Add to your Xmas List

Link.

If Only Dems had Spines... Essential Reading for the Weekend

Link.

A Question for the Ages

I forget: Why do minority groups hated and fought by the wingnuts want to be wingnuts themselves? I presume it's some complex psychological thing I can't wrap my mind around but what is it? I mean, how do you explain this:

A new, factory-produced front group named the Black Republican Freedom Fund is running ads saying - sit down for this, and do NOT have a cup of coffee anywhere near your face - "Martin Luther King, Jr. Was a Republican."

Link.

Weekend Humor Piece

Our Leader rewrites the Bill of Rights so that it's... right -- as in wingnut.

Quote of the Day; Why We Love Our GOP Wingnut Leaders

"Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference?" Lott asked. "They all look the same to me."

The Times' Friday Editions are Starting to Look Like Pravda

Two... delicious -- and journalistically justified headlines:

Democrats See Strength in Bucking Bush

New Woodward Book Says Bush Ignored Urgent Warning on Iraq

If only they could do this every day....

And as to the Woodward book:

Terrorism warnings: On July 10, 2001, Woodward says, CIA Director George Tenet and his counterterrorism chief met with Condoleezza Rice to try to "impress upon her the seriousness of the intelligence the agency was collecting about an impending attack," the Times says. They left the meeting with the feeling that Rice didn't appreciate the gravity of the situation, Woodward says. As 9/11 drew nearer, he says, Tenet came to believe that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was impeding plans to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. Rumsfeld suggested that the intelligence the CIA was collecting about an impending attack might actually be part of some sort of misdirection by al-Qaida.

Iraq warnings: Woodward says that Robert Blackwill, who served as the top Iraq advisor on the National Security Council, told Rice in September 2003 that the U.S. was in desperate need of more troops in Iraq. Woodward says that Blackwill and Paul Bremer subsequently briefed Rice and Stephen Hadley about the need for troops but that the White House took no action in response.

Rumsfeld's detachment: Woodward says that Rumsfeld didn't involve himself much in the reconstruction of Iraq, such as it was, and that he fell into such a spat with Rice that Bush had to order him to start returning her phone calls. Woodward quotes Gen. John Abizaid, the commander of U.S. military forces in the Middle East, as saying in 2005 that Rumsfeld "doesn't have any credibility anymore" with the public. Woodward says that Colin Powell suggested that Rumsfeld be sent packing from the administration with him after the 2004 elections, and that former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card tried to dump Rumsfeld in 2005 but failed when Bush objected.

Cheney's obsession: Woodward says the vice president was so fixated on finding WMD in Iraq that his aides were phoning David Kay -- once at 3 o'clock in the morning -- with the satellite coordinates of suspected weapons sites. When Kay began to believe that Saddam Hussein might have had the capability to build WMD but no WMD yet, Woodward says CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin warned him not to say anything: "Don't tell anyone this. This could be upsetting. Be very careful. We can't let this out until we're sure."

Link.

Big question will be how it sells compared to the rest of his library of W hagiography.

And the rhetorical question is will it have any effect on the WaPo editorial page? (Editorial pages are irrelevant so that's why the question's rhetorical.)

Abramoff Innocent

He just visited the White House and met with Mehlman and Rove 485 times more than I:

[T]he report "single[s] out two of President Bush's top lieutenants, Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman, as having been offered expensive meals and exclusive tickets to premier sporting events and concerts by Abramoff and his associates."

Our Leaders' Hypocricy on the March; Exemplar of the Week

Foley pushed child porn bills, asked: "Do I make you a little horny?

Before he resigned from the House of Representatives today, Florida Rep. Mark Foley was the co-chairman of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus and somebody who spoke out a lot about the risks young people face from adults who might sexually exploit them.

When Foley wasn't doing that, ABC News says, he was instant-messaging male House pages with questions like, "Do I make you a little horny?"

Among the other highlights from Foley's congressional career:

In July of this year, Foley's office issued a press release congratulating the U.S. Senate for passing the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, a bill Foley co-sponsored in the House. Among other things, the act expanded the definition of sex offenders who must register with state authorities to include those who "use ... the Internet to facilitate or commit a crime against a minor."

Also in July, Foley introduced the Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today’s Youth (SAFETY) Act, a bill aimed at cracking down on child pornography on the Web. "We have to stop the supply of child pornography by attacking the source," Foley said in the press release. "Authorities tell us the Internet has made child pornography easier to disseminate, easier to produce, and easier to turn a profit on."

In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in 2005, Foley said: "Sex offenders are not petty criminals. They prey on our children like animals and will continue to do it unless stopped. We need to change the way we track these pedophiles. ... It has often been noted that a society can be judged on how it best treats it children. We have a moral responsibility to do everything in our power to protect our kids from these animals. This bill will turn the tables and make prey out of these predators. Failing to act on this measure is just playing Russian roulette with our children's lives."

In July 2004, Foley celebrated Internet Safety Day by warning parents that the Web had become "a new medium for pedophiles to reach out to our most vulnerable citizens --America's children."

And in 2003, Foley held a press conference to denounce Democratic activists for engaging in a "repulsive" campaign to tag him with the "slur" of being gay.

Link. And here's a little proof. And:

According to the CREW posting, the boy e-mailed a colleague in Alexander's office about Foley's e-mails, saying, "This freaked me out." On a request for a photo, the boy repeated the word "sick" 13 times.

He said Foley asked for his e-mail when the boy gave him a thank you card. The boy also said Foley wrote that he e-mailed another page.

"He's such a nice guy," Foley wrote about the other boy. "acts much older than his age ... and hes in really great shape ... i am just finished riding my bike on a 25 mile journey now heading to the gym ... whats school like for you this year?"

In other e-mails, Foley wrote, "I am back in Florida now ... its nice here ... been raining today ... it sounds like you will have some fun over the next few weeks ... how old are you now?" and "how are you weathering the hurricane ... are you safe ... send me an email pic of you as well."

Link.

The smoking gun is here. (ABC News makes penitence for "The Note" and all ABC's other sins -- til the inevitable next time.)

...Foley had been expected to be a "shoo-in" for reelection until it was reported Thursday that he had sent a series of e-mail messages in which he asked the page for a picture and a description of the "stuff" he liked "to do."

Foley's office and campaign staff had insisted that there was nothing inappropriate about a 52-year-old member of Congress engaging in such communications with a 16-year-old former page. Foley spokesman Jason Kello had accused Democrat Tim Mahoney's campaign of distributing the emails as part of a "political smear campaign of the worst sort." "They have taken these e-mails out of context in order to smear a good man," Kello told the Associated Press. Now Foley says that he's "deeply sorry ... for letting down my family and the people of Florida I have had the privilege to represent."

While the e-mail messages were vague enough that Foley might have explained them away successfully, ABC News says it has obtained instant-messaging text he sent to other underage male pages in which the congressman "made repeated references to sexual organs and acts." ABC says Foley's resignation came shortly after it questioned him about the IM content.

Link.

And among Foley's great moments in leadership:

“It’s vile,” said Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach. “It’s more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction.”

One can only hope this is a tip of an iceberg, more like the iceberg the Titanic hit, causing the ship to go down (pun acknowledged but not necessarily intended -- Freudian slip maybe?). Or maybe it'll be the tipping point, not just a matter of losing Foley's district but the point at which a critical mass has had it with being led by anti-American nutjobs.

And a disclosure: None of the above is to cast any aspersion on Foley's sexuality -- any aspect of it. The issue is hypocrisy and dishonesty (what all politicos are made of but what the wingnuts are exclusively made of but for greed), in this case interfering peoples' private lives.

The Wrong Lessons of Vietnam and the One No One Mentions

The former:

Mr. Moyar draws lessons from Vietnam that subtly but unmistakably apply to contemporary warfare: that national leaders make life-and-death decisions sometimes without understanding the complexities of a distant and unfamiliar theater of war; that a nation initially committed to going to war is sometimes reluctant to expend the resources, both human and financial, to finish it; and that our society has a proclivity to lose confidence and resolve should a conflict last too long. The lesson is clear: Iraq and other, related post-9/11 conflicts will require perseverance, resources and resolve.

(Link. Sub. required.)

And why do we not persevere?

That's the lesson no one discusses.

The people are more likely to persevere if that war is a necessary one and we're succeeding and success is likely. At risk of over-simplification, Vietnam was strategically unnecessary and the American people were never persuaded of the necessity of it, such as it was, other than Now that we're here, we have to stay until victory -- the victory even the South Vietnamese couldn't be bothered to fight for.

There is no good reason for us to have gone into Iraq. Our Leaders can lie and lie but can never change that.

And how happy are the Iraqis?

Waterboarding for Dummies

Link.

What America Stands For

Apropos the detainee bill:

"Taken together, the bill’s provisions rewrite American law to evade the fundamental principles of separation of powers, due process, habeas corpus, fair trials, and the rule of law, principles that, together, prohibit state-sanctioned violence. If there is any fixed point in the historical understandings of constitutional freedom that help to define us as a people, it is that no one may be picked up and locked up by the American state in secret or at an unknown location, or without opportunity to petition an independent court for inspection of the lawfulness of the lockup and of the treatment handed out by the state to the person locked up, under legal standards from time to time defined by Congress. This core principle should apply with full force to all detentions by the American state, regardless of the citizenship of detainees."

Link.

We stand for less and less of anything good while Our Leaders remain in power....

Historical Quote that Still Speaks Truth

Our leaders' teacher speaks from the past:

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

Link.

Olbermann on Clinton Vs. Fox

The headlines about them are, of course, entirely wrong.

It is not essential that a past president, bullied and sandbagged by a monkey posing as a newscaster, finally lashed back.

It is not important that the current President’s portable public chorus has described his predecessor’s tone as “crazed.”

Our tone should be crazed. The nation’s freedoms are under assault by an administration whose policies can do us as much damage as al Qaida; the nation’s marketplace of ideas is being poisoned by a propaganda company so blatant that Tokyo Rose would’ve quit.

Nonetheless. The headline is this:

Bill Clinton did what almost none of us have done in five years.

He has spoken the truth about 9/11, and the current presidential administration.

"At least I tried," he said of his own efforts to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. "That’s the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They had eight months to try; they did not try. I tried."

Thus in his supposed emeritus years has Mr. Clinton taken forceful and triumphant action for honesty, and for us; action as vital and as courageous as any of his presidency; action as startling and as liberating, as any, by any one, in these last five long years.

The Bush Administration did not try to get Osama bin Laden before 9/11.

The Bush Administration ignored all the evidence gathered by its predecessors.

The Bush Administration did not understand the Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S."

The Bush Administration did not try.

Moreover, for the last five years one month and two weeks, the current administration, and in particular the President, has been given the greatest “pass” for incompetence and malfeasance in American history!

President Roosevelt was rightly blamed for ignoring the warning signs—some of them, 17 years old—before Pearl Harbor.

President Hoover was correctly blamed for—if not the Great Depression itself—then the disastrous economic steps he took in the immediate aftermath of the Stock Market Crash.

Even President Lincoln assumed some measure of responsibility for the Civil War—though talk of Southern secession had begun as early as 1832.

But not this president.

To hear him bleat and whine and bully at nearly every opportunity, one would think someone else had been president on September 11th, 2001 -- or the nearly eight months that preceded it.

That hardly reflects the honesty nor manliness we expect of the executive.

But if his own fitness to serve is of no true concern to him, perhaps we should simply sigh and keep our fingers crossed, until a grown-up takes the job three Januarys from now.

Except for this.

After five years of skirting even the most inarguable of facts—that he was president on 9/11 and he must bear some responsibility for his, and our, unreadiness, Mr. Bush has now moved, unmistakably and without conscience or shame, towards re-writing history, and attempting to make the responsibility, entirely Mr. Clinton’s.

Of course he is not honest enough to do that directly.

As with all the other nefariousness and slime of this, our worst presidency since James Buchanan, he is having it done for him, by proxy.

Thus, the sandbag effort by Fox News Friday afternoon.

Consider the timing: the very weekend the National Intelligence Estimate would be released and show the Iraq war to be the fraudulent failure it is—not a check on terror, but fertilizer for it.

The kind of proof of incompetence, for which the administration and its hyenas at Fox need to find a diversion, in a scapegoat.

It was the kind of cheap trick which would get a journalist fired—but a propagandist, promoted:

Promise to talk of charity and generosity; but instead launch into the lies and distortions with which the Authoritarians among us attack the virtuous and reward the useless.

And don’t even be professional enough to assume the responsibility for the slanders yourself; blame your audience for “e-mailing” you the question.

Mr. Clinton responded as you have seen.

He told the great truth untold about this administration’s negligence, perhaps criminal negligence, about bin Laden.

He was brave.

Then again, Chris Wallace might be braver still. Had I in one moment surrendered all my credibility as a journalist, and been irredeemably humiliated, as was he, I would have gone home and started a new career selling seeds by mail.

The smearing by proxy, of course, did not begin Friday afternoon.

Disney was first to sell-out its corporate reputation, with "The Path to 9/11." Of that company’s crimes against truth one needs to say little. Simply put: someone there enabled an Authoritarian zealot to belch out Mr. Bush’s new and improved history.

The basic plot-line was this: because he was distracted by the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Bill Clinton failed to prevent 9/11.

The most curious and in some ways the most infuriating aspect of this slapdash theory, is that the Right Wingers who have advocated it—who try to sneak it into our collective consciousness through entertainment, or who sandbag Mr. Clinton with it at news interviews—have simply skipped past its most glaring flaw.

Had it been true that Clinton had been distracted from the hunt for bin Laden in 1998 because of the Monica Lewinsky nonsense, why did these same people not applaud him for having bombed bin Laden’s camps in Afghanistan and Sudan on Aug. 20, of that year? For mentioning bin Laden by name as he did so?

That day, Republican Senator Grams of Minnesota invoked the movie "Wag The Dog."

Republican Senator Coats of Indiana questioned Mr. Clinton’s judgment.

Republican Senator Ashcroft of Missouri—the future attorney general—echoed Coats.

Even Republican Senator Arlen Specter questioned the timing.

And of course, were it true Clinton had been “distracted” by the Lewinsky witch-hunt, who on earth conducted the Lewinsky witch-hunt?

Who turned the political discourse of this nation on its head for two years?

Who corrupted the political media?

Who made it impossible for us to even bring back on the air, the counter-terrorism analysts like Dr. Richard Haass, and James Dunegan, who had warned, at this very hour, on this very network, in early 1998, of cells from the Middle East who sought to attack us, here?

Who preempted them in order to strangle us with the trivia that was, “All Monica All The Time”?

Who distracted whom?

This is, of course, where—as is inevitable—Mr. Bush and his henchmen prove not quite as smart as they think they are.

The full responsibility for 9/11 is obviously shared by three administrations, possibly four.

But, Mr. Bush, if you are now trying to convince us by proxy that it’s all about the distractions of 1998 and 1999, then you will have to face a startling fact that your minions may have hidden from you.

The distractions of 1998 and 1999, Mr. Bush, were carefully manufactured, and lovingly executed, not by Bill Clinton, but by the same people who got you elected President.

Thus, instead of some commendable acknowledgment that you were even in office on 9/11 and the lost months before it, we have your sleazy and sloppy rewriting of history, designed by somebody who evidently read the Orwell playbook too quickly.

Thus, instead of some explanation for the inertia of your first eight months in office, we are told that you have kept us "safe" ever since—a statement that might range anywhere from zero, to 100 percent, true.

We have nothing but your word, and your word has long since ceased to mean anything.

And, of course, the one time you have ever given us specifics about what you have kept us safe from, Mr. Bush, you got the name of the supposedly targeted Tower in Los Angeles wrong.

Thus was it left for the previous president to say what so many of us have felt; what so many of us have given you a pass for in the months and even the years after the attack:

You did not try.

You ignored the evidence gathered by your predecessor.

You ignored the evidence gathered by your own people.

Then, you blamed your predecessor.

That would be a textbook definition, Mr. Bush, of cowardice.

To enforce the lies of the present, it is necessary to erase the truths of the past.

That was one of the great mechanical realities Eric Blair—writing as George Orwell—gave us in the book “1984.”

The great philosophical reality he gave us, Mr. Bush, may sound as familiar to you, as it has lately begun to sound familiar to me.

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power...

"Power is not a means; it is an end.

"One does not establish a dictatorship to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.

"The object of persecution, is persecution. The object of torture, is torture. The object of power… is power."

Earlier last Friday afternoon, before the Fox ambush, speaking in the far different context of the closing session of his remarkable Global Initiative, Mr. Clinton quoted Abraham Lincoln’s State of the Union address from 1862.

"We must disenthrall ourselves."

Mr. Clinton did not quote the rest of Mr. Lincoln’s sentence.

He might well have.

"We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country."

And so has Mr. Clinton helped us to disenthrall ourselves, and perhaps enabled us, even at this late and bleak date, to save our country.

The "free pass" has been withdrawn, Mr. Bush.

You did not act to prevent 9/11.

We do not know what you have done to prevent another 9/11.

You have failed us—then leveraged that failure, to justify a purposeless war in Iraq which will have, all too soon, claimed more American lives than did 9/11.

You have failed us anew in Afghanistan.

And you have now tried to hide your failures, by blaming your predecessor.

And now you exploit your failure, to rationalize brazen torture which doesn’t work anyway; which only condemns our soldiers to water-boarding; which only humiliates our country further in the world; and which no true American would ever condone, let alone advocate.

And there it is, Mr. Bush:

Are yours the actions of a true American?

Link.

Liars (What Else is New?)

President Bush on Tuesday said it is naive and a mistake to think that the war with Iraq has worsened terrorism, as a key portion of a national intelligence assessment by his own administration suggests.

Link.

What utter scum, to be the lying face of the most dishonest administration in over a century, if not more.... It's an administration of Joe McCarthy's, not a one with shame, Nazi and Soviet soul mates believing the end -- accreting power -- justifies any and all means. This is a leader? No, just a stupid, weak figurehead, something for those who have dropped out of living a reality-based life.

Just the Latest Proof That We're Lead by Patently Partisan Lying Scumbags

Link the first. Link the second.

And for that matter, the water-carrying Big Media is little more honest.

Clinton Finally Strikes Back at the Wingnuts, to the Extent H Can with a Politician-Wife, Ten Years Too Late

He had, if nothing else, great popularity, and maybe could have actually used it against them -- and maybe we wouldn't be where we are now....

But I digress.

Link. Let the good times roll....

We Have the Greatest Healthcare System in the World and Here's Proof That it's Getting Even Greater

FORT WAYNE, Ind. -- Last year Russ Moore Transmission Inc. adopted a health-insurance plan in tune with the "consumer driven" philosophy President Bush has been touting. The plan requires employees to pay as much as $5,250 a year in medical costs out of their own money before insurance kicks in, with the goal of turning them into savvy shoppers for doctors and drugs.

The new strategy has motivated some workers to research what they are paying for medical care. One found an over-the-counter replacement for a more expensive brand-name heartburn drug. That is good news for Nick Bond, who runs the business and had suspected some employees were overusing medical care because they didn't have to pay for much of it themselves.

The bad news: The employees' research often consists of going to Mr. Bond and asking for his help, even after they have had 19 months to get familiar with the plan. At one point, he and his office manager had to hole themselves up in their offices for about two weeks developing a spreadsheet with price information on 32 drugs.

Mr. Bond's experience suggests that although information about the price and quality of health care remains sketchy, the president's push to make the health-care market more like the market for other services can change consumers' behavior. However, some managers have to turn themselves into instant experts both on health care and on the law. Mr. Bond knows about a transmission rebuilder's heartburn, a technician's blood-pressure medication and a visit to the emergency room by a mechanic's daughter. If he uses health information in firing or demoting an employee -- or is perceived to do so -- he might be in for a lawsuit.

"There are things I'm not supposed to know -- but I know," says Mr. Bond, who is part-owner and general manager of the company previously run by his father-in-law.

Link (WSJ; sub. reqd.).

Why We're going to lose in November; A Continuing Series

The Dems stand for nothing more than "We're not them."

Read this and weep for what might have been....

Duh Story of the Day -- The Times Actually Runs Pieces Critical of the Administration (in Addition to Hagiography)

That's what a news journal should do.... Link.

Meanwhile, a rhetorical question for Pinch to contemplate if able: Is it really good for a paper like the Times to be a public company with the continuing need for increased profits for increased stock price? What's wrong with be a reasonably profitable quality news operation?

Sermon for the Day

Link.

Big Media News Comes Wrapped in Slime -- That's Why We Hate it: Part 2

From RUTHALICE ANDERSON: Reading David Broder's answers to online questions clarifies the problem many people have with mainstream opinionmakers like him -- lack of common sense. Repeatedly asked to compare Bush and Clinton's lies, he again and again argued that Clinton's lies were too egregious and that he should have resigned. Bush's lies, however, arouse much less ire or even concern with Broder. What can you say about a man who is more upset about lies about sexual indiscretions than about lies that cost tens of thousands of lives and billions of dollars? Worse, what can you conclude about any paper that gives a megaphone to someone with such a distorted sense of justice?

Link.

Big Media News Comes Wrapped in Slime -- That's Why We Hate it: Part 1

Wallace: When we announced that you were going to be on Fox News Sunday, I got a lot of e-mail from viewers. And I have to say I was surprised, most of them wanted me to ask you this question. Why didn't you do more to put bin Laden and al-Qaeda out of business when you were president? There's a new book out, I suspect you may have already read, called The Looming Tower. And it talks about the fact that when you pulled troops out of Somalia in 1993, bin Laden said "I have seen the frailty and the weakness and the cowardice of U.S. troops." Then there was the bombing of the embassies in Africa and the attack on the Cole.

Clinton: OK let's just --

Wallace: May I just finish the question sir? And after the attack, the book says, that bin Laden separated his leaders, spread them around because he expected an attack and there was no response. I understand that hindsight is always 20/20 --

Clinton: No, let's talk about it.

Wallace: But the question is, why didn't you connect the dots and put him out of business?

Clinton: Let's talk about it. I will answer all those things on the merits, but first I want to talk about the context in which this arises. I'm being asked this on the FOX network. ABC just had a right-wing conservative running their little pathway to 9/11, falsely claiming it was based on the 9/11 commission report with three things asserted against me directly contradictory to the 9/11 commission report. And I think it's very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who
now say I didn't do enough claim that I was too obsessed with bin Laden.

All of President Bush's neo-cons that I was too obsessed with bin Laden, they had no meetings on bin Laden for nine months after I left office. All the right wingers who now say I didn't do enough, said
I did too much, the same people. They were all trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993 the next day after we were involved in Black Hawk Down and I refused to do it and stayed six months and had an orderly transfer to the United Nations.

OK, now let's look at all the criticisms, Black Hawk Down, Somalia, there is not a living soul in the
world who thought Osama bin Laden had anything to do with Black Hawk Down or was paying any attention to it, or even knew al-Qaeda was a going concern in October 93.

Wallace: I understand.

Clinton: No, no, wait. Don't tell me that -- you asked me why didn't I do more to bin Laden, there was not a living soul, all the people who now criticize me wanted to leave the next day. You brought this up, so you get an answer. But you -- secondly ...

Wallace: .. bin Laden says, but it showed the weakness of the United States.

Clinton: Bin Laden may have said it -- but it would have shown the weakness if we left right away. But he wasn't involved in that, that's just a bunch of bull. That was about Muhammad Aidid, a Muslim warlord, murdering 22 Pakistani Muslim troops. We were all there on a humanitarian mission; we had no mission, none, to establish a certain kind of Somali government or keep anybody out. He was not a religious fanatic ...

Wallace: Mr. President ...

Clinton: ... there was no al-Qaeda ...

Wallace: With respect, if I may, instead of going through '93 and ...

Clinton: No, no -- you asked it. You brought it up.

Wallace: May I ask you (INAUDIBLE) question, and then you can answer?

Clinton: Yes.

Wallace: The 9/11 commission, which you talk about -- and this is what they did say, not what ABC pretended they said ...

Clinton: What did they say?

Wallace: They said, about you and President Bush, and I quote, "The U.S. government took the threat seriously, but not in the sense of mustering anything like the kind of effort that would be gathered to confront an enemy of the first, second or even third rank."

Clinton: First of all, that's not true with us and bin Laden.

Wallace: Well, I'm telling ... (CROSS TALK)

Clinton: Let's see what Richard Clarke said. Do you think Richard Clarke has a vigorous attitude about bin Laden?

Wallace: Yes, I do.

Clinton: You do, don't you?

Wallace: He has a variety of opinions and loyalties, but yes. (CROSS TALK)

Clinton: He has a variety of opinions and loyalties now, but let's look at the facts: he worked for Ronald Reagan, he was loyal with him; he worked for George H.W. Bush, he was loyal to him; he worked for me, and he was loyal to me; he worked for President Bush, he was loyal to him. They downgraded him and the terrorist operation.

Now, look what he said -- read his book and read his factual assertions -- not opinions, assertions. He said we took vigorous action after the African embassies, we probably nearly got bin Laden ...

Wallace: But what ...

Clinton: Now, wait a minute -- wait, wait, wait. (CROSS TALK)

No, no -- I authorized the CIA to get groups together to try to kill him. The CIA was run by George Tenet that President (Bush) gave the medal of freedom to, and he said he did a good job setting up all these counter terrorism things. The country never had a comprehensive anti-terror operation until I came there.

Now if you want to criticize me for one thing, you can criticize me for this: after the Cole, I had battle plans drawn to go into Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban and launch a full-scale attack search for bin Laden. But we needed basing rights in Uzbekistan -- which we got after 9/11. The CIA and the FBI refused to certify that bin Laden was responsible. While I was there, they refused to certify. So that meant I would have had to send a few hundred special forces in in helicopters, refuel at night. Even the 9/11 commission didn't do that.

Now, the 9/11 commission was a political document, too. All I'm asking is, anybody that wants to say I didn't do enough, you read Richard Clarke's book ...

Wallace: Do you think you did enough, sir?

Clinton: No, because I didn't get him.

Wallace: Right.

Clinton: But at least I tried. That's the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try, they did not try. I tried. So I tried and failed. When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clark, who got demoted.

Link.

Of course, it was a wingnut talking back like this, he'd be lionized.

An Experienced Victim of Torture on Torture

One nasty morning Comrade Stalin discovered that his favorite pipe was missing. Naturally, he called in his henchman, Lavrenti Beria, and instructed him to find the pipe. A few hours later, Stalin found it in his desk and called off the search. "But, Comrade Stalin," stammered Beria, "five suspects have already confessed to stealing it."

***

I know from my own experience that interrogation is an intensely personal confrontation, a duel of wills. It is not about revealing some secrets or making confessions, it is about self-respect and human dignity. If I break, I will not be able to look into a mirror. But if I don't, my interrogator will suffer equally. Just try to control your emotions in the heat of that battle. This is precisely why torture occurs even when it is explicitly forbidden. Now, who is going to guarantee that even the most exact definition of CID is observed under such circumstances?

***

In 1971, while in Lefortovo prison in Moscow (the central KGB interrogation jail), I went on a hunger strike demanding a defense lawyer of my choice (the KGB wanted its trusted lawyer to be assigned instead). The moment was most inconvenient for my captors because my case was due in court, and they had no time to spare. So, to break me down, they started force-feeding me in a very unusual manner -- through my nostrils. About a dozen guards led me from my cell to the medical unit. There they straitjacketed me, tied me to a bed, and sat on my legs so that I would not jerk. The others held my shoulders and my head while a doctor was pushing the feeding tube into my nostril.

The feeding pipe was thick, thicker than my nostril, and would not go in. Blood came gushing out of my nose and tears down my cheeks, but they kept pushing until the cartilages cracked. I guess I would have screamed if I could, but I could not with the pipe in my throat. I could breathe neither in nor out at first; I wheezed like a drowning man -- my lungs felt ready to burst. The doctor also seemed ready to burst into tears, but she kept shoving the pipe farther and farther down. Only when it reached my stomach could I resume breathing, carefully. Then she poured some slop through a funnel into the pipe that would choke me if it came back up. They held me down for another half-hour so that the liquid was absorbed by my stomach and could not be vomited back, and then began to pull the pipe out bit by bit. . . . Grrrr. There had just been time for everything to start healing during the night when they came back in the morning and did it all over again, for 10 days, when the guards could stand it no longer. As it happened, it was a Sunday and no bosses were around. They surrounded the doctor: "Hey, listen, let him drink it straight from the bowl, let him sip it. It'll be quicker for you, too, you silly old fool." The doctor was in tears: "Do you think I want to go to jail because of you lot? No, I can't do that. . . . " And so they stood over my body, cursing each other, with bloody bubbles coming out of my nose. On the 12th day, the authorities surrendered; they had run out of time. I had gotten my lawyer, but neither the doctor nor those guards could ever look me in the eye again.

Today, when the White House lawyers seem preoccupied with contriving a way to stem the flow of possible lawsuits from former detainees, I strongly recommend that they think about another flood of suits, from the men and women in your armed services or the CIA agents who have been or will be engaged in CID practices. Our rich experience in Russia has shown that many will become alcoholics or drug addicts, violent criminals or, at the very least, despotic and abusive fathers and mothers.

If America's leaders want to hunt terrorists while transforming dictatorships into democracies, they must recognize that torture, which includes CID, has historically been an instrument of oppression -- not an instrument of investigation or of intelligence gathering. No country needs to invent how to "legalize" torture; the problem is rather how to stop it from happening. If it isn't stopped, torture will destroy your nation's important strategy to develop democracy in the Middle East. And if you cynically outsource torture to contractors and foreign agents, how can you possibly be surprised if an 18-year-old in the Middle East casts a jaundiced eye toward your reform efforts there?

***

Vladimir Bukovsky, who spent nearly 12 years in Soviet prisons, labor camps and psychiatric hospitals for nonviolent human rights activities, is the author of several books, including "To Build a Castle" and "Judgment in Moscow." Now 63, he has lived primarily in Cambridge, England, since 1976.

Link.

And also on the subject, this.

Okay, George Allen is No Longer Jewish, Let's Get Back to the Racist Bastard Issue

Proof he's not Jewish -- he's been so-certified by his white supremacist pro-Christian posse.

Questions for the Day About Iraq

Is Iraq better now than before sanctions? Before now than during sanctions? For that matter, are the Iraqis really happy giving away their control of their oil?

"Master Race" is Such Bad Taste

So let's call it an illustration of unjustified hubris:



And look who supports Joe. And look here too.

Heckuva Job Protecting Us -- With a Shield of Lies

On a chilly July morning on the Alaskan tundra, the first Interceptor missile was lowered into a silo at Fort Greeley. Over the following weeks, five more missiles were planted into their silos, as the Ballistic Missile Defense System, once known as Star Wars, went on line. As part of Bush's accelerated deployment scheme, the Pentagon is set to install a total of 10 missiles in Alaska and 10 more at Ft. Vandenburg Air Base in California in 2004, with dozens more to follow over the next two years. The scheme is so accelerated that the Pentagon admits that they have no idea how the missiles would be launched, who would give the order to launch them and whether they will have the even the remotest chance of hitting their target.

***

Bush painted his pet project as a technological and military triumph. But he surely knew better. In fact, he had just been briefed that the multi-billion dollar scheme was plagued with problems from top to bottom. According to the Washington Post, an internal Pentagon report presented to Bush in early August 2004 concluded that the ground based Interceptor rockets now humming in their Alaskan silos will have less than a 20 percent chance of knocking down a nuclear missile carried on a primitive North Korean rocket.

***

In eight flight tests, the Interceptors, launched without boosters, hit their target only five times. Yet in those tests, the Interceptor was travelling at less that half the speed it would need to under operational conditions.

Bush, given his academic record, might consider a 60 percent test score an impressive achievement. But it's a pretty dismal showing for a missile system that has consumed nearly $70 billion, especially when you factor in the fact that to date all of the Interceptor tests have been fixed. For starters, the target missiles carried the equivalent of a homing beacon that "lit them up", in the words of one tester, so that the Interceptors could find them in the skies over the Pacific.

The weapons testers also knew when and where the missiles had been launched, as well as their trajectory, speed and path. In other words, they knew where they were going and when they would be there. Hitting the target only 60 percent of the time under these rigged conditions is like flunking the test even after you've stolen the exam.

The Interceptors performance didn't improve over time and the Pentagon testers had little idea about where to locate the source of the problem or how to upgrade the missile's batting average. Instead of going back to the drawing board, the Pentagon, in December 2002, simply declared that the Interceptor was ready for deployment and stopped further testing.

Link.

Rule of Law? It Can't Happen Here!

They're such absolute scum. This contempt for the rule of law is simply impeachable. (Not that I'm for it; just saying.)

Tony Snow:

No, as a matter of fact, the president has an obligation to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. That is an obligation that presidents have enacted through signing statements going back to Jefferson. So, while the Supreme Court can be an arbiter of the Constitution, the fact is the President is the one, the only person who, by the Constitution, is given the responsibility to preserve, protect, and defend that document, so it is perfectly consistent with presidential authority under the Constitution itself.

The poster's comment:

Ergo, when the Supreme Court — in its role as "an arbiter" of the constitution — ruled unanimously against Richard Nixon on the Watergate matter, Nixon should have said, "Well, thank you for your opinion but you're wrong" and ignored them. And when they ruled against Bill Clinton on the Paula Jones matter, he should have issued a signing statement or otherwise overruled them. If and when they rule against George W. Bush, it will mean he's right and they're wrong.

Link.

Trustworthy Allyhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Threaten to bomb them to Hell. Not that Our Leader was in the loop for that.

In return, get lip service. Since when does Pakistan have control of the region along the border with Afghanistan? Who among the reality-based crowd actually believes that, on a day to day basis, the Pakis aren't supporting everyone we don't want supported across the border?

GOP Justice

An embarrassment, an utter disrespect for a system of law, from a woman who lives with a crook and convicted felon without any awareness of what's going on around her.

A week after her ex-con husband was nabbed for speeding again, the Republican candidate for attorney general had to deal with the release of a falsely imprisoned man - whose plea for help was ignored by Pirro while she was Westchester County district attorney.

***

Pirro defended her handling of the case. "This defendant was convicted by my predecessor. No new evidence was presented to my office while I was district attorney," she told reporters on Long Island, where she was endorsed by a Nassau County police union.

"No new evidence was presented to the current district attorney, either," replied Eric Ferrero of the Innocence Project.

W Acts Like Royalty Because He is Royalty -- Didn't Know We had Royalty in America, Huh?

Link to the story of the Royal House of Bush.

Rhetorical Question of the Day but Answered Anyway

(Or something like that.)

Why Are We Suddenly At War With "Islamic Fascists"? A Neologism that Signals a Change in Strategy As Elections Near

Why? Because they can't be called just "fascists" because they could then be confused by our Christofascist leaders. This way there is not any confusion.

Tip of the Day

No link, Google this for yourself: Congress is more and more despised; today's Times has an article that a poll has Congress pegged with a 25% favorable rating. (Haven't read the article but I'm sure buried somewhere is another stat: that a majority love their own congress-person.)

Still, you have a bunch of GOP goosesteppers suddenly running against their own party. Yeah, yeah, they'lll be rebels and mavericks -- only on the campaign trail and only through 7 November.

So call the %$#@s' bluffs: Look up your Congress-person's voting record and see how often they've been in lockstep with their masters.

The Greatest Healthcare System in the World

Greatest, of course, is not the same as perfect. There's imperfection, some of it unavoidable and some inexcuseable.

Patient's Heart Attack In Hospital Waiting Room Is a Homicide
Coroner's Inquest Followed Death Afer 2-Hour Wait in ER
September 14, 2006
Page 1 of 1
E-mail This
Lawyers
Medical Malpractice Lawyers
Criminal Defense Attorneys

The official ruling by a coroner's jury in Lake County, Illinois that the cause of death for a 49 year-old patient who died in a nearby medical center was the "result of gross deviations from the standard of care that a reasonable person would have exercised in this situation." The jury determined that the patient's 2-hour wait in the hospital's emergency room was a homicide.

Link.

Peace and Freedom on the March Throughout the World Thanks to Our Leaders' Leadership! Hail Bush!!

BAGHDAD, Sept. 19 — Senior Iraqi and American officials are beginning to question whether Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has the political muscle and decisiveness to hold Iraq together as it hovers on the edge of a full civil war.

BANGKOK, Sept. 20 — Thailand will probably not restore democracy for at least a year, Gen. Sondhi Boonyaratkalin, the commander who seized power in a bloodless coup, announced today.

Hewlett-Packard conducted feasibility studies on planting spies in news bureaus of two major publications as part of an investigation of leaks from its board, an individual briefed on the company’s review of the operation said yesterday.

How Our Leaders Torture

Link.

"Macaca" Allen Shows His Love and Tolerance for Non-Christians

George Allen insists that he didn't mean anything by it when he called an Indian-American college student "macaca." But when a reporter asks Allen whether some of his ancestors were Jewish -- well, now, that's an "aspersion" worthy of boos, hisses and public condemnation.

The question came up Monday as Allen debated Jim Webb in Tysons Corner, Va. Allen, asked yet again about his "macaca" moment, underscored his long-standing belief in tolerance and acceptance -- all those Confederate flags notwithstanding -- by noting that his grandfather had been "incarcerated by the Nazis in World War II." WUSA-TV's Peggy Fox followed up by noting that Allen's grandfather was Jewish and asking him "at what point" his family's "Jewish identity" may have ended.

As the Washington Post's Dana Milbank reports, Allen "recoiled as if he had been struck," and his supporters in the audience "hissed and booed." Allen, who likes to say he was raised on the "four Fs" -- faith, family, freedom and football -- demanded to know why religion was relevant in the Senate race. He told Fox to "ask questions about issues that really matter to people here in Virginia" and to stop "making aspersions" about him.

Fox says she was just looking for "honesty" from Allen, a Californian by birth who has reinvented himself as a cowboy-boot-wearing, tobacco-chewing Southern darling of the religious right. And while Milbank says that Fox's question may have seemed a little out of place at a candidate's debate, Allen's wrath seemed entirely out of proportion to the provocation. He said he was glad that the crowd had booed Fox, and he accused her of "making aspersions about people because of their religious beliefs." Even after the debate ended, Allen was still fuming. When somebody asked why Fox's question had made him so angry, he shot back: "What do you mean, 'make me so angry'?" He complained about Fox's attempt to bring his family's history into the debate -- then mentioned again that his grandfather had been "incarcerated by the Nazis in World War II."

So why is Allen so upset? It seems pretty simple to us. When you paint yourself as one with rednecks and racists -- wrapping yourself in the Confederate flag, hanging a noose from your office tree, cozying up to the modern version of the Ku Klux Klan, calling out the dark-skinned college kid in your midst -- you don't take it kindly when someone asks whether you might be on the other side of the line you've been drawing.

Link.

Olbermann Rips Our Leader A New (Albeit Small) One

Bush owes us an apology

The President of the United States owes this country an apology.

It will not be offered, of course.

He does not realize its necessity.

There are now none around him who would tell him or could.

The last of them, it appears, was the very man whose letter provoked the President into the conduct, for which the apology is essential.

An apology is this President's only hope of regaining the slightest measure of confidence, of what has been, for nearly two years, a clear majority of his people.

Not "confidence" in his policies nor in his designs nor even in something as narrowly focused as which vision of torture shall prevail -- his, or that of the man who has sent him into apoplexy, Colin Powell.

In a larger sense, the President needs to regain our confidence, that he has some basic understanding of what this country represents -- of what it must maintain if we are to defeat not only terrorists, but if we are also to defeat what is ever more increasingly apparent, as an attempt to re-define the way we live here, and what we mean, when we say the word "freedom."

Because it is evident now that, if not its architect, this President intends to be the contractor, for this narrowing of the definition of freedom.

The President revealed this last Friday, as he fairly spat through his teeth, words of unrestrained fury directed at the man who was once the very symbol of his administration, who was once an ambassador from this administration to its critics, as he had once been an ambassador from the military to its critics.

The former Secretary of State, Mr. Powell, had written, simply and candidly and without anger, that "the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism."

This President's response included not merely what is apparently the Presidential equivalent of threatening to hold one's breath, but within it contained one particularly chilling phrase.

"Mr. President, former Secretary of State Colin Powell says the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism," he was asked by a reporter. "If a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former secretary of state feels this way, don't you think that Americans and the rest of the world are beginning to wonder whether you're following a flawed strategy?"

“If there's any comparison between the compassion and decency of the American people and the terrorist tactics of extremists, it's flawed logic,” Bush said. “It's just -- I simply can't accept that. It's unacceptable to think that there's any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective.

Of course it's acceptable to think that there's "any kind of comparison."

And in this particular debate, it is not only acceptable, it is obviously necessary, even if Mr. Powell never made the comparison in his letter.

Some will think that our actions at Abu Ghraib, or in Guantanamo, or in secret prisons in Eastern Europe, are all too comparable to the actions of the extremists.

Some will think that there is no similarity, or, if there is one, it is to the slightest and most unavoidable of degrees.

What all of us will agree on, is that we have the right -- we have the duty -- to think about the comparison.

And, most importantly, that the other guy, whose opinion about this we cannot fathom, has exactly the same right as we do: to think -- and say -- what his mind and his heart and his conscience tell him, is right.

All of us agree about that.

Except, it seems, this President.

With increasing rage, he and his administration have begun to tell us, we are not permitted to disagree with them, that we cannot be right, that Colin Powell cannot be right.

And then there was that one, most awful phrase.

In four simple words last Friday, the President brought into sharp focus what has been only vaguely clear these past five-and-a-half years - the way the terrain at night is perceptible only during an angry flash of lightning, and then, a second later, all again is dark.

“It's unacceptable to think," he said.

It is never unacceptable to think.

And when a President says thinking is unacceptable, even on one topic, even in the heat of the moment, even in the turning of a phrase extracted from its context, he takes us toward a new and fearful path -- one heretofore the realm of science fiction authors and apocalyptic visionaries.

That flash of lightning freezes at the distant horizon, and we can just make out a world in which authority can actually suggest it has become unacceptable to think.

Thus the lightning flash reveals not merely a President we have already seen, the one who believes he has a monopoly on current truth.

It now shows us a President who has decided that of all our commanders-in-chief, ever, he alone has had the knowledge necessary to alter and re-shape our inalienable rights.

This is a frightening, and a dangerous, delusion, Mr. President.

If Mr. Powell's letter -- cautionary, concerned, predominantly supportive -- can induce from you such wrath and such intolerance, what would you say were this statement to be shouted to you by a reporter, or written to you by a colleague?

"Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government.”

Those incendiary thoughts came, of course, from a prior holder of your job, Mr. Bush.

They were the words of Thomas Jefferson.

He put them in the Declaration of Independence.

Mr. Bush, what would you say to something that anti-thetical to the status quo just now?

Would you call it "unacceptable" for Jefferson to think such things, or to write them?

Between your confidence in your infallibility, sir, and your demonizing of dissent, and now these rages better suited to a thwarted three-year old, you have left the unnerving sense of a White House coming unglued - a chilling suspicion that perhaps we have not seen the peak of the anger; that we can no longer forecast what next will be said to, or about, anyone who disagrees.

Or what will next be done to them.

On this newscast last Friday night, Constitiutional law Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University, suggested that at some point in the near future some of the "detainees" transferred from secret CIA cells to Guantanamo, will finally get to tell the Red Cross that they have indeed been tortured.

Thus the debate over the Geneva Conventions, might not be about further interrogations of detainees, but about those already conducted, and the possible liability of the administration, for them.

That, certainly, could explain Mr. Bush's fury.

That, at this point, is speculative.

But at least it provides an alternative possibility as to why the President's words were at such variance from the entire history of this country.

For, there needs to be some other explanation, Mr. Bush, than that you truly believe we should live in a United States of America in which a thought is unacceptable.

There needs to be a delegation of responsible leaders -- Republicans or otherwise -- who can sit you down as Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott once sat Richard Nixon down - and explain the reality of the situation you have created.

There needs to be an apology from the President of the United States.

And more than one.

But, Mr. Bush, the others -- for warnings unheeded five years ago, for war unjustified four years ago, for battle unprepared three years ago -- they are not weighted with the urgency and necessity of this one.

We must know that, to you, thought with which you disagree -- and even voice with which you disagree and even action with which you disagree -- are still sacrosanct to you.

The philosopher Voltaire once insisted to another author, "I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write." Since the nation's birth, Mr. Bush, we have misquoted and even embellished that statement, but we have served ourselves well, by subscribing to its essence.

Oddly, there are other words of Voltaire's that are more pertinent still, just now.

"Think for yourselves," he wrote, "and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too."

Apologize, sir, for even hinting at an America where a few have that privilege to think and the rest of us get yelled at by the President.

Anything else, Mr. Bush, is truly unacceptable.

Link.

Aren't you ashamed to have George W. Bush, the worst, weakest president ever, as your leader?

The Most Successful Administration in Our Nation's History, Ever; Yet Another Success for Our Leaders

As I was saying, I seriously believe these monkeys haven't done a single thing right other than accreting power and continuing the gratuitous, economically unjustified upward transfer of capital.

So here's a reminder that we have successfully liberated Afghanistan -- to the extent of a single city, more or less.

Heckuva job, Our Leaders!

And here's an update on how safe Iraq is after we liberated it (hint: not very).

And something to keep the threat of terror attacks on our shores in perspective.

USA! USA! USA!

Our Right to Vote Rests on Crappy Diebold Machines and Their Ilk [Updated]

It was great when this was a free country....

“Hotel Minibar” Keys Open Diebold Voting Machines

And here's a video showing how easy it is to hack. How's the line go? "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose...."

If Only; A Liberal Fantasy

Bush's brain found lacking

A slew of new books on Karl Rove make us question whether the president's deputy chief of staff is truly the Machiavellian genius so many in Washington claim.

His successes, as they say, speak for themselves. Dis as much as you want but you don't argue with success or, well, reality, at least now here in our fact-based world.

Have We Already Won the Total War Against Terror?

Or, I should qualify that: Have we won the TWAT to the extent that it can be at least reasonably controlled? I mean, as we have learned from the intifida, it can never be stopped completely as long as there are a couple of dedicated crazies.

Boasting about the success of covert successes is not cool or productive. On top of that, acknowledging that covert means has accomplished anything is also against Our Leaders' policies. It would undercut the fandango in Iraq as well as the administration's bashing of the intelligence apparatus. And of course it would severely limit the ability to play the fear card. And without that, the GOP leadership has absolutely nothing of a platform other than Karl Rove's blackmail and slime tactics.

That said, here's an article I've yet to even parse that I suspect touches on the premise.... And look: Here's wingnut that kind of agrees, it seems.

A Pol Says Something Intelligent

A Dem, of course, but still:

"In light of the rantings that went on for 30 minutes by two colleagues from the other side, I'd like to state for the record that America is not tired of fighting terrorism; America is tired of the wrongheaded and boneheaded leadership of the Republican party that has sent six and a half billion a month to Iraq while the front line was Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. That led this country to attack Saddam Hussein, when we were attacked by Osama bin Laden. Who captured a man who did not attack the country and let loose a man that did. Americans are tired of boneheaded Republican leadership that alienates our allies when we need them the most. Americans are most certainly tired of leadership that despite documenting mistake after mistake after mistake, even of their own party admitting mistakes, never admit they do anything wrong. That's the kind of leadership Americans are tired of."
She concluded,

"I'm not going to sit here as a Democrat and let the Republican leadership come to the floor and talk about Democrats not making us safe. They're the ones in charge and Osama bin Laden is still at loose."

Link.

George Allen -- This Wingnut Only Gets Scummier and Scummier....

When are we going to revolt against modern GOP leadership??

Deep down in the article, the piece quotes Allen waxing contemplative about his learning process about referring to non-whites with racial epithets ....

I've learned a valuable lesson about the power of words, about how words carelessly chosen, or in my case, even made up, can have a totally unintended meaning and impact for another person from another background or from a different cultural perspective.
This, of course, is a reference to his calling the Webb campaign volunteer "Macaca".

But let's review. We know that not only is "macaca" a widely used racial epithet in American crypto-racist and white supremacist circles. Its apparent origin is among the colonial population of francophone North Africa -- where Allen's mother was raised.

Now, call me ungenerous, but given those facts, the idea that "macaca" was simply three syllables Allen randomly strung together when digging at a dark-skinned young man who was getting on his nerves just doesn't strike me as credible.

I don't expect Allen to admit now that rather than make this name up it was a synonym for the N-word that he was fond of when he was a kid. But he's practically begging for renewed attention to this transparent lie by weaving it, again and again, into his strained apologies.

Link.

Our Leader Shows that Not Only Can He Accuse His Opponents of Being Munich-like Appeasers, He Can Appease Too!

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.Earlier this week, you told a group of journalists that you thought the idea of sending special forces to Pakistan to hunt down bin Laden was a strategy that would not work.
BUSH: Yes.

QUESTION: Now recently, you've also...

BUSH: Because, first of all, Pakistan is a sovereign nation.

QUESTION: Well, recently, you've also described bin Laden as a sort of modern day Hitler or Mussolini. And I'm wondering why, if you can explain, why you think it's a bad idea to send more resources to hunt down bin Laden wherever he is.

BUSH: We are, Richard. Thank you. Thanks for asking the question.They were asking me about -- somebody report -- well, you know, your special forces here. Pakistan -- if he is in Pakistan, which this person thought he might be who was asking me the question -- Pakistan's a sovereign nation. In order for us to send thousands of troops into a sovereign nation, we've got to be invited by the government of Pakistan.Secondly, the best way to find somebody who is hiding is to enhance your intelligence and to spend the resources necessary to do that. And then when you find him, you bring him to justice.And, you know, there is a kind of an urban myth here in Washington about how this administration hasn't stayed focused on Osama bin Laden. Forget it. It's convenient throw-away lines, you know, when people say that.We have been on the hunt, and we'll stay on the hunt until we bring him to justice. And we're doing it in a smart fashion, Richard, we are.And I'll look forward to talking to President Musharraf.Look, he doesn't like Al Qaida. They tried to kill him. And we've had a good record of bringing people to justice inside of Pakistan, because the Paks are in the lead. They know the stakes about dealing with a, you know, a violent form of ideological extremists.So we will continue on the hunt, and we've been effective about bringing to justice most of those who planned and plotted the 9/11 attacks, and we still got a lot of pressure on them.The best way to protect the homeland is to stay on the offense and keep pressure on them.

Link.

Another Great Step Forward for Freedom in America

I'm sure I meant a backward step in our march to reduce freedom and democracy in America to that in Singapore.

This is just unbelievable. The IRS is suddenly ramping up its investigation of whether All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena violated its tax-exempt status with an anti-war sermon just before the 2004 elections.

There was a Liberal Media, Now There's a So-Called Liberal Media

-- and this is obviously the latter.

Always got the sense that Brian Williams was a complete idiot, unfit for anything involving journalism other than, I supposed, selling newpapers. Actually, my opinion was based on stumbling across an MSNBC broadcast while surfing and there he was being incredibly ignorant and proud to show it.

Anyway.

Something a little more recent:

Brian Williams opened his newscast last night with this: "Good evening from Havana, Cuba, the host city for what is called the Summit of Non-Aligned Nations--in short, all of the enemies of the United States, really, gathered in one room."

Well, then. There are 118 developing countries that are part of the nonaligned movement, including India, Pakistan, and Thailand. Sure hope we don't have to invade them all.

(Via Josh's talkingpointsmemo.com. And the words straight from BW.)

Our Government Serves -- Wait, Not Us?!

FCC does report, showing Big Media sucks, that local news ownership gets more news to the people. FCC destroys report.

But the report is back and it's here.

Don't Miss Your Sunday Paper!!

We were #51, dammit.



Link.

Two-Fisted Dad -- or Wingnut Psycho??

We report, you decide:

Report describes molestation claim that allegedly led to killing
--------------------

By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN
Associated Press Writer

September 12, 2006, 4:14 PM EDT

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- The 2-year-old daughter of a Fairfield lawyer charged with stabbing his neighbor to death two weeks ago had told her mother that the man molested her "in the starry nights," according to a police report released Tuesday.

Police said the lawyer, Jonathon Edington, climbed through 58-year-old Barry James' bedroom window and fatally stabbed him on Aug. 28, after his wife told him what his daughter had said.

Edington, 29, appeared Tuesday in Bridgeport Superior Court facing murder and burglary charges, holding his wife's hand throughout the proceedings. He is free on $1 million bond but was ordered to have no contact with James' relatives, who live in the house where James was killed.

According to the police report, the girl told her mother about the alleged molestation while the family was visiting relatives in Rhode Island.

The girl "explained that she did not want to go home because of Barry," police said in the report, quoting a relative.

"She described to her mother by pointing to her groin area with two fingers and stating that 'Barry is this."' When her mother asked her to explain, the girl said "that Barry puts it on her belly and her nose," the report said. When her mother asked her when James does this, she replied, "He comes to me in the starry nights."

Police are investigating the molestation claim.

Peter Ambrose, an attorney for James, issued a statement on behalf of James' family disputing the allegations.

"The family of Barry James stand together in defending the unfounded allegations of molestation," the statement said. "They are vicious and hurtful, and the family only wishes that their son and brother had the opportunity to defend himself. When all of the facts are made known, we are confident that Barry will be cleared of these allegations."

James' 87-year-old mother discovered his body. When police officers went to Edington's home a short time later, they found him standing by his kitchen sink with blood on his hands and forearms, authorities said. Officers said a large kitchen knife was found in James' bedroom.

James had just retrieved his mail and returned to his bedroom when Edington broke through the bedroom window screen, climbed over the bed and attacked him, police said.

The victim's mother, Rita James, heard the commotion but is legally blind, according to the police report.

After the stabbing, Edington called his sister-in-law and told her his neighbor was hurt and that he had called police, according to the report.

"She stated she heard police in the background ordering Jonathon to put his hands up," the report states.

Edington and his attorney, Andrew Bowman, declined comment after the hearing. A probable cause hearing was scheduled for Oct. 10.

Edington, a graduate of Syracuse University and Fordham University Law School, has been practicing patent law.

In 1998, Edington was charged with disorderly conduct and second-degree harassment in connection with an anti-abortion protest while he was a college student in New York. Edington pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and paid a $100 fine, while the harassment charged was dismissed, court officials said.

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

This article originally appeared at:
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/connecticut/ny-bc-ct--neighborstabbing0912sep12,0,5991513.story?coll=ny-region-apconnecticut

(Emphasis added.)

Well, this raises questions:

How long was this going one? Why was is not reported to the authorities until two days after the alleged perp was killed? One would like to think that a Connecticut patent lawyer knows enough to report stuff like this to the authorities....

Again, how does a two year old come to say stuff like this?

And has anything attributed to the child been heard by any impartial, objective person -- or is it all coming secondhand from "interested parties?

Exactly under what circumstances did the girl and the alleged perp come into contact, let alone such contact than the alleged events could occur?

This all stinks.... Am I the only one that thinks it makes no sense other than the part about one man killing another man? (I mean, just about the only clear thing is that one man is dead.)

Fortune for the Day

"Beware the fury of a patient man." -- Chinese fortune cookie fortune

Not multiply it by tens of millions and maybe there's hope....

The Rise of the Demented Psychotice Son of the PATRIOT Act Or: They Hate Us, They Really Hate Us!

Look what's coming:

The bill:

Redefines surveillance so that only programs that catch the substance of a communication need oversight. Any government surveillance that captures, analyzes and stores patterns of communications such as phone records, or e-mail and website addresses, is no longer considered surveillance.

Expands the section of law that allows the attorney general to authorize spying on foreign embassies, so long as there's no "substantial likelihood" that an American's communication would be captured.

Repeals the provision of federal law that allows the government unfettered wiretapping and physical searches without warrants or notification for 15 days after a declaration of war. The lack of any congressional restraint on the president's wartime powers arguably puts the president at the height, rather than the ebb, of his powers in any time of war, even an undeclared one.

Repeals the provision of federal law that limits the government's wartime powers to conduct warrantless wiretapping and physical searches to a period of 15 days after a declaration of war.

Repeals the provision of federal law that puts a time limit on the government's wartime powers to conduct warrantless wiretapping and physical searches against Americans. Under current law, the president has that power for only 15 days following a declaration of war.

Allows the attorney general, or anyone he or she designates, to authorize widespread domestic spying, such as monitoring all instant-messaging systems in the country, so long as the government promises to delete anything not terrorism-related.

Moves all court challenges to the NSA surveillance program to a secretive court in Washington, D.C., comprised of judges appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Only government lawyers would be allowed in the courtroom.

Allows the government to get warrants for surveillance programs as a whole, instead of having to describe to a judge the particular persons to be monitored and the methods to be used.

Link. And the actual bill is here.

The Torture of the Holocaust Nevers Ends....

from the desk of
JOE KUBERT

August 30, 2006

Dear colleague:

I don't usually get involved in international controversies. But I am outraged by the refusal of the Polish government to return artwork belonging to a fellow-cartoonist and Auschwitz survivor, Mrs. Dina Babbitt. And I am writing to ask you to join me in protesting this injustice.

Deported to Auschwitz as a teenager, Mrs. Babbitt's life was spared by the infamous war criminal, Dr. Josef Mengele, after he saw a mural of Snow White that she had painted on the wall of the children's barracks to soothe the children in their final hours. He then compelled her to paint portraits of Gypsies upon whom he was performing his barbaric "experiments."

After the war, Mrs. Babbitt relocated to California, where she worked as an animator for Warner Brothers and Jay Ward Productions. Among other things, she illustrated such characters as Wile E. Coyote, Cap'n Crunch, and Tweety Bird for many years.

Some years ago, unbeknownst to Mrs. Babbitt, eight of the paintings she did at Auschwitz resurfaced and were acquired by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, a Polish government institution on the site of the former death camp. Mrs. Babbitt visited the museum and verified that they are hers (they are even signed "Dina 1944"), but the Poles refused to give them back, claiming they are legally the property of the museum.

Four years ago, when I wrote the book "Yossel," about a teenage cartoonist whose life was spared by the Nazis because they were amused by his drawings, I did not know that there had been a real-life case that bore similarities to my book. I was stunned to learn of Mrs. Babbitt, and even more stunned by the Polish government's position.

Together with officials of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, an organization with which I have been active, I have prepared a petition to the Polish authorities. It is intended to be signed specifically by cartoonists, animators, and comic book artists. Adam, Andy, and I are very much hoping that you will join us.

To have your name added to the petition, please send an email to the Wyman Institute's director, Dr. Rafael Medoff, at: rafaelmedoff@aol.com

With thanks in advance for your support,

Sincerely,

Joe Kubert,
President
Joe Kubert School of Cartoon
& Graphic Art, Inc.
37 Myrtle Avenue
Dover, NJ 07801

Link.

And then there's this:

Mr. Piotr Cywinski, Director
Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
Oswiecim, Poland
muzeum@auschwitz.org.pl

Dear Mr. Cywinski:

As cartoonists, animators, and comic book artists, we are deeply troubled that the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum has refused to return the portraits that our colleague, Mrs. Dina Gottliebova Babbitt, painted in Auschwitz in 1944.

The fundamental principle that art belongs to the artist who created it is recognized everywhere except in totalitarian countries. One would hope that Poland, having been liberated from totalitarian rule, would not revert to the mentality that regards everything as the property of the state.

We agree that the display of Mrs. Babbitt's artwork is of great educational value, and we are pleased that the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum recognizes their importance. But that educational purpose could just as easily be achieved by displaying high-quality reproductions of the paintings, while returning the originals to their creator and rightful owner.

Mrs. Babbitt has suffered enough. We implore you to do the right thing and give her back her paintings.

Sincerely,

Joe Kubert
Adam Kubert
Andy Kubert
Jim Amash
Matthew Ellis
Joe Jusko
Lovern Kindzierski
Steve Leialoha
Bob McLeod
Mike Pascale
Michael L. Peters
Trina Robbins
Art Spiegelman
Rob Stolzer
Greg Theakston
Tim Townsend
David Wade
Liam Sharp

Link.

Thank God George W. Bush is President (Part 2)

Here's how our leaders are making America safer -- not: by other-extending our military.

Ah, it's from that vile the New Republic so here's a big piece of it as a treat, I mean, to encourage public discourse regarding important issues:

On July 26, congressional Democrats revealed that a full two-thirds of the active U.S. Army is officially classified as "not ready for combat." The head of the National Guard responded to the news with a troubling announcement of his own: The National Guard is "in an even more dire situation than the active Army but both have the same symptoms; I just have a higher fever." But--in spite of the fact that the Army has almost no nondeployed combat-ready brigades at its disposal--military deterioration has not become a campaign issue the way it did in the 2000 presidential campaign.

Six years ago, George W. Bush and the congressional leadership repeatedly attacked the Clinton administration for both underfunding and overusing U.S. ground forces in places like Bosnia and Haiti. While such charges conveniently overlooked the fact that Bill Clinton's defense budgets were in fact $2 billion more than the final George H.W. Bush defense plan for 1994-1999, they achieved their purpose nevertheless. Bush's oft-repeated campaign promise that "help is on the way" for the men and women in uniform elevated his standing in military circles. A slew of retired generals and admirals publicly endorsed the Bush-Cheney ticket, with some hinting that the Clinton administration had jeopardized our national security through neglect of the Armed Forces. The new Bush administration, they believed, would restore the military's cold war prowess.

Yet, rather than providing help, the Bush administration's strategic miscalculations and gross mismanagement of resources have pushed the all-volunteer force perilously close to its breaking point. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has refused to reconsider his pre-September 11 commitment to transform the Army into a smaller and more agile fighting force, even though one clear lesson of Iraq and Afghanistan has been that the Army is suffering more from manpower deficiencies than from the absence of high-tech weaponry. Pentagon officials have lately sought to emphasize the positive--the Army is currently meeting its 2006 recruiting and retention goals, and the readiness levels for forces in combat in Iraq remain stable--but this neglects the underlying reality. The responsibility of Bush and the Republican Congress is to ensure that, even during war, the all-volunteer military is ready for future combat. They are currently failing to do so.

Even though many neoconservatives are loudly calling for new military engagements, the simple fact is that the United States currently does not have enough troops who are ready and available for missions in Iran, North Korea, or anywhere else. It is not only that so many of our soldiers are committed to Iraq, but also that even those not in Iraq have yet to be adequately resupplied or prepared for further deployment.

Combat-readiness worldwide has deteriorated due to the increased stress on the Army's and the Marines' equipment. The equipment in Iraq is wearing out at four to nine times the normal peacetime rate because of combat losses and harsh operating conditions. The total Army--active and reserve--now faces at least a $50 billion equipment shortfall. To ensure that the troops in Iraq have the equipment they need, the services have been compelled to send over equipment from their nondeployed and reserve units, such as National Guard units in Louisiana and Mississippi. Without equipment, it's extremely difficult for nondeployed units to train for combat. Thus, one of the hidden effects of the Iraq war is that even the troops not currently committed to Iraq are weakened because of it.

The Marine Corps, America's emergency expeditionary force, is also under unprecedented strain. The Marines have compensated for equipment shortfalls in Iraq by drawing down their pre-positioned reserve equipment stocks in the Pacific and Europe by up to 70 percent. These stocks include things like tanks and armored vehicles that enable the Marines to respond rapidly to crises around the world without the logistical delay associated with major long-range equipment transport. The Marines are also running out of helicopters, including the essential heavy-lift CH-53E Super Stallion. They are down to 150 CH-53Es from the required 160 and will continue to lose these helicopters due to their heavy use in Iraq. With the replacement for this aging helicopter still more than a decade off, this is a problem that will be hamper Marine readiness for years to come.

But the decline in equipment readiness is nothing compared with the growing manpower crisis. The Army is trying to keep the dam from breaking, but it is running out of fingers and toes. After failing to meet its recruitment target for 2005, the Army raised the maximum age for enlistment from 35 to 40 in January--only to find it necessary to raise it to 42 in June. Basic training, which has, for decades, been an important tool for testing the mettle of recruits, has increasingly become a rubber-stamping ritual. Through the first six months of 2006, only 7.6 percent of new recruits failed basic training, down from 18.1 percent in May 2005.

Alarmingly, this drop in boot camp attrition coincides with a lowering of recruitment standards. The number of Army recruits who scored below average on its aptitude test doubled in 2005, and the Army has doubled the number of non-high school graduates it can enlist this year. Even as more allowances are made, the Government Accountability Office reported that allegations and substantiated claims of recruiter wrongdoing have increased by 50 percent. In May, for example, the Army signed up an autistic man to become a cavalry scout.

(You knew that manning permanent bases all over the world is more important, or at last a higher priority, than "victory" in Iraq -- where peace will inevitably come right after the infitidah in Israel is successfully defeated i.e. who knows when if ever but definitely no time soon.)

Meanwhile, Matt Yglesias points out the obvious: Actual bad intel (not to be confused with the good intel our leaders ignored because it wasn't of political value in supporting their goals) comes from all that torture W so loves....

Then there are seven old school conservatives -- you kow, actual conservatives as opposed to radical America-hating proto-fascists who call themselves conservatives -- who suddenly think the Iraqi fandango is a disaster and we should bail.

Can't agree with them there. I actually believe we have a responsibility to the country we've been abusing and destroying for fifteen-odd years not for national security reasons -- it was never a genuine threat and with the war with Iran, Saddam did a fine job weakening his military even more -- but the lousiest political reasons.

Thank God two of the nuttiest wingnuts have the solution: more troops that we don't have. (Anyone feel a draft? Not that that is per se bad -- it's just that what it's for is so lousy.) And dumping more troops to support a crappy plan worked really well in 'Nam.

Which brings us to the rhetorical question of the day: How is it our leaders (at least seem) to know less than schmucks like me?

Dispassionate Opinions of a Security Professionals, Analyzing the Fine Job Done and Being Done by Our Leaders

Bruce Schneier (Google him for his bona fides), here.

How Bad is He?

Personally, I'm not much of one of those personality cult kind of guys. W isn't real Our Leader so much as he acts the part for the various nutjobs (mis-)running (and destroying) this country. Literally as a leader, he isn't very much of one. And as a leader, he really is quite the failure.

So all that notwithstanding, Sid Blumenthal has was what we in the litigation business could call quite the detailed bill of particulars of Our Leader's nigh-countless failings. It is so good, one wants to run the entire piece....

But let's leave it with the last paragraph, and the thought for the day and beyond:

The tragedy that Theodore Roosevelt described is not reserved in its broad dimensions to Britain. Roosevelt wrote his history as a lesson for Americans, who had been spared the travesties of the English revolution. Instead of Cromwell, we had had Washington. Ultimately, a people are responsible for its leaders. Bush's legacy will encompass a crisis over democracy that only the American people can resolve.

Are We Safer Now?

No.

Raw data is here.

The Collapse of American Society Continues Thanks to the Leadership of Anti-American Traitors

Senate Judiciary Committee legalizes illegal wiretaps. (The good news is the bill is probably Constitutionally defective -- as soon as we find a plaintiff with standing and get five Supreme Court justices that, like, respect and are willing to uphold the Constitution.)

What are we getting out the Iraq debacle? Well besides kicking French and Russian oil companies out of the Kurd region so American-based Big Oil can take over, we've created an ally for Iran. (Speaking of which, Sid Blumenthal describes our successes in Baghdad. And we don't have enough personel on the ground to do the job -- imagine that!

Diebold still continues to debase free elections -- amazing was a little well-placed bribery can accomplish.... (Apparently their machines are actually seriously undependable! Imagine that! (The study that proves how bad it actually is is here -- mindblowing!))

Microwave weapons to be "tested" on Americans before being deployed overseas. We're all guinea pigs....

California supports political bias in textbooks.

And all Our Leader can do to increase his popularity ratings is, um, well, he can't lead by initiating popular policies and programs and stuff so all he can do is relentlessly lie and divide (see this too) -- and a majority still doesn't think very much of him, still thinks he sucks.