare War

10672. wonkers2 - 1/24/2006 8:54:11 PM

The skills of a good trial lawyer preparation and an accurate sense of what arguments will best sway a jury are quite useful for a politician. John Edwards is a good trial lawyer and a skilled politician.

10673. robertjayb - 1/24/2006 10:05:34 PM

Distrust of NSA has roots in '70s...(CSMonitor)

If nothing else, the {current} uproar is adding another chapter to the history of an arm of the government that has been derided and lauded by turns ever since the US government first publicly acknowledged its existence.

In the 1970s, for instance, the NSA drew intense criticism for its role in spying on critics of the Vietnam War and other political opponents of the Nixon administration.

10674. concerned - 1/24/2006 10:57:00 PM

I don't want to help you Lefties out too much right at this point in time, but the possibility does exist for you to find a way against the Republicans without losing your identity. Part of your problem is that you currently don't have a real identity that cuts across your constituent groups.


I've already probably said too much.

10675. arkymalarky - 1/25/2006 1:37:52 AM

Thanks Thoughtful!

Part of your problem is that you currently don't have a real identity that cuts across your constituent groups.

By jove, Con'd, I think you've got it!

10676. judithathome - 1/25/2006 1:38:27 AM

Nah...it's probably true. We don't have an identity...unlike Republicans who do...an identity which contradicts everything it says. The party of unity...with about half a dozen ethnic members; the party of small government...which has created the largest governmental monster in history; the party of fiscal responsibility...which has run up the largest deficit in history; the party of values....which has none.

Yeah, we could really use your help, Con.

10677. arkymalarky - 1/25/2006 1:41:01 AM

John Edwards. Have compassion, will advocate for the voiceless.

10678. concerned - 1/25/2006 2:45:58 AM

Re. 10676 -

So I take it you're solidly in the 'Vote for our guy - at least he's not a Republican' camp.

10679. concerned - 1/25/2006 2:47:40 AM

Only, for president, it might be a gal - iac, Hilliary is acting like she's already the Democrat candidate.

10680. judithathome - 1/25/2006 3:17:00 AM

Ha! You wish!!

10681. concerned - 1/25/2006 3:24:23 AM

Leahy, Jeffords Linked to Abramoff

In 2002, Leahy received a $1,000 campaign donation from the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe, according to FEC records. The tribe was one of Abramoff’s more lucrative clients. By contrast, top Democrats and Republicans in the Senate received campaign contributions of $10,000 or more from the tribe in recent years.

However, the Guardian has found that Leahy has also received thousands of dollars from attorneys at Preston, Gates, Ellis, Meeds and Rouvelas, and Greenberg Traurig, the two high-powered legal firms where Abramoff hung his hat.

The two most distinguished names that appear on these contribution lists are those of Edward “Eddie” Ayoob, a former top aide to current Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, and Michael D. Smith, a high-powered lobbyist. Both Ayoob and Smith have been connected to Abramoff’s allegedly wide-ranging scheme to buy influence for select tribes. Smith, another Democratic fundraiser like Ayoob, along with former Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-ND, have been linked to Abramoff for their work on behalf of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe of Massachusetts, who were seeking federal recognition.

Ayoob donated $250 to Leahy’s campaign in October 2003, and Smith donated $250 to a joint fundraiser hosted by Leahy and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-WA, in December 2003.

The two firms employ hundreds of lawyers, and often develop close ties with senators from both political parties. Abramoff worked at the Seattle-based Preston Gates Ellis from 1993 to 2000. In 2001, he joined Greenberg Traurig, headquartered in Miami, where he remained until his resignation in 2005.

Aside from Ayoob and Smith, Leahy also received $1,500 from Emanuel “Manny” Rouvellas, of Preston Gates Ellis Meeds and Rouvellas, during Abramoff’s tenure at the firm.

Michael Ernst, an attorney at Greenberg Traurig, donated $500 each to Leahy and Jeffords during Abramoffís tenure with that firm — first to Leahy in April 2002 and then to Jeffords in July 2004.

“This is Abramoff money and this is just an example of the utter hypocrisy that this issue only affects Republicans; Pat Leahy is an Abramoff Democrat.”

Barnett said Leahy and Abramoff may “personally have different political philosophies, but when it comes to the clients he’s paid to work for, the influence peddling has no partisan divide.”

In addition to the donations cited above, a number of other donations from members of those firms to Leahy and Jeffords came at a time when Abramoff was not directly lobbying for those clients or working at the law firm in question, according to an analysis of FEC records by the Guardian.

Likewise, other than the $500 listed above from an attorney who worked with Abramoff at Greenberg Traurig, Jeffords, an independent, has even weaker links to the uber-lobbyist. However, at one point, Jeffords did receive $1,000 donations from Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, in 1999 and 2000, at a time when Preston Gates & Ellist listed Abramoff as one of the lobbyists working on behalf of the rail operator.

However, that doesn’t mean that his campaign donations haven’t received some scrutiny from national Republicans.

A list circulated by Republicans placed Jeffords’ donations from Abramoff-connected clients at $4,000. However, $3,000 of that amount came from employees at Mallinkrodt and Tyco International as part of a joint employee-run PAC. Mallinkrodt was bought out by Tyco several years after the money hit Jeffords’ campaign account in 1999 and 2000. Abramoff worked for Tyco as a lobbyist in 2003.

10682. concerned - 1/25/2006 4:19:47 AM

Order your own Ann Coulter Poster Now Before They Sell Out!

10683. alistairconnor - 1/25/2006 6:55:23 AM

Gee, you can buy influence in Washington for $250, Con? I think I'll buy me a senator.

10684. judithathome - 1/25/2006 10:08:07 AM

In addition to the donations cited above, a number of other donations from members of those firms to Leahy and Jeffords came at a time when Abramoff was not directly lobbying for those clients or working at the law firm in question, according to an analysis of FEC records by the Guardian.

This looks serious...a law firm donates money to politicians when Abramoff wasn't working for them and...wait fo it!....they do the same thing when he was!! Oh my god...call for the special prosecutor!

However, that doesn’t mean that his campaign donations haven’t received some scrutiny from national Republicans.

Oh my...why am I not surprised?

10685. jayackroyd - 1/25/2006 10:10:35 AM

Let's see, chairman of the Vermont Republican (a qualification concerned saw not fit to excerpt) says that legal contributions from Democratic lobbyists is "Abramoff money." Doesn't pass the smell test, concerned. And if you're gonna include quotations from partisans involved in spread this ridiculously false meme, it would only be fair to quote the partisans who are trying to knock it down:

“Jack Abramoff has been a top Republican operative, a favored Republican lobbyist, and a Bush campaign ‘Pioneer’ who plied his trade deep in the heart of the Republican inner circle,” said Ed Pagano, Leahy’s chief of staff. “He and Sen. Leahy are poles apart in their politics and in every other way, and it shouldn’t surprise anyone that, despite Mr. Abramoff’s prodigious campaign contributions, he did not cross paths with Sen. Leahy. It’s preposterous to even think that Jack Abramoff would do anything to support a progressive Democratic leader like Patrick Leahy.”

“You’d have a hard time trying to find any link between Jack Abramoff and Senator Jeffords,” said Diane Derby, Jeffords’ spokeswoman.

10686. RickNelson - 1/25/2006 10:18:57 AM

Clients associated with Abram-hoffa does not constitute influence peddling.

If your precious guardian and you insinuate that Dems have done wrong by way of association, then you all severly disingenuous.

10687. jayackroyd - 1/25/2006 10:37:40 AM

Oh, it's influence peddling all right. The legal contribution sysem is designed to peddle access and influence. These folks wouldn't pay if they didn't gain access and influence from doing so. There are obvious ways to stop it, involving making the definition of a "bribe" clearer. The fact that Delay, Abramoff and the other folks who are involved couldn't even stay within the law, which is pretty damned lax, is pretty damned damning.

Paul Begala and James Carville have a proposal:

1) Raise congressional salaries to $400,000
2) Ban all gifts to incumbents.
3) Fund the incumbent campaighs with taxpayer money on an 80% match basis to contributions made to opponents (not an incumbent, they can accept contributions) with no limits on contributions.

I still like my plan better--anonymous contributions, bundled up on a monthly basis by the FEC.

10688. RickNelson - 1/25/2006 11:08:50 AM

I think you've nitpicked a tiny bit, but by definintion you're correct.

However, the real influence peddling, that crosses the line and becomes investigated, includes the use of exhorbitant gifts. Larger sums, trips, repeated pressure for a vote which includes a promised gift, and the like.

I do not believe that it's literal influence peddling to give money to Dems who are part of your legislative district and to help that campaign, as a way of showing support. Defining support could be a slippery slope, as gift giving is.

I agree that no contirbutions or an absolute cap of $100.00 per term, absolute transparency of all income outside of sallary and no tax payer money toward elections!

10689. jayackroyd - 1/25/2006 11:12:01 AM

But most of the giving is directed by special interests to people on the committees that serve those interests.

10690. jexster - 1/25/2006 11:27:01 AM

The NYT reports on the massive fraud and misuse by US government personnel of funds supposedly dedicated to rebuilding in Iraq. What with the charges against DeLay and the "Abramoff and his 30 Republicans" scandal, the Republican Party kleptocracy appears to have practiced its graft on both sides of the Atlantic Cole

10691. thoughtful - 1/25/2006 11:30:33 AM

I like the anonymous contributions thing but I would add something else which is a cap on campaign spending. I'd also like to see a time limit on campaigning as they do in the UK...i believe it's 3 weeks.

The sc has ruled it violates free speech to prevent donors from donating, but since there are many rules around elections, I don't think there could be a problem with limiting spending.

I'm not a fan of putting public money to finance campaigns...these jokers get enough money without subsidizing them further.

10692. wonkers2 - 1/25/2006 12:07:29 PM

Maureen Dowd rips the Dems today for not ripping the Republicans.

10693. jexster - 1/25/2006 12:28:49 PM

Icon of Disaster: U.S. Army Stretched to the Breaking Point

10694. judithathome - 1/25/2006 4:48:27 PM

Bush The Incompetent

Incompetence is not one of the seven deadly sins, and it's hardly the worst attribute that can be ascribed to George W. Bush. But it is this president's defining attribute. Historians, looking back at the hash that his administration has made of his war in Iraq, his response to Hurricane Katrina and his Medicare drug plan, will have to grapple with how one president could so cosmically botch so many big things -- particularly when most of them were the president's own initiatives.

In numbing profusion, the newspapers are filled with litanies of screw-ups. Yesterday's New York Times brought news of the first official assessment of our reconstruction efforts in Iraq, in which the government's special inspector general depicted a policy beset, as Times reporter James Glanz put it, "by gross understaffing, a lack of technical expertise, bureaucratic infighting [and] secrecy." At one point, rebuilding efforts were divided, bewilderingly and counterproductively, between the Army Corps of Engineers and, for projects involving water, the Navy. That's when you'd think a president would make clear in no uncertain terms that bureaucratic turf battles would not be allowed to impede Iraq's reconstruction. But then, the president had no guiding vision for how to rebuild Iraq -- indeed, he went to war believing that such an undertaking really wouldn't require much in the way of American treasure and American lives.

It's the president's prescription drug plan (Medicare Part D), though, that is his most mind-boggling failure. As was not the case in Iraq or with Katrina, it hasn't had to overcome the opposition of man or nature. Pharmacists are not resisting the program; seniors are not planting car bombs to impede it (not yet, anyway). But in what must be an unforeseen development, people are trying to get their medications covered under the program. Apparently, this is a contingency for which the administration was not prepared, as it has been singularly unable to get its own program up and running.

Initially, Part D's biggest glitch seemed to be the difficulty that seniors encountered in selecting a plan. But since Part D took effect on Jan. 1, the most acute problem has been the plan's failure to cover the 6.2 million low-income seniors whose medications had been covered by Medicaid. On New Year's Day, the new law shifted these people's coverage to private insurers. And all hell broke loose.

Pharmacists found that the insurers didn't have the seniors' names in their systems, or charged them far in excess of what the new law stipulated -- and what the seniors could afford. In California fully 20 percent of the state's 1.1 million elderly Medicaid recipients had their coverage denied. The state had to step in to pick up the tab for their medications. California has appropriated $150 million for the medications, and estimates that it will be out of pocket more than $900 million by 2008-09. Before Jan. 1 the Bush administration had told California that it would save roughly $120 million a year once Part D was in effect.

California's experience is hardly unique. To date at least 25 states and the District have had to defray the costs to seniors that Part D was supposed to cover. What's truly stunning about this tale is that, while officials may not have known how many non-indigent seniors would sign up of their own accord, they always knew that these 6.2 million seniors would be shifted into the plan on the first day of the year. There were absolutely no surprises, and yet administration officials weren't even remotely prepared.

10695. jexster - 1/25/2006 8:58:04 PM

Of the two rights discussed thus far, freedom of speech and freedom from arbitrary search and seizure, the latter is fundamentally more important to human beings’ maintaining a status above that of mere hive animals. This is not intended in any way to disparage the desirability and necessity of free speech. But there are practical circumstances when free speech is not exercised by reasonable people – due to reticence, shame, or its merely being not worth the effort. Or when one is married.


Werther Report: Assualt on the Bill of Rights

10696. jexster - 1/25/2006 9:30:12 PM

Warriors and Wusses

10697. jexster - 1/25/2006 9:39:08 PM

10694

Medicare Drug Bill Tied to Abramoff

In a letter to Speaker Hastert, Democratic Leader Pelosi, Democratic Whip Hoyer, and Ranking Member Waxman ask for a congressional investigation into the role played by the Alexander Strategy Group, a lobbying firm closely linked to Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff, in the passage of the Medicare Prescription Drug Act and the drafting of the budget reconciliation bill currently before the Congress.

10698. judithathome - 1/25/2006 9:47:37 PM

Oh, Jex....that sounds interesting!

10699. jayackroyd - 1/26/2006 12:01:52 AM

thoughtful

Daou makes my point about media reporting better than I could.

10700. jexster - 1/26/2006 12:50:57 AM

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012506Y.shtml target=new>They Know They Broke the Law

Bush and the boys have taken to the road this week to defend the indefensible. To wit: spying on American citizens without a warrant is fine and dandy, because the President can do whatever he wants, because laws are meaningless in the main, because Osama may be under your bed sharpening his cutlass. The road trip started in Kansas and will wend its way hither and yon, spreading bad information and flat-out lies at every whistle-stop

And so does my Senator, Sen DiFi

10701. jexster - 1/26/2006 12:52:37 AM

How about a working link Working Link

And Espy was convicted of what TD?

10702. jexster - 1/26/2006 12:53:58 AM

They Know They Broke the Law

10703. robertjayb - 1/26/2006 2:48:28 AM

Bushies rejected surveillance scheme in '02...(WaPo)

The Bush administration rejected a 2002 Senate proposal that would have made it easier for FBI agents to obtain surveillance warrants in terrorism cases, concluding that the system was working well and that it would likely be unconstitutional to lower the legal standard.
.................................................

Democrats and national security law experts who oppose the NSA program say the Justice Department's opposition to the DeWine legislation seriously undermines arguments by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and others, who have said the NSA spying is constitutional and that surveillance warrants are often too cumbersome to obtain.

So many lies. It's hard to keep them straight.

10704. jayackroyd - 1/26/2006 10:30:57 AM

Of course they know they broke the law. Their current line of defense is that they are allowed to break the law. If Glenn Greenwald's summary of their last (42 page singlespaced, so I haven't tried to read it) line of defense is correct, they're claiming the right to break any law.


(1) It is now beyond dispute that the Administration is claiming that George Bush has the right to order any activity or action on the part of the Government -- including against American citizens and even if it transgresses the limitations of the law -- as long as the President simply claims that such actions are necessary to protect America against terrorists. According to the Administration, then, neither the law, nor the courts, nor Congress, nor anything else, can interfere with, limit or even review the President's powers.

10705. jayackroyd - 1/26/2006 10:32:59 AM

And, from jexster link to truthout, their defense is unspeakably lame:

Gen. Hayden: No, actually - the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure. That's what it says.

Landay: But the measure is probable cause, I believe.

Gen. Hayden: The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.

Landay: But does it not say probable ---

Gen. Hayden: No. The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.

It's come to this--reporters, in order to push back on this, have to carry around a copy of the Constitution.

10706. thoughtful - 1/26/2006 10:48:36 AM

Jay interesting article...2 comments.

How much of the lack of 24/7 "should bush be impeached" is because the MSM is now owned by conservative corporations?

How much of the success of the gopers to push the storyline is because it has a grain of truth? No one in the gop forced kerry to come up with "I voted against it before I voted for it." I knew kerry was done for as soon as he opened his mouth at the grand canyon saying he supported the war. Kerry was a flip flopper. As begala pointed out, the dems couldn't even make simple hay by proclaiming "where's osama" at every chance...you know darn well that if the gopers were out and a dem pres was in and the situation was identical, they'd certainly make hay out of that!

10707. jayackroyd - 1/26/2006 11:53:50 AM

Every storyline has a grain of truth. There's no shortage of fractured syntax of Bush's that could be pounded upon. Moreover, the central point that Kerry made so inartfully was true. He voted against a version of the bill that was worse than the one he did vote for. That's how the senate works. He didn't flip flop on this issue.

An honest media would have, for example, discussed the contrast between Kerry's vote and Bush's flip-flop on Homeland Security. An honest media would have reran Bush saying that he was going to demand a vote by the Security Council regardless of the "whip count" and then pulled it off the table.

Democrats certainly could do a better job of framing this. But Harry Reid did a good job of framing the current situation. Did that run on the front page of the NYT.

We're in a freakin' constitutional crisis. They should be covering this non-stop, and certainly not repeating republican talking points with noting that they are palpably false.

10708. thoughtful - 1/26/2006 11:56:07 AM

Would someone please tell me what country we live in? From today's WSJ oped by Andy Grove ex ceo of intel on the proposed sensenbreenr-king bill which has passed the house:

This bill scares me....because it has the potential of turning neighbor against neighbor -- and of chaging our country into a place of fear and mistrust.

The bill contains a provision punishing anyone who "assists, [or] encourages...a person who...lacks lawful authority to remain in the United States" to remain here. Punishment: 3 to 20 years in prison, the same meted out to professional smugglers..."

10709. jayackroyd - 1/26/2006 12:25:47 PM

Well, that's my "I live in the Soviet Union" moment for today.

10710. thoughtful - 1/26/2006 12:45:28 PM

But there's a reason why they are so apt to repeat the goper talking lines...they have a ring of truth and are catchy.

I've said for a long time that the dems really need pat schroeder back again...she could right great, easily repeatable tag lines.

10711. jayackroyd - 1/26/2006 12:57:30 PM

Funny typo.

10712. jexster - 1/26/2006 12:59:39 PM

The Greatest Strategic Disaster in US History

10713. thoughtful - 1/26/2006 1:03:21 PM

oops...brain stores synonyms next to each other and the wrong one (wan, won) often slips out

10714. thoughtful - 1/26/2006 1:05:30 PM

oh dear...i mean homonyms!

10715. jexster - 1/26/2006 1:56:57 PM

Bush Optimistic About Palestinian Elections - 50 minutes ago

10716. jexster - 1/26/2006 3:03:16 PM

Bush says he don't want a new law...


> Congress Shut Down Spy Program in 2003

10717. jexster - 1/27/2006 1:22:07 AM

The thing I love about democracy is that it let's you see the soul of the people GWB'


Just like Pooty Poot!

Palestine - Hamas
Egypt - Muslim Brotherhood
IraQ - SCIRI/Dawa/Mahdi Army

Doin a heck of a job Georgie.

10718. jexster - 1/27/2006 1:45:47 AM

Well duh

Is democracy empowering Islamists? at Christian Science Monitor,

10719. wonkers2 - 1/27/2006 2:29:20 PM

Kennedy and Kerry have announced a filibuster. Move-on is already out with an email urging calls to senators. W2 has called Levin and Stabenow. Stabenow's office says she's supporting the filibuster.

10720. wonkers2 - 1/27/2006 2:29:41 PM

CALL YOUR SENATORS NOW!!

10721. wonkers2 - 1/27/2006 2:33:08 PM

I known a fair number of people like Alioto--smart, hard-working, ambitious, respectful of authority and convention and willing to do whatever it takes to rise above their origins.

10722. jayackroyd - 1/27/2006 2:38:35 PM

Rinse and repeat. From Mercury Rising. His poll numbers on trustworthiness are tanking:


Whenever Bush opens his mouth on any subject, your Standard Response should be: "He's lied to us on Iraq, he's lied to us on Social Security, he's lied to us on terrorism, he's lied to us on why he's broken the law to wiretap honest American churchgoing Christian Quakers. What makes you think he's telling the truth now?"

10723. jexster - 1/27/2006 3:47:36 PM

Obstruction of Justice...

Abramaoff Prosecutor Resigns: Bush Appointeee to Federal Bench

10724. jexster - 1/27/2006 3:52:17 PM

Damn Jay that's a tough political nut to crack - how to frame..mmm..mm...lemmme cogitate


Lies and Incompetence
Incompetence and Lies




Bush is a Lying Incompetent

10725. judithathome - 1/27/2006 6:12:23 PM

I'm going to a "Stop Corruption In Congress" petiton signing and protest on Sunday.

10726. jexster - 1/28/2006 8:16:30 AM

These are very desperate people Judith


Bush Claims Broad New Powers
Washington Times

10727. jayackroyd - 1/28/2006 11:32:18 AM

There's some indication in the leftie blogosphere that the filibuster is gaining momentum. Hilary and DiFi have signed on. I expect they've been getting some phone calls. Hilary got an email from me, for what little that's worth.

If you're not gonna use the filibuster on Alito, what are you gonna use it on? You've got a "pro-choice" republican senator up for re-election. You've got a guy in a purple state up for re-election and in trouble. If not now, when?

10728. jexster - 1/28/2006 3:03:38 PM

Pentagon: Internet Is 'Enemy Weapons System'

10729. jexster - 1/28/2006 3:05:05 PM

Damn DiFi announced that she was opposed...a week ago or so.

I guess I better call...not real thrilled about getting clotured the day before SOTU but it is better than getting confirmed on Tuesday without a visible fight.

10730. arkymalarky - 1/28/2006 3:07:36 PM

Mark Pryor, one of the Fourteen, is voting against Alito, but I don't know if he's going to try to filibuster. I will be surprised if Blanche Lincoln votes for him, but I haven't heard about her intent.

My concern about the filibuster is that they'll use it, Frist will call for the nuclear option, one of the current justices will retire, and Bush will appoint Bork or someone similar and there will be no chance of blocking it.

10731. jexster - 1/28/2006 3:16:28 PM

There's no need for the nuclear option unless they've enough votes which they probably don't

A free vote

10732. arkymalarky - 1/28/2006 3:25:03 PM

That's right, which means it's only sensible for Democrats to support a filibuster if it's supported by their constituents. If they're running for president it might not be a good idea, but since I think Both Hillary and Kerry would be bad choices for the Democratic nomination in '08, I'm fine with them going for it.

10733. robertjayb - 1/28/2006 3:35:59 PM

Blanche Lincoln will oppose Alito, she said Wednesday.

10734. alistairConnor - 1/28/2006 4:19:25 PM

Your principled pragmatism is taking a Machiavellian tinge Arky...

10735. alistairConnor - 1/28/2006 4:23:01 PM

But you're right. These are desperate times.

"Conducting war is a responsibility in the executive branch, not the legislative branch"
[...]
Mr. Bush acknowledged that "there will be a legal debate about whether or not I have the authority to do this," but added, "I'm absolutely convinced I do. And I'm going to continue using my authority."

When was war declared?

I understand that only Congress can declare war?

10736. jayackroyd - 1/28/2006 5:00:04 PM

John Yoo says, in his book on this very question, that the declaration of war thing doesn't mean that Congress actually has the power to declare war. It only has the power to acknowledge it through a declaration. He, an originalist, claims that the only way that Congress can regulate the president's war powers is cut funding.

With a straight face, and at great length, he writes this. John Yoo, of course, is the guy wrote the "it's okay to torture people" memo.

10737. jayackroyd - 1/28/2006 5:02:04 PM

Damn DiFi announced that she was opposed...a week ago or so.

She flipped. The pressure is working. There's a mini-war room over at DailyKos with fax numbers with all undecideds and a running whip count. Apparently emailboxes are full already.

10738. arkymalarky - 1/28/2006 5:22:37 PM

Thanks Robert. I had no doubt she would vote against him, since Mark Pryor is more conservative and he's voting no, but I hadn't heard anything specific.

Alistair, it's no good to stand on principle when strategy is required to win. Our principles have been flushed by the opposition for years now--even during Clinton's administration--and we have to play smarter if we really believe in the importance of what we say we value.

Speaking of which, Shrum really seems weak in that regard to be a Democratic strategist. Again, I like him fine, but I can't imagine him being very effective in that capacity. I have liked what Paul Begala has suggested wrt strategy.

A local Democrat published a nice, heartfelt, open letter right after the Democratic loss in '04 that went into some national labor network, I believe--I don't remember. He was genuinely devastated that Democrats had lost and the essay was a written examination of how that could be, considering the values Democrats support. The saddest part is, I've worked with the guy and I know why there's such a lack of success in many of the Democratic trenches both locally and nationally. Part of it is a condescension and patronizing air that they don't even realize they have with average people. Part of it is a strange disconnect from the politicians and insiders they're trying to influence. No one--and I mean no one--takes them seriously.

I tell my students that it may not seem fair, but grades are not always about how hard working or passionate you are. They're about how efficiently you accomplish what you set out to do. They all get it when I ask them to raise their hands if they've ever found they've worked very hard to pass a class while a classmate seems to breeze through it with an A.

At the same time, Democrats have too long seemed uncertain of themselves and what they stand for, and no one will vote for that. Clinton may not have seemed to have the courage of his convictions on many things, and he compromised on issues that most Democrats didn't feel should be compromised. But he never, for one minute in his political career, lacked confidence in himself personally, and it's obvious every time he opens his mouth that he's still very proud of himself and his performance as president. It bugs the hell out of me, but a self-recriminating, vascillating leader makes people feel insecure, and if they can--rightly or wrongly--tag one as inconfident or shifting in his positions, he's done for.

10739. jayackroyd - 1/28/2006 6:40:13 PM

Well, I think a large part of the democratic leadership's problem is they thing Clinton's centrism is what led to his success, or so they're trying to imitate it. But they have two problems--first, he picked off all the good issues but one, health care and second, they don't have his charisma and leadership abilities. The republican slime machine worked full speed for eight years, but through sheer force of personality he rose above it.

He also accomplished things. I think that matters most of all. And, you know, this all republican government has accomplished nothing--they're in negative numbers. And for all the talk of the strength of the republicans and the weakness of the democrats, the president is polling in the low 40s with much bad news on the horizon and a no win situation in Iraq.

10740. jexster - 1/28/2006 6:42:57 PM

OOOOPS lied again


2003 Draft Legislation Covered Eavesdropping

Legislation drafted by Justice Department lawyers in 2003 to strengthen the USA Patriot Act would have provided legal backing for several aspects of the administration's warrantless eavesdropping program. But officials said yesterday that was not the intent.

Most lawmakers and the public were not aware at the time that President Bush had already issued a secret order allowing the National Security Agency to intercept international calls involving U.S. citizens and legal residents.

10741. arkymalarky - 1/28/2006 7:22:37 PM

I totally agree with you, Jay.

10742. concerned - 1/29/2006 4:40:42 AM

Bush to propose trimming Army Reserve

Should be an interesting SOTU Address. How much is allowed to the DOE might determine whether I keep my current job.

10743. jayackroyd - 1/29/2006 4:59:11 AM

There they go again. The article says they're cutting back to the current levels:

Under the plan, the authorized troop strength of the Army Reserve would drop from 205,000 — the current number of slots it is allowed — to 188,000, the actual number of soldiers it had at the end of 2005. Because of recruiting and other problems, the Army Reserve has been unable to fill its ranks to its authorized level.

Poof. There go those embarassing stories about plummeting recruitment numbers. They're just gonna give up on recruiting. Is there anything at all they do, at least since Afghanistan that has a policy rather than a political basis?

10744. concerned - 1/29/2006 5:54:03 AM

These are efforts to balance the budget that would have been hailed by most in the Mote if the president was a Democrat. GWB could just as easily have keep the numberic goals the same and boosted incentives, but that would have taken significantly more financial outlay.

10745. concerned - 1/29/2006 5:55:21 AM

...numeric....

10746. concerned - 1/29/2006 5:58:03 AM

Besides, just look at this as a further sign of a GWB commitment to start pulling out of Iraq:)

10747. jayackroyd - 1/29/2006 10:35:49 AM

Do you actually believe this stuff concerned? That they've identified the highest priority area to reduce the deficit to be the Reserves, and they happen to have decided to set the reserve force at the current levels?

I guess I agree that there is some incentive they could have used to make their recruiting levels, but isn't that a distinction without a difference? They couldn't make their recruiting goals, so they're redeclaring the current level as their goal. That's what's going on.

10748. jexster - 1/29/2006 12:37:44 PM

Concerned was talking about multi-year committments and democratic revolution not six months ago.

Check International

He's a good Republican. He makes this shit up

10749. jexster - 1/29/2006 12:40:02 PM

Withrawal

The deteriorating security situation in Iraq is driving the country's physicians, lawyers and businessmen out of the country. There's a metric for Mr. Rumsfeld-- when the white collar professionals flee, it isn't a good situation.


TD just wants to bait me

10750. jexster - 1/29/2006 12:42:59 PM

ABC's In-bedded Woodruff IED'ed

10751. jexster - 1/29/2006 12:44:26 PM

US Army Forces 50,000 into Extended Duty


The greatest strategic disaster in US History TD.

10752. jexster - 1/29/2006 1:23:09 PM

saw a special on Discovery last night..how Bush is losing the War on Terror because he doesn't know who or what he is fighting (THey hate our values and all that).

In the segment on how he's losing in Afghanistan, the Paki army showed a Taliban IED. The timer ..an alarm clock in the shape of a mosque which set the explosioon on the call to prayer....

10753. jexster - 1/29/2006 1:55:42 PM

War on Terror

Approve 47
Disapprove 48

Job Approve 41% (-12% a year ago)

Right Direction
Wrong Track 63%

Iraq
Approve
Disapprove 60%
Time poll

10754. robertjayb - 1/29/2006 2:27:17 PM

Better hurry back to the bayous, jexster. Get in on the fun.

Busy election season ahead in Louisiana...

Sources close to the Lieutenant Governor reveal to The Louisiana Weekly that Mitch Landrieu will run for Mayor of New Orleans in the April 22 primary.

With qualifying less than a month away, almost ever political observer views Landrieu as the immediate front runner, as problems continue to mount for incumbent Mayor Ray Nagin.

Landrieu's decision is only the latest development in what is becoming the most eventful election year in recent memory. In a normal election cycle, 2006 would be a somewhat dull election year. But no more. Voters will cast ballots in possibly three statewide elections, a series of "hot" congressional matches, as well as citywide races in New Orleans.

10755. jexster - 1/29/2006 4:41:46 PM

Support the Troops?

A third of US veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, some 40,000 persons, exhibit at least some signs of mental health disorders. Some 14,000 were treated for drug dependencies, and 11,000 for depression. Societies that think that aggressive war is some macho game and that the price is well worth it just have a lot of homeless and limbless people after a while.

So glad Bush supports the troops

The Greatest Strategic Disaster in US history coming soon to a street corner near you

10756. jexster - 1/29/2006 8:28:19 PM

Palace Revolt
Newsweek| Domestic Spying Foes Pushed Out of Bush Admin

Chances of securing or continuing any administration job are derailed when unitary executive powers and nrestricted support of war in Iraq are not given. Dissenters in the administration have come to be seen as the turncoats of national security.

10757. jexster - 1/29/2006 9:19:45 PM

See the SOTU NOW!

10758. concerned - 1/29/2006 10:18:19 PM

Re. 10747 -

I was indulging in a little positive spin, perhaps, but isn't a drawdown of US military what the Left wants?

10759. arkymalarky - 1/29/2006 10:29:19 PM

The Left wanted a war in Iraq to be defensible with facts. Now that we are there, it would be the height of irresponsibility to simply leave. Some people on the Left want to do that. Most are trying to think of what would be the best way to extricate ourselves from the situation without leaving a gaping hole for no-telling-what to come and fill.

Your question is like saying "Now that you've dove off the cliff and found that your parachute doesn't work, wouldn't you really like to get back to the top of it?" Well, yes, of course; but that's not really an option now, is it?

10760. concerned - 1/29/2006 10:33:47 PM

Re. 10759 -

I agree with you regarding leaving Iraq precipitously. However, it seems apparent that GWB has decided to operate within the parameters of an all volunteer military which I think is much preferable to the alternative.

10761. concerned - 1/29/2006 10:34:49 PM

Good News - DeLay told he's not a target of Abramoff probe

10762. jexster - 1/29/2006 10:38:33 PM

Good news indeed

A federal official said the investigation is "wide open."
"It's looking at a number of subjects. And actual targets of a criminal investigation are very often not notified in advance that they are, in fact, targets," said the law enforcement official, who is familiar with the case and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Dallas attorney Bill Mateja, a former top official in the Bush Justice Department, said it's entirely possible that Justice lawyers conveyed to DeLay's team that he is not currently a target, but that wouldn't guarantee that he's out of the woods in an investigation that is in its early phases.
"It very well could be that evidence develops which would tend to incriminate Mr. DeLay, in which case his status would change," he said.

10763. jexster - 1/29/2006 10:39:34 PM

to simply leave


Meaning exactly what Arky?

10764. jexster - 1/29/2006 10:41:55 PM

Not a lfefty by any stretch of the imagination...

What is Wrong with Cutting and Running?


Lots if you're an ayatollah

10765. arkymalarky - 1/29/2006 10:47:09 PM

Jex,
Leave. Pull out. Go. Take all American troops out of Iraq--not redeployment in neighboring countries but out of the ME--never to return.

And Con'd, I agree it's preferable to the alternative, but there's no way around the fact that his use of them in this regard in the first place has put us all in a terrible bind. The draft isn't politically possible now, and everyone knows it. But the volunteer military would be much better off if they had good leadership and were being used where they were most needed, as opposed to creating a huge need out of thin air that will be very difficult to reverse.

10766. arkymalarky - 1/29/2006 10:47:56 PM

Good News! DeLay's politically done for, whether he's indicted in connection with Abramoff or not.

10767. arkymalarky - 1/29/2006 10:48:33 PM

And far more Republican representatives than will admit it are ecstatic about that.

10768. jexster - 1/29/2006 11:00:05 PM

I see.

Not many advocating that...Gilber Achar..the only one I know and he's French.

But I think our options aren't much better than that. Kuwait, Kurdistan (if/when it secedes)...Turkey ..that's about it.


Americans have trouble grasping the depth and breadth of the disaster that George Bush has wrought, and imbued with that "can-do", attitude cannot grasp the concept of cutting losses.

One thing is clear, two actually...

Failure is not an option - it is a fact
and
We're fucked

10769. jexster - 1/29/2006 11:00:56 PM

I suspect we'll hear some of that at the New American Fndn confab on Capitol Hill tommorrow

The Real State of the Union 2006: A No-Nonsense Assessment of U.S. Foreign Policy and Call to Action





General Wesley Clark


Steven C. Clemons
Director, American Strategy Program

John O'Sullivan
Editor, National Interest and Editor-at-Large, National Review

Kevin Nealer
The Scowcroft Group

Peter Bergen
Schwartz Fellow

Anatol Lieven
Senior Research Fellow

Michael Lind
Whitehead Senior Fellow

Dimitri Simes
President, Nixon Center; and author, "America's Imperial Dilemma," Foreign Affairs

Wendy R. Sherman
Principal, The Albright Group, LLC

Clyde Prestowitz
President, Economic Strategy Institute

Sherle R. Schwenninger
Director, Bernard L. Schwartz Fellows Program & Senior Editor, New America Books

Sidney Blumenthal
Senior Fellow, NYU Center on Law & Security

10770. jexster - 1/29/2006 11:01:59 PM

You might wanna listen to Cole's take ..HNN podcast in Lies I believe I stuck it

10771. jexster - 1/29/2006 11:04:23 PM

One thing's for sure...Bush's National Strategy for Victory of last month was/is a total crock of shit

10772. jexster - 1/30/2006 12:03:56 AM

The War Within


The photograph hit the world on Nov. 10, 2004: a close-cropped shot of a U.S. Marine in Iraq, his face smeared with blood and dirt, a cigarette dangling from his lips, smoke curling across weary eyes.

It was an instant icon, with Dan Rather calling it "the best war photograph in recent years." About 100 newspapers ran the photo, dubbing the anonymous warrior the "Marlboro Man."

The man in the photograph is James Blake Miller, now 21, and he is an icon, although in ways Rather probably never imagined.

He's quieter now -- easier to anger. He turns to fight at the sound of a backfire, can't look at fireworks without thinking of fire raining down on a city. He has trouble sleeping, and when he does, his fingers twitch on invisible triggers.

The diagnosis: post-traumatic stress disorder.

10773. arkymalarky - 1/30/2006 12:12:09 AM

Jex, I really think you'd like my dad's book about Jarheads in Korea. I'll try to remember to send you a copy when it's published sometime in May.

10774. wonkers2 - 1/30/2006 11:49:47 AM

The rise of jurists like Alito is a Reagan-era dream come true.

10775. robertjayb - 1/30/2006 12:57:20 PM

Chafee to vote no on Alito...

Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee (R-RI) announced this morning in Providence that he will vote against the nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court.

In a statement this morning, the Rhode Island senator said he was "greatly concerned" about some of Alito's philosophies, according to the Providence Journal. Chafee is the first Republican to announce a vote against Alito.

(Raw Story)

10776. jexster - 1/30/2006 2:02:29 PM

Damn! Bastard's running scared.

10777. jexster - 1/30/2006 2:03:40 PM

Enron: The Bush Administration's First Scandal

Back in August 2001, just two months before Enron imploded in a wave of accounting scandals in which thousands of employees lost their jobs and their pensions, and which wiped out $60 billion in shareholder value, an Enron lobbyist tipped off the Bush administration about the company's impending financial problems.

10778. jexster - 1/30/2006 2:04:13 PM

Kewl Arky! Chesty Puller?

10779. jexster - 1/30/2006 2:04:45 PM

I love that name ..so jarhead

10780. jexster - 1/30/2006 3:49:54 PM

In 1999 both George Bush and Dick Cheney bitched and moaned that oil prices were too low. Hurting Big Oil companies, hurting Tejas


That was then....

Chevron spouts record profits

10781. arkymalarky - 1/30/2006 8:29:04 PM

Yep, Chesty Puller's in there.

10782. jexster - 1/30/2006 9:16:13 PM

Al-Zawahri Mocks Bush Over Terrorism War

I would love to read it Arky....so would our friend

Salat

10783. wonkers2 - 1/30/2006 9:17:28 PM

Does anybody know how Tim Kaine got picked to deliver the Dem response to Bush's state of the union speech? How many of you can even say who Tim Kaine is?

10784. jexster - 1/30/2006 9:22:28 PM

10785. arkymalarky - 1/31/2006 12:28:52 AM

I'll wait until tomorrow night to decide whether it's a collective political death wish.

10786. jexster - 1/31/2006 1:25:33 AM

Hamas Victory Is Bush's Nightmare
Mr. President, meet militant Islam

10787. concerned - 1/31/2006 1:31:33 AM

Re. 10783 -

Don't know. I was hoping for Howard Dean, or Michael Moore, or his doppelganger Osama bin Laden.

10788. jayackroyd - 1/31/2006 3:37:19 AM

Does anybody know how Tim Kaine got picked to deliver the Dem response to Bush's state of the union speech? How many of you can even say who Tim Kaine is?

It was a little rushed, because there was a blogger campaign starting up that was advocating Murtha. But the idea is, I think, that he represents a democrat with "values" (he framed his opposition to the death penalty as a principled position linked to his deeply held religious beliefs in a very pro-death penalty state). It's another attempt by the DNC to reach out to the center. The point of people who were pushing Murtha is that he's also a reach to the center, but one with a little more backbone and a tougher demeanor who can make Iraq the centerpiece of the discussion.

Kaine's victory was not expected, his defusing of faith-based issues, and his turning around his death penalty position is seen by the establishment democrats as a route to get into the republic religious base. They're idiots, of course, but that's the reasoning, I believe.

It doesn't matter. Nobody's gonna watch Bush give that same stupid speech again, interspersed with baubles for the pork pile. Anyone who does, is gonna be ready for Three's Company reruns, and won't watch some democrat say nothing for ten minutes.

On nobody watching Bush, it's been interesting to watch his numbers stabilizing at very low levels (more than 20 points less than Clinton at the same point in his 2nd term). Despite a hapless democratic establishment and a sycophantic media, people do seem to see what is really going on.

It's gonna be an ugly year--Rove's only chance is to paint the democrats as just as corrupt as the republicans, but still a bunch of pussies. Might as well have tough crooks, if you have to choose between crooks is gonna be the message.

10789. jayackroyd - 1/31/2006 3:39:33 AM

Dean would have been good, actually. But Murtha was the best idea I heard. Doesn't matter though. They should just give up the time. Following the state of the union is like following a coronation. You just look like a pipsqueak.

BTW, did you know that Republicans started this reply thing? Apparently Johnson was the first president to put it into prime time, and they demanded the opportunity to reply.

10790. jayackroyd - 1/31/2006 4:08:03 AM

Over at tnr there's a headline suggesting that the democrats try a creative approach to the reply. Turned out to be a banal collection of stupid ideas, but it sparked one in my mind.

Suppose you just ran ten minutes of embarassing Bush clips--series of contradictions. Idiotic remarks. I'd probably skip My Pet Goat. It'd cause an uproar--but it would keep getting run on the cable shows.

10791. jayackroyd - 1/31/2006 4:29:51 AM

10792. jayackroyd - 1/31/2006 4:30:41 AM

Damn. Right click, and view image. It's a savage Toles cartoon.

10793. jexster - 1/31/2006 10:52:55 AM

Axis of Weevils

Message # 4808 in thread 161

10794. jexster - 1/31/2006 12:01:12 PM

The State of the Union

10795. jexster - 1/31/2006 12:03:28 PM

WASHINGTON - A new poll found that nearly half of Iraqis approve of attacks on U.S.-led forces, and most favor setting a timetable for American troops to leave.
The poll also found that 80 percent of Iraqis think the United States plans to maintain permanent bases in the country even if the newly elected Iraqi government asks American forces to leave. Researchers found a link between support for attacks and the belief among Iraqis that the United States intends to keep a permanent military presence in the country.
At the same time, the poll found that many Iraqis think that some outside military forces are required to keep Iraq stable until the new government can field adequate security forces on its own. Only 39 percent of Iraqis surveyed thought that Iraqi police and army forces were strong enough to deal with the security challenges on their own, while 59 percent thought Iraq still needed the help of military forces from other countries.
Seventy percent of Iraqis favor setting a timetable for U.S. forces to withdraw, with half of those favoring a withdrawal within six months and the other half favoring a withdrawal over two years.
"Iraqis are demanding a timetable for U.S. withdrawal, and most believe that the U.S. has no plans to leave even if the new government asks them to," said Steven Kull, the director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, which conducted the poll. "This appears to be leading some to even support attacks on U.S.-led troops, even though many feel they also continue to need the presence of U.S. troops awhile longer."
"If you put it all together, it's clear there is a center of gravity, not towards immediate withdrawal, but for the U.S. to be there in a way that affirms their intent to withdraw eventually," he said. "There is real consensus on that point."

10796. jayackroyd - 1/31/2006 12:05:47 PM

Do you have a link for that, jexster? Or could you post a comment in Reed Hundt's recent TPMCafe thread on the bases, reflecting this content?

10797. jexster - 1/31/2006 12:08:16 PM

The State of the Union
Bush Approval - 39%
Biush Approval - 39%
(IraQ)
#1 issue by far - Bring Troops Home (35%)


[NBC/WSJ poll today]

10798. jexster - 1/31/2006 12:09:53 PM

Will xpost Jay

10799. jexster - 1/31/2006 12:10:48 PM

link

10800. jayackroyd - 1/31/2006 12:21:51 PM

Thanks. Then I won't. Knight-Ridder is really the only organization covering this war in a way that reflects journalistic traditions and ideals.

10801. jayackroyd - 1/31/2006 12:30:55 PM

Jex--

someone else has mentioned the survey results, but not posted the link. I'll post the link in a reply.

10802. jayackroyd - 1/31/2006 12:33:38 PM

Stepped on you jex. Sorry.

10803. jexster - 1/31/2006 12:34:42 PM

Oh for Ken Starr in a Blue Dress

A Little Malaise with your SOTU, Mister Bush?


NBC/WSJ Poll: Voters Turning Against Bush, Want Iraq Exit
Moron facing ‘gray and gloomy’ electorate

10804. jexster - 1/31/2006 1:20:40 PM

America's goal for the coming year

If just one of the following goals for America could be achieved in the coming year, which one would you choose?
(Table has been ranked by highest percentage)
Bring most of American forces home from Iraq 35
Cost of Sr's. health care & coverage for uninsured 20
Stimulate economic & job growth 17
Simplify Medicare prescription drug program 11
Reduce federal deficit 8
Reduce taxes 7
Other (Vol) 1
None (Vol) -
Not sure 1

10805. jexster - 1/31/2006 1:53:21 PM

Tom Kaine is Guvnuh of Virginny...knows a hella lot about the #1 issue of concern to the people

EyeRak

10806. jexster - 1/31/2006 2:35:55 PM

Remember NMD?

Another Bush Boondoggle...

Putin Boasts of New Missile's Capability By VLADIMIR



President Vladimir Putin boasted Tuesday that Russia has new missiles capable of penetrating any missile defense system and said he had briefed the French president on their capabilities.

"Russia has tested missile systems that no one in the world has," Putin said. "These missile systems don't represent a response to a missile defense system, but it doesn't matter to them whether that exists or not. They are hypersonic and capable of changing their flight path."

Putin said the new missiles were capable of carrying nuclear warheads. He wouldn't say whether the Russian military already had commissioned any such missiles.

Putin said he had shown the working principles of the missile system to French President Jacques Chirac during a visit to a Russian military facility. "He knows what I'm talking about," Putin said.


Everybody's pissin on Bushie these days. Even Pooty Poot

Doin a heckuva job

10807. jexster - 1/31/2006 3:08:08 PM

WaPo
Bush Highly Revered in Utah


Support for the president continues to be nearly unanimous in the tiny town of Randolph.

10808. thoughtful - 1/31/2006 3:17:08 PM

Rumor has it that one of the pics of bush with abramoff is of bush receiving a giant ceremonial check from him.

10809. jayackroyd - 1/31/2006 3:41:45 PM

It that rumor gets spread around enough, they may release the real, more innocuous pictures.

10810. jexster - 1/31/2006 4:40:29 PM

I am sure Gov Kaine is an excellent spokesman, but I just heard a preview interview on MSNBC, and he is most definitely NOT the Democrat Americans need to hear.



The message "Management and results - put aside partisanship"



Well, I am as much a re-inventor as the next Al Gore but jeezusaleezus, George Bush, the War President, has been coming apart because of his distaster in iraq and the WOT for 2 years now.




Iraq is not a problem of bad management.



Yes Kaine will say that.

10811. jexster - 1/31/2006 4:56:43 PM

Fewer Demo Votes Than Clarence Thomas

Arkansas

Lincoln (D) No; Pryor (D) No.



Louisiana

Landrieu (D) No; Vitter (R) Yes.
California

Boxer (D) No; Feinstein (D) No.


Semper Fi Arky!

10812. jayackroyd - 1/31/2006 5:15:08 PM

It doesn't matter, jex.

10813. jayackroyd - 1/31/2006 5:31:01 PM

Unbelievable:

SEN. FEINGOLD: [Does the president] have the authority to authorize violations of the criminal law under duly enacted statutes simply because he’s commander in chief?....

MR. GONZALES: ....There is a presumption of constitutionality with respect to any statute passed by Congress. I will take an oath to defend the statutes. And to the extent that there is a decision made to ignore a statute, I consider that a very significant decision, and one that I would personally be involved with, I commit to you on that, and one we will take with a great deal of care and seriousness.

SEN. FEINGOLD: Well, that sounds to me like the president still remains above the law.

MR. GONZALES: No, sir.

Feingold has my 08 vote. He KNEW what was going on. (via political animal, who got it somewhere else).

BTW Glenn Greenwald is doing absolutely killer work on this subject. Not only was he the original source for the Dewine story, that made its way into the post and Sunday's outraged NYT op-ed.

10814. robertjayb - 1/31/2006 7:52:33 PM

Sweeping anti-abortion laws proposed...(UPI)

Legislators in at least five states are proposing bold anti-abortion measures as the Bush administration reshapes the U.S. Supreme Court, a report said.

With the goal of challenging the Roe vs. Wade ruling that ensured a woman's right to an abortion, lawmakers in Georgia, Indiana, Ohio, South Dakota and Tennessee propose banning all abortions except when the woman's life is in danger, Stateline.org reported.

If enacted, legal experts said the laws would be the first absolute abortion bans since the landmark 1973 ruling.

10815. thoughtful - 1/31/2006 8:12:47 PM

Not surprising. I think last year i predicted roe was dead in 2 yrs.

Only thing is if we can stretch the "life is in danger" to "life as she currently knows it is in danger" then we'd be ok. After all, we all know children will change your life forever!

Actually, though, one could argue a woman's life is in danger as, if she can't get a legal abortion, she'll get an illegal one which could kill her.

Ah, those were the good old days of bloody coat hangers....

10816. jexster - 1/31/2006 8:29:47 PM

But Jay he is of the Hebrew persuasion..

OOO sorry that's Marc-Albert

10817. jayackroyd - 1/31/2006 8:55:33 PM

On that thoughtful, I think you're wrong. They'll keep perimitting states to gut Roe for poor women or other women in distress and leave it in place for everyone else--that's the effect of O'Connor's undue burden standard. That standard is designed to give republicans cover while they strip reproductive rights from women who can't travel to the next state.

And these people call themselves Christians.

10818. jexster - 1/31/2006 9:24:21 PM

NSA Expands Domestic Spying Operations
Arkin, WaPo

10819. wonkers2 - 1/31/2006 11:09:40 PM

Bush-Abramoff White House Photo Scrub.

10820. concerned - 2/1/2006 12:48:25 AM

Well, what's the hot steaming poop on the SOTU Address, you LW Fifth Columnists and Honorary Dhimmis? I musta missed it - I watched Route 666 and the Pink Panther instead.

10821. jexster - 2/1/2006 1:04:15 AM

I missed it...on purpose

Looks like 39% approval maybe headed south

State of the Union Support Group Thread
By Josh Marshall | bio

From: Politics

What did you think? Should we give in to evil? Or not?

10822. jexster - 2/1/2006 1:59:15 AM

Bad sign for Buskeviks

Unscientific though it may be....

The Cindy Sheehan story is rated by 1700 on Yahoo
The Bush Speech main story 500

10823. wonkers2 - 2/1/2006 11:44:58 AM

I thought Tim Kaine did a credible job for the Dems last night. A bit restrained, but not offensive to anyone. Apparently that's what somebody think sells. I guess he's a stalking horse for Warner.

10824. jayackroyd - 2/1/2006 12:18:27 PM

Toys.

10825. jexster - 2/1/2006 12:50:13 PM

What did Kaine say about:

Wars on Terror
Iraq

China?
Pakistan?
WMD?
Domestic Spying?
Bush lies?

I watched neither, and from what I've seen and heard thus far - very little about Kaine

10826. jexster - 2/1/2006 12:58:12 PM

target=new>Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) and Cindy Sheehan: Democrats with Balls

10827. jexster - 2/1/2006 1:34:58 PM

Culture of Corruption

Stormin Norman Coleman in Middle of Australia-IraQ Corruption Scandal

The United States Senate was drawn into a growing controversy over the Australian government's role in a scandal about bribes paid to Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

Canberra admitted that it had lobbied Washington to drop an investigation into allegations that Australian national wheat exporter AWB paid hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to Iraq to secure sales worth 2.3 billion dollars.

Australia's ambassador to Washington met the chairman of a Senate committee in late 2004 and "argued strongly" against plans to probe AWB, formerly the government-run Australian Wheat Board, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said.

The government was worried that the inquiry into AWB's role in the UN oil-for-food scandal would be used by US wheat exporters -- Australia's biggest international competitors -- to damage Australia's trade with Iraq, he said.

The planned probe was dropped after the government's representations, through the then-ambassador Michael Thawley, to US Senator Norm Coleman, chairman of a Senate investigations committee.

10828. jexster - 2/1/2006 1:36:27 PM

"Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies.

“I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

Galloway v. US Seante: Transcript of Statement

10829. wonkers2 - 2/1/2006 1:36:46 PM

Kaine's repeated mantra was "There's a better way!" through service, better management and results. Governing well...Bush admin. marked by poor choices and bad management...in the Gulf Coast and Katrina and in Iraq...you have a right to expect that your government can deliver results...fiscal responsibility, pay the bills, live within our means...Bush has failed to manage our staggering national debt and is passing it on to our grandchildren....There's a better way...focus on health care, education and law enforcement in Virginia...

No child left behind--Republicans opposed full funding and are cutting billions from student loan programs...states stuck with inflexible mandates...There's a better way--in Virginia Dems and Republicans alike are working together...

Health care--skyrocketing costs hurting small business and pushing millions into the ranks of the uninsured, cutting Medicaid, drug plan a mess...there's a better way--focus on serving consumers better...Admin fought our effort to get cheaper drugs overseas...

War on terror...we all support our troops and winning the war on terror...but are the president's policies the best way...we now know the American people were given innacurate information about the reasons for invading Iraq...our troops not given best body armor and equipment...admin cutting tens of thousands of troops from reserves and national guard...must win the war on terror without sacrificing our liberty hear at home..

Admin has failed to develop and enforce a rational immigration policy.

Admin has failed to preserve the environment, failed on workplace safety, failed to protect family farms and keeping jobs in America...

There's a better way--focus on service and better management...not about partisanship...must shine the light of liberty and equality on all citizens.

We need a change--to restore honesty to our government and replace cronyism and partisanship with an ethic of service and results...heal our partisan wounds and become one people

America can do better!

It was quite an effective speech in my opinion aimed at middle America, not the Dem base.

10830. jexster - 2/1/2006 1:44:06 PM

That's the preview he gave on MSNBC

Tired fuck

10831. wonkers2 - 2/1/2006 1:47:18 PM

BTW, the Galloway v. U.S. Senate link doesn't work.

10832. iiibbb - 2/1/2006 1:47:22 PM

I didn't watch the address last night... but this is a good line.

"There is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure. Hindsight alone is not wisdom and second-guessing is not a strategy"- George W. Bush

I always marvel at some of the great quotes of our past presidents. FDR was the last one that regularly produced these. They've all had good ones. This is the first time I think I've heard Bush say something for the ages.

10833. wonkers2 - 2/1/2006 1:48:33 PM

In my opinion, Kaine was much more effective and convincing than Bush.

10834. jexster - 2/1/2006 1:58:38 PM

Iraq and the WOT aren't matters of "bad manaagement"

Doemstic spying is a matter of criminal law.


There go the Democrats...they're gonna get fuckt again..makr my words...ostriches hooing for a magical return to their issues while their head are in the sand, Karl Rove;s gonna butt fuck em

Only saving grace is as Raygun usta say "Who carea about the demo resp.= everyone's asleep by then"

Stormin Norman Coleman in Middle of Australia-IraQ Corruption Scandal

Galloway v. US Seante: Transcript of Statement

10835. thoughtful - 2/1/2006 2:07:38 PM

and that's from an unbiased source

10836. jexster - 2/1/2006 5:37:27 PM

A Failed Presidency
Ruy Teixeira

10837. jexster - 2/1/2006 5:40:26 PM

For TD

1. In the latest Gallup poll, a majority (52 percent) now describe the Bush presidency as a failure. Contrast this to ratings of Clinton, who, from September, 1996 onward, never had less than 64 percent describing his presidency as a success and was usually at 70 percent and above.

10838. wonkers2 - 2/1/2006 6:23:12 PM

Bush is dead meat! DeLay is dead meat! The GOP is dead meat!

10839. jexster - 2/1/2006 7:02:24 PM

10840. robertjayb - 2/1/2006 7:16:14 PM

"The Vast Rightwing Kleptocracy"

Congressman Barney Frank.

Gotta love 'em!

10841. wonkers2 - 2/1/2006 7:25:42 PM

They are talking on Msnbc market watch about the possibility of Bush being impeached if the Dems win a majority in the House this fall!

10842. wonkers2 - 2/1/2006 7:28:05 PM

I saw a good one in a discussion of the economy in Barrons recently. New Fed Chairman Bernanke is known as "Helicopter Ben" as a result of a speech last year in which he said the Fed could drop money around the country out of helicopters in the event of a serious liquidity crisis!

10843. anomie - 2/1/2006 7:28:44 PM

Wouldn't that be nice. Without the senate, it would just be harassment, but the payback would be fun to watch. And Roberts would preside! Historical.

10844. wonkers2 - 2/1/2006 7:55:42 PM

I missed it last night, but Chris Matthews just pointed out that Bush again conflated Iraq and 9-11. Matthews re-played that part of Bush's speech:

"Abroad our nation is committed to an historic long term goal. We seek the end of tyranny in our world. Some dismiss that goal as misguided idealism. In reality the future security of America depends on it.

"On September 11, 2001 we found that problems originating in a failed and oppressive state 7000 miles away could bring murder and destruction to our country."

Matthews pointed out (1) that nobody has ever advocated that we should or could "end tyranny in the world." and (2) That the terrorists didn't come from Afghanistan or Iraq but from Saudi Arabia and Egypt via Europe. And raised the issue of whether Bush is deliberately trying to confuse the American people into thinking Iraq was responsible for the 9-11 attacks.

I think we all know the answer to that question!!!

10845. robertjayb - 2/1/2006 7:58:59 PM

Ken Duberstein, longtime GOP aparatchik, mused on Charlie Rose last night that a Dem takover of the house would mean "subpoena time."

Yeah, boy...

Bring it on!

10846. thoughtful - 2/1/2006 8:19:21 PM

I was hoping to find it on line, but I didn't...just caught the tail end of the daily show where jon stewart did his thing on oprah roasting that author for lying, and then how stunned the newspeople were over it, pointing out that it's their job to dig out the truth, and how horrible it is that they should have to take a lesson from a talk show host. It was very well done.

10847. thoughtful - 2/1/2006 8:29:15 PM

So this just in...Gov. Joe Manchin calls for a temporary stop to West Virginia coal production after after two more fatal accidents.

Now do you think the dems can make some hay out of this seeing as the bushies cut the mine safety budget???

Imagine if the shoes were reversed how much noise the gopers would make.

Oh, to have a 2-party system again!

10848. jexster - 2/1/2006 8:29:27 PM

Bring it on Robert via TPMC I learnt that WaPo has a finance report - Schumer's DSCC is kickin Liddy OleDole in the ass

10849. jexster - 2/1/2006 8:52:34 PM

Scotter Libby's lawyers have begun to outline his defense:

Libby was too busy protecting America to tell the truth [Abrams Rept MSNBC]

Karl, Dick, Dummy and Dummy take notes

10850. jexster - 2/1/2006 9:36:18 PM

Wonk check out Competence Game at TPMC ...just what I've been bitching about...fucking cowards

10851. jexster - 2/1/2006 11:22:24 PM

Hasta La Vista Baby!

Schwarzenegger Campaign Funds Nearly Gone

10852. jexster - 2/2/2006 12:28:03 AM

New Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito split with the court's conservative Wednesday night, refusing to let Missouri execute a death-row inmate contesting lethal injection.


Alito, handling his first case, sided with inmate Michael Taylor, who had won a stay from an appeals court earlier in the evening. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas supported lifting the stay, but Alito joined the remaining five members in turning down Missouri's last-minute request to allow a midnight execution.

10853. wonkers2 - 2/2/2006 1:10:06 AM

Keep it up baby!

10854. wonkers2 - 2/2/2006 1:11:21 AM

Maybe the ACLU has been secretly grooming him for this day since high school!

10855. jexster - 2/2/2006 7:34:00 AM

The Next Act: Beware the Ides of March
by William S. Lind

10856. jayackroyd - 2/2/2006 1:04:19 PM

Negroponte is testifying to the Senate intelligence committee. Aside from an overblown justification for continued occupation of Iraq, he's telling pretty much a straight story in his opening statement. I'm streaming it from cspan.

10857. jexster - 2/2/2006 3:01:13 PM

Josh Marshall Interviews the Next Congressman from Tejas 22

10858. jexster - 2/2/2006 3:22:45 PM

Hella quick turnaround on lies these days...

Administration backs off Bush's vow to reduce Mideast oil imports

10859. robertjayb - 2/2/2006 3:23:48 PM

Crawfishing in America...

WASHINGTON - One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.

What the president meant, they said in a conference call with reporters, was that alternative fuels could displace an amount of oil imports equivalent to most of what America is expected to import from the Middle East in 2025.

But America still would import oil from the Middle East, because that's where the greatest oil supplies are.

10860. jexster - 2/2/2006 3:26:11 PM

Beat you by 1 minute, 3 seconds

10861. jexster - 2/2/2006 3:28:20 PM

And Tom Kaine sez that Bush is an incompetent nimrod

Fuck me

Look at that turnaround!

One day..damn

10862. jexster - 2/2/2006 3:40:26 PM

$450,000,000,000

That's alot of zeros - alot of lettuce

That's per Congressional sources the updated price tag of Bush Bloody Baghdad Boondoggle and foreign aid to Iran's Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI? Perhaps you've heard of em)


Throw money at it..the GOP way..

No wonder Iran loves Bush's New Iraq so much.

10863. jexster - 2/2/2006 6:37:26 PM

GOP Loves Nation Building
CATO Institute

10864. concerned - 2/2/2006 9:19:06 PM

Re. 10837 -

However, the Gallup Poll you referenced rated Xlowntoon's success in office strictly as a sexual predator.

10865. concerned - 2/2/2006 9:19:48 PM

jexster hates putting his toys away.

10866. jexster - 2/2/2006 11:35:59 PM

Jexster wants to see Ken Starr in a Blue Dress

GWB just asked for another 120 Billion for his loser wars.


I'd like to stick a Churchilll up his ass and make Karl Rove lick it

10867. jexster - 2/2/2006 11:50:57 PM

10868. wonkers2 - 2/3/2006 12:34:41 AM

Yeah, Starr is almost as much to blame as Nader and Scalia, Thomas and the others on the Supreme Court for the Chimp's election. He is a truly disgusting person, Starr, that is.

10869. jexster - 2/3/2006 12:42:30 AM

About Fucking Time!

Senate Session on Security Erupts in Spying Debate

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 — Senate Democrats on Thursday angrily accused the Bush administration of mounting a public relations campaign to defend the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program while withholding details of the secret eavesdropping from Congressional oversight committees.

10870. wonkers2 - 2/3/2006 1:00:47 AM

GOP Corruption.

10871. concerned - 2/3/2006 2:28:19 AM

Re. 10866 -

Don't want anybody accusing me of 'fixating' on Xlowntoon after this.

Now he's supposed to be all buddy buddy with GHWB & son. They refer to each other as '41' and '43' and Willie Jeff as '69'.

Bada-bing!

10872. jexster - 2/3/2006 3:29:34 AM

What the hell do we need this for?

The Navy will receive about $2.5 billion for the next Virginia Class submarine, built by Electric Boat in Connecticut and Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia,


Terrorist mermaids?

10873. jexster - 2/3/2006 3:31:23 AM

Anyone see Jon Stewart do that bogus ass kiss from the asslickr-in-chief?

Daily Show put up shot of Hillary's expression;

Stewart: "That's where boners go to die"

10874. jexster - 2/3/2006 3:34:33 AM

WASHINGTON - Military leaders angrily denounced as "beyond tasteless" a Washington Post editorial cartoon featuring a likeness of a severely wounded soldier and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld as an attending doctor who says, "I'm listing your condition as `battle hardened.'"

10875. jexster - 2/3/2006 10:47:39 AM

Bushie UR Doin a Heckuva Job

Cole:

Christiane Amanpour thinks things are getting "worse and worse" in Iraq. Given that daily attacks are up from 55 per day to 77 per day over a year ago, and given that Baghdad (1/4 of the population) is being starved of fuel and electricity, and given that the Sunni Arabs rejected the constitution and are threatening to launch a civil disobedience campaign on top of the guerrilla war, I don't see in what way her statement is controversial.

It is a measure of the fantasy world in which about 40 percent of Americans live that her statement is even a matter for comment. As for the charge that her views might affect her reporting, no one on the right is complaining about all those gung ho reporters who went to Iraq in 2003 believing it was a noble endeavor. Wouldn't that philosophy have affected their reporting of the war? In fact, don't Fox Cable News reporters get pressure from their editors and from Rupert to constantly downplay the guerrilla war in Iraq and to find silver linings in this mess? And Christiane, who has reported on wars all over the world and knows the Middle East like the back of her hand is the one who is out of line?

10876. jexster - 2/3/2006 10:54:32 AM

CNN's Christiane Amanpour: Iraq war 'a disaster'
Personal opinion from chief international reporter: 'It just gets worse and worse'

10877. jexster - 2/3/2006 10:58:25 AM

Yesterday's poll at ColbertNation.com

Which country shall we invade to restore our morale?

10878. jexster - 2/3/2006 11:52:05 AM

LETTER FROM STEPHEN

Dear Fans,

Welcome to the Colbert Nation, and more generally, the Internet's World Wide Web, an interconnected system of computer networks that allows the digital transfer of data to and from remote locations, more commonly known as The Global Village.

If you arrived here by mistake, I'll save you some time: I am neither Don Colbert, purveyor of faith based medical services, nor Keary Colbert, third-string wide receiver for the NFL's Carolina Panthers. However, I am a huge fan of Don's and Keary's work, and the three of us communicate frequently via the electronic mails.

I must confess that I've never trusted the Web. I've always seen it as a coward's tool. Where does it live? How do you hold it personally responsible? Can you put a distributed network of fiber-optic cable "on notice"? And is it male or female? In other words, can I challenge it to a fight?

These troublesome questions have plagued the Internet since its inception, to say nothing of all the phreakers using their 28.8-baud modems to hack the Pentagon with their Prodigy accounts.

So, why endorse a Colbert community website? Because it's built by you, the people-or in this case Avery Gordon, an American hero who not only "gets it," but also understands that web commerce generated through use of a public personality's image must result in full compensation for that personality. (Check out the Eagle's Nest online gift shop for officially sanctioned Colbert Gear, just in time for the holidays.)

I know not all of you are fans. Some of you are here because you disagree with my no-holds-barred journalistic techniques, and my maverick stance on the issues of the day. I welcome opposing viewpoints, but I should warn you that you'll be facing off against the 2nd-place finisher at the 1981 Charleston County High-School Debate Tournament. And whatever became of that county champ who argued in favor of tractor safety modifications? Last time I checked, she didn't have her own show.

So, sit back, relax, and enjoy what I consider to be the best site on the Web. Whether you're a Republican or a Dixiecrat, you're an automatic and permanent member of the Colbert Nation: our citizenship requirements are as stringent as they are legally binding.

With the power of the Colbert Nation comes great responsibility. Is your neighbor a member? If not, why not?

Yours in truth,

Stephen Colbert

10879. jayackroyd - 2/3/2006 12:06:16 PM

Tom Friedman must not be popular at the NYTimes. They let stand a column that became obsolete yesterday. Worse, Krugman's reflects the current status of Bush's commitment to reducing energy use.

Wonk, or someone else who's behind the wall, could you post the first paragraph of each column?

10880. jexster - 2/3/2006 12:20:15 PM

Here I am
Send me
I shall go to Lexis

10881. jexster - 2/3/2006 12:22:19 PM

SECTION: Section A; Column 1; Editorial Desk; Pg. 23

LENGTH: 772 words

HEADLINE: Will Pigs Fly?

BYLINE: By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

BODY:


Well, it wasn't exactly Nixon to China. But it wasn't bean bag either. I'd say the president's State of the Union speech, when it came to calling for an end to our oil addiction and a real push to improve our educational competitiveness, was more like Nixon goes to New Mexico. It was an important change in direction and tone -- but still a long way from China, a long way from a definitive change in policy and implementation.

10882. jexster - 2/3/2006 12:23:19 PM

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
The New York Times

February 3, 2006 Friday
Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section A; Column 6; Editorial Desk; Pg. 23

LENGTH: 736 words

HEADLINE: State Of Delusion

BYLINE: By PAUL KRUGMAN

BODY:


So President Bush's plan to reduce imports of Middle East oil turns out to be no more substantial than his plan -- floated two years ago, then flushed down the memory hole -- to send humans to Mars.

But what did you expect? After five years in power, the Bush administration is still -- perhaps more than ever -- run by Mayberry Machiavellis, who don't take the business of governing seriously.

10883. robertjayb - 2/3/2006 12:26:20 PM

Pat Buchanan blasts Bush in Human Events over phony charges of protectionism and isolationism and claims Bush is running out of alibis.

Why would a president use his State of the Union to lash out at a school of foreign policy thought that has had zero influence in his administration? The answer is a simple one, but it is not an easy one for Bush to face: His foreign policy is visibly failing, and his critics have been proven right.

But rather than defend the fruits of his policy, Bush has chosen to caricature critics who warned him against interventionism. Like all politicians in trouble, Bush knows that the best defense is a good offense.
..................................................

If America is angry over what interventionism and free trade have wrought, George Bush cannot credibly blame isolationists or protectionists. These fellows have an alibi. They were nowhere near the scene of the crime.

10884. jexster - 2/3/2006 12:44:14 PM

Robert rides to the sound of the gunfire!

And I've twice cross-posted at TPMC

. His assault is not only non-credible, it borders on the desperate and pathetic.

"Abroad, our nation is committed to a historic long-term goal. We seek the end of tyranny in our world," said Bush. "Some dismiss that goal as misguided idealism. In reality, the future security of America depends upon it."

Intending no disrespect, this is noble-sounding nonsense. Our security rests on U.S. power and will, and not on whether Zimbabwe, Sudan, Syria, Cuba or even China is ruled by tyrants. Our forefathers lived secure in a world of tyrannies by staying out of wars that were none of America's business. As for "the end of tyranny in our world," Mr. President, sorry, that doesn't come in "our world." That comes in the next.

TD - the point isn't that Randy Bill was so popular. It's that Bush is a failed Presidunce

10885. robertjayb - 2/3/2006 12:48:13 PM

Once more, the forked tongue speaks: Alternative energy research staff cuts planned...(NYTimes)

The Energy Department will begin laying off researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the next week or two because of cuts to its budget.

A veteran researcher said the staff had been told that the cuts would be concentrated among researchers in wind and biomass, which includes ethanol. Those are two of the technologies that Mr. Bush cited on Tuesday night as holding the promise to replace part of the nation's oil imports.

The budget for the laboratory, which is just west of Denver, was cut by nearly 15 percent, to $174 million from $202 million, requiring the layoff of about 40 staff members out of a total of 930, said a spokesman, George Douglas.

10886. wonkers2 - 2/3/2006 1:08:17 PM

We have a real bullshit artist for a president. Why has it taken the public so long to figure this out? Lack of enough interest to find out what's really going on? Media failure?

10887. jexster - 2/3/2006 1:08:48 PM

Bush's Brezhnev period
By Squid Blumenthal

Rejecting criticism and mouthing meaningless bromides, Bush gave a speech so stagnant it would have made the Politburo proud.

Personal foul..unnecessary roughness..piling on

10888. jexster - 2/3/2006 1:15:55 PM

Squid
Salon
FairUse

10889. jexster - 2/3/2006 1:20:23 PM

Just two days before Bush's speech, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted, "I don't know anyone who wasn't caught off guard by Hamas' strong showing." Of course, there had been many warnings issued by many serious people that fundamentalism is on the rise in the Middle East. Rice's confession of deafness and blindness, however, did not prevent Bush from having his recurrent vision: Happy days are here again.


Condimima shoulda come with me the Sunday b4 to chat with Charlie, Chris and Assad - PAL secular/Orthodox - they weren't surprised at all

10890. jexster - 2/3/2006 1:56:22 PM

Josh's Marshall's boyz are all over the Abramoff scandal like ducks on june bugs...Check the Daily Muck daily

This link from there

What Every Jew Should Know About John Boner

10891. jexster - 2/3/2006 2:03:54 PM

Rorate coeli desuper et nubes pluant justum (Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just)

10892. wonkers2 - 2/3/2006 2:11:08 PM

Boner sounds like an Ohio version of Trent Lott.

10893. jexster - 2/3/2006 4:17:49 PM

TreasonGate:
Bulldog Focuses on Missing WH E-mails

More than two dozen emails sent to various senior Bush administration officials between May 2003 and early July 2003 related to covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, are missing, and the special prosecutor investigating the case suspects that the communications may have been destroyed, according to high level sources close to the two-year old probe.

The sources, who are knowledgeable about Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation and have read hundreds of pages of grand jury testimony, said the emails in question were sent between May and July 2003 by I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove, then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, former CIA official Frederick Fleitz, former Cheney aide John Hannah, former Cheney National Security assistant David Wurmser, former Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John Bolton, and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card.

10894. PelleNilsson - 2/3/2006 4:45:48 PM

What I find amazing is that the State of the Union speach has occupied several of people for at least two months, maybe more. It has been drafted and re-drafted, vetted and re-vetted innumerable times but yet the White House feels it has to retract on an important part within 24 hours. There must be a competence problem somewhere, perhaps at the very top.

10895. concerned - 2/3/2006 6:39:25 PM

So, how about that 4.7 % unemployment rate figure?

10896. wonkers2 - 2/3/2006 6:39:32 PM

I missed the retraction. What did the White House retract?

10897. thoughtful - 2/3/2006 7:02:47 PM

Yeah con'd...people are bailing out of the work force right and left.

So much for tax cuts stimulating the supply side work effort!

10898. wonkers2 - 2/3/2006 7:25:03 PM

Ira Rennert, archetypal beneficiary of Bush's economic policy. Despicable excuse for a human being here.

10899. wonkers2 - 2/4/2006 12:35:21 AM

Kick Me, I'm a Democrat!

10900. judithathome - 2/4/2006 1:13:36 PM

yet the White House feels it has to retract on an important part within 24 hours. There must be a competence problem somewhere, perhaps at the very top.

I missed the retraction. What did the White House retract?

The part about reducing dependence on oil...and finding alternatives to oil like ethanol, etc. When everyone jumped on that, he sent a flunky out to explain that was just an example of something we could do.

In other words, Mr. Bush, your pandering is showing loud and clear.

10901. jexster - 2/4/2006 2:07:47 PM

SOTU Bush's Iraq Fantasies
Robert Dreyfuss

The Iraq that exists in President Bush’s imagination and the real Iraq, the one in which 160,000 U.S. troops occupy a nation sliding into civil war, have never seemed further apart. Bush’s Iraq is a fantastical one in which American forces are battling the enemy that struck us on 9/11. Yet on the ground, in the real Iraq, more than six weeks have passed since Iraq’s election, and battle lines for civil war are being drawn up. There are multiple parties to that civil war: militant Iraqi fundamentalist Shiites tied to Iran, well-armed Kurdish warlords planning to grab Kirkuk and its oil, powerful Sunni tribal and religious forces bitterly opposed to the Shiite-Kurdish bloc and a Baathist-military resistance movement that has strong support among the Sunnis.

None of those forces, however, want anything to do with Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or Abu Musab Al Zarqawi. By all accounts, Zarqawi’s forces in Iraq are fast becoming nearly invisible on the canvas of Iraq’s battle map. And certainly neither bin Laden nor Zarqawi have a prayer of seizing control of Iraq whether U.S. forces stay in Iraq or not.

Let us first take a look at the enemy that President Bush says we are fighting, and then at the real Iraq.

Sounding like the Willy Loman of the snake oil industry, President Bush looked both tired and defensive as he made yet one more sales pitch for his failed Iraq policy. In his State of the Union address this week, the president insisted that the U.S. foe in Iraq is the bin Laden-Zarqawi axis, and that the danger still involves those mythical weapons of mass destruction. “Terrorists like bin Laden are serious about mass murder—and all of us must take their declared intentions seriously. They seek to impose a heartless system of totalitarian control throughout the Middle East, and arm themselves with weapons of mass murder,” proclaimed Bush. “Their aim is to seize power in Iraq, and use it as a safe haven to launch attacks against America and the world.”

Is the enemy in Iraq Shiite militias, Kurdish warlords or Arab nationalist armed insurgents? No, according to Bush. It is radical Islam and its attendant evildoers. “By allowing radical Islam to work its will—by leaving an assaulted world to fend for itself—we would signal to all that we no longer believe in our own ideals, or even in our own courage,” warned Bush. “But our enemies and our friends can be certain: The United States will not retreat from the world, and we will never surrender to evil.”

He added, “The road of victory is the road that will take our troops home.” But Bush failed to explain how you can win a victory against an imaginary opponent.

Meanwhile, back on planet earth, in the real Iraq, things are going from bad to worse

10902. jexster - 2/4/2006 3:39:31 PM

how about that 4.7 % unemployment rate figure

Employment doing what for what wage?

Handling of the Economy (LAT)
Approve - 37
Disapprove -59


Economic Confidence (Gallup)
Excellent/Good 39
Only Fair/Poor 59

[August 2000 71/26]

That's what we think

10903. jexster - 2/4/2006 3:46:21 PM

$450,000,000,000
$100,000 a minute

The war in Iraq has basically turned out to be a disaster ....Most of the Iraqi people are now losing hope that the promised reconstruction is going to happen and that the quality of their lives is going to increase... It just gets worse and worse. Christiane Amanpour 1/30/03

10904. judithathome - 2/4/2006 4:09:52 PM

Dick Cheney's Song of America

Few writers are more ambitious than the writers of government policy papers, and few policy papers are more ambitious than Dick Cheney's masterwork. It has taken several forms over the last decade and is in fact the product of several ghostwriters (notably Paul Wolfowitz and Colin Powell), but Cheney has been consistent in his dedication to the ideas in the documents that bear his name, and he has maintained a close association with the ideologues behind them. Let us, therefore, call Cheney the author, and this series of documents the Plan.

10905. jexster - 2/4/2006 5:43:45 PM

Libby Implicates Cheney in CIA Leak

10906. wonkers2 - 2/4/2006 6:04:59 PM

WOwl! What a surprise!

10907. jexster - 2/4/2006 6:59:22 PM

FBI Chief: NSA Spying Hasn't Caught Any al-Qaeda Agents

10908. jexster - 2/4/2006 9:02:15 PM

The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.
— Joseph Mengele

10909. jexster - 2/4/2006 9:24:06 PM

Iraq the Musical

10910. jexster - 2/5/2006 4:20:41 PM

Profiles in Cojones

Specter: Bush's Spying Illegal

TITLE 50 > CHAPTER 36 > SUBCHAPTER I

§ 1809. Criminal sanctions


(a) Prohibited activities
A person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally—
(1) engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute; or
(2) discloses or uses information obtained under color of law by electronic surveillance, knowing or having reason to know that the information was obtained through electronic surveillance not authorized by statute.
(b) Defense
It is a defense to a prosecution under subsection (a) of this section that the defendant was a law enforcement or investigative officer engaged in the course of his official duties and the electronic surveillance was authorized by and conducted pursuant to a search warrant or court order of a court of competent jurisdiction.
(c) Penalties
An offense described in this section is punishable by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both.
(d) Federal jurisdiction
There is Federal jurisdiction over an offense under this section if the person committing the offense was an officer or employee of the United States at the time the offense was committed.

10911. jexster - 2/5/2006 6:53:57 PM

Memo
To: WH Travel Office
From: Turd Blossom
Re; Reserve Block of Rooms Leavenworth KS

WaPo: "Intelligence officers who eavesdropped on thousands of Americans in overseas calls under authority from President Bush have dismissed nearly all of them as potential suspects after hearing nothing pertinent to a terrorist threat, according to accounts from current and former government officials and private-sector sources with knowledge of the technologies in use ... Fewer than 10 U.S. citizens or residents a year, according to an authoritative account, have aroused enough suspicion during warrantless eavesdropping to justify interception of their domestic calls, as well. That step still requires a warrant from a federal judge, for which the government must supply evidence of probable cause.

-- Josh Marshall

10912. wonkers2 - 2/6/2006 12:20:30 AM

Very true. But all the talking heads defend the program using an example of a call from Osama bin Laden to an al-Quaida cell member in the U.S. Yet the FBI says they havene't caught one al-quaida cell member as a result of the NSA surveillance. More Bush-shit.

10913. arkymalarky - 2/6/2006 1:14:15 AM

If that's the case, the FISA court wouldn't cause any reduction in the efficiency of the program at all, especially with the 72 hour window to take action before even going to the court.

10914. concerned - 2/6/2006 3:06:06 AM

Clinton Dirty Trickster Faces Charges

During two terms of the Clinton administration, Pellicano was one of several private investigators used by the White House to conduct "shadow" operations. Others included Terry Lenzner, founder and chairman of the powerful Washington detective firm Investigative Group International, and San Francisco private eye Jack Palladino and his wife Sandra Sutherland.

But it was Hillary Clinton who hired the "Shadow Team" – some believe to do work that employees of the federal government could not do.

Former congressional investigator Barbara Olson, who was killed Sept. 11, 2001, wrote that, "In the political life of the Clintons, it was she [Hillary] who pioneered the use of private detectives. It was she who brought in and cultivated the professional dirt-diggers and smear artists."

Hillary's detectives engaged in "a systematic campaign to intimidate, frighten, threaten, discredit and punish innocent Americans whose only misdeed is their desire to tell the truth in public," former Clinton adviser Dick Morris charged in the New York Post of Oct. 1, 1998.

FBI agents raided Pellicano's West Hollywood office on Nov. 22, 2002, and arrested him on federal weapons charges. In his office, they found gold, jewelry, and about $200,000 in cash – most of it bundled in $10,000 wrappers – thousands of pages of transcripts of illegal wiretaps; two handguns; and various explosive devices stored in safes, including two live hand grenades and a pile of C4 plastic explosive, complete with blasting cap and detonation cord.

10915. wonkers2 - 2/6/2006 9:51:31 AM

Dick Morris is an untrustworthy toe-sucking asshole.

10916. jexster - 2/6/2006 5:38:26 PM

Conservatives Break with Bush on Spying


The skeptics include leaders of conservative activist groups, well-known law professors, veterans of Republican administrations, former GOP members of Congress, and think tank analysts. The conservatives said they are speaking out because they object to the White House's attempt to
portray criticism of the program as partisan attacks.

Weyerich
Norquist
Gun Owners of America
Amecican Conservative Union
CATO among them

10917. robertjayb - 2/6/2006 6:51:13 PM

A long, lawyerly post, by a lawyer, on Bush's trashing of the constitution...

Call me a tinhat conspiracy theorist, but I fear that if the President's claim goes unchecked or is approved by Congress, we can say goodbye to our civil liberties. Bush and his intelligence agencies will then be in a position to determine for themselves when such intrusions are "reasonable." My guess is that we will soon begin to see the range of situations in which they are deemed appropriate begin to expand, slowly at first and then more rapidly when the executive branch sees that there is no longer anyone guarding the gate. It will ultimately begin to invade the sphere of domestic politics, which will enable Bush and other sitting Presidents to intimidate their political opponents. This will further chill all opposition to the surveillance, which will inspire additional incursions, etc., etc.

10918. wonkers2 - 2/6/2006 6:55:06 PM

I heard on Air America that Senator Specter declined to swear in Speedy Gonzalez today who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee today. Apparently Janet Reno was sworn in when she testified under similar circumstance.

10919. wonkers2 - 2/6/2006 9:00:44 PM

After watching Fouad Adjami, Head of the Johns Hopkins Middle East Department, it's not hard to see how our establishment politicians go astray. I don't know what his background is or his position on our invasion of Iraq was/is, but he struck me as very far to the right. Some of our supposedly best universities' faculties are staffed with right wing wackos. I'm going to google Adjami to see what I can find out.

10920. wonkers2 - 2/6/2006 10:25:20 PM

As I suspected Ajami is, according to Wikipedia, an unabashed supporter of George Bush, supporter of the effort to democratize Iraq, friend of Wolfowicz and Conoleeza Rice. He was born in Beirut and came to the U.S. when he was 18. He is a respected American Middle East scholar who is very critical of the Arabs for screwing things up for themselves, but he keeps his mouth shut about Palestine. He has written that secularism is here to stay. He and Edward Said are at opposite ends of the Arabist experts. As I mentioned above, he's head of Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins.

10921. Wombat - 2/6/2006 11:44:17 PM

Fouad Ajami is a supporter of democratizing the Middle East. He is a superb and trenchant commentator on the region. He--like many others--had no idea that that the Bush administration was going to screw up Iraq the way it did. He can be accused of excessive optimism.

10922. jexster - 2/7/2006 1:01:43 AM

He's a flak for the NeoCons after the order of Tiny Tom Friedman

10923. wonkers2 - 2/7/2006 1:03:06 AM

So can Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Feith, et al. Ajami apparently was one of that crowd. He consulted with them and encouraged them according to what I have read. He's very articulate and a persuasive and influential writer. You probably know more about him than I do. However, I get a strong feeling that he contributed to the mess we are now in. Moreover, how realistic is democratizing the Middle East. Sounds to me like a wet dream.

10924. jexster - 2/7/2006 1:05:25 AM

Fouad is one of the minor members of Bernard Louis/Scharansky Bush Claque ..Wonk is right..wonk is from Michigan

10925. wonkers2 - 2/7/2006 1:22:07 AM

Ajami apparently is right in there with Frank Gaffney Woolsey, Perle, Feith, Ledeen, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Kristol and the other pied pipers who led Bush astray. They were all guilty of excessive optimism. They are more at fault than Bush. He's stupid. They are supposed to be smart. Cheney and Rumsfeld were installed for the purpose of baby sitting the chimp and keeping him from running the train off the tracks. They were obviously the wrong baby sitters.

10926. judithathome - 2/7/2006 1:35:36 AM

and the other pied pipers who led Bush astray. They were all guilty of excessive optimism. They are more at fault than Bush. He's stupid.

They didn't lead him astray...they chose him because they knew they could handle him and have their way. For him to be led astray, he'd have to have known something in the first place...to be led astray from. His mind is Tabula Rasa...easy to imprint because nothing is there to override.

10927. wonkers2 - 2/7/2006 2:14:33 AM

I can buy that interpretation.

10928. jexster - 2/7/2006 3:11:54 AM

Fouad Ajami's mea not-quite-culpa

I admit it. There is a certain delicate pleasure to be had by parsing the terms in which one-time supporters of--and even cheerleaders for--Bush's quite optional invasion of Iraq have started to try to wriggle off the hook of their own prior positions.

I wrote here in mid-March about Michael Ignatieff's attempt in that direction.

But at least I have a good deal of respect for most of Ignatieff's public work and argumentation.

Today, we have the public writhings --on the New York Times Op-Ed page, no less--of a quite different fish, Fouad Ajami.

Ajami--just like Ahmad Chalabi, as it happens--is a Shi-ite Arab who left his homeland while still young and ended up in the United States as a strong supporter of Israel and a darling of the neo-cons. Beyond that, Ajami is blessed (cursed?) with a delusion that he is Joseph Conrad reincarnate, a condition that manifests itself through the generation of prose of a staggeringly self-aggrandizing, mock-heroic grandeur.

(Actually, I think Edward Said had that delusion, too. Don't know what the cause of it is/was in either case?)

So today, here is Ajami, bloviating as follows:

It was high time President Bush spoke to the nation of the war in Iraq. A year or so ago, it was our war, and we claimed it proudly. To be sure, there was a minority that never bought into the expedition and genuinely believed that it would come to grief. But most of us recognized that a culture of terror had taken root in the Arab world. We struck, first at Afghanistan and then at the Iraqi regime, out of a broader determination to purge Arab radicalism.

No wonder President Bush, in the most intensely felt passage of Monday night's speech, returned to Sept. 11 and its terrors. "In the last 32 months, history has placed great demands on our country," he said. "We did not seek this war on terror. But this is the world as we find it." Instinctively, an embattled leader fell back on a time of relative national consensus.

But gone is the hubris. Let's face it: Iraq is not going to be America's showcase in the Arab-Muslim world.

Don't you just love it? First, that grandiose, all-encompassing use of "we" in the lede there (with just that dismissive, patronizing nod, "To be sure... " to the "minority" who opposed the war.) And then, that stark, owner-less "Gone is the hubris"?

Excuse me, whose hubris is he talking about there? Helena Cobban

Next to gutless democrats, the "muscular Wilsonians", Fouad and Tiny Tom in some ways digust me more than the Bushevik freaks who are responsible for the emerging catastrophe in the middle east

The problem of concept and execution are not diatinct. The delusions and lies of each group and the consequences are cut from the same whole cloth

10929. PelleNilsson - 2/7/2006 10:16:07 AM

The IHT

Top American intelligence and military officials say the threat of terror attacks against U.S. interests may be greater than ever, despite progress against Al Qaeda and the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, because terror groups have become more diffuse and are aggressively seeking more lethal weapons.

They also remain concerned that the disclosure of once-classified programs like the warrantless surveillance program conducted since 2001 by the National Security Agency had severely undermined their work.

"The enemy - while weakened and under pressure - is still capable of global reach, and still possesses the determination to kill more Americans - and to do so with the world's most dangerous weapons," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in remarks prepared for delivery at the National Press Club. "There is a tendency to underestimate the threat they pose."

It stands to reason that what Bush&Co need in the next few months to shore up their fortunes is a nice little terror attack. A couple of dozen dead in the NYC underground would be ideal.

10930. Wombat - 2/7/2006 1:04:51 PM

Is Helena Cobham one of these "fighting Quakers" who opposes violence only when it is committed against those that they perceived as oppressed?

10931. jexster - 2/7/2006 1:08:14 PM

And that signifies exactly what Wombat? I am to infer that because FuckWad Ajami got goosebumps that he is to be respected.

The point is not Ms. Cobban's views. That is a strawman.

Let's talk about FuckWad the Magnificent:

a leftist in the 1970s, a Shiite nationalist in the 1980s, an apologist for the Saudis in the 1990s, a critic-turned-lover of Israel, a skeptic-turned-enthusiast of American empire, he has observed no consistent principle in his career other than deference to power. His vaunted intellectual independence is a clever fiction

link in Lies 4836

10932. Wombat - 2/7/2006 1:13:09 PM

An Arab intellectual who supports coexistence between Arabs and Israel seems a pretty independent thinker to me, given the context. Could it be that he sees the on-going corrupt and oppressive state control in Arab states in the Middle East as a tendency that keeps Arabs intellectually, economically, and politically backward?

10933. jexster - 2/7/2006 1:19:46 PM

Et Tu Scoote?

Will Scooter Libby Graymail the CIA?

Meanwhile, on other fronts, Libby and the White House received good news and bad news. Libby and GOPers had reason to be pleased when Judge Reggie Walton set a trial date for next January--which would push the trial of Cheney's former chief of staff beyond the congressional elections.

The bad news for Libby and Republicans was the release of previously withheld court records that indicate the case against Libby may be stronger than Fitzgerald's indictment suggested. These records, referring to grand jury testimony, reveal more details of Libby's alleged lying to investigators and a grand jury. They also suggest that Cheney may play a significant role in the trial.

10934. concerned - 2/7/2006 1:24:06 PM

It stands to reason that what Bush&Co need in the next few months to shore up their fortunes is a nice little terror attack. A couple of dozen dead in the NYC underground would be ideal

Naah. I want to see a few thousand smoking Saabs in Stockholm.

10935. concerned - 2/7/2006 1:27:39 PM

Everybody knows Europe is where the terrorist action is at.

10936. thoughtful - 2/7/2006 1:29:54 PM

Rummy: <>"There is a tendency to underestimate the threat they pose."

Well, he should know...after all, which administration was it that went on vacation after receiving the dire news: bin laden determined to attack within the us.

10937. thoughtful - 2/7/2006 1:52:40 PM

required reading...dana milbank in the wapo. Scarier than a horror flick:

More interesting than what the attorney general said was what he would not say. Has President Bush, invoking his "inherent powers" under the Constitution, also authorized warrantless eavesdropping on domestic calls, opening of Americans' mail and e-mail, and searches of their homes and offices?

"I am not comfortable going down the road of saying yes or no as to what the president has or has not authorized," Gonzales, shifting frequently in his chair, informed the senators.

See full article.

So consider yourself watched. 1984 has come only 22 years late.

Soma anyone?

10938. jexster - 2/7/2006 1:58:58 PM

Bush wasn't led astray.

He wanted to show up his Poppy by going to Baghdad and getting re-elected. He wanted to dispel the myth of "Is he a wimp?" (Time Cover caption)

He also wanted higher oil prices. This is a matter of public record during the Fine GuvnuhShip of the Great State of Texas.

As my Tejas bro put it:

This is what I've been saying about GWB since he was a lowly governor, no, make that a lowly owner of a baseball team in Texas:

His breathtaking arrogance is exceeded only by his incompetence. And that's the real problem. That's where you'll find the mind-boggling destructiveness of this regime, in its incompetence.

Bob Hebert summed it all up

10939. jexster - 2/7/2006 4:49:00 PM

FuckWad of Destruction - As the Empire Crumbles

Icon of Disaster: The Incompetent Son

Well there he goes again. In every position he has ever held, our CEO/Warrior King makes a big mess and someone else has to come clean it up.



Political Islam is coming to flower in power across the Middle East ..blooming democracy my ass....blooming disaster more like it.


BUDGET'S BIG LOSERS: DOMESTIC PROGRAMS

This time America and the World, we all get to pay the Piper.

The invasion of Iraq I believe will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. historyLt Gen William Odom (USA ret)

10940. jayackroyd - 2/7/2006 6:43:14 PM

They didn't lead him astray...they chose him because they knew they could handle him and have their way

And you see who they're pitching to follow him--that nimrod George Allen, who got elected because his father coached the Redskins, and who didn't know the new Fed chairman's name.

10941. jayackroyd - 2/7/2006 6:44:33 PM

Cook says the dems have a`shot at the House.

10942. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 2/7/2006 8:20:41 PM

10943. robertjayb - 2/7/2006 9:28:33 PM

On second thought ...

Jeff Skilling, then Enron's chief operating officer under Ken Lay, apologized for his scratchy throat at the beginning of his January 2001 presentation. He said he caught a cold during the inauguration of President Bush.

"Having a Republican administration is good for Enron, so I was glad to have gone to Washington to make sure it went off without a hitch," Skilling joked.

Now it's Bush's Justice Department that is seeking to put Skilling and Lay behind bars for fraud and conspiracy, conceivably for the rest of their lives.

10944. jexster - 2/7/2006 9:52:21 PM

Is this some kind of SICK JOKE?

US defense industry frets about high Iraq spending


A surprising group of protesters is starting to voice concerns about the high level of spending on the U.S. occupation of Iraq: the defense industry.

While many companies benefit from supplying vehicles and guns to U.S. troops in Iraq, some defense firms and industry experts are concerned that money spent on Iraq is taking away from more lucrative, longer-term multibillion-dollar programs.

The result is some confusion over the Pentagon's strategy, and fears that the United States will end up with a "hollow force" if it doesn't fulfill its modernization plans.

"We're spending $6 billion to $7 billion a month in Iraq -- that's not efficient spending of defense money," said Frank Lanza, chief executive of defense company L-3 Communications Holdings Inc., in an interview last week.

10945. jexster - 2/7/2006 10:04:04 PM

When you're at a funeral at find yourself the Guest of Honor


"A surprising number of speakers at Coretta Scott King's funeral devoted a surprising amount of attention not to King but another person in the room" Keith Oberman MSNBC

10946. jexster - 2/7/2006 10:07:54 PM

According to Dana Milbank the hits were coming so fast and so furious, Bush's new best buddy Bill had to point to the coffin and call for a cease fire

Should have pre-screened the audience.
Taken Bill out!

10947. jexster - 2/7/2006 10:20:29 PM

According to the conservative magazine Insight Karl Rove has been calling around the conservative community warning that Republicans who challenge Il Duce's regime on domestic spying will be blacklisted...no bucks for the bad

10948. jexster - 2/7/2006 10:26:52 PM

The Chairman of the SF County GOP has offered a bet double or nothing on the dinner bet I lost in 04

While that's good news Jay, I hope that Charlie's erring as usual on the side of caution at this point for I expect a more definitive prediction that either house will fall but at any rate, until I get one, the Chairmann don't get a definitive response...

Should I take it now or wait? Whaddya y'all think?

Those DemoLeaders scare the shit out of me

10949. jexster - 2/7/2006 11:21:06 PM

So many scandals..so little time

The Betrayal of Valerie Wilson
By Larry Johnson | CIA
Via TPMC

Valerie Plame was a covert intelligence officer covered by the Intelligence Officer's Identity Protection Act and Lewis "Scooter" Libby lied to the Grand Jury. These two truths emerge from the opinion written by Judge Tatel, of the US Court of Appeals, and released in February 2005. Thanks to a FOIA request by the Wall Street Journal we now have a more complete record, although key parts of his decision are still blacked out. Perhaps most of the media will now realize that they have been fed a pack of lies by the likes of Ken Mehlman, Victoria Toensing, Cliff May and others. ...

This much I do know. The CIA, as matter of standard operating procedure, conducted a prelimnary damage assessment once Valerie's identity was publicly compromised. Human intelligence assets who had worked under Valerie's direction were damaged. Their lives were put at risk (I don't know if anyone died) and their ability to serve as clandestine assets reporting to the United States was destroyed. Remember, Valerie was working on projects to identify terrorists and criminals who were trying to procure weapons of mass destruction. Part of this information was the basis for the referral to the Justice Department in September 2003 to investigate this as a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Although the CIA has not completed a formal written report that is available to outsiders, such as the House or Senate Intelligence Committees, it has done a damage assessment.

Other material contained in Tatel's review of the case contains the following substantive nuggets:
Vice President Cheney told Scooter Libby that Valerie Plame worked at the CIA's Counter Proliferation Division in mid-June 2003.

Both Cheney and Libby, by virtue of their longstanding work with CIA and on national security issues, knew that CPD was an intelligence collector and not an analytical shop. They also have had enough experience with intelligence matters to know that the vast majority of folks involved with intelligence collection are undercover.

10950. jexster - 2/8/2006 12:14:55 AM

Party's Over

US urging Iraq to develop oil "roadmap"

10951. jexster - 2/8/2006 12:15:34 AM

When Bush starts talkin roadmaps, look for the Fat Lady stage left

10952. jexster - 2/8/2006 5:53:13 AM

Do you feel it?
I have for about a year now.

Some Democrats Sense Opportunities Missed

10953. jayackroyd - 2/8/2006 6:08:05 AM

Should I take it now or wait? Whaddya y'all think?

I think there's gonna be an influx of freshmen. There's definitely a "throw the bums out" feel to the polling. The challenge will be distancing oneself from the national party.

It's interesting that the polls don't reflect the media take. You wouldn't guess from the way the administration being covered that Bush is in Nixon territory. But he is. It may be that the media matters a whole lot less than people think it does.

Rove is right to be scared of the illegal wiretapping. At this stage of lameduckness, Bush doesn't have a lot of capital. People in tight races won't want to be seen with him, so Rove has to bluster at full bore. While impeachment could happen, conviction could not, but at the same time, it could get very difficult for the president as revelation follows revelation.

10954. jexster - 2/8/2006 6:42:11 AM

Yea I know he is scared. That's why he is trying to scare the Democrats with the dreaded T word.

I tried to get Cook to bite by bcc of email.

This is how he didn't take the bait

I am gonna hit him in June when I think Iraq and Revelations will have taken their toll ...I think we have a good shot at two if we find enough publicity of persons with balls

But THAT is a big IF at this point

I am old Charlie..I forget things these days

Mike DeNunzio is one of TWO republicans I know. Poor thing, he is Chairman of the SF GOP. What a life..anyway lost a bet - Most Expensive Restaurant in SF thanks in part to you and the incumbent rule..just kidding

He's trying to bust my balls - again - double or nothing..two dinners for the price of none..not a good proposition anyway..but I may take him up on it..at a more definitive time.

Hope things are well...you're in your element that's for sure

"Cook, Charlie" wrote:
Actually the first edition of the Almanac came out in the spring of 1972, my senior year in high school, and I bought it then, and every subsequent edition.

Chairman Mike who?



--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld (www.BlackBerry.net)


-----Original Message-----
From: john mccutchen
To: mdenun@
Sent: Tue Feb 07 20:33:47 2006
Subject: The Bet

I do not predict Congress. I rely on my buddy Charlie Cook for that. Too many races to follow really, so let Charlie do it I figger. Back in the day when he was at Georgetown and I at the Pope's Law School, he, I guess you could say, worked for me when we were both on the Johnston staff. In fact, I remember well when, seconded to the DSCC staff during the boss's chairmanship, Charles picked up the first edition of the Almanac of American Politics. He couldn't put that sucker down. We all thought it was a little weird, but little did we know that Chuck was actually doing something for his career.

I will email him at some point down lhe line and give you my answer to the double or nothing Chairman Mike


Cook says the dems have a`shot at the House.

10955. wonkers2 - 2/8/2006 1:02:27 PM

Republican on House NSA oversight committee calls for investigation. Conned, how'd'ya like them apples? Here.

10956. concerned - 2/8/2006 2:04:06 PM

Like 'em just fine. Good way to clear the air once and for all, I say.

10957. concerned - 2/8/2006 2:08:11 PM

Maureen Dowd on the Hilliary '08 candidacy:

Maureen Dowd: Hillary Clinton 'Not Angry Enough'
Feb. 8, 2006
NewsMax.com


Bush-bashing New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd is warning that Hillary Clinton may not turn out to be her party's next presidential nominee unless she finds a way to combat charges that she's "too angry."

But instead of calming down, the flame-haired scribe suggests bizarrely that Mrs. Clinton needs to lose her temper more often in public.

"Hillary's problem isn't that she's angry," insists Dowd in her Tuesday column. "It's that she's not angry enough."

The tart-tongued Timeswoman complains: "From Iraq to Katrina and the assault on the Constitution, from Schiavo to Alito and N.S.A. snooping to Congressional corruption, Hillary has failed to lead in voicing her outrage."

Chatting with radioman Don Imus Tuesday morning, Dowd said Mrs. Clinton's leadership meltdown may cost her the 2008 presidential nomination. "It's just interesting what's happening in the Democratic Party in the last few weeks," she declared. "I think people are realizing that she's not the inevitable candidate."

Democrats are starting to fear "that it would be kind of a lemming situation if they just go with her," Dowd said.

You go, girl!

10958. jexster - 2/8/2006 4:18:46 PM

Well I will thank you very much

I be ridin to the sound of the gunfire!

The American Conservative to The Weekly Standard: Challenge Accepted
by Patrick J. Buchanan

10959. judithathome - 2/8/2006 4:43:11 PM

House Majority Leader Rents Flat From Lobbyist

Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, who was elected House majority leader last week, is renting his Capitol Hill apartment from a veteran lobbyist whose clients have direct stakes in legislation Boehner has co-written and that he has overseen as chairman of the Education and the Workforce Committee.

The relationship between Boehner, lobbyist John Milne and Milne's wife, Debra Anderson, underscores how intertwined senior lawmakers have become with the lobbyists paid to influence legislation.

Boehner's primary residence is in West Chester, Ohio, but for $1,600 a month, he rents a two-bedroom basement apartment near the House office buildings on Capitol Hill owned by Milne, Boehner spokesman Don Seymour said Tuesday. Boehner's monthly rent appears to be similar to other rentals of two-bedroom English basement apartments close to the House side of the Capitol, based on a review of apartment listings.

Milne's clients, including restaurant chains and health insurance companies, hired him to lobby on issues at the heart of Boehner's work, including minimum wage increases, small-business tax breaks and tax-free savings accounts to help cover insurance costs, congressional lobbying records show.

10960. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 2/8/2006 6:17:42 PM

"I am not a crook!"

10961. thoughtful - 2/8/2006 8:56:10 PM

good one wiz!

10962. jexster - 2/8/2006 9:35:05 PM

The Political Power of Truth
By Jonathan Alter

Because Lies Have Consquences boiz and girlz


In recent years, failure and incompetence have been trounced by fear at the ballot box. But reality may be making a comeback....

The former is based on reason and an examination of the facts; the latter on emotion, with 9/11 as a trump card. But now reality may be making a comeback, as Bush's authority breaks into a million little pieces.

10963. jexster - 2/8/2006 9:39:35 PM

James Gerstenzang of the Los Angeles Times asked Bush if he subscribed to President Nixon's notion that "when the president does it, it's not illegal." This was, indeed, the essence—the truth—of the president's position on the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping, which violates a 1978 law.

The news conference wasn't a complete truthfest. No reporter managed to ask the president about his statement of April 24, 2004, when Bush told a Buffalo audience: "Any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires—a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so." This statement was false, and Bush knew it when he said it. The president lied in Buffalo, just as surely as Bill Clinton lied when he said: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky." Of course, Bush's Buffalo lie got a tiny fraction of the airplay of Clinton's Lewinsky lie.
Jonathan ALter

Yes indeed Wiz...very very timely

10964. jexster - 2/8/2006 10:32:31 PM

WASHINGTON - After weeks of insisting it would not reveal details of its eavesdropping without warrants, the White House reversed course Wednesday and provided a House committee with highly classified information about the operation.



The White House has been under heavy pressure from lawmakers who wanted more information about the National Security Agency's monitoring. Democrats and many Republicans rejected the administration's contention that they could not be trusted with national security secrets.

The shift came the same day Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., announced he is drafting legislation that would require the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to review the administration's monitoring program and determine if it is constitutional


Proving once again, the ole Jexster maxim, first announceed in great dismay at George Miller/T. Kennedy's support of No Child Left

The only way to deal with George Bush is to tell him to fuck himself

10965. jexster - 2/9/2006 3:03:12 PM

"I'm not sure we won't miss Saddam." Israel 'may rue Saddam overthrow'
Yuval Diskin, Shin Bet Chief [BBC]

"We cannot leave Iraq before it is stabilized," declared a former CIA officer. But to maintain a prolonged foreign occupation of Iraq is to destabilize it only further. Once the invader departs, there will no doubt be a civil war, which will accelerate the dismemberment of the nation, giving rise to a fundamentalist regime, which will make at least some people miss the era of Saddam. Regis Debray, The Indispensable Nation Sept 2003.

There is no "maybe" about it for the worst is yet to come from Bush's Big Adventure - the Greatest Strategic Disaster in US History


Will the Democrats be there to pick up the pieces or wlll the Democrats be one of the pieces?

10966. jayackroyd - 2/9/2006 4:49:54 PM

Today's "I feel like I'm living in the Soviet Union" moment.

Anti GSM activist Jose Bove was denied entry into the US. He was going to address a conference with a paper titled “The Struggle Against Monsanto in Europe.”

10967. jexster - 2/9/2006 5:15:40 PM

Here's your "National Strategery for Victory" Folks



US to stay 10 to 15 years in Iraq advises NATO Commander via Der Spiegel

10968. alistairConnor - 2/9/2006 7:22:23 PM

Quite right, Bové is a dangerous character. He might start destroying cornfields in the streets of New York.

On the other hand, there are plenty of McDonalds' in NY...

10969. jexster - 2/9/2006 9:51:46 PM

Tongue on Fire


Bush: U.S. Surveillance Helped Stop Attack - AP

NBC News: NSA Surveillance Had Nothing to Do With Alleged LA Plot

Nothing Bush has said has turned out to be true, why should I believe him now? John Murtha

10970. jexster - 2/9/2006 10:04:19 PM

BTW..Bush claimed that the turruhrisses planned to attack LA's "Liberty Tower".

There is no Liberty Tower in Los Angeles.
Nobody warned the Mayor that Bush was going to scare the shit out of Angelinos

US Bank Library Tower - Los Angeles

10971. jexster - 2/10/2006 1:53:54 AM

Walter Pincus, WaPo

The Willy Loman of Snake Oil Sales:
Former CIA Official Faults Use of Iraq Data

The former CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East until last year has accused the Bush administration of "cherry-picking" intelligence on Iraq to justify a decision it had already reached to go to war, and of ignoring warnings that the country could easily fall into violence and chaos after an invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

Fixed facts to Fit the Policy.....

Lying scum.

For misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial along with the rest of the president's men. If convicted, they'll have plenty of time to mull over their sins.

Martin van Creveld
Professor of Military History
Hebrew University, Jerusalem

10972. jexster - 2/10/2006 1:56:40 AM

Official intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs was flawed, but even with its flaws, it was not what led to the war," Pillar wrote in the upcoming issue of the journal Foreign Affairs. Instead, he asserted, the administration "went to war without requesting -- and evidently without being influenced by -- any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq."

"It has become clear that official intelligence was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made, that damaging ill will developed between [Bush] policymakers and intelligence officers, and that the intelligence community's own work was politicized," Pillar wrote

10973. wonkers2 - 2/10/2006 2:13:40 AM

Bush isn't capable of strategic level intelligence assessments. He leaves those up to Cheney and Rumsfled and his speech writers who feed him catchy concepts like "axis of evil," and "pre-emptive war."

10974. thoughtful - 2/10/2006 11:44:57 AM

Well, he's at it again. You'd think by now the MSM would see through this crap, but apparently they don't. Bush came out with old data on an old supposedly foiled terrorist attack from 2002. Well, why do you suppose they're trotting that out now?

Couldn't be to divert attention away from other negative news for the administration could it?

Like the fact that scooty-scoot is now saying that he rec'd orders directly from his superiors that he was to release plame's name to the media...his superior being none other than pork-chop butt?

Same MO....different disgrace.

And watching jon stewart last night what a great clip of leahey pointing out that gonzales couldn't address any issue that might be of relevance to the committee and the cam caught gonzales clever little smirk in response that clearly stated "you got that right!"

10975. thoughtful - 2/10/2006 11:46:29 AM

Bob Herbert really nailed it though in the nyt (behind the wall)

While testifying about the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping program, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was asked to explain how the program had been damaged by the disclosure of its existence in the press.

Senator Joseph Biden suggested that Al Qaeda operatives have most likely been aware for some time that the government is trying to intercept their phone calls.

Mr. Gonzales agreed. "You would assume that the enemy is presuming that we are engaged in some kind of surveillance," he said. "But i