Agent Provocateur

Joe Wilson was right

2006-01-18T15:33:00.000-08:00

Bush's State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003: The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

That was Bush's famous 'sixteen words' in case anyone's forgotten. Y'know as part of the causus belli for the Iran War. And the reason Karl Rove got so pissed off enough at Joseph Wilson's dissenting opinion that they had to put his CIA wife at risk. Cause Saddam's got him sum nukular bombs, see?

"We pointed out at that time that Zawahie was one of Iraq's foremost proponents of nuclear weaponry, and that Niger--a poor country with essentially no manufacturing output--exports virtually nothing except uranium and animal hides. We therefore asked the question: So What Was Iraq Buying From Niger? We now know the answer [i.e. uranium]." -Powerline, conservative water carrier for the Bush administration

To which I have to ask.... are you POSITIVE, Mr. Assrocket?

NY TIMES: WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 - A high-level intelligence assessment by the Bush administration concluded in early 2002 that the sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq was "unlikely" because of a host of economic, diplomatic and logistical obstacles, according to a secret memo that was recently declassified by the State Department.

Among other problems that made such a sale improbable, the assessment by the State Department's intelligence analysts concluded, was that it would have required Niger to send "25 hard-to-conceal 10-ton tractor-trailers" filled with uranium across 1,000 miles and at least one international border.

In early 2002, the Central Intelligence Agency sent the former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV to Niger to investigate possible attempts to sell uranium to Iraq. The next year, after Mr. Wilson became a vocal critic of the Bush administration's Iraqi intelligence, the identity of his wife, Valerie Wilson, a C.I.A. officer who suggested him for the Niger trip, was made public. The investigation into the leak led to criminal charges in October against Mr. Libby, who is accused of misleading investigators and a grand jury.

The review by the State Department's intelligence bureau was one of a number of reviews undertaken in early 2002 at the State Department in response to secret intelligence pointing to the possibility that Iraq was seeking to buy yellowcake, a processed uranium ore, from Niger to reconstitute its nuclear program.

A four-star general, Carlton W. Fulford Jr., was also sent to Niger to investigate the claims of a uranium purchase. He, too, came away with doubts about the reliability of the report and believed Niger's yellowcake supply to be secure. But the State Department's review, which looked at the political, economic and logistical factors in such a purchase, seems to have produced wider-ranging doubts than other reviews about the likelihood that Niger would try to sell uranium to Baghdad.

The review concluded that Niger was "probably not planning to sell uranium to Iraq," in part because France controlled the uranium industry in the country and could block such a sale. It also cast doubt on an intelligence report indicating that Niger's president, Mamadou Tandja, might have negotiated a sales agreement with Iraq in 2000. Mr. Tandja and his government were reluctant to do anything to endanger their foreign aid from the United States and other allies, the review concluded. The State Department review also cast doubt on the logistics of Niger being able to deliver 500 tons of uranium even if the sale were attempted. "Moving such a quantity secretly over such a distance would be very difficult, particularly because the French would be indisposed to approve or cloak this arrangement," the review said.

Chris Farrell, the director of investigations at Judicial Watch and a former military intelligence officer, said he found the State Department's analysis to be "a very strong, well-thought-out argument that looks at the whole playing field in Niger, and it makes a compelling case for why the uranium sale was so unlikely."

One more sour note in the neo-con wet dreams of WMD. I love it when desire for something becomes synonymous with having it when it comes to these myopic, harebrained lunatics. I want a new Mustang too but you don't see it parked in my garage, ya fucking morons. But if I tell you I have one, are ya gonna bomb the shit out of my house to prove otherwise?

Conservative tantrums

2005-11-10T17:11:00.000-08:00

Why is it that conservative pundits have an uncanny knack of throwing sociopathic hissy fits when things don't go their way? I can understand anger. I can understand vehement disagreement. But the need to wish not just misfortune but death and misery on the people who disagree with you? Some people weren't taken to the woodshed enough as a child.

First Bill O'Reilly has a vengeful conniption over San Francisco's ballot measures:

"And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead."

Yep. That's compassionate conservatism all right.

Then Pat Robertson seems to all but delight at the possibility of divine retribution, wishing disaster on fellow Americans who voted out the absurdity of Intelligent Design and turning God into an agent of Brother Pat's political ideology:

"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city".

"And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because he might not be there"

You do not speak for God, Pat. Don't embarass yourself any further by thinking that you do.

Pat goes on to say in response to criticisms about the above statement:

"I was simply stating that our spiritual actions have consequences and it's high time we started recognizing it. God is tolerant and loving, but we can't keep sticking our finger in His eye forever. If they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles Darwin…maybe he can help them."

I wonder how 'tolerant and loving' a God is that would abandon men, women and children in a disaster just to dish out a little divine payback. Over a school board policy? Are you fucking kidding me?

And here I was told Intelligent Design wasn't a Christian evangelical apparatus. Seems Pat Robertson and God himself would disagree. Hmmmm.

Grow up, gentlemen. The world is FULL of disappointment.

Just the beginning...

2005-11-09T13:13:00.000-08:00

So with all the votes finally tallied today, it looks like Democrats have something to celebrate. Not just for the victories scored in these elections, but for what it portends for Democrats in 2006. Let's face it, this is the first break of light in a much bigger morning. And if Republicans aren't shitting themselves right now, they damn well should be. The times they are-a changin'.

I won't beat the dead horse that the GOP have made for themselves. At least not today. But I will say this... the GOP has fundamentally mismanaged and overinterpreted prior elections, turning them into the flimsy "mandate" and "capital" they've squandered so frivolously. Here's to hoping it'll separate the core conservatives from the theocratic chaff. As I would much rather have a rational government of intelligent opposition than the polar idiots that have run things thus far. Kick the fundies to the curb, gentlemen. And get back to the business of government, not electioneering.

One thing that I found humorous about last night's elections though, other than the first thumps against the GOP in Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maine and California, is the kind of goofy fringe extremism on both sides of the political aisle.

I want to clarify anyone who isn't already aware... I am not a hardcore leftist. At least not in all issues. And in the case of last night, there's one referendum I don't support. I strongly disagree with the San Francisco Handgun Ban. For no greater reason (and I've had long devil advocacy arguments with gun-owning family members and friends about gun control issues such as this one) than the fact its constitutionality simply does not hold up. No liberal worth his salt can argue and defend the constitutional protections allowed to us and then attempt to argue as strict a gun control law as San Francisco's. It cannot be done with any intellectual integrity. The 2nd Amendment either exists in validity or it does not.

"the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." And so, just as Texas has overstepped its constitutional bounds (I'll address that in just a minute) so too has San Fran.

Now, as for Texas... that state's ban on gay marriage is again indicative of a knee-jerk kind of demagoguery, one that will not stand in the years to come and certainly not in the face of federal authority. The 14th Amendment is perfectly clear about this:

"No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Two extremist positions. Neither of them constitutionally compatible.

But all in all, it's been a great resurrection of balance and rational government. Well worth celebrating from Democrats and much moping and second-guessing on the part of Republicans. And it's just the beginning.

Tax exempt status only for conservative churches

2005-11-07T12:25:00.000-08:00

First comes the anger:

Ten teachers of Christian ethics at leading seminaries and universities have written a letter to President Bush criticizing his campaign's outreach to churches, particularly its effort to gather church membership directories.

The Aug. 12 letter asked Bush to "repudiate the actions of your re-election campaign, which violated a fundamental principle of our democracy." It also urged both presidential candidates to "respect the integrity of all houses of worship."

The Bush-Cheney campaign has defended its outreach as a "peer-to-peer" effort rather than an attempt to enlist churches in partisan electioneering, which would violate Internal Revenue Service rules. Bush supporters also charge that some African American churches routinely support Democratic candidates.

Then comes the rage:

The Internal Revenue Service has warned one of Southern California's largest and most liberal churches that it is at risk of losing its tax-exempt status because of an antiwar sermon two days before the 2004 presidential election.

On June 9, the church received a letter from the IRS stating that "a reasonable belief exists that you may not be tax-exempt as a church … " The federal tax code prohibits tax-exempt organizations, including churches, from intervening in political campaigns and elections.

The letter went on to say that "our concerns are based on a Nov. 1, 2004, newspaper article in the Los Angeles Times and a sermon presented at the All Saints Church discussed in the article."

The IRS cited The Times story's description of the sermon as a "searing indictment of the Bush administration's policies in Iraq" and noted that the sermon described "tax cuts as inimical to the values of Jesus."

And if anyone thinks the issue with All Saint Church is a fluke, I'd recommend reading this article as well, in which a Democratic leaning church was threatened by the IRS, but the local conservative Christian church was left alone.

This kind of partisan bullying by an arm of the government is disgustingly transparent. See here, here and here for just a few more examples of conservative Christian electioneering that have resulted in not one examination of tax exempt status by the IRS. Not one.

End sum: Conservative Christian churches and their political endorsement of certain candidates or issues are deemed a-okay by the IRS. But liberal or Bush-critical churches run the risk of having their tax exemption status scrutinized and possibly revoked.

I call shenanigans.

Shithouse rats

2005-08-23T13:15:00.000-07:00

Pull up your chairs, folks. It's time, once again, for another exciting episode of Conservative BatShit Theater.

From the nonsensical Crazy:

LIMBAUGH ON THE MADE-UP DEAD: "I mean, Cindy Sheehan is just Bill Burkett. Her story is nothing more than forged documents. There's nothing about it that's real, including the mainstream media's glomming onto it. It's not real. It's nothing more than an attempt. It's the latest effort made by the coordinated left."

To the Piss-On-Your-Political-Mealticket variety:

ANNE COULTER ON THOSE SURRENDER MONKEYS IN NEW YORK: "the savages have declared war, and it's far preferable to fight them in the streets of Baghdad than in the streets of New York (where the residents would immediately surrender)."

To the arms-flailing, mouth-foaming, babbling batshit Craaaaaaziest:

PAT ROBERTSON ON ASSASSINATING THE DEMOCRATICALLY-ELECTED VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT, HUGO CHAVEZ: "You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war...We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

A comedy of errors

2005-08-20T00:07:00.000-07:00

It's the complete and utter disconnect from reality that makes me wonder why exactly the Bush administration and its quasi-religious loyal supporters are qualifiied to be dogcatchers, much less in any real positions of power. It's this kind of maladaptive, and quite frankly pathological, illusion they're defending that made me spray coffee across the room in a fit of laughter tonight.

From the cult of personality that is Blogs For Bush:

Now, the concept that Iraq only became a terrorist haven after our liberation of the country is a rather idiotic leftwing talking point - but the fact that our lefties say this and say we should pull out can only mean that they believe we shouldn't be fighting terrorists. Regardless of why the terrorists are there, if they are in Iraq, then that is the place we need to be, right? If we pull out of Iraq, do our leftwing friends think the terrorists there will pack up and go home? Hardly - we leave Iraq, and the terrorists will just be freed to strike elsewhere...to strike not well-armed American military personnel, but unarmed American civilians here in the United States.
It is a strange world our Democrats live in - a world in which the best way to beat terrorists is to stop fighting them.

The bit about Iraq, the new terrorist haven, being an 'idiotic leftwing talking point' is probably my favorite part of the whole thing. God knows those guys in the National Intelligence Council and their report on Iraq are just a buncha Birkenstock-wearin', dreadlock sportin' hippies. Wouldn't surprise me in the least if we found out they were financially supported by MoveOn.Org.

Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists, according to a report released yesterday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank.

Iraq provides terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills," said David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats. "There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries."

And the proof that this conclusion isn't real, dont-pay-attention-to-the-partisan-hackery-just-take-it-all-on-faith? Why a screwy pundit site showing proof that Saddam Hussein gave money to the families of Palestinian bombers (Correlation is not causality) and other flimsy opinion pieces from the National Review, a magazine that's unapologetic about being a biased and factually skewed publication. As the NR reporter enthusiastically boasts, "No claims of fairness or objectivity here!"

But wait. If terrorism has always existed in Iraq and Saddam was a major contributor to it, shouldn't that mean that since we captured Saddam and overthrew his reign, terrorism should be on the run there?

Don't ask about the missing WMD. Just belieeeeeeve.

(Nevermind that a Congressional commission of Republicans and Democrats found "no credible evidence" that Iraq was linked to 9/11. They plan to hold onto that one and the Vince Foster conspiracy till they die)

But I think I'm in love with the beautifully constructed strawman that is "the fact that our lefties say this and say we should pull out can only mean that they believe we shouldn't be fighting terrorists." A logical fallacy given that no one except the tiny fringe left is advocating a capitulation to terrorism. Certainly not anyone in the Democratic Party. So Mark Noonan's assertion that the political Left "believes we shouldn't be fighting terrorists" is completely false, one that I guarantee you he can't prove via direct quotation from any standing Democrat. Not even Howard Dean. So let's just put that little lie straight to bed.

More importantly (or rather conveniently), Mark ignores the fact that it isn't just lefties that are looking at Iraq as a tarbaby we should have never been involved in. It's slowly becoming the consensus of Republican after Republican after Republlcan. The GOP is hemorrhaging politically over the issue and the gang at B4B want to claim it's only the Left that's concerned about it. Comedy gold.

But the gem of this whole thing? The one that had me gasping for air, snorting and cackling like a donkey on nitrous?

This bit of strategy from Mark Noonan's comments:

Be that as it may - yes, if you turned off the cameras, terrorism would whither away.

You just can't make this schtick up. With logic like that, with the belief that an aberrant war would take care of Bin Laden and with a steadfast refusal to commit the necessary troops, armor and equipment to win this thing, I'd say these guys are, without a doubt, the men for the job. So long as the job meant building and strengthening terrorism instead of, y'know, actually taking it down.

Bravo.

A mother's right

2005-08-13T00:07:00.000-07:00

For anyone who isn't up to speed on the Cindy Sheehan discourse that's currently running its laps within the blogosphere, here's the summary.

Cindy Sheehan lost her son in Iraq. And while the big brouhaha is over her efforts to meet with President Bush, face-to-face, in the hopes of asking him just what exactly her son's death was for, there's something more about this mother's protest that's gathering attention. Her disallusion, dissent and its lens-like focus of the antiwar movement is proving to be a major sticking point with the GOP neo-McCartheyites, to the point that they've begun attacking her from every angle they can find. Up to and including summoning the opinions of her dead son to oppose her.

I only wish I was exaggerating.

So while it's good to see at least one conservative's honest smackdown of the vitriol machine in action and Sheehan's right to change her mind...

The essence of the right-wing smear machine's "outing" of Cindy Sheehan is her supposed flip-flop from supporting President Bush in 2004 to disapproving of him in 2005. As details of this have become clearer, it's obvious the flip-flop is nothing more than a canard. But setting aside the Sheehan story for a moment, have any of the shameless smearsters seen the public opinion polls recently? Here's some breaking news for them: a whole lot of Americans who supported Bush a year ago---including an increasingly large part of his "base"---have turned against him. And that includes many millions of people who haven't lost a parent, child, or sibling in Iraq.

...it's a bit disappointing to see another conservative, John Cole, whose blog I make a habit of reading, being a bit disingenuous when he says:

So what do I think of the whole situation? I think she should be left alone and ignored. She is a grieving mother, and she can do or say what she wants, and hopefully, some day, she will find her peace.

But she doesn’t have the right to set policy, she doesn’t have the right to make demands of the President, and she most certainly doesn’t have the right to be used as a weapon by people, who, like herself, want only to savagely attack this administration and expect that every0ne will just sit back and take it and not respond.. And that is what is going on right now. She has been adopted by the anti-war left, their surrogates in some sectors of the media, and in whole flanks of the blogosphere as a club to attack the President.

She can't possibly be coming to these conclusions on her own, conclusions most Americans have come to already. No, it has to be because the big bad Left is using her. Like a club. Honed by some phantom Left-wing media enterprise into a perfect weapon by which to attack the White House. Yeah, that's got to be it exactly.

When the did asking the White House "what's our purpose there" become synonymous with some evil machinations from the Radical Left? With disrespecting the troops? Or supporting 'the enemy'? Hell, given the imbedded softball journalism of guys like Jeff Gannon and FOX News, isn't it a bit dishonest to think she's crazy when she argues that "Since Congress is not holding George Bush accountable and the media is not doing their jobs and holding George Bush accountable, we the American people need to hold him accountable for lying to us to get us into a disastrous war"? Sounds like a fair fucking statement to me.

John forgets that Cindy Sheehan's right as an American citizen allows her to change her mind about an incompetent war and voice her opinion accordingly. John forgets that Cindy Sheehan's right as a mother of a fallen soldier affords her reasonable demands of accountability from this President, especially as it involves the lives of other mothers and their children. And I'd say asking the POTUS the following sits well within the realm of reasonable:

"He said my son died in a noble cause, and I want to ask him what that noble cause is."

God forbid the president be asked a sincere and piercing question from a mother who lost her son in his war. A president who has not attended a single funeral of any of the men he's sent to die but who has the gall to say, very cheaply, "I understand the anguish that some feel about the death that takes place". Was that before or after "Bring it on"?

Yeah, I'd say Cindy Sheehan has certainly paid up with the right people. Certainly enough to ask the simple question of, "why Mr. President, did we go?".

John also conveniently forgets, as was the case with Michael Schiavo, that opposing the neo-conservative rhetoric is met with immediate character assassination from the Right Wing smear machine. Given that she's actually questioning the reasoning behind this war and doing so publically (making it doubly egregious in the minds of these chickenhawks) in the words of old Turd Blossom, "she's fair game".

And, baby, it's in high gear right now. So it's no surprise to me the anti-war Left have adopted her and taken up a common cause (despite the crazy Leftist-must-have-brainwashed-her nonsense coming from conservative pundits). God knows Powerline and Little Green Footballs aren't about to defend her. Certainly not now, anyway, since she left the Bush-love reservation.

'Anger pimps' indeed.

Drunk on the ashes

2005-08-10T19:33:00.000-07:00

It started with all the bellicose jingoism they could wring out of the 9/11 dead. And like a junkie in need of his fix or a bad vampire movie, this administration's habit of mining tragedy and pain for political sustenance knows no boundary. Nor sliver of dignity.

From the Pentagon's press release:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9, 2005 – The Defense Department today announced the first "America Supports You Freedom Walk" to honor the victims of 9/11 and America's military personnel, as well as to celebrate freedom.

The Freedom Walk will begin at 10 a.m. Sept. 11 in the Pentagon South parking lot, near the site where the airliner crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11. The walk route will consist of a two-mile trek through Arlington National Cemetery, over the Potomac River, and will end by the reflecting pool on the National Mall, where a free concert featuring country music star Clint Black will take place.

"I am proud and honored to be part of the America Supports You Freedom Walk to honor the victims of 9/11 and to support our men and women in uniform," Black said.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld made the announcement today at the Pentagon.

"Every year since the Sept. 11 attacks, Americans have commemorated that anniversary. This year the Department of Defense will initiate an American Supports You Freedom Walk. The walk will begin at the Pentagon and end at the National Mall. It will include many of the major monuments in Washington, D.C., reminding participants of the sacrifices of this generation and of each previous generation that have so successfully defended our freedoms," Rumsfeld said.

Because nothing eases the pain of losing a loved one like a free concert and a flag-waving hootenanny. Christ. Any chance we could commemorate September 11th with just a bit of solemnity and respect by... I don't know... it's a shot in the dark here.. but by maybe, just maybe letting the dead rest in peace? Instead of trotting out the ashes year after year for a pro-Bush Nuremberg rally, all in the hopes it'll rescue a party asphyxiating on its own bullshit?

This from an administration that never wanted an investigation into 9/11 to begin with, then wanted the final report kept out of the hands of the public until after the November elections. This from an administration that was more obsessed with Iraq than actually fighting terrorism (and ironically, still are). Oh yeah. These guys LOVE the 9/11 families. Without them, this White House loses its political mealticket.

Steve Gilliard is exactly right. They have no idea the kind of gale force blowback they're going to dust up with this one. The people are increasingly growing sick of it.

Fucking ghouls.

Pitted against each other

2005-08-03T01:15:00.000-07:00

For years Republicans have been trying to create a divide between blacks and homosexuals that simply isn't there. Certainly not on the level they'd like it to be.

The argument is that black evangelicals, being good Christians themselves, should come to the same conclusions white evangelicals have come to regarding homosexuality and Scripture. Nevermind that whites used Scripture to advocate slavery and racism for centuries. No, what neo-conservatives really desire is to see two groups within the Democratic party pitted against each other, in the hopes it will unravel the progressive consensus. Every time a conservative black deacon condemns the homosexual lifestyle on television, the glee of that possible division swells within neo-con circles (an object of delight seconded only by reports of tortured Muslims or the crash of a liberal actor's career). So they really would like to see this idea pan out. And to do so, that means pandering to a voter bloc they've previously ignored for nearly 40 years.

That's why there's been a couple half-ass apologies lately (or even non-apologies in some instances) by the Republican Party to black voters, all in a very laggard attempt to sweep away the dirty tricks they played on the black community for half a century, and all to try to shore up black support for a party that's historically done its damnedest to fight against the interests of minorities.

That apology, mind you, comes just one year after Bush snubbed the NAACP's national convention for the fourth straight year in a row. Talk about historical context. This is a party that, from one side its of mouth, wants to severely cripple if not strike down Affirmative Action completely and yet placates and pays lip service to black interests from the other side. Only a true racist would have the gall to believe that black voters would fall for that kind of duplicity. Pretty insulting.

So it's no surprise to me that a growing tide of black leaders are slowly catching wise to the GOP's strategy of 'divide and conquer'.

NEW YORK (AP) -- The Rev. James A. Forbes spoke with a joyous righteousness as a preached to a hall of black faces Sunday at a cathedral at the edge of Harlem, and the words he chose might have come straight from the civil rights struggles of the 1960s.

Discrimination, he said, has no place in this world, and he urged his audience to liberate themselves from the notion put forward by some that they are less favored by God.

"Your job is to get up every day and be grateful to God for your DNA," Forbes said. "It took an artist divine to make this design!"

What made his words stand out was that they were spoken to a roomful of gay and lesbian faithful, and the would-be oppressors he referred to during the spirited religious service weren't white segregationists, but the pastors of some black churches.

...Speaking in a hall at the Riverside Church, the Rev. Cari Jackson, of the Center of Spiritual Light, said some conservative black clergy had, perhaps unintentionally, incited hate against lesbians and gays by repeatedly condemning them as sinners.

"Like our slave ancestors, we are being spiritually, psychologically and physically abused." she said.

Driving a wedge between the black community and the gay community isn't catching on as well as Republicans would like. The jig, as they say, is up.

Constitution? Who the hell needs that?

2005-07-31T18:45:00.000-07:00

As if you needed any more proof that the Republican Party has no interest in the Constitution or the rule of law.

Leaked emails from two former prosecutors claim that the military commissions set up to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay are rigged, fraudulent, and thin on evidence against the accused.

More here.

No timetables for the enemy. But check again next month.

2005-07-30T15:33:00.000-07:00

6/24/05, George W. Bush: “There are not going to be any timetables. I have told this to the prime minister. We are there to complete a mission, and it's an important mission....Why would you say to the enemy: Here's a timetable, just go ahead and wait us out? It doesn't make any sense to have a timetable. You know, if you give a timetable, you're conceding too much to the enemy.”

7/28/05: BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's prime minister said Wednesday he wants U.S. troops "on their way out" as soon as his government can protect its new democracy. The top American general in the country said he hopes to begin significant withdrawal by next spring.

Oops.

Sadistic logic

2005-07-30T13:16:00.000-07:00

There are times when I honestly just grow so exhausted at all the psychopathic depravity of this adminstration and its policies that I honestly wonder if this is what Hell is like. BE WARNED. The following summary concerning torture from the American trained Iraqi police is not for the weak of stomach:

The Observer has seen photographic evidence of post-mortem and hospital examinations of alleged terror suspects from Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle which demonstrate serious abuse of suspects including burnings, strangulation, the breaking of limbs and - in one case - the apparent use of an electric drill to perform a knee-capping.

We not only condone this sort of thing, we fund it, train others to do it and lead by example. The facts are a matter of public record. Man's inhumanity to man is being endorsed and sponsored by this administration's policies. Pure and simple. These robotic Republican lunatics can hem and haw and joke about it all they like. But torture is torture. Cruelty is cruelty. Sadism is fucking sadism. I'd go so far as to say that anyone who delights in torture enough to sport something like this should be considered a possible danger to society. Same sociopaths that would giggle over an "I Heart Attica" or "I Heart Auschwitz" t-shirt.

And only someone so fucked up as to actually get off on hurting someone would dare defend what we've been doing as "good for America", especially at the spiritual level. To anyone who would find this amusing, I question their possession of a soul:

Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators, Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar's face.

"Come on, drink!" the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as the prisoner gagged on the spray. "Drink!"

At the interrogators' behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.

"Leave him up," one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.

Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.

This isn't taking the war to the enemy. This is beating the better angels of our nature to a bloody pulp and having a laugh about doing it. The more this country continues down a path of cruelty at all costs, the sooner the world will march to that beat, ultimately leading us to a human rights epidemic we will be too ill-equipped, morally and rhetorically, to stop. Another Rwanda. Another Yugoslavia. Is that what we want? America is supposed to be the shining light of civilization. If we're too busy inflicting suffering upon innocents, who else will take our place?

Bush-lovers have no idea the self-destructive whirlwind they're reaping here. And probably don't even care.

And while there are days (like today, having just finished reading Janet Gunter's thorough record of America's new love affair with third world sadism) that I think no one of any importance opposes these acts, I found a spark of hope in the lawyers of our nation's military.

God bless these courageous souls for taking a stand against our government's sickness. And God's curse on the twisted fucks who not only turn a blind eye, but fight passionately to continue torturing people.

From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON, July 27 - Senior military lawyers lodged vigorous and detailed dissents in early 2003 as an administration legal task force concluded that President Bush had authority as commander in chief to order harsh interrogations of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, newly disclosed documents show.

Despite the military lawyers' warnings, the task force concluded that military interrogators and their commanders would be immune from prosecution for torture under federal and international law because of the special character of the fight against terrorism.

In memorandums written by several senior uniformed lawyers in each of the military services as the legal review was under way, they had urged a sharply different view and also warned that the position eventually adopted by the task force could endanger American service members.

Batshit crazy

2005-07-30T01:03:00.000-07:00

Want to know a pretty likely indicator that the sun is slowly setting on the Republican legacy? When they start returning to the conspiracy theories and insane narratives within their own heads.

Then again, I guess that's always been so. But it seems to be building in intensity again of late, now that the November champagne is getting a little stale.

FROM CRAZY (From frothing conservative pundit, Hugh Hewitt): For a nation that is the midst of a poker craze, you would think that by now most would have figured out that President Bush isn't the sort of character who calls "All In" twice a month. Rather, he plays his hands well, wins most of the time, and watches as his opponents throw down cards in disgust and walk away. True enough, Bush hasn't brought home Social Security reform, and Democratic obstruction on that and a host of other issues will be part of the campaign in '06. Bush knows that his place at the table goes on for three and half more years. But he keeps piling up win after win. When the "legacy" detectives come 'round in '09 and thereafter, they won't be struggling --as they have been with Clinton-- to find anything of note."

...TO CRAZIER (From the conservative blog Colossus): A lot of attention is being paid to the new ABC TV Show, Commander in Chief, featuring Geena Davis as an accidental president. But a lot of people (OK, me) are saying that this show is a nefarious plot to advance the notion of a Hillary Clinton presidency. The thought is that if we, the submoronic television viewers, get used to seeing a woman president on TV, we'll be more inclined to vote for one in 2008."

...TO CRAZIEST (Read at Tom Tomorrow): Apparently a guest on Fox News has suggested that the innocent man shot by London police may have been an al Qaeda decoy... There are times when I really don't know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe next someone will suggest that the taxi driver known only as Dilawar tortured himself to death, to make the U.S. look bad."

Hugh Hewitt makes me laugh. It's clear he either just finished watching The Cincinnati Kid or Celebrity Poker Showdown before he sat down to write that post. Unfortunately a mountain of poker metaphors can't save you from what is undeniably a pretty thin lie.

So you say Democrats are to blame for the minimal support from the public on Bush's Social Security reform (I honestly wonder when blaming the Democrats for every asinine Republican fuck-up will ever end)?

Here's the truth. The people didn't want it, Hugh. They weren't interested, no matter how many Bamboozlepalooza rallies Bush tried to throw in their towns. And legacies? Given that Bush's legacy thus far has been 400 billion in deficit spending, 1700+ American sons and daughters dead in a pointless, inflaming war and a terrorist threat that's more vigorous than ever, I wouldn't say the sonuvabitch's legacy is anything to crow about.

Or maybe it'd more digestible if I stick to the poker analogy: Bush won one good round in November and has been trying to bullshit his way through a stream of bad hands ever since. If it were his money, that'd be one thing. But a growing majority of Americans are getting sick of him gambling away our future.

If I were Bush or the Republican party, I'd be damn nervous right now about what cards get dealt in 2006.

Nervous enough, I'd wager, to start ranting like a batshit lunatic about conspiracies and evil Democrats.

Al Qaeda and new recruits

2005-07-25T14:59:00.000-07:00

If you're not reading Juan Cole's blog, Informed Comment, you should be.

I think it would be a mistake to see al-Qaeda as a corporation where the CEO just gives orders to lower-level employees. It is mainly "a way of working," as a London policeman pointed out. It is intended as a model to inspire local groups, and as a global network to encourage them.

But occasionally the top leaders do intervene to order specific attacks, where they still have that organizational capacity. It is entirely possible that both London and Sharm El Sheikh were two instances where they could and did.

The worrisome thing is that al-Qaeda and its affiliates are obviously able to use the increasing anger in the Muslim world over Palestine and Iraq to recruit "newskins", who are not known to intelligence organizations in the countries where they operate.

Strategically, it is increasingly clear that if you wanted to wage a "war on terror," letting Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri alone while you invade and destabilize Iraq and let the Israeli-Palestinian conflict just fester was a very bad idea.

Many commentators are putting out the straw man argument that the Iraq War cannot be blamed for terrorism because September 11 and Bali, e.g., happened before the Iraq War.

This argument is so dishonest that it should make your blood boil when you hear it. No one is alleging that all the instances of radical Muslim terrorism can be traced to the Iraq War. What is being argued is that the Iraq War provided the already-existing terror networks with an enormous propaganda and recruiting windfall.

And the irony of this shouldn't be lost on Bush lovers who are fueling this war:

"Arab-American" wrestler Muhammad Hassan has taken a forced leave of absence from UPN's SmackDown after his appearance on the show two weeks ago -- on the day of the London bombings -- drew hundreds of complaints. Joanna Massey, a spokeswoman for UPN, which airs SmackDown!, said that the network had asked World Wrestling Entertainment to remove episodes featuring Hassan "because it was the right thing to do." Hassan's real name is Mark Copani; he is an Italian-American Buddhist.

Because naturally the London bombings were done by Arabs, not British Pakistanis and a Jamaican. 'Cause, y'know, them terr'rists is all Ay-rabs.

Morons.

No maverick. Just another shill.

2005-07-24T12:04:00.000-07:00

I would've voted for John McCain had he won the Republican presidential candidacy in 2000. Thank god he didn't.

As the years have gone on, I've realized what a sycophantic, political opportunist Mr. McCain is. He's no maverick. He's not the guy who sticks to his guns in the name of what's right or what's fair. All of that is a media invention. The truth is far less than his image machine would allow. In reality, he'd sooner cowtow to neo-conservatives and the pseudo-Libertarians, would sooner sell his mother to the wolves if he thought it could get him enough votes with the right people, than do the right thing.

Why am I ranting about John McCain today? Because Americablog just posted this up a few hours ago and it pretty much killed any belief I may have had that John McCain is a man of integrity.

On ABC's This Week, Stephanopoulos just read the text of the Classified Information NonDisclosure Agreement that White House employees are required to sign:
"I have been advised that any breach of this Agreement may result in the termination of any security clearance I hold; removal from any position of special confidence and trust requiring such clearances; or the termination of my employment..."

Stephanopoulos: Do you believe that this agreement should be abided by?

McCain: I do, but that also implies that someone knowingly revealed...

Stephanopoulos: This covers negligent disclosures

McCain: Again I don't know what the definition of "negligent" is.

Karl Rove fucked him over in 2000 so badly that I'm amazed, honest to god AMAZED, that McCain is defending the little snake. Not only did Rove spread a whisper campaign that his adopted Bangladeshi daughter was the result of an affair with another woman (which wasn't true), the dirty tricks didn't stop there. Rumor mills pumped out lies that included: McCain's wife Cindy's drug abuse problem (she didn't have one); McCain's homosexuality (he isn't gay); McCain ratting out his fellow American prisoners in Hanoi (he didn't); his mental instability due to his torture at the hands of the Viet Cong (he wasn't unstable); that he wasn't a friend of Vietnam veterans and their interests (patently untrue).

Rove spat on his life and his kids and this guy has the nerve to apologize on his behalf, pulling a Clintonian "depends on what the definition of 'is' is" dodge, defending Turd Blossom when he knows perfectly well that Rove risked our national security for political revenge? Are you fucking serious, John?

McCain's a whore. There's just no two ways about it. Any individual that would prostitute their integrity like that for a political machine that tried to ruin your life, HAS to be getting something out of the deal. I just hope it's worth the price you're paying, Senator. 'Cause it looks pretty pathetic from here.

Bush admin hands Al-Qaeda another free pass

2005-07-24T11:49:00.000-07:00

Honest to god, their bungling is simply astounding.

The Justice Department blocked efforts by federal prosecutors in Seattle in 2002 to bring criminal charges against Haroon Aswat, a suspect in the July 7 London bombings, according to a report in today's Seattle Times.

"They're in their last throes" doesn't mean a whole lot when you're letting these shitheads get away scot-free.

V for Vendetta

2005-07-22T17:41:00.000-07:00

The new trailer for Warner Bros. V For Vendetta movie is out and beyond looking like a love letter to liberty over fascism, it might very well add a pop culture nail to the coffin of the Religious Right. The message of the film couldn't be any clearer.

My favorite quote? "People should not be afraid of their governments. The governments should be afraid of their people."

Looks good.

The unseen Abu Ghraib photos

2005-07-22T17:04:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the legal work of the CCR, the ACLU and other concerned groups working through Freedom of Information Act channels, today was supposed to have brought about the release of the Abu Ghraib photos the public has yet to see. You know, the rest of the pictures that nearly made members of Congress sick when the complete collection was privately shown in May of 2004? Some examples of those photos include:

Soldiers forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing

A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee

Prison guards threatening male detainees with rape

Prison guards sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick. (The army report neglects to mention that the aforementioned detainee was under 17 years old)

So why haven't these new photos hit the media wires and Internet like a napalm bomb today? It would seem the Bush Administration has seen fit to make sure those other photos never see daylight again.

From the CCR site:

In June, the government requested and received an extension from the judge stating that they needed time in order to redact the faces of the men, women and children believed to be shown in the photographs and videos. They were given until today to produce the images, but at the eleventh hour filed a motion to oppose the release of the photos and videos, based on an entirely new argument: they are now requesting a 7(F) exemption from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act to withhold law enforcement-related information in order to protect the physical safety of individuals. Today’s move is the latest in a series of attempts by the government to keep the images from being made public and to cover up the torture of detainees in U.S. custody around the world.

Busy little psychopaths, aren't they?

EDIT 7/25/2005: Don't be fooled by Republican lies. This is not a few 'bad apples'. This is not an aberration. This is consistent policy on the part of the White House, both in Iraq and in Afghanistan, policy on open and unmoderated torture that Cheney and others are currently fighting with Congress to keep.

This is not what America stands for.

Add 'em up

2005-07-22T03:32:00.000-07:00

Cost of calling reporters to out CIA operative for political payback? 5 cents a minute and a DoJ investigation.

Cost of getting caught with a classified report listing that CIA agent's name? Roll of TUMS and the best damn defense lawyer you can find.

Getting busted for lying to a grand jury and shitting your pants at the possibility of jailtime?

Priceless.

For everything else... there's the White House.

The anti-Earl Warren

2005-07-20T13:52:00.000-07:00

There's not a whole lot that I want to mark down at the moment about Bush's nomination of John G. Roberts to take O'Conner's seat on the US Supreme Court, primarily for two reasons.

Roberts comes into this gig a veritable unknown, something that I'm sure was surgically crafted by the Rove machine as a means of placating conservatives (who see his record and more or less conclude that he could pleasantly surprise them) while giving little ammunition to progressives to protest against him. Make no bones about it. Roberts will develop into the anti-Earl Warren. Because of or in spite of Robert's small judicial record (he's only been a judge for 2 years fer chrissakes), there's not a whole helluva lot to pin on him, much less say about him. He'll been flown through Congress as a middle-of-the-road judge and end up turning the Constitutional table over once he's on the bench, scaring the shit out of us much, much later. (We'll see in September if Democrats have anything to say in protest, though from the looks of things right now, I highly doubt it).

That's bullet number one.

Bullet number two is that Bush putting his guy on the SCOTUS should pale in comparison to the on-fire controversy of Karl Rove's egregious CIA outing. I watched left-blog after left-blog this week bitch and moan about how Bush was announcing Roberts in an attempt to move the media focus onto something besides Turd Blossom. And yet, sure enough, those same blogs took the bait like nobody's business, ditching just about all discussion on Rove in favor of rooting out Robert's past. The Daou Report is practically peppered on the Left with either minimal Rove savaging or complete ballroom dancing with the Roberts/Supreme Court distraction. Even Right wingers are wiping their brows and thanking god that the Rove controversy is out of the spotlight.

Their mistake. As the trouble's about to get a whole lot hotter.

Certain meltdown

2005-07-16T13:19:00.000-07:00

With the recent news of a plan by UK and US officials to slowly withdraw troops from Iraq, I thought it might be high time to put a little spotlight on what is all but inevitable to happen following American disengagement.

Here's the plain truth, folks... Iraq is plunging into certain meltdown. It's been in the cards for a while. We just happen to be the stupid little idiots who opened Pandora's box.

A little history.

Prior to the US invasion, Iraq was a nation of civil law and secularism, albeit only as a result of its dictator's brutal reign. Regardless of the demagoguery by Republicans to paint Saddam as Joe Stalin reincarnate, Saddam kept his house in order and kept a tight lid on any aggression between Shia and Sunni Muslims. The suicide bombings, the beheadings, the violence, ALL of that was nonexistent under Saddam's regime. His intimidation tactics in the 70s, his brutality, were the necessary means to establishing order, strict discipline and towards bringing into line the two conflicting sects.

But now, with Hussein gone and with no real way to contain the chaos, much less the religious animosity between Shia and Sunni Iraqis, sectarian violence is exploding across the country. And old conflicts, old clashes of belief, are becoming the gunpowder this war will set alight.

While Americans believe that US is the prime target right now (going so far as to advocate the annihilation of our troops because "at least we're fighting them over there"), there's more to this conflict than meets the myopia of our media outlets. Shia solidarity with the US-sponsored government and the overthrow of formerly Baathist Sunnis is turning Iraq into a country divided. Once we withdraw, there will be no other enemy amongst Shia and Sunni, save for each other. Hell, they're already starting to tear each other apart (Looking at it closer, I almost wonder if this was the entire plan all along, as Iraq has been a prime powderkeg for whipping Islamic sects into a frenzy for centuries now).

The Al Qaeda cell in Iraq is lead by Zarqawi, a Sunni Jordanian and Al Qaeda itself, the core of it anyway (Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri), is lead by a Sunni Saudi and Sunni Egyptian. 99% of the bombings in Iraq following the US invasion have come from Sunnis: Either puritanical Salafists or former Baathists eager to take back control.

On the other side of Sunni Iraqis, you have Shia Iraqis. Too used to the civil order under Saddam's regime and too fed up with the inept handling of the violence by American troops, they're growing more and more agitated by the steady barrage of bombings slaughtering their children and destroying their religious sites. While Grand Ayatollah Sistani, the most influential religious leader in Iraq, has continually urged Shia Iraqis not to respond to Salafist attacks, Moqtada al Sadr's Madhi Army, and the vigilante payback it dishes out to Sunni extremists, is the only line of defense against Shia Iraqi genocide. Militias are becoming the only answer. God knows, the daily intimidated, American-trained police can't handle it.

And with Syria and Saudi Arabia fueling that Salafist insurgency from the West and with the predominantly Shia Iran at Iraq's East, Iraq is very much on the knife-edge of outright sectarian war. Any doubters of Iraq's descent should read the recent article in The Weekend Australian. It makes a cogent and fact-based case tackling the inevitable prospects of a rising conflict there. This is what the US has reaped. This is what Operation Iraqi Freedom will bring the Iraqi people. More death. More suffering. More war. Not democracy.

But there is hope, scant and potentially scary hope to Western interests, though it may be. Iran's recent declaration of solidarity with the Iraqi government and its promise of financial support & military training, gives life to the chance that a democracy may yet exist in that region. And here's why.

Ayatollah Sistani is about as moderate a Shia cleric as they come. His fatwa, or legal pronouncement, that Shia clergy should try stay out of politics, and his own moderate personal politics when it comes to religion and state, is considered by many to be an invigoration of sorts to Iran's current liberal reformers (Refomers in Iran petitioned Sistani to throw his voice into their political efforts last year. He declined). With the reform movement growing (despite the presidential election of extreme hardliner Ahmadinejad) the cross pollination between Iraqi Shias and Irani Shias could end up fostering a less extreme culture of government in both countries, lending itself towards the reform movement cause in Iran and ultimately giving Shias greater strength. An Iraqi Civil War could also distract Al Qaeda from its obsession with 'Western occupation' and move the focus of their aims towards Shias and an inter-religious strife. It's a shitty outcome. But in much of Islamic history, warfare within Islam has tempered and sharpened the faith. Given it cause to reexamine itself, reform itself. This could be the catalyst that moderates have wanted for some time.

In the meantime, we must work towards removing our troops from Iraq as quickly and as safely as possible. Our continued prescence there not only keeps the Iraqis from sorting out their nation's political identity for themselves... but also postpones what is inevitably a reckoning between Islamic factions that could work out auspiciously for America and for the world.

We've done enough damage as it is. The time has come to bring our soldiers home.

More incompetence

2005-07-15T12:14:00.000-07:00

Remember that deal I mentioned in previous posts about the Bush administration giving out too much information to the press last year over a captured Al Qaeda laptop? The media leak that ended up botching a major Pakistani sting and allowed countless terrorist operatives to slip away?

It looks like that case had a greater impact than any of us realized. As those same Al Qaeda cell operatives who slipped away are being connected to the bombings in London.

Here's Americablog with more details from ABC News. Basically, in an effort to look like they were doing something to fight terrorism, the Bush administration ended up alerting several terrorist cells to exposure, leading to their escape and later to the London attacks.

I can't say it enough. If you lie down with Neocons, you'll get up with terrorists.

Puncture here

2005-07-13T23:23:00.000-07:00

Bloomberg blows holes in Rove's lousy defenders....

The "Wilson/Rove Research & Talking Points'' memo distributed by RNC Director of Television Carolyn Weyforth contends, "Both the Senate Committee on Intelligence and the CIA found assessments Wilson made in his report were wrong.''

Yet the Senate panel conclusions didn't discredit Wilson. The committee concluded that the Niger intelligence information wasn't solid enough to be included in the State of the Union speech. It added that Wilson's report didn't change the minds of analysts on either side of the issue, while also concluding that an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate "overstated what the Intelligence Community knew about Iraq's possible procurement attempts.''

....while this independent writer from NY lays it all down:

Karl Rove is paid to be an advisor. In that capacity he should not have had the access to the identity of Valerie Plame; dot number one. Judith Miller never wrote an article about this, yet was willing to go to jail instead of reveal her source; dot number two. Valerie Plame was working on the very issue, WMD, which Bush was pretending at the time he wanted to protect us from; dot number three. All of these things point back to the Downing Street Memos which prove impeachable offenses; dot number four.

Connect the dots. Call a liar a liar. Call a traitor a traitor. It is time for the house of cards to fall. The American people can handle the truth. We will recover as long as the truth still stands for something. As long as honor still drives our purpose and feeds our soul. As long as we can have our faith in government restored. Connect the dots.

Not just weak on terrorism....Worthless on it

2005-07-12T16:12:00.000-07:00

Here's what I have the greatest trouble reconciling with this damn administration. 9/11 was more than just a political windfall. The deaths of 3000 people was a chilling wake-up call to a problem we could no longer ignore. No longer was terrorism that menace 'over there'. It came here and pounded down our door. It threatened our families. It threatened our lives. Terrorism is a threat, it is a disease of inhumanity and it has to be eliminated effectively.

(I'm not about to get into the whole 'chickens come to roost' defense of other people on the Left. That argument, that the US 'deserves' what it gets, does little or nothing to address the ironclad mindset of Takfiri Wahhabists, a strain of Islam so virulent and dominating that it makes Dominionists look like children. Anybody who jumps up to carp ad nauseaum about the madness that is the American Taliban better not be bending over backwards to turn a blind eye to Islam's Religious Right)

But what infuriates me the most, time and time again, is this administration's long and screwy record of just outright fucking negligence when it comes to catching these guys. For example:

the PR Hiroshima that was and remains Abu Ghraib and Gitmo. What a way to let extremist Muslims undermine moderates. "Americans don't mean us harm? Don't mean to subjugate fellow Muslims? Well what do you call dogs, prisoners being beaten to death and a guy with a hood on and electric wires strapped to his testicles? Oh, that's right. The Americans call it liberation."

the Clouseau-like idiocy that traded Bin Laden's capture for a war in Iraq. Here you have a country that had not one suicide bombing before we came along. Not one. Not one instance where the terrorists were in charge. Not one mosque or religious celebration rocked by violence or the deaths of children. No weapons of mass destruction. Barely a threat of any sort to its neighbors post Gulf War. Now? Now the place is lit up with terrorism every. single. day.)

the Pentagon command incompetence that resulted in soldiers not securing Iraq's explosives at Al Qaqaa, letting them be used against our own soldiers later by insurgents. Of all the 13000 official wounded, I wonder how many of them lost their limbs because Rumsfeld or his underlings decided that securing Iraq's bomb-making material really wasn't that important.

the cock-up that was leaking the name of a major figure in an Al Qaeda sting. Score one for the war on terra, eh?

and now, discovered only recently by the catatonic mainstream press, the almost jubilant disregard of national security that is the Valerie Plame incident.

And that's just the war on terrorism. I could probably hammer out a whole seperate list of the Bush administration's mistakes domestically or diplomatically (*cough*cough* deficit at 7 trillion*cough*cough*billions lost and missing at the Pentagon*cough* North Korea or Iran*cough*).

The simple truth is that the Bush administration has consistently failed to secure "liberty, peace and democracy" for the American people, much less for the rest of the world. As a matter of fact, their actions have habitually resulted in the opposite. Look at the freedom that's 'on the march' in Iraq. It's nothing but chaos and a terrorist carnival now. Mission Accomplished, George.

And still neo-con Republicans love him. Drunk on November champagne, they ignore the staggering amount of evidence that Bush isn't doing anything for anybody and blindly trumpet his success at a second term as if it was some kind of rubber stamp from God affirming their selfish little beliefs.

All I can say is that it's pretty goddamn clear Bush-supporting Republicans do not care about this country. If they aren't undermining it from the outside (rhetorically or legislatively), by wasting our soldiers and our financial resources in an effort to create new terrorist training camps, they're attempting to kill it from the inside: by unravelling Constitutional protections, by bleeding the country dry economically; by fighting to make sure gays are legally recognized only as second class citizens; by selling, without apology, the rights of the American people, to large corporations and extremist Christian leaders; or by.... and this is the one that reeeeeally gets my blood boiling... by working to paralyze our Constitution and replacing it in turn, with a theocracy.

I honestly wonder if that's what their intent is all along. To drag this country to the brink of destruction, by tearing it apart from all angles. Maybe, just maybe, that's part of their postmillenialist Left Behind fantasy. To see it all smoldering in ash. Maybe they think, in some twisted little part of their morally deprived belief system, that if they just blow the tits off the world, Jesus will come and prove all their detractors wrong. And then everything will be roses. Children will listen to their parents. Everyone will go to church. Gays will disappear. The Bible will be the only law of the land and it'll rain kittens, candy, popcorn and balloons every Sunday evening.

It's a disconnection from reality I can barely comprehend sometimes.

And now I think I need a drink.

Just desserts

2005-07-11T17:53:00.000-07:00

It would seem this is what you get when you get in bed with the Wal-marts and other large corporations as a means of greasing your Dominionist agenda.

You get screwed.

From the NY Times:

Conservative Christian groups seeking to galvanize support for a battle over a Supreme Court nomination are rallying around the unlikely symbol of a mega-church in Los Alamitos, Calif., one of a handful of houses of worship that have tangled with towns over the use of eminent domain to take their properties.

In the aftermath of a Supreme Court ruling two weeks ago in favor of using eminent domain for development that increases a city's tax base, many Christian groups are warning supporters that the tax-exempt status of churches may make them targets, often citing the attempt to take a plot of land from the Cottonwood Christian Center in Los Alamitos.

Many legal experts say the fears are unfounded, and a federal appeals court ultimately blocked the condemnation of Cottonwood's property. But calling the decision evidence that the court is out of touch, several Christian groups have seized on the ruling as a potent new motivation to fight for a conservative to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is retiring.

A conservative to replace O'Connor? Like who? Priscilla "Never Met A Corporate Payoff I Didn't Like" Owen?

Honest to god, I'm trying not to laugh. But it's hard.

White House actually being hammered by mainstream press?

2005-07-11T12:16:00.000-07:00

Naaaah. It can't be. Is this the sign of the Apocalypse? When mainstream journalists actually get off their asses and ask probing, investigatory questions? Surely they've recieved their weekly sedatives and pay-off checks by now, right?

This from the White House press corp briefing today about Karl Rove and the Plame controversy. If you're unfamilar with the intricacies of this growing debate, click here for Salon's latest update:

QUESTION: Do you stand by your statement from the fall of 2003, when you were asked specifically about Karl and Elliot Abrams and Scooter Libby, and you said, "I've gone to each of those gentlemen, and they have told me they are not involved in this"?

QUESTION: Do you stand by that statement?

MCCLELLAN: And if you will recall, I said that, as part of helping the investigators move forward on the investigation, we're not going to get into commenting on it. That was something I stated back near that time as well.

QUESTION: Scott, this is ridiculous. The notion that you're going to stand before us, after having commented with that level of detail, and tell people watching this that somehow you've decided not to talk.

You've got a public record out there. Do you stand by your remarks from that podium or not?

MCCLELLAN: I'm well aware, like you, of what was previously said. And I will be glad to talk about it at the appropriate time. The appropriate time is when the investigation...

QUESTION: (inaudible) when it's appropriate and when it's inappropriate?

MCCLELLAN: If you'll let me finish.

QUESTION: No, you're not finishing. You're not saying anything.

Mind you, it's not any sort of drubbing that'll get anyone anywhere. Slapping Scott McClellan around is small-time journalism and his squirmy replies will be barely noticed by most of the American people. What should be happening is that these same journalists should be fielding these same questions, speedball-style, at the Commander-In-Chief. But I'm not holding my breath that that'll happen anytime soon. If ever.

Y'know, looking at McClellan's responses, it's pretty clear that being the Press Secretary for this administration requires heretofore unseen verbal acrobatics and ninja-like ability to dodge a line of questioning. I honestly wonder if Scott's wife has to hose down his pants with a fire extinguisher before they're able to go to bed.

How he sleeps at night is probably a different issue altogether.

Now for some reason I smell a set-up with this Rove/Plame business. Mind you, I don't know what Fitzgerald knows and the man may have something in either knowing where the leak came from and/or who perjured themselves by disavowing knowledge about it. Regardless, the Left Blogosphere has been baited into this kind of bear trap before. The CBS 'memogate' fiasco comes immediately to mind (despite the mountain of additional evidence that still stands uncontested). And with all the admissions from Rove's lawyers that Turd Blossom didn't knowingly reveal Plame's identity, Fitzgerald might just have an easier time with a perjury charge than he would pinning Rove to a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.

Doesn't make much difference to me. If Rove is connected, the sonuvabitch needs to be taken down. I'll be the first in line to bust out the champagne if he gets nailed for perjury. I'm just skeptical, with the wily dumb-luck nature of this presidency, that anything will truly stick. Or that anything will actually be pursued in this matter.

Here's to hoping I'm wrong.

Merry Christmas, soldier

2004-12-24T09:43:00.000-08:00

Goddamn right

I've got your 'moral values' right here.

2004-12-07T13:31:00.000-08:00

Let's face it. Christian 'moral values' voters are weak when it comes to taking personal responsibility. They don't trust their parenting to overcome the influence of popular entertainment. They don't trust their moral grounding to keep them from adultery. They don't trust their resolve or self control to stay away from drugs and liquor. They don't trust their children to heed their advice about sex. They can't follow their own moral compass without stern outside assistance.

They need a Daddy, an inflexible tyrant towering over them to make sure they do what's morally right. And as a result, they require a moral code steeped exclusively in overreaching laws. Without government enforcement of a social code of conduct, moral values voters find their fragile moral integrity crumbling.

The real shame of it is that, more often than not, trying to use the government as one's only protection against moral failing is a pretty clear sign it's just too damn little, too damn late. If you're putting your faith into the idea that the government, a bureaucracy capable of greater criminality than the world has ever seen, will be your moral vanguard... then brother you've got misplaced fucking priorities. The Prohibitionists are a perfect example at expecting too much moral protection from such an inately corrupt institute.

And like the Prohibitionists, the fact they're dragging the rest of the nation into their never-ending crisis of conscience and lack of moral courage is exactly what the founding fathers were trying to get away from.

2004-11-06T17:34:00.000-08:00

The current political discussion at the Switchboard at BARBELITH.COM is eye-opening:

From ibis Democrats "getting religion" is so absurdly short-sighted, un-American, un-democratic, it's embarrassing. It's also not feasible. The number of evangelicals that could possibly be swayed into voting Democrat have got to be miniscule, and meanwhile Dems would have to alienate their considerable liberal base. That's not to say your typical Democrat would vote for a conservative Repub over a conservative Democrat, but certainly they wouldn't get much of an election turnout.

A better idea I've heard recently is to try (somehow, I don't know how) to take back the words "morality" and "values." Liberals don't seem to be as good at controlling vocabulary as conservatives, particularly lately with the strength of the Right-Wing spin machine and what I believe is actually a conservative bias in media (MSNBC's news coverage is consistently right-leaning, for example). But there's got to be a way to popularize the idea that anti-discrimination laws are moral, the right to choose is moral, our values include compassion, charity, inclusion, scientific curiosity and rigor, and so on.

Also, another aspect of Bush's amazing polarization of America culture is that it's actually fostered an intolerance and, in many cases, hatred for the Christian religious culture that was not here before. Certainly, in recent years I've considered myself an ex-Baptist turned open-minded pro-science anti-hate nondenominational Christian. Sadly, I've become reactionary and experience a knee-jerk disgust every time I hear a religious turn of phrase, even one as insipid as "God Bless America." As the middle class has slipped nearly out of existence, so (perhaps) has the tolerant middle-of-the-road Christian in America.

From diz: "why did this dying Third World population reject their chance to be bailed out economically in favor of sticking to the anti-gay anti-abortion candidate?"

i don't think they see it that way. i think the link between moral decay and economic decay that conservatives have been hammering home for the past few decades has gained a lot of currency. i think a lot of people sincerely believe that the reason for our economic decay and urban crime and so on and so forth is the "erosion of family values." people think that the problem with America is that people smoke too much pot, don't go to church, have promiscuous sex, get divorced, etc, and that erodes the social fabric and causes economic distress. people think that what the poor need to do (including themselves) is to build strong nuclear families that work hard, go to church, and "burn the midnight oil," as it were. government's primary role in that is to lighten tax burdens, punish cheaters, slackers, and deadbeats, protect them from criminals and predators, and work to protect the sanctity of the family unit from degenerate liberal activists. the road to prosperity, in the minds of conservative, goes down Main Street, past rows of happy Christian homes, to the church.

I can imagine you'll say Democrats wouldn't have saved the Midwest, but they didn't know that - in the smaller picture a Kerry presidency would have improved the US economy overall.

what they don't know is not only that they're fucked, but why, and part of not knowing why means they simply don't believe that a Kerry presidency would have radically improved the overall economy. maybe a bit, but it would be like a band-aid. i think people are frustrated with Bush's day-to-day handling of the economy, and would favor Kerry's, but i think they think that long-term economic prosperity means returning the culture to its core values, and that any short-term gains they might experience under Kerry would be at the expense of cultural erosion with long-term consequences which would outweigh those gains. they aren't about to sell their souls for another hit of short-term financial prosperity, no matter how much they might be jonesing for one.

i also think that a lot of conservatives dismiss the Clinton-era boom as a fluke, driven by deeply suspicious hucksterism in the form of dot-commers who promised that technology would transform everything. it's also worth noting that the 90s boom wasn't as good for the heartland as it was for the coasts.

And a lot of these rural areas experienced rapid decline under Bush's rule, and they disapproved of the way he'd managed the economy. And yet they seemed to say, forget prosperity, we want a Christian president.

i think that, to a certain extent, in bad times, people tend to retreat into treating broader economic trends kind of fatalistically, like weather. good times come and go as they will, but values are what let you survive the down times.

Are they simply seeking validation for their culture by putting someone who appears to be "like" them in power?

there's also definitely a tribal element to it. i think that if Bush had had the same policies on "moral issues," but had instead been someone like Dole or Bush 41, politically and culturally conservative but not "born-again," there would have been support, but not the same level of fervor. evangelicals, despite their political clout and numerical advantage, feel like an oppressed minority in a culture where they have to struggle to find TV shows they don't find offensive and where commonly accepted aspects of everyday life (like abortion, belief in Darwinian evolution, the "spiritual supermarket," premarital cohabitation, tolerance of gays, etc) are not things they are comfortable with. they feel like they've finally got one of their own who's not afraid to say so, and it's been galvanizing and profoundly moving. think of how any of us would most likely feel with a gay president or something like that.

It fucking reeks of Social Darwinism to me. A pestilent meme within religion if ever there was one.

The corrupt wonders of technology

2004-08-31T16:01:00.000-07:00

BlackBox Voting, an election via electronics watchdog, has just posted some disturbing information regarding the Diebold electronic voting machines. No matter who you're voting for, please, for the love of god, don't vote on these things. It is concievable your vote could be hijacked. Insist on an absentee ballot route. It's safer.

Issue: Manipulation technique found in the Diebold central tabulator -- 1,000 of these systems are in place, and they count up to two million votes at a time.

By entering a 2-digit code in a hidden location, a second set of votes is created. This set of votes can be changed, so that it no longer matches the correct votes. The voting system will then read the totals from the bogus vote set. It takes only seconds to change the votes, and to date not a single location in the U.S. has implemented security measures to fully mitigate the risks.

Word from the street

2004-08-31T15:47:00.000-07:00

Looking for pics of the protest in NYC?

You got it.

Though this one remains my favorite.

Bravery

2004-08-31T14:50:00.000-07:00

William Saletan's Slate article succinctly strikes at the heart of my problem with the Republican concept of heroism. Bravery, real bravery, means doing something even when your instinct is to just cut and run, when you're risking something genuine and personal and huge and yet you steam forward to do the very thing you know is inarguably just.

That kind of risk runs the full gamut of possibility and risking your status quo because of a compulsion from within your moral integrity is NEVER an easy thing to do. Never. You always lose something, even if it's chance to do it differently again, when one is forced to make the truly brave choices. But you take that path because deep down in your heart you know, morally, you don't have any other real choice.

Nowhere from Bush's four years thus far have I seen any real risk placed upon the president's shoulders. Not even political risk, when you get down to the brass tax of it (it's hard to carry the banner of 'We faced the onslaught of the opposition and won' when there is no opposition to speak of and you're carrying the parade all by your lonesome party).

Bush has, time and time again, taken the coward's way out. The safe route. The riskless route. From his National Guard service (which I find to be less of a deal than a lot of people) to his crescendo of moral cowardice; waging and standing by a war that even in the dust clearing has been proven a poorly thought-out mistake. No where has George Bush ever felt the real heat of, as Saletan points out, honest sacrifice, of genuine suffering.

Now a lot of Republicans would say that Bush made that hard choice by invading Iraq when the whole world was against him, that that's a clear indicator that Bush is a brave man. But the fact is, having seen that 'Iraq as an imminent danger' was a false assumption, and having seen the bodies that have resulted, both American and Iraqis, from acting upon that false assumption, it would seem to me the bravest thing to do would be to take responsiblity for the consequences of that mistake.

Never have I seen anything of the sort from this administration.

Culpability is for other people. Recognizing mistakes is for other people. Accountability... is for other people.

That, to me, is a thousand light years from real leadership. And that is why I will be voting against George W. Bush come November 2nd. Because this country deserves better in its leadership than this guy.

You spin me right round baby

2004-08-22T18:01:00.000-07:00

I'm really fascinated now by Bill O'Reilly, especially since reading this Rolling tone article on the guy.

Just from the article and from this vid of him on Tim Russert's Meet the Press, I notice he has a knack of acting intimidating to the people he's supposed to be having a civil discourse with, getting very close to them physically, raising his voice and appealing to emotion rather than the heart of an issue.

Now I understand how he went from hosting Inside Edition to this. Tabloid journalist to demagogue despot of own his own little empire. Not much of a stretch really when you think about it.

The Return of J. Edgar Hoover

2004-08-16T17:26:00.000-07:00

Just stumbled across this at Salon.com's War Room:

Perhaps the Bush administration would have better luck hunting down bin Laden if it didn't have so many FBI agents knocking on the doors of those who might plan to protest at the Republican National Convention. As the New York Times reports, the FBI is currently working to trail, interview, subpoena and -- it's hard not to think -- generally harass potential protestors.

"In the last few weeks, beginning before the Democratic convention, F.B.I. counterterrorism agents and other federal and local officers have sought to interview dozens of people in at least six states, including past protesters and their friends and family members, about possible violence at the two conventions," the Times reports. "In addition, three young men in Missouri said they were trailed by federal agents for several days and subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury last month, forcing them to cancel their trip to Boston to take part in a protest there that same day."

The Times says investigators generally cover the same three questions: "were demonstrators planning violence or other disruptions, did they know anyone who was, and did they realize it was a crime to withhold such information."

According to the Times, FBI officials say the inquiries "are focused solely on possible crimes, not dissent, at major political events." At least some of those contacted by the FBI see things differently. "The message I took from it," said Sarah Bardwell, 21, an intern at a Denver antiwar group who was visited by six investigators a few weeks ago, "was that they were trying to intimidate us into not going to any protests and to let us know that, 'hey, we're watching you.' ''

It's good to know some dirty, conniving thuggery never changes.

Under pressure

2004-08-11T10:13:00.000-07:00

Slowly but surely the screws may turning against the Bush White House over this CIA-operative outing fiasco.

From this BBC article that covers the whole skinny on this situation:

A court in Washington has held a reporter in contempt for refusing to testify in an investigation into the exposure of an undercover CIA agent.
The court ruled Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper must testify to the grand jury investigating the leaking of agent Valerie Plame's name.

Ms Plame's husband says her name was leaked in retribution for his article challenging the government over Iraq.

US District Judge Thomas F Hogan ruled that Mr Cooper and Tim Russert, the host of NBC Television's Meet the Press, must testify "regarding alleged conversations they had with a specified executive branch official".

The reporters had tried to avoid the grand jury subpoena on the grounds it violated the First Amendment of the Constitution's guarantee of a free press.

Several leading government officials have already testified to the grand jury or been interviewed by prosecutors - among them Secretary of State Colin Powell, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and former CIA director George Tenet.

President George W Bush himself was interviewed in June at the White House.

I do see and understand Mr. Cooper's fight against being strongarmed to admit his journalistic sources as being swampy incursions on free speech. And the fact he's willing to go to jail for it, as opposed to Tim Russert's cowardly caving in to the grand jury, is admirable.

But the fact is, free speech is one thing. Using free speech as an instrument with which to politically kneecap your adversaries and then counting on it as a shield when you get caught is another thing entirely. I'm glad to see this investigator has taken the kid gloves off. Or so it seems.

I truly cannot believe the White House administration has done so much hemming and hawing over a situation they could very easily have routed out in-house. It's crystal clear that the chain of command outright agreed with these ambush tactics. Bush wouldn't have consulted with a lawyer over this if he didn't have some part in it or knowledge therein of the shenanigans.

Like a friend of mine commented to me last week. This isn't a presidency. It's a ragtag collection of sewing circle hens and dishonorable cowboy wannabes.

Feckless thugs, the whole lot of them.

Fucking brilliant

2004-08-09T12:06:00.000-07:00

Y'know, between the war in Iraq, the Plame affair and this, I honestly wonder just what the fuck this administration thinks it's doing when it bloviates on all its 'successes' against the war against terrorism:

Until U.S. officials leaked the arrest of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan to reporters, Pakistan had been using him in a sting operation to track down al Qaeda operatives around the world, the sources said.

In background briefings with journalists last week, unnamed U.S. government officials said it was the capture of Khan that provided the information that led Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to announce a higher terror alert level.

The unnamed U.S. officials leaked Khan's name along with confirmation that most of the surveillance data was three or four years old, arguing that its age was irrelevant because al Qaeda planned attacks so far in advance.

Law enforcement sources said some of the intelligence gleaned from the arrests of Khan and others gave phone numbers and e-mail addresses that the FBI and other agencies were using to try to track down any al Qaeda operatives in the United States.

Then on Friday, after Khan's name was revealed, government sources told CNN that counterterrorism officials had seen a drop in intercepted communications among suspected terrorists.

Officials used Sunday's talk shows to defend last week's heightened alerts, amid widespread claims the White House disclosed Khan's arrest to justify raising its terror alert level.

But some observers have said that Islamabad should not have been compromised by political considerations in Washington.

Why undermine your own September Surprise, boys?

It's a conspiracy. A see-oh-enn...spiracy.

2004-08-09T11:36:00.000-07:00

From the Boston Globe today:

Iraq has issued arrest warrants for Ahmed Chalabi, a former Governing Council member, on counterfeiting charges, and for his nephew Salem Chalabi, head of the tribunal trying Saddam Hussein, on murder charges, Iraq's chief investigating judge said yesterday.

The warrant is the latest strike against Ahmed Chalabi in removing him from the centers of power. A longtime Iraqi exile opposition leader, he had been a favorite of many in the Pentagon but fell out with the Americans in the weeks before the handover of Iraqi sovereignty in June.

There's more irony than you can shake a stick at with regards to Ahmed Chalabi's falling star.

Here's a guy who jockeyed within Pentagon circles to take over Iraq after Saddam's ouster, is said to have been the biggest source of the discredited WMD information, and who is alleged to have told Iran that the US had broken their codes and was listening in on their communications.

And we paid him. Millions of our tax dollars went to funding his Iraqi National Congress and his attempts to take over Iraq... and yet this mountebank who embezzled from banks hadn't lived in Iraq since he was a child. The embezzlement and fraud charge (of which he was given 22 years sentence in absentia from Jordan and makes the Pentagon's favorite a convicted felon), was a political conspiracy by Saddam Hussein then. And miraculously this new charge of counterfeiting by the Iraqi justice system is a political conspiracy by Saddam Hussein too.

Funny how the conspiracies keep following you, Mr. Chalabi.

"Yeah. Uh, tribal sovereignty means that. It's sovereign."

2004-08-09T09:50:00.001-07:00

I'm so unbelievably late for this party, I don't know where to begin. For years now I've been barraging my friends with political links, day after day after day. Sorry, guys. But now, this blog will set down all those juicy little morsels of info and more.

And so, without further ado, we're starting this party with a whimper, not a bang.

Or rather one seriously pitiful attempt at oration from the king of seriously pitiful attempts. MP3 link and hilarious as hell.

Honest to god, listening to this and his slip? at a bill signing on Thursday ("Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we") it makes me feel kinda sorry for the guy. Clearly this is a man who has no clue what he's doing in the role that's been thrust upon him. No clue.

And yet FOX continues to insist the emperor isn't naked. Who are they trying to kid?