Levy County Liberal

2006-06-10T17:24:00.000-04:00

Oh goody, more AC...

Hey, I just found out that the godless one herself, Ms. Ann Coulter, will be appearing tonight at 8 PM on FNC's "Heartland w/Jonh Kasich" (that little dope...) answering viewers emails. Will you join LCL in flooding the FNC servers with dozens upon dozens of emails trashing Ann Coulter? You know, with Q's like "how's Rosie O'Donnell, your secret lesbian lover", and "since you hate 9/11 victims so much, were you behind 9/11" - that sort of thing.

Here's the address: heartland@foxnews.com

You'll notice that the appearance is not open to live phone calls, only emails. I wonder why? Yeah.

2006-06-10T13:10:00.000-04:00

al-Zarqawi

So Abu Musab is dead. Yay.... Does that really matter? And how about the circumstances surrounding Zarqawi's death? That's interesting. Except to the MSM. What really bugs me about the al-Zarqawi death coverage is the absolute willingness of the MSM to go along with the "real" story from the U.S. military about him being killed in the airstrike in Iraq. They are still believing everything that comes from the military, this despite their extensive cover-up of the facts surrounding AMAZ's death. First he was completely obliterated in a gargantuan and triumphant airstrike by fighter jets. After the Iraqi police blew that story, the U.S. went with the one where he died immediately - but wasn't obliterated. Then they conceded that he was still alive when U.S. troops arrived on the scene. Instead, he died "on a stretcher" at the bombing site. What's next, that he's not really dead? You bet.

Come on here, let's face the truth. The latest story, and the one that seems to be the closest to reality, is that Zarqawi was not killed in the immediate explosion of two 500-pound bombs that landed directly on his safe-house. Instead,

"Al-Zarqawi was lying on a stretcher at the scene of the bombing, near the village of Hibhib, about 35 miles north of Baghdad, when U.S. forces arrived and tentatively identified him as the wanted insurgent leader Wednesday evening. He mumbled something unintelligible and tried to move but was restrained, according to Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. "

"Everybody re-secured him back onto the stretcher, but he died almost immediately thereafter from the wounds he'd received from this air strike," Caldwell said.

Okay, how could Zarqawi be alive, very much alive apparently, alive enough to speak, roll around on the stretcher, and then attempt to get off the stretcher and stand up - and then die instantly, just like that. Poof. This guy, Zarqawi or not, was obviously murdered by the U.S. soldiers who arrived on the scene after the Iraqi police. The soldiers got there, coincidentally, just as Zarqawi died. The fact that "Zarqawi" was not killed by the bomb blast but by murderous U.S. troops is solidified by new allegations and eyewitness accounts coming from Iraq.

U.S. officials have altered their account of the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, saying he was alive and partly conscious after bombs destroyed his hideout, and an Iraqi witness has raised the possibility that the wounded "al-Qaida in Iraq" leader was beaten by American troops before he died.
The witness, who lived near the scene of the bombing, claimed in an interview with AP Television News to have seen U.S. soldiers beating an injured man resembling al-Zarqawi until blood flowed from the man's nose.

Yeah, that's it. Whoever this guy was, he was beaten and murdered. A quick glance at the photo of the dead "Zarqawi" will prove that.

Come on. Does that look like the face and neck of a guy that was just obliterated by 2 (2!!) 500-pound laser-guided bombs? I don't think so. The bombs were so powerful that news reports were mentioning how buildings were leveled nearby for two blocks. That a whole forest of date palms were turned into charred pulp. And look at this guy. That looks like the swollen face of someone who was just given a severe beating - enough to make "blood come out of his nose".

As to the question of this actually being al-Zarqawi; that's tough to say. My first reaction is to say yeah, but who cares? But the secrecy with which the U.S. military is going about the circumstances of his death is bizarre. Why didn't they do everything possible to keep him alive after the bombing to glean much needed intel from him? The Iraqi prime minister ordered that he be taken alive.

The speculation about beatings and cover-ups is addictive, but second to the big-picture surrounding Zarqawi. That is, is his death, and Zarqawi himself, important or not? W seems to be as confused as the rest of the country, at one moment bordering on sheer jubilation and a Dean-scream, but the next saying that "the fight will go on". So which is it, W? Just months ago the Bush administration was touting the eventual capture or killing of Zarqawi as a Saddam-capture turning point in Iraq. That the troops could start going home after Zarqawi was disposed of. And now they're talking about leaving only after we "win", and keeping 100,000+ U.S. soldiers in Iraq for at least 17 more months. What!!?? Not surprised at this though. After all, Zarqawi was a BA creation.

2006-06-09T14:03:00.000-04:00

The real "witch":

Yep - it's Ann Coulter. That she-devil/nutcase/Hitler idolizer has reached a new low in her sorry little career of lies and slander. This time she's mercilessly bashing, of all people, 9/11 widows in her pathetic new "book" Godless: The Church of Liberalism (give me a break...).

"These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much."

Yeah, that's nice. Does she even realize what comes out of her mouth (or computer) anymore? Is this sad comment even relevant to her vain and ridiculous book? Hardly.

So Ms. Lucifer is now trashing victims of 9/11? Wow, there goes her support from the right. Right? Umm, no. The same people that literally destroyed the life and career of CSU (or was it U of Col.?) professor Ward Churchill for saying that some victims of 9/11 were comparable to Nazis, comments from some no-name nut that were getting zero coverage and were not even noticed until the right blew them up, are now 110% behind Coulter. They are not only ignoring Coulter's comments, they are agreeing with them - saying that AC was "telling the truth" and that they do not "have a problem" with the comments, with FNC leading the way in adulation of Coulter. WHAT!!?? Where the hell are the calls for her to prosecuted, as was done with the Churchill situation? Where are the calls for her to be deported, as was called for during the Churchill situation? This is the same thing - if not worse. The hypocrisy is dizzying.

My answer to Ms. 666 is this; I would sincerely like to see what happens when somebody blows up your lesbian lover and you express some grief over your loss. Will you whine when we call you a sobby witch? Watch out Coulter, we'll get you soon.

Here are some Coulter troubles that are fun.

LCL is back!!

Very sorry for yet another long break for LCL. But I have a good reason this time. I was working on an with interview Democratic Florida gubernatorial candidate U.S. Rep. Jim Davis for my other website (of which I am assistant editor) The Sun State Activist. It's a great interview, covering everything from oil drilling to gay marriage, so check it out. That's not a suggestion - that's an order. Go. Now!!! (then come right back to LCL)

2006-06-01T19:43:00.000-04:00

George W. Bush:

The worst president in the last 61 years. Sweet.

Haditha: The cover-up continues -

We all know about the Haditha massacre by now right? a battalion of U.S. Marines (who knew exactly what they were doing) rampage through a somewhat restive Iraqi town, shooting, killing and torturing dozens of civilians - most of whom were women and children. This is documented by journalists and the U.S. military, even though they have yet to accept responsibility for it. This is fact, right? Right??!!??

Not for the radical right. They are stuck in their ususal mode of blaming the left for everything. "Slimy liberal commies cooked up everything!!!". Yeah, that's it. The right-wing blather macjine Human Events has an article by the "despicable" MichaelReagan in which he syas just that.

"Without any real knowledge of the Nov. 19 deaths of 24 civilians and the role if any played in the killings by United States Marines, the despicable Democrat Rep. John Murtha is charging that members of the Marine Corps killed those civilians in cold blood."

"Without ... real knowledge"? "Murtha .. is charging"? Sorry Mike, it's not just the "despicable" John Murtha. Why else would the U.S. military launch a serious (I hope) investigation of the massacre? Why else would the military start to give the U.S. troops in Iraq ethics training. Did these events happen because of "pressure" from leftist commies? I don't think so.

2006-05-30T12:26:00.000-04:00

Snow resigns, Paulson nominated:

Treasury Secretary John Snow officially resigned this morning from the BA, after months of speculation. No surprise here, Snow was getting tired and rather grumpy over the last year or so, unable to successfully push GWBush's radical tax cut/economic strategy. Of course, I really don't think that anyone with a brain could have been excited about more and more tax cuts for the rich. Snow had to get pretty creative towards the end in talking up the TC's. Besides, John was probably missing his multi-million dollar salary that he'd get in the private sector from CSX. He's gotta get that parachute.

W's choice to replace Snow as TS is a minor surprise. He picked Henry Paulson, CEO of big-time financial firm Goldman Sachs. Paulson is well known for his supposed financial expertise, and will probably be better suited to spin W's failed economic policies. But one surprise about Paulson is that he was director of the Nature Conservancy, and has warned of the economic consequences of unchecked global warming in the past. Wow. And this is W's choice? No doubt this will be similar to the Harriet Miers SC nomination, with W and the BA caving to incensed right-wing demagogues who are already whining about Paulson's pro-environment record. Heck, they were whining on April 11, when some right-wingers released a letter urging W to drop Paulson from consideration for the job because of HP's support for the Kyoto global warming treaty.

"As head of the Nature Conservancy, Paulson often made decisions that benefited the Conservancy at the expense of Goldman and its shareholders," said John Carlisle, policy director at the National Legal and Policy Center. "Based on his private sector record, Paulson simply can't be trusted as Treasury Secretary to faithfully adhere to important Administration policies on Kyoto and the environment."

Have no fear neo-con's, for Paulson is still way too tight with W and friends. Paulson was a key figure in the Nixon administration during Vietnam, and was implicated in the Watergate scandal. Paulson also has contributed heavily to W's reelection efforts, being named a "Pioneer" for giving upwards of $100,000 to GWB. Paulson has also donated some serious cash to Republican Senate and Congressional election efforts, and also individual GOP candidates.

........................................................................................................................................................................

W + Enron:

The real story of the Bush administration's close ties with Lay and Enron? You tell me...

2006-05-29T15:09:00.000-04:00

GOPers defend a criminal (because they're criminals too!):

Republicans have really reached a new level of silly, pathetic and out of touch with their rather spirited defense of DEMOCRAT Rep. William Jefferson in his bribery case. Dennis Hastert, who we all now know is the center of his own bribery scandal, involving Jack Abramoff no less, is especially "outraged" at the Justice Department's search of Jefferson's D.C. office, where they found, in a freezer, $90,000 in cash.

But, of course, there is no sudden flash of bipartisan friendliness on the part of the House GOP members that are rushing to Jefferson's aid. No, they're only trying to save their own ---es from their many ethics scandals. See, they don't want the JD to pull off a Jefferson search in their bribery cases. That's all. They don't condone what WJ did - but they don;'t want him brought to justice. Hmm... Come on GOP, even the Democrats (well, until Pelosi caved in to the Congressional Black Caucus) are thrashing Jefferson. He's one bad dude people. As bad as Tom DeLay, Bob Ney, and Duke Cunningham.

Ok, there were no male strippers involved with Jefferson's scandal, so maybe not as bad as the Duke.

Kabul Riots:

The "peaceful" and "prosperous" country of Afghanistan, according to President Bush, already dealing with the resurgence of the Taliban, has now apparently reached a bloody breaking point. A U.S. military convoy involved in a traffic accident has sparked widespread unrest and violence in the formerly calm (to a point) city of Kabul. At least 20 Afghan civilians have been killed by U.S. soldiers or Afghan police, with the rioting still continuing. This uprising comes as no surprise due to the growing tension that had been observed throughout Afghanistan over the last few months.

GWBush has continued to ignore this growing unrest, even as the Taliban has made a full and complete comeback, U.S. soldiers continue to die there, and violence is spreading throughout the country, finally reaching Kabul. As recently as March 1, when he made a "surprise' visit to Afghanistan, W was blind, deaf, dumb etc. to the looming crisis in that country.

President Bush paid a surprise visit to Afghanistan March 1 (2006), praising that country for its progress toward democracy.

ÂPeople all over the world are watching the experience here in Afghanistan. I hope the people of Afghanistan understand that as democracy takes hold, you're inspiring others."

Oops W, oops.

2006-05-28T19:17:00.001-04:00

Sunday Talk Buzz:

Face the Nation:

Not much here except for a blistering confrontation between GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell and Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer. Schieffer was pressing them on a variety of issues, but it really got heated when they went at it over the November elections. Mitch seemed almost nonchalant in his confidence concerning a Republican landslide this fall, and blasted the Dems for "block and stall" tactics on the Senate immigration legislation. Um, Mitch, it's the Republicans that are blocking immigration reform in the House, remember that? Apparently not. McConnell also made this astounding statement, revealing his ignorance of the pulse of the American people:

"I don't think that the war (in Iraq) is going to be a factor in the upcoming 2006 elections..."

What!!?? Where has he been for the last year? Not talking to his constituents, that's for sure. Schumer repeated the tired Democratic line of "we'll do it better" - without telling us what they would exactly do.

At least Mitch admitted that W's poll numbers were actually low, and not some giant "liberal media conspiracy" like the BA and Fox News suggest:

"We would certainly like for the president to be in better shape."

But McConnell sealed his fat with an overzealous defense of President Bush and the GOP in general, going on about "patriotism" and that the country will vote for them because "we have to remember that no terrorist attack has happened in America since 9/11" and that "we realize that we're over fighting them over there (Iraq) instead of fighting them in New York and Washington D.C." Will conservatives ever stop using the 9/11 excuse? It's a general catch-all for anything. Just like the Doonesbury strip. Man, that was funny.....

Meet the Press:

This continues to provide some serious entertainment on Sunday morning. Today was great. GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel vs. GOP Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner. What a showdown. Maybe it would have degenerated into fisticuffs if Sensenbrenner was in studio. He was not. The billing for the appearances was that it would be all about immigration, and it was, to some extent. Some great debate ensued, with Jimmy S. looking ever more foolish going on about his "grand plan" for "illegals". Since running into serious opposition from members of Congress and Americans in general regarding his "get draconian" immigration bill - ignoring citizenship and focusing on busing millions of illegal immigrants to Mexico - by changing the tone of his pitch. Now it's a "business-friendly" House bill, even though nothing ahs changed with the bill.

Sensenbrenner: "My goal is to make illegal workers legal workers..."

How would this bill do that? It wouldn't, unless he's talking about them becoming legal workers in Mexico. He would round up workers, put them in detention camps, then bus 'em off to Mexico. Sensenbrenner also continued his complaints about the Senate bill being "amnesty". Chuck Hagel quickly trashed that accusation. Anyhow, the immigration talk was fine, but the main attraction of today's MTP was a comment by Chuckie Hagel on the general mess that is Iraq.

Tim Russert posed the usual Iraq/Iran question - "Why should we invade Iran on skimpy intel - look at what transpired in Iraq"- and Hagel answered with a mini-bombshell.

"I think you could make a pretty strong case that things are worse off in the Middle East today than they were three years ago. By measurement of Iraq, by Iran, by the Palestinian-Israeli issue, whatÂs going on in Egypt. And, I think the United States must use its force of diplomacy to engage Iran."

Big props to Hagel for this stunning quip, but will he actually do anything on this? Probably not, unless hewantss to solidify himself as the new GOP maverick in the 2008 presidential race, replacing John McCain. Interesting.

2006-05-28T19:17:00.000-04:00

Sunday Talk Buzz:

Face the Nation:

Not much here except for a blistering confrontation between GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell and Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer. Schieffer was pressing them on a variety of issues, but it really got heated when they went at it over the November elections. Mitch seemed almost nonchalant in his confidence concerning a Republican landslide this fall, and blasted the Dems for "block and stall" tactics on the Senate immigration legislation. Um, Mitch, it's the Republicans that are blocking immigration reform in the House, remember that? Apparently not. Schumer repeated the tired Democratic line of "we'll do it better" - without telling us what they would exactly do.

At least Mitch admitted that W's poll numbers were actually low, and not some giant "liberal media conspiracy" like the BA and Fox News suggest:

"We would certainly like for the president to be in better shape."

But McConnell sealed his fat with an overzealous defense of President Bush and the GOP in general, going on about "patriotism" and that the country will vote for them because "we have to remember that no terrorist attack has happened in America since 9/11" and that "we realize that we're over fighting them over there (Iraq) instead of fighting them in New York and Washington D.C." Will conservatives ever stop using the 9/11 excuse? It's a general catch-all for anything. Just like the Doonesbury strip. Man, that was funny.....

Meet the Press:

This continues to provide some serious entertainment on Sunday morning. Today was great. GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel vs. GOP Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner. What a showdown. Maybe it would have degenerated into fisticuffs if Sensenbrenner was in studio. He was not. The billing for the appearances was that it would be all about immigration, and it was, to some extent. Some great debate ensued, with Jimmy S. looking ever more foolish going on about his "grand plan" for "illegals". Since running into serious opposition from members of Congress and Americans in general regarding his "get draconian" immigration bill - ignoring citizenship and focusing on busing millions of illegal immigrants to Mexico - by changing the tone of his pitch. Now it's a "business-friendly" House bill, even though nothing ahs changed with the bill.

Sensenbrenner: "My goal is to make illegal workers legal workers..."

How would this bill do that? It wouldn't, unless he's talking about them becoming legal workers in Mexico. He would round up workers, put them in detention camps, then bus 'em off to Mexico. Sensenbrenner also continued his complaints about the Senate bill being "amnesty". Chuck Hagel quickly trashed that accusation. Anyhow, the immigration talk was fine, but the main attraction of today's MTP was a comment by Chuckie Hagel on the general mess that is Iraq.

Tim Russert posed the usual Iraq/Iran question - "Why should we invade Iran on skimpy intel - look at what transpired in Iraq"- and Hagel answered with a mini-bombshell.

"I think you could make a pretty strong case that things are worse off in the Middle East today than they were three years ago. By measurement of Iraq, by Iran, by the Palestinian-Israeli issue, whatÂs going on in Egypt. And, I think the United States must use its force of diplomacy to engage Iran."

Big props to Hagel for this stunning quip, but will he actually do anything on this? Probably not, unless hewantss to solidify himself as the new GOP maverick in the 2008 presidential race, replacing John McCain. Interesting.

2006-05-28T11:21:00.000-04:00

State of the Bush Administration:

A couple of comments on this morning's Sunday talk fests got me thinking about this very question. Really, what is going on with the Bush administration? Is it withering away with GWBush's poll numbers? Or is it pressing ahead with its agenda, successfully ignoring the distress and anger voiced by conservative Republicans on issues like immigration reform?

The comments that piqued my interest in this matter came from three very conservative commentators (again!!??) on ABC's This Week, and FOX show with Chris Wallace (whatever it's called). Bill Kristol, the neo-con idol, came out heavily in favor of the president when asked the question I have posed here: How are W and the BA really doing? Good or bad? Kristol gave a very unsurprising answer, listing all of the "successes" that the BA has achieved over the past few weeks, saying that they passed their pet tax cuts, and that Iraq is going well (??), and that the immigration showdown is merely a "hiccup". This is what I expected from a top neo-con. Bush is great, Bush is wise, etc. etc. Kristol never fails to please with his conservative bombast and fallacies.

So then I turned on This Week, on ABC. There was the ususla roundtable, with the exception of neo-con John Kasich, loaned from FNC, out touting his new book. So GS asks virtually the same questions Wallace; with an immigration showdown looming, is the BA stable and succeeding in pressing its agenda forward. Well, George Will and Kasich really surprised me on this. They essentially blasted the Bush administration, not over the immigration bill - they supported him on that (well, except for Kasich, but he's from FNC) - but on almost everything else. Kasich wrote off the BA, saying that W's second term is done, it's failed, and that he has zero credibility with the conservative wing of the GOP. Will echoed that sentiment, calling for wholesale changes in the BA, wondering how far it will fall before they really shake things up. This was a surprise coming from two well-entrenched conservatives.

So, what's the real deal with W and his administration? Kasich and Will are spot on. It's falling apart. Iraq is over, violence is worsening, U.S. troops are massacring dozens of civilians, no government can do anything. Immigration reform is stalled - even with the Senate passing a bill. The right-wingers in the House will settle for no less than total extermination of all immigrants in the United States. Gas prices are still disgusting, but everything else is so bad right now that even that is one the backburner. But it sure as heck isn't going away. W's poll numbers, after the little "bounce" reported by CNN that was not real, are still tanking, hovering from 30 to 35%, with the GOP's numbers no better.

It's looking bad for W, the neo-con's, and conservatives. But, instead of rejoicing at their good fortune and coming up with real plan for the country and victory in 06 and 08, the Democrats are still stumbling along blindly, following the GOP's lead ni every matter, while saying that "we'd do it different", and then offering no plan of their own. They were silent on the huge story - no dead - of the NSA phone call database. They were silent, and still are, when the U.S. Marines massacre story broke, and even now, when it has been corroborated by the military. Wake up Dems! This is the opportunity that you've been waiting for! I'm afraid that without a true Democratic leader (I'm talking about you Russ Feingold. Please step up.) they will go down in defeat in November and, after another John Kerry presidential loss, wallow in misery once more.

Sundat Talk Buzz is coming after Late Edition wraps up.

2006-05-25T17:27:00.000-04:00

Ken Lay convicted:

Mr. Enron himself, Ken"neth" Lay, has finally faced justice for all of the slimy deeds he had during the demise of Enron. Now the big question is when GWBush will pardon him (you know it's gonna happen). Will he pull a Clinton and wait until he's about to exit the White House? Or will he just get the inevitable over with and do it ASAP. "Kenny Boy", as W affectionately called him, was a major player and financier of W's political career, from Texas to the White House. Lay was also the driving force behind Veep Cheney's secret energy policy. W and Kenny are close, so no way is the Prez going to let down his buddy.

Either way, the fact that Lay was convicted is a big victory for justice and common sense. Skilling and Lay are about as guilty as they come, and no excuses of "ignorance" about what was going on at Enron would save them, for everybody knew that it was a lie.

What I found especially amazing was Lay's tear-jerker of a statement outside the courthouse in Houston after the verdict was in. Lay professed his innocence in the statement, but acknowledging that "God always works for the best result", and saying that "my belief in the Almighty will get me through this trying time". Oh please. This is what every big shot corporate criminal does before he goes to jail. "I've found God", "I'm good at heart", "I love God". Good grief. They turn into some freaking circuit-rider, as if that's going to clean up their image.

No way Kenny, you lose this time. I just hope all of the no-good Republican corporate criminals get their well deserved prison time.

Treasury Sec. John Snow to resign?

That's what some news outlets are reporting. By mid-June they say.

2006-05-24T20:16:00.000-04:00

Will Hastert be nabbed?

That is the pressing question at this hour. GOP House Speaker Dennis Hastert is, according to ABC News today, under close investigation by the FBI in connection with the Jack Abramoff/Indian tribes lobbyist scandal. Nothing confrimed yet, but with convicted lobbyists working with the FBI, Denny's probably in big trouble. His office said that "We are not aware of this" as far as the investigation goes. Let's hope they will be soon.

2006-05-23T12:35:00.000-04:00

Afghan deaths:

More civilian deaths in Afghanistan, caused by indiscriminate U.S. bombing. Great. When will we ever get out of there? The Taliban are in control once again, people are dying every day in huge numbers - W, just LEAVE.

The Chosen One:

Apparently for evangelicals in Florida, gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist is that person. At a prayer breakfast speech Crist gave with evangelical pastors from across my lovely state, The Rev. O'Neal Dozier, pastor of the Worldwide Christian Center in Pompano Beach, introduced the Mr. Crist with this outburst:

Dozier started to relate a "dream" he had two years ago, in which...

"The Lord Jesus spoke to me and he said 'There's something I want you to know, Charlie Crist will be the next governor of the state of Florida.'"

"I introduce to you, as the Lord Jesus has said, the next governor of the state of Florida, Charlie Crist,"

Crist's first words were, "Well, as they say, the praise doesn't get any higher. It's the most amazing thing anyone's every told me, It's beyond overwhelming, but the reverend has a very strong faith in his heart and he's a good man. I'm very grateful for his help and his support and his belief."

That had to awkward for Charlie.

Why the heck would some FLA pastor say these things about sad little Charlie Crist? I'll tell you. Tom Gallagher, the other GOP candidate, is widely seen as the favorite of the religious right in Florida. He's come out as saying gays should be locked up in prison, come out in favor of the anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment, and expressed the view that abortion should be illegal. Crist is desperate to head off the growing support for TG, so Crist's campaign posse obviously put The Rev. Dozier up to this to show that Crist is in tune with the religious right movement.

Wonder what they gave him to do it? Maybe some 10-year-old boy's. Oh, wait, I've got that wrong.....never mind.

The amazing thing is that Gallagher was actually there. No word on his reaction though.

ANOTHER Democrat in '08??!! Nooooooooooo....

Dear goodness it may actually be true. Conn. U.S. Senator Chris Dodd has implied that he has"decided to do all the things that are necessary to prepare to seek the presidency in 2008," according to the Hartford Courant. This is a bad idea fro Chris all around. Not only is he WAY too late in the hunt to be a viable candidate, he also risks alienating scores of Dems for adding to an already ridiculously crowded field of candidates in '08.

If Chris does end up running, there will probably be a small army of his supporters decked out in the latest 2008 campaign fashions - "Christopher Dodd for President 2008" gear! Yeah, it's there, including "Dodd 2008" organic cotton T-shirts, baseball jerseys (??), flannel shirts, BABY apparel (!!??), boxer shorts, kids "hoodies", and stickers.
Ooooh! I just found "Dodd 2008" tile coasters! Yayyy!!!!

2006-05-21T18:41:00.000-04:00

Sunday Talk Buzz:

"The Chris Matthews Show":

I normally don't find anything substantial while watching this CM ego-trip, but the debate today's show about Al Gore running for president in '08 was semi-interesting. Contrary to what had been getting out about Al's '08 aspirations, his recent speeches and appearances to promote his new global warming documentary have apparently fired him up enough for him to seriously consider a run, according to the gaggle of self-important journalist on TCMS. Joe Klein, Katty Kay and David Gregory all have Gore running in an effort to stop the juggernaut of his old foe Hillary. Really?!? Sounds fun....

But what was more intersting was how these media elites treated Al. Nothing but contempt as far as I could tell. They regarded him as sort of an amusing side-show, and viewed his challenge of Hillary as pure suicide. Will this change before Gore decides?

"Meet The Press"

Russert presided over what may have been the most explosive and entertaining MTP ever. Tim may drive me crazy, but it's still the best Sunday program out there.

First up was Sec. of State Condoleeza Rice. Oh, excuuuuse me, DOCTOR Condoleeza Rice. Yep - at least that's what the caption said when they introduced her; "Dr. Condoleeza Rice". Sure, she has a Ph.D or whatever - but I have never seen anbody use that in her caption before. She's the Secretary of State for crying out loud, isn't that enough? Aaaaargh.

OK, now that that's out of my system, I shall continue.

Russert hardly grilled Dr. Condi, although he pressed her harder than I've seen before. Dr. Condi was unusually tounge-tied on sevral questions, most notably on the iliegal NSA eavesdropping and phone call database. She stammered her way through that with the ususal Bush administration BS - "it's terrorists, I mean, we're defeating terrorists with this, I mean we protect people and that includes their rights...." etc. etc.

No better luck on the issue of Iraq, and whether the continued violence there should warrant the withdrawl of U.S. troops.

MR. RUSSERT: With this new prime minister, this new government, will there now be significant reductions of American troops by this fall?

DR. RICE: (!!!!) Well, we are going to sit with the prime minister and his team and make a determination on how the security situation is going to best be addressed. But clearly larger numbers of Iraqis are being trained, clearly they’re taking on more security responsibility. And it has always been the plan that as they take these responsibilities, we will have less to do. I think it’s already the case that we spend a great deal more of our time on training, but there are still some difficult places to deal with, and we want to make sure that we have the forces there that are needed. That’s why the president talks about conditioned-based withdrawals.

MR. RUSSERT: But you’re optimistic we’ll be able to have some withdrawals by this year?

DR. RICE: Well, I’m, I’m optimistic that the Iraqis are taking more security responsibility and are better trained. I, I think it would be premature before we’ve had a chance to talk with the new Iraqi government to start talking about precisely what’s going to happen in terms of our own forces.

Overall, same old thing from Dr. Condi.

Things got way more interesting when Russert brought up two outspoken GOP (again!!??) politicians, Sen. Lindsay Graham and Ga. Congressman Charlie Norwood. The issue was immigration, and Timmy wanted to stage an impromptu debate on the MTP set, which the two GOPers went along with. Russert started it off fair enough, with this question (generally here) : "What do we do with the illegal immigration problem? Do we round up 12,000,000 people or give them a path to citizenship?". This "setup" has riled the right, but I see it as a valid question, seeing how that's how the right views the issue. Graham and Norwood saw no problem either, and the "debate" moved on. This appearance on MTP has given me an amazingly clear and horrifying view at the ideology of the right-wingers in Congress on the issue of immigration. Norwood was scary in his anger, hatred and, most importantly, in his naivety.

Norwood made dozens of comments that were frightnening, but here's some of the best (worst):

(some paraphrasing here) Russert asked about "mass deportations" - Norwood - "We don;t want mass deportations. We know that will never work. If we can set up a program where the illegal immigrants can leave the country and go back to Mexico thorugh attrition, that is what we want. We can send them back to Mexico, and then they can try to get back in - that's not mass deportations."

Russert asked about Bush's plan to put National Guard troops on the border - if that will be enough to stop illegal immigration. Norwood -
"The President's plan is a good start. But, honestly, I think the number of troops needed is 30,000, over 30,000. And they need to stop people from getting in."

And, finally, Norwood's grand plan to "clean up illegals":
"What our plan would do is allow immigrants to stay and work in this country. What I think would work is if we put up 200 or so, more than 200, Ellis Islands throughout the country. Illegal immigrants could chenck in there, get id's and chips, say they won't do anything bad, amd go back to work. This would not disrupt our economy. The only one's that wouldn't chenck in are terrorists or criminals..."

Yikes.

2006-05-19T17:39:00.000-04:00

Yikes:

Right-wing anarchists create a TV ad trashing Al Gore and global warming. Meanwhile, they praise carbon dioxide as "wonderful,", and "life", because we breathe it. Huh? You've got to see this one to believe it.

2006-05-19T12:15:00.000-04:00

Gitmo:

Yet another U.N. report is urging the U.S. to shut down the torture center that is Gitmo. Unfortunately for the right, this time no one said that Gitmo "isn't as bad as Belgian prisons". Hmmm.....
The same concerns kept popping up in the report - concerns that the Bush administration continues to ignore.

The committee said it was worried that detainees were being held for protracted periods with insufficient legal safeguards and without judicial assessment of the justification for their detention.

"The state party should cease to detain any person at Guantanamo Bay and close the detention facility," the panel of 10 independent experts said.

Wait a minute. If the BA continues to ignore a United Nations decree, does put them in the same slimy boat as Saddam? After all, W invaded Iraq because Saddam was ignoring the U.N.
How about a coalition to dethrone W and Co.

Good news:

Yes, if you can believe it, good news out of D.C. The outcome of two House votes yesterday saw two surprising results. The first, and most important, especially here in FLA, was the defeat of another right-wing GOP plan to open the coasts of Florida and California to oil and gas drilling. This was a shocker, considering the mood of Washington and rest of the country in regards to gas prices. Not that drilling would have immediately alleviated this problem - even though the GOP was essentially saying just that. This is a big victory for those California and Florida rep's that worked to defeat this.

The second bit of good news is yet another House vote yesterday, this one "pressuring" oil companies to renegotiate their sweetheart public land leases, which enables them to extract oil and gas on public lands while only paying a pittance in royalties. The O&G's could end up paying nearly $7 billion. About time for them to own up to this outrageous giveaway. However, it remains to be seen whether this plan will be implemented, or if the GOP leadership, which, not surprisingly, vehemently opposed this bill, will kill it.

2006-05-18T16:14:00.000-04:00

Hayden hearings:

The Senate hearings for GW's CIA nomiee Gen. Michael Hayden began today, with the usual antics from the pols. Most GOPers were heaping their ususal praise on the lawbreakinh Bush administration henchman, asking the easiest "questions" imaginable, and generally looking a bit foolish in doing so. The Democrats were slinging their usual venom at Hayden, pressing him hard, but with no real pattern and with way too much anger. This is how the right wants you to act, remember? The only Dem who got mad about the big issue, and wasn't nitpicking over crappy litttle issues, was Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden. Ron brought the heat in discussing Hayden's unseemly role in both the NSA eavesdropping case and the NSA phone call database,. Unfortunately, this was the best exchange all day:

"General, having evaluated your words, I now have a difficult time with your credibility," Wyden said.
"So with all due respect, general, I can't tell now if you've simply said one thing and done another, or whether you have just parsed your words like a lawyer to intentionally mislead the public," Wyden said.
Hayden responded: "Well, senator, you're going to have to make a judgment on my character ... I was as full and open as I possibly could be."

Good, but not outstanding. Meanwhile, Hayden continued to spread the BA's lies about the legality of the now infamous ILLEGAL eavesdropping. There is no question whether or not it was legal. Why don't the Dems play that angle?

There was one more interesting comment from Hayden however.

LEVIN: Secretary of Defense for Policy, Mr. Feith, established an intelligence analysis, so within his policy office at the Defense Department. While the intelligence community was consistently dubious about links between Iraq and al Qaeda, Mr. Feith produced an alternative analysis asserting that there was a strong connection. Were you comfortable with Mr. Feith’s office approach to intelligence analysis?

HAYDEN: No, sir, I wasn’t. I wasn’t aware of a lot of the activity going on, you know, when it was contemporaneous with running up to the war. No, sir, I wasn’t comfortable.

Did he ever tell that to W or, more importantly, Veep Cheney? If not, then how can he ever be trusted to give his own opinion on security issues as the independent head of the CIA if his views clash with the Pres. or Veep?

Right-wing assault:

On county judges this time. The far-right group Kansas Judicial Watch of Johnson County is frantically attempting to get petitions signed so they can implemet thier right-wing takeover of that Kansas county's courts. With the rallying cry of "judicial activism", heard all over the country from con's, they're trying to get JC judges voted in rather than appointed. Why? So they can "elect" right-wing activist judges to turn the county into a right-wing Nazi compound. The only activist judges in this country are RW's that are twisting the Constitution to meet their frightening views.

The right is also going after the moderate (which really means "far-left") U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. It's a long story, so just read the article.

2006-05-17T14:07:00.000-04:00

GOP in trouble:

According to a new Washington Post poll, public confidence in the GOP is dropping like lead off a cliff. Dems are favored to handle all of the major issues. Plus, 69% of Americans aren't happy with the direction of the country. Wow - that's a lot. People are finally waking up I see.
Not looking good for the GOPers in November. But things can change. Gulp.

2006-05-16T19:13:00.000-04:00

Snow day:

Ahhhh, Tony Snow's first real day on the job as White House Press Secretary for GWB. I wanted, and expected to see, a harsh and contentious PB, with the Snow from FNC bashing the press after every question that irked him, calling them all slimy liberal commie Osama-worshipping terrorists and storming out of the room, calling for two big Uzi's.

Unfortunately, I must admit that it went rather well. This guy is good, too good. And that's bad for us liberals. The reporters at the briefing seemed almost in awe of Tony, asking him relatively softball-esque Q's - with the obvious exception being Helen Thomas. He seemed jovial and light, with the press corps following suit. They really choked today.

No, I take that back. Tony Snow LITERALLY choked - well, choked up. That was a really weird moment. Yes, Tony Snow cried today. I first thought that the sound feed had gone out or something, but no. He was holding back sobs. Good grief. Some FNC/Bush admin. plant in the room had asked him about the "yellow bracelet" TS was wearing. Come on. Don't we all know what those stand for by now? "Obviously not".

Anyhow, Snow took this as his cue to endear homself to the nation and the PC - promptly giving us his colon cancer story from last year, nearly breaking down. "Just having gone through this last year... was the best thing that ever happened to me,'' he wailed, just before going silent - dead silent- for what seemed to be about 1 minute. "It's my Ed Muskie moment,'' Snow responded. Sure it is Tony.....
Like I said, realllllly weird.

2006-05-16T12:10:00.000-04:00

FCC investigation of spy-gate?:

It could happen. The Commissioner of the FCC Michael Copps has advocated an investigation of the illegal role of telecom giants such as AT&T and Verizon in the illegal NSA phone database. "There is no doubt that protecting the security of the American people is our government's No. 1 responsibility," Copps, a Democrat, ("liberal witch hunt!!"), said in a statement yesterday. "But in a digital age where collecting, distributing and manipulating consumers' personal information is as easy as a click of a button, the privacy of our citizens must still matter." Well said, but it remains to be seen whether anyone in government will actually see this through. I'm thinknig no.

2006-05-15T19:26:00.000-04:00

Verizon takes a hit:

Well, at least their stock did, obviously due to the NSA phone spying scandal and the lawsuit filed against Verizon. This was the first trading day since it was revealed that Verizon and other telcom giants gave away the confidential phone records of all of their customers to the NSA for the now infamous (and previously discussed, see below) national phone call database and a $50 billion lawsuit was filed against Verizon. V's stock fell more than 1 percent today.

2006-05-15T14:50:00.000-04:00

NSA-gate:

Well, a lot of things happened in the week that LCL was AWOL. Dick Cheney was implicated in the Plame/Wilson leak case, Karl Rove is inching ever closer to being indicted in that case by Pat Fitzgerald (you know, the prosecutor in that "liberal witch hunt".), and, most important, and frightening, of all, we have learned that the NSA has records of every single phone call placed in the U.S., except through the phone company Qwest. Swell!!! Plenty of e-mails were watched too.

The existence of this expanded program is not in question, as it has been confirmed by NSA officials and several GOP members of Congress that were briefed on the program recently. Yet Pres. Bush is still mired in the argument over whether this program or the infamous secret NSA wiretap program put are even what they obviously are. And W has yet to acknowledge the existence of the massive phone call database. He's continuing his defense of his "Terrorist Surveillance Program", or whatever he calls it. W is pulling off his usual routine of basically saying that he's a dictator, and because of 9/11 he can do whatever the hell he wants.

That attitude was all fine and good when he had just won re-election, his approval ratings were at 60%, and the GOP was bowinbg down to W and Karl Rove, doing whatever they wanted. I don't think it will cut it this time though. W's #'a are in the basement, the GOP is in a free-fall due to the lackluster performance of W and Co., and the public is rapidly souring on any sort of "surveillance" that the BA is conducting. The "terrorist" wiretaps got support, but not a database of nearly every phone call made in the U.S. The most recent poll shows that 51% of Americans oppose the NSA database, mainly because it was not targeted at specific terrorist suspects, but at tens of millions of ordinary citizens. Hey, at least they're against it.

Plus, it's ILLEGAL!!!If there was some doubt as to the legality of the wiretap program, which would have been legal if they had simply followed the law and asked for warrants, there is zero uncertainty as to the status of this most recent spying revelation. Not only was the BA and NSA conducting illegal activities, but the phone companies broke the law (the 1986 Stored Communications Act to be precise) as well by turning over their customers phone records without a warrant or court order. This, of course, is leading to threats of lawsuits against the telecom giants, with Verizon already facing two huge lawsuits over the program. I hope they get jacked for billions -- they deserve it, after BREAKING THE LAW (let's all remember that, shall we?). I'd sure as heck sue 'em for it. Hmmm. Maybe I can? Haven't heard whether Sprint caved in too. Yikes, I might get a personal visit from Veep Cheney if they looked at my records. Well, that another story....

Big time props to Qwest though, for they are the only big telecom to flip off the NSA, refusing to hand over phone records on the grounds that it was illegal. This appears to have won them hero status amongst the liberal blogosphere, and for good reason. No if they can just do something about their record of corporate corruption. Oh well, can't have it all I guess.

Thankfully the uproar over the NSA phone call database is quite bipartisan, with GOPers such as Arlen Specter, Chuch Hagel and even House Majority Leader John Boehner expressing concern and dismay at the development. Sadly, I'm not too confident that anything substantial will be done about the ILLEGALITY of the program; no hearings, no censure, no impeachment (do we really want Cheney?) . The GOP is definitely not getting anything done, and the Dems, don't get me started. Has anyone heard them say anything on this situation? Where is the outrage? Yeah, to not scream after the initial wiretap program revelation, at least after mopre facts got out, is understandable. The rights spin machine succeeded in getting the public to think that they were nabbing Osama with that program. Plus, they couldn't come out against all wiretaps. Legal spying, while unseemly, is successful in some instances. (Oops -- did I just sayt that?) But to back away from this issue? Weak and spineless. Are they fearful that the right will call them soft on defense if they speak up? Hey, soft on defense sure beats being known as soft on criminals.

..................................................................................................................

LCL is back!!!

Sorry for the long and painful absence. Won't happen again.

2006-05-08T10:56:00.000-04:00

W picks Hayden for the CIA:

It's official, Pres. Bush picked lawbreaking former NSA chief Michael Hayden to take over the CIA in the wake of Porter Goss' resignation. So Porter "Polygraph all dissenters" Goss is gone, but now we have Micheal "Wiretap all dissenters" Hayden on the job. Swell..... Should be an interesting confirmation though. That is, if the Democrats and moderate GOPers don't fold and let Hayden go unscathed. That's what I'm betting on.

USDA talking points on Iraq?!?

Apparently they do exist, for the Bush administration is getting so desperate to pump up their approval numbers on Iraq, and to spread BA propaganda across the country, that they have released a set of new talking points that everyone at the Department of Agriculture must use in any speech they give.
A sampling-

Introduction:

Several topics I'd like to discuss today - Farm Bill, trade with Japan, WTO, avian flu, animal ID - but before I do, let me touch on a subject people always ask about..... progress in Iraq.

They really are a hoot. Here's where to find them.

"Professional juries"?

That's what a FOX News analyst would like to see after 9/11 "terrorist" Zacharias Moussaoui was "spared" the death penalty last week. David Hunt, a retired U.S. Army colonel who appears regularly on Fox News was the nut ho offered this suggestion.
"I think it's time to get professional jurors. We've had O.J. Simpson, this guy, and others."
Yikes.

2006-05-07T13:45:00.000-04:00

Goss and the hookers:

Finally some attention is being focused on the obvious connection between CIA chuef Porter Goss' abrupt resignation and the burgeoning Duke Cunningham/CIA hooker scandal. Leave it to the NY Daily News to get the dirt. Goss' close connection with his protege and # 3 man at the CIA, Dusty Foggo, is coming under close observation as Foggo is about to be indicted in the Cunningham bribery scandal. The CIA of course denies everything.

Kyle (Dusty) Foggo, the No. 3 official at the CIA, could soon be indicted in a widening FBI investigation of the parties thrown by defense contractor Brent Wilkes, named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the bribery conviction of former Rep. Randall (Duke) Cunningham, law enforcement sources said.
A CIA spokeswoman said Foggo went to the lavish weekly hospitality-suite parties at the Watergate and Westin Grand hotels but "just for poker."
"It's all about the Duke Cunningham scandal," a senior law enforcement official told the Daily News in reference to Goss' resignation.

So it seems that hookers and poker brought down Porter. And yet the MSM is STILL nowhere on this.

Professor Porter

In another interesting twist, Goss gave a speech yesterday at the graduation ceremony for Tiffin University in Tiffin, Ohio, near Toledo. Goss made no real mention of his recent resignation and the scandal and "mystery" swirling around it. He simply introduce himself as "a recovering politician", and went on with his rather bland speech. Although 20 members of the media were present at the event, Goss refused to answer any questions, and was rapidly hustled away from the auditorium. Well, his action with hookers sounds like he was in college, so... why not?

New right-wing decree: No songs that could sort of be seen as anti-Bush!!!:

Yep, that's right. A 10-year-old girl down here in Florida had her choice fo a song to perform at her school's talent show pulled after her principal deemed it "Bush-bashing", "political", and "inappropriate". Molly Schoul was going to sing a Pink song entitled Dear Mr. President, but it was taken off the program because, according to The principal of Park Springs Elementary, Camille Pontillo, the song "is a political song and does use the word hell in it." Ooooooooh. The word "Hell". Dear God. Where's the FCC!?!?!
Here's what Molly's mom had to say."If this was a student singing a pro-administration song, no one would quibble with it. The principal is just running scared and doesn't want to upset any parents."

The school then issued this comment through a spokesperson:

"This is a fifth-grade student that wants to perform a song filled with lyrics about drug use, war, abortion, gay rights and profanity," said district spokeswoman Nadine Drew. "This is an elementary school that includes kindergarteners and pre-K students."

The song does not mention abortion, and the profanity mentioned is the word "hell." The drug use refers to Bush's alleged conduct before he became president.

Here's a few lyrics:

What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away… And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay… I can only imagine what the first lady has to say… You've come a long way from whiskey and cocaine

Another portion criticizes Bush for the war:…

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry… How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye.

Since when is talking about civil rights for human beings a "bad" thing?
Profanity, abortion, and gay rights? I don't think they're in here anyhow.
Isn't it the right that's always accusing "liberals" of being too "politically correct? If this isn't being "PC", then what the heck (See, no "hell") is?

2006-05-07T13:28:00.000-04:00

Interesting tidbit from an otherwise boring morning in Sunday talk: Republican Peter Hoekstra, Chairman of the House Intel Committee and staunch apologist for the Bush administration, denounced the possible choice of Gen. Michael Hayden to replace Porter Goss as head of the CIA. Hoekstra believes that Hayden is the “the wrong choice” and, at the CIA, would be “under the sway” of SOD Don Rumsfeld. Hayden is essentially solidified as W's choice as head spook, so Hoekstra's outburst will not have much bearing on that decision, but it could mean a rough confirmation hearing if GOPers are against him. Maybe Mr. illegal wiretapping will actually get shot down? I certainly hope so, but then W's second choice will most likely be no better.

2006-05-06T11:55:00.000-04:00

"Just one of those mysteries":

What a story. Porter Goss "mysteriously" and suddenly resigns as head of the CIA in the midst of his involvement in the Duke Cunningham GOP Congressional prostitution scandal. This is big folks, as there obviously was some break in the story in the last week, with Goss' close friends saying that whatever caused him to resign just came up in that timeframe. His connection to the scandal was known for weeks, but just recently was the depth of that involvement known. This from Ken Silverstein on Aprl 27:

I've learned from a well-connected source that those under intense scrutiny by the FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence committees - including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post.

Sounds like Porter to me. But Porter himself is mum on the matter. Today he commented that his resignation is "just one of those mysteries". And that's all he said. Hmmm.....

The reasons for his resignation are clearly obvious -- and all connected to the hooker scandal. Yet the White House (and the media, but we'll get to that a bit later) is acting like everything's normal, and that Goss resigned because, well, just because he felt like it. Yeah. The WH is dismissing the "rumors" of Goss' connection to the scandal, and is even denying that Goss might have resigned because he was doing a crappy job (which he was). This even as the San Diego Union-Tribune reports that "official sources" are saying that while the hooker scandal may not have been the only reason Goss resigned, it is definetly a major one. This info comes from BA and CIA officials, so the truth is probably much worse than that.

But no one expects the BA to give straight info on the case -- why would they. Ok, but the media must be trying to dig up some dirt on this, right? I mean, come on, it's a hooker scandal, perfect fodder for the brain-dead MSM, right? Um, right? Oops. I guess not. They're completelymystified as to why Goss resigned, following the Bush administration spin (don't they always?) that he quit because of, well, who knows? But it surely isn't anything "suspicious". Of course not.

The media is focusing on the rumors that Goss quit so he could knock out Katherine "Tom DeLay" Harris from the lopsided Senate race here in Florida tthat she is botching terribly. Yeah, that's it....
And the Washington Post is covering how drugged up Democrat Pat Kennedy and his scandal was lost in the shuffle of Goss's resignation. "Yes, his scandal is paltry now compared to PG's, so Kennedy had something to do with it!" They'll devote coverage to that, but not to the VERY CREDIBLE allegations of Goss' hooker scandal involvement.

Like I said -- hooker scandal in D.C.? Perfect for the MSM. So where are they? And how about Ken Starr? Sorry -- couldn't resist.

Sources in the BA say that former NSA chief Gen. Michael Hayden, mr. illegal wiretapping himself, is the new man for head honcho at the CIA. Real nice pick....

.................................................................................................................

Down with the "Los Rangers"!!!

Ha ha. The right, specifically Michelle Malkin, is also ignoring any speculation about why Goss resigned (He's the head of the CIA remeber? Important job.) but is devoting quite a bit of hot air to the breaking story of the "Los Rangers". The Texas Rangers basebal club, in honor of Cinco de Mayo, wore special uniforms last night with thier team name in Spanish -- thus, Los Rangers. Well, the blowhards on the right blew up over this obvious attempt by illiegal immigrants and Mexico to "invade" (or something) the U.S.

"Michelle, did you happen to see last night's Texas Rangers NY Yankees baseball game? The Rangers uniforms were changed to read "LOS Rangers." I guess this was done for that great American holiday, 5th of May. What an insult to the Texas Rangers."

"The hell with the MLB, I'm not watching another game."

Ooooooh, a boycott threat. Is this the right's hissy-fit over May 1?

How about this: WHO CARES???!!!???

2006-05-05T16:08:00.000-04:00

BREAKING NEWS:
PORTER GOSS RESIGNS:

CIA Director Porter Goss "unexpectedly" resigned today, leaving the CIA after only months (or is it a year?) on the job. No doubt this is connected to Porter's deep involvement in the burgeoning GOP Congressional prostitution/limo scandal. W and Co. are mum on this of course, and the MSM buying it.
More on this HUGE story later.

2006-05-03T20:14:00.000-04:00

Moussaoui spared. Common sense at last:

Now there's a surprise. I thought for sure the jurors would want Zacharias to feel their wrath. They gave him life in prison instead. W's Justice Department is content with this result but I doubnt anyone else in the Bush administration will be. Karl Rove and the BA figured that the death sentencing of ZM would boost the approval numbers of themselves and the GOP; a good old fashioned lynching was sure to do that. But common sense prevailed, and W will just have to accept that, though his comments today that Moussaoui was shown "mercy" does not show that. How can someone be shown "mercy" for an action that they never carried out, and apparently was not even close to carrying out. Life in prison is not mercy, but what Moussaoui deserved for his crimes. His crimes that were heinous, but far from the diabolical acts that the BA wanted you to believe that he carried out. Like being responsible for 9/11. (No, that's Osama, who you have yet to capture.)

The idea that Moussaoui should have received the death penalty is legally and morally absurd. They didn't have some secret tapes or documents showing that ZM was directed to blow up the White House or something. There were no phone calls directly from Osama or Kalid Sheik Mohammed to Moussaoui directing him ti hijack an airplane on 9/11. No video of Mohammed Atta pleding allegiance to Moussaoui and vowing to follow him to the death on 9/11. All they had were several comments from a bona fide nutcase that had said during the trial that he wanted to be a martyr and would say or do anything to die.

The politics haven't ended however, for GOP presidential contender Rudy Giuliani, Mr. 9/11 himself, has come out strongly against the verdict. Here's Rudy:

"I would have preferred to see the death penalty...I kind of stand in awe of how our legal system works that it can come to a result like this."

Ouch. Pander pander pander pander.
The far-right has remained somewhat quiet on the verdictwithth PowerLine, among others, accepting and even applauding the outcome. Only the right-wing fringe ishriekingng for blood. Let me know if I'm missing any other blowups from the right on this, ok? I wouldn't want to miss those....

2006-05-02T17:34:00.000-04:00

W+GOP numbers fall again:

A new USATODAY/Gallup poll shows that GWBush and the GOP have both reached record lows in approval numbers. Their non-chalance (or ist it sneering ignorance?) with high gas prices won't help.

2006-05-02T13:27:00.000-04:00

The GOP on gas prices:

The Bush administration and GOP are showing their true feelings on high gas prices lately, telling the American people struggling with $3+ gas to, basically, ---- off.
At least that's the impression one gets when the GOP dropped a plan to tax the ridiculous profits of the oil and gas industry because, you guessed it, the O&G's whined that they were "blindsided " by the proposal, and that it would harm their "business". This tax would have been extremrly minimal, it came from the GOP after all, costing the O&G's, indivually, a pittance of their huge profits.
The n Bill Frist pulls out the usual GOP tactic of blaming Clinton for the high gas prices because he vetoed drilling in ANWR. The GOP still cannot get the fact in their head that ANWR would have provided less tha a year's supply of oil to the U.S., and probably would not be online for another several years yet if Clinton had approved it.
Well, I guess they have to find somje sort of strategy, considering Karl Rove wants to do nothing.

Where's Monica?

A Congressional sex scandal, tied to the Duke "GOP" Cunningham bribery case, is about to break.

2006-05-01T15:36:00.000-04:00

Mission Accomplished! Sort of. Perhaps in a couple of years...maybe. Probably not:

The preceding garbage could very well pass for the new Iraq slogan for W and Co., now that "Mission Accomplished", brought to life three years ago this evening by W, is history. Actually, according to PS Scotty McExpendable, the new slogan is "We are on the way to accomplishing the mission."
Quite a mouthful there Scotty. I wonder if Tony Snow will be able to say that. And can that fit on a banner? Probably will cost extra.

Scotty also proved why he is getting canned, becoming awfully snippy when prodded for a comment on the MA anniversary.

QUESTION: Scott, given the current situation in Iraq, what the president described today as havoc...

MCCLELLAN: As a what?

QUESTION: Havoc -- he used the word havoc today -- could he, would he, possibly stand under a sign that says Mission Accomplished today, as he did three years ago?

MCCLELLAN: Well, I think that there are some Democrats that refuse to recognize the important milestone achieved by the formation of a national unity government. And there's an effort simply to distract attention away from the real progress that is being made by misrepresenting and distorting the past.
And that really does nothing to help advance our goal of achieving victory in Iraq.

QUESTION: So, Scott, simply yes-or-no question: Could the president stand under a sign todayÂ

MCCLELLAN: No, see, this is a way that...

QUESTION: This has nothing to do with Democrats. I'm asking you...

MCCLELLAN: Sure it does.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: Let me ask it another way: Has the mission been accomplished?

MCCLELLAN: Next question.

QUESTION: Has the mission been accomplished?

MCCLELLAN: We are on the way to accomplishing the mission and achieving victory.

Maybe he's ticked at Colbert like the Prez is. Scott's new best friend Tony Snow probably taught him that all members of the MSM are liberal communists, so he's just putting that into practice. Plus, W would never use the word "havoc"-- it's way too fancy.

"Well, I guess Iraq is having some ha...ha...um...bad stuff goin' on right now".

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

That's low:

Now the right is bashing liberals for even commenting on the new film United 93. I guess since they can't bash Hollywood for making a left-leaning 9/11 movie (U93 is right down the center of the street of truth) they'll bash liberals for givng it a review.

2006-04-30T11:02:00.000-04:00

Colin speaks:

Former Secretarty of State for W Colin Powell, in an interview with ITV, finally acknowledged his push for more troops at the beginnig of the war in Iraq, saying there wasn't “enough force there at the time to impose order.” He also said that W, Cheney, and Rummy vehemently opposed any more troops for Iraq, over the objections of Colin and other military officials.
Thanks Colin.

2006-04-30T09:48:00.000-04:00

Stephen Colbert , the infamous Comedy Central faux-news sidekick to Jon Stewart, really stuck it to GWBush at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner in D.C. last night. Pretty funny stuff.
Here's the video.

2006-04-29T10:50:00.000-04:00

It's about time:

In this year's version, released yesterday, of the annual terrorism dossier form the U.S. State Department, the Bush administration finally admits that the war in Iraq is a "cause" for terrorist in the middle East and throughout the world. They're just getting around to realizing this now? It's as obvious now as it was three years ago, but at least the BA isn't ignoring this important fact any longer. Are they going to act on this revelation? Ummm... no.

Big oil and big profits:

Well, just as LCL told you, the big O&G's are desperately attempting to hide or smooth over their recent ridiculously high profits for the first quarter. Slate has a great piece on what the O&G's are doing to downplay these profits -- and most are just what LCL said they would do: Lie, spin, and lie some more.
I say shut these jerks down and let Hugo's CITGO run things. (Ever notice how CITGO has been having cheaper gas than Exxon, BP, etc.?)

2006-04-28T21:24:00.000-04:00

Denny made a boo-boo

House Speaker Dennis Hastert was at an event today in D.C. on how to deal with rising gas prices -- one way mentioned was purchasing a hybrid car. Hastert and some of the other (mainly GOP) members of Congress were driven in to event in hybrid cars. After the event was over, Hastert was seen and then photographed a few blocks from the event site, getting out of the hybrid and into his own huge SUV. Oops.

2006-04-28T20:45:00.000-04:00

Limbaugh gets a Rush -- and gets nabbed -- again:

Rush Limbaugh initiated his seemingly bi-annual (ok, it's been three years since his previous incident) jaunt to the Palm Beach County Jail for prescription abuse today, turning himself in to the PBC cops on the charges of fraud for concealing information to obtain a prescription. Rush was, of course, let go on $3,000 bond, but will no doubt be facing justice soon. Apparently Rush needed to show the world once more that he is "no role model".

Limbaugh's posse are of course denying that Rush was arrested, saying he was simply "settling his previous case" at the jail. At the jail? Since when does legal business go down at a jail? The facts are just starting to come out on this case, but that's a lie, considering what Limbaugh's own attorney had to say on the matter.

"I am pleased to announce that the State Attorney's Office and Mr. Limbaugh have reached an agreement whereby a single count charge of doctor shopping filed today by the State Attorney will be dismissed in 18 months. As a primary condition of the dismissal, Mr. Limbaugh must continue to seek treatment from the doctor he has seen for the past two and one half years. This is the same doctor under whose care Mr. Limbaugh has remained free of his addiction without relapse.

"Mr. Limbaugh and I have maintained from the start that there was no doctor shopping, and we continue to hold this position. Accordingly, we filed today with the Court a plea of 'Not Guilty' to the charge filed by the State.

"As part of this agreement, Mr. Limbaugh also has agreed to make a $30,000 payment to the State of Florida to defray the public cost of the investigation. The agreement also provides that he must refrain from violating the law during this 18 months, must pay $30 per month for the cost of "supervision" and comply with other similar provisions of the agreement.

"Mr. Limbaugh had intended to remain in treatment. Thus, we believe the outcome for him personally will be much as if he had fought the charge and won."
The actions taken today are as follows:
The State Attorney has filed a single charge of doctor shopping with the Court. The charge is being held in abeyance under the terms of an agreement between the State and Mr. Limbaugh.
Mr. Limbaugh has filed a plea of "Not Guilty" with the Court.
The formal agreement between Mr. Limbaugh and the State Attorney will be filed with the Court on Monday. The terms of the agreement are substantively as follows:

Ã˜ Mr. Limbaugh will continue in treatment with the doctor he has seen for the past two and one half years.

Ã˜ After Mr. Limbaugh completes an additional 18 months of treatment, the State Attorney has agreed to drop the charge.

Ã˜ Mr. Limbaugh has agreed to make a $30,000 payment to the State of Florida to defray the public cost of the investigation.

And finally, Drudge has Limbaugh's mug.

"Mean" Jean Schmidt gets punished -- with a letter!

Indeed that is so. Schmidt was given a public reprimand in the form of a letter from the Ohio Elections Commission on Thursday. This was for her lying about her educational achievements, stating on her campaign website that she had received two Bachelors' Degree from the Univ. of Cincinnati, when she did not. Remember, Schmidt's attorney termed this now valid complaint "a deliberate sleight of hand", and a "shell game".The OEC can forward this case to a county prosecutor, where Schmidt can receive a fine, but, as of now, the letter is all she will get.

2006-04-27T12:05:00.000-04:00

$8.4 million in profits? Better go to to Chapter 11!

ExxonMobil announced a first quarter profit today of $8.4 million, a record for EM in the first quarter. However, this was apparently a disappointing number, coming just below Wall Street estimates, causing their stock price to plummet.
Boo hoo.
Will this be the new defense line for the oil and gas companies? That yes, they're making huge and unseemly profits, but not as good as it could be, so therefore, they're really struggling to make ends meet.

I'll be watching for a full-page ad in the NYT or USA TODAY from their little lobbying group, "America's Gas Industry" or whatever, touting this fact, and saying that they're in the same boat as the American people. Because instead of making $8.5 million in profit, they made $8.4 million.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration's response to skyrocketing gas prices is to dismantle environmental protections and air quality laws in order to lower prices. Of course this will have no effect, first because environmental laws are not causing high prices, manipulating and price gouging by oil and gas companies are, and second, complying with air quality laws etc. does not add a significant amount to the price of gas. Even the O&G companies will admit this in their multitude of ads saying that they are broke and listing the "causes" of high gas prices (that's another story altogether though). This is simply an excuse for conservatives to finally accomplish what they have been attempting to do for so long.

Another BA response is to launch an investigation into "price gouging". No doubt this "investigation" will focus on Billy Joe Bob's Chevron in Macon as the source of "price gouging", not the top of the O&G's. The investigation will look for "price-fixing or -gouging in the sale or distribution of gasoline, petroleum distillates or ethanol in wholesale and retail markets." To go after individual gas retail stations, like they're the people that set prices, is ridiculous. How can price gouging be in practice at every single station in the U.S.? No "investigation" into what the execs etc. at the O&G's are doing to manipulate the price is going to happen.

Conservatives in Congress are also taking shots at Dems and "radical environmentalists" for rising prices, no doubt a ploy to deflect anger at the GOP for gas prices in time for this November. Roy Blunt said just that on Tuesday:

"We did not arrive at this energy crisis overnight; it is a direct result of years of unreasonable, burdensome regulations and obstruction on the part of radical environmentalists."The same Democrats who voted against increasing our energy supply, expanding our refining capacity, and exploring alternative sources now have the audacity to point fingers and place blame.

If that's not a desperate attempt to shift blame in time for November, then I don't know what is.

2006-04-26T16:09:00.000-04:00

Snowed out:

Pres. Bush named FNC's Tony Snow as the new White House press secretary this morning, cementing FNC as the hub of Bush administration propaganda. This is not a surprising development, though a disgusting one. Tony Snow was only behind Shepard Smith as the top news anchor on FNC, hosting various news and commentary programs. And now he's W's press secretary. Is this rather unseemly to anyone else? If a Democrat was prez, and he picked Brian Williams or Wolf Blitzer to take over the most visible job in the White House, what do you think the right would do? Yeah.....
Where is the outrage on this? In the MSM? Yeah right.

2006-04-25T08:26:00.000-04:00

The "leaker":

The purported CIA "leaker", Mary McCarthy has finally come out to defend herself from the neo-con loonies of Porter Goss' CIA. She now says that she had no part in the leaking of the info on Eastern European CIA gulags.
They caught her with a "lie detector test"? Really.....

Of course the right is coming out swinging on the matter, bashing her and the WP's Dana Priest with a "special report" by the GOP/right-wing propaganda machine Move America Forward. The right is essentially saying that McCarthy is a whiny ex-Clinton official that had sour grapes to Porter , W, and the rest of the gang. So she "leaked" a story about ILLEGAL CIA prisons five years after W came in. Yeah.

2006-04-24T19:34:00.000-04:00

W's numbers fall again:

GWBush's approval rating has reached the stunning new low of 32% in a new CNN poll. W's precipitous drop has been caused in the recent weeks mainly by trouble in Iraq and the soaring gas prices all over the country. Gas prices have become a huge liability for W and the GOP heding into the fall elections, especially with the BA and conservatives doing zero to force auto manufacturers to drastically improve fuel efficiency and looking the other way while the GOP's buddies in the oil and gas industry rake in exorbitant profits and their executives make near $170,000 an hour in pay. And all W does is spot off pithy little comments like "If we find any price gouging it will be dealt with..."
"By giving Lee Raymond another tax cut".
At least the Senate may attempt another hearing on oil company profits--even Bill Frist and Dennis Hastert are joining the call. However, this is no doubt a silly little political ploy for November, with the GOP trying to show that they "care" about high gas prices when all they really care about is trying to get Lee Raymond to $200,000 an hour.
The hearings, if they even happen, will be as bad as pat (not even slap) on the wrist that the oil execs received last time.

2006-04-22T16:30:00.000-04:00

Condi leaks

Yessss!! Just as I am despondent and ****ed over the CIA "leaker" firing, here comes a story that could be huge. If the MSM does anything with it that is. Secretary of State Condi Rice LEAKED classified national defense info to a pro-Israeli lobbyist group, a crime that landed a Pentagon official 12 years in prison. Condi has also just been subpoenaed to testify in the case, but that will probably never happen. Condi aides obviously deny the entire thing, basically calling it a "liberal lie". Who knows if any of it actually happened, but damn if it isn't fun to shove a Condi leak into the smugly faces of the right.

A 'leaker" gets canned:

Karl Rove? No. Dick Cheney? No. Anybody connected to the Plame/Iraq intel leaks? No.
Porter Goss, W's favorite spy, has fired Mary McCarthy a veteran agent, highly respected in the CIA, for leaking info on the now infamous CIA-run torture compounds in Eastern Europe. Officially, she was canned for "speaking with reporters about classified material". Then why isn't Rove gone? Why isn't the Veep out on the street? They did the same thing as MM.

If there are, as conservatives insist after learning that W leaked too, "good leaks and bad leaks", then surely what McCarthy did is a "good" leak. The CIA rendition program in Eastern Europe was (and still is) illegal, against U.S. and international law, and morally despicable. That she can get fired and nobody even question the action shows just how badly the MSM has been neutered by the right, and how skewed the awareness of both the GOP and the Democrats is. McCarthy is more a whistleblower than a "criminal", and should be protected by the various laws in place that cover wb's. But, of course, the right and BA view her as atraitor for uncovering bad things about W's war on terror, so she must be lynched.

McCarthy was held in somewhat brutal confinement after she was named the main suspect, and Porter and co. "nabbed" her with a lie detector test. Held in custody for hours and a lie detector test . Who do they think she is, a terrorist? Oh wait, she was in the Clinton Admin. Then she is a terrorist. Time lays out the timeline of events leading up to her sacking in an unabashedly gleeful piece that basically commends Porter for cracking down on a "criminal". GOPers are of course gleeful as well, promising a swift trial and harsh punishment for the terrorist. Meanwhile, the Bush/Rove/Cheney leak investigation continues to be forcefully blocked by the GOP and the Bush administration.

W rides a bike:

And doesn't fall off!
W and co. enjoyed a bike ride for Earth Day today, riding in the hills of central California. His usual testy disposition nshined through on the jaunt--W answered "Don't talk to me!" to a question asked while riding. His party was trailed by timber workers that stripped the trail of all trees after W passed by, and huge armored SUV's (In the wilderness!!??) full of Secret Service agents and equipped with machine guns.

No doubt the weapons were to protect W and his crew from the Veep, who apparently awoke from his nap and was present at the excursion, for W had this to say after the "exhausting ride":
"...afterward we shoot the breeze and have fun and laugh and go about our way."
Oh yeah, that's the Veep.

2006-04-21T12:36:00.000-04:00

W's falling #'s

The poll numbers of GWBush are in a freefall once more, this time htting a record low of 33%. This was in a FOX News poll, so you know the real numbers are probably below 30%, but this also means that these numbers are really bad, for FN's W numbers have been consistently above all other polls by 3-10%. W's numbers with Republicans are also at their lowest point yet, most definetly a resu;t of the BA's blunders on his immigration bill, viewed by most GOPers as "amnesty" for the little money-hungry leaches.

Nap time for the Veep:

Dick Cheney was literally caught napping yesterday. Oh wait, he was really "reading his notes". At least that's what his aides say.

"Reading his notes"? While slumped over with his eyes closed? I don't think so.

Wait...slumped over with his eyes closed? Oh my God he had another heart attack!!!
Or else somebody shot him.

Common sense from John Negroponte?!?

It's been left to the BA's intelligence chief John Negroponte to clear up the spin and propaganda on Iranian nuke capability thrown out by the White House and neo-cons in general.

Here's intel chief John's take from yesterday in D.C:

"The developments in Iran, clearly they're troublesome," he said in response to questions after a speech to the National Press Club.
"By the same token, our assessment at the moment is that even though we believe that Iran is determined to acquire or obtain a nuclear weapon, that we believe that it is still a number of years off before they are likely to have enough fissile material to assemble into, or to put into a nuclear weapon; perhaps into the next decade," he said.

About time we got some truth from the BA. Iran's not getting nukes in ten years let alone "16 days".

And one more tidbit on the Iran nuke story.
Iran is not the only country supposedly secretly pursuing nuclear capability under the guise of a nuclear energy program and refusing to let its nukes be fully inspected by the IAEA. No, it's not Syria (what the BA would like you to think) it's, you guessed it, Brazil. Their run-up to nuclear capability is almost identical to what Iran is doing, yet nothing is said by the Bush administration.
Yeah, they're a peaceful nation not locate in a hotspot like the Middle East. But don't you think the BA should be making some sort of derogatory remarks on the matter if they're so "anti-nuke"? Obviously, I'm not saying Brazil is up to anything, and I think the whole nuke speculation is loony (ditto Iran). But shouldn't the BA say something on this?

Whoops:

Apparently the anti-tax crusader, and Jack Abramoff's best buddy (can't forget that), Grover Norquist has taken his heartfelt appeals for zero taxes to a whole new level: not paying his taxes.
Grover owes $3,822.28 to the Office of Tax and Revenue, including $394 in penalties.
Come on Grover, pay up!

2006-04-20T13:31:00.000-04:00

FNC's Tony Snow is the frontrunner for the White House Press Secretary job, according to "official sources" in the BA.

Figures.

.................................................................................................

Spot on Johnny Roberts:

New CNN anchor/correspondent John Roberts was awfully prescient when he made these comments about departing WH Press Secretary Scott McClellan:

"Scott McClellan is always everybody's favorite punching bag. And here's something that's gotten me in trouble in the liberal blogs before, but I'll say it again: He is a decent person, I think that he is a truth-teller..."

Well John, it's just gotten you in trouble again. Scotty was no more a "truth-teller" than any other White House PS. Their job is to lie and spin as much as possible. So don't spout out garbage like that if you know it's wrong.

I don't know why JR has such an affinity for Scotty--maybe he let him stand at the WH podium after hours and do pretend PC's?

Bad timing:

At an appearance with Chinese President Hu Jintao today, GWBush made a half-hearted appeal for the Chinese leader to increase the "freedoms" of the Chinese people.

"China has become successful because the Chinese people are experience the freedom to buy, and to sell, and to produce -- and China can grow even more successful by allowing the Chinese people the freedom to assemble, to speak freely, and to worship."

Yeah, that's nice, whatever.
Just then, a protester of Chinese descent at the event began shouting at W and Hu in support of the brutally suppressed Chinese religion of Falun Gong. The demonstrator shouted and waved a banner for a couple of minutes and then was unceremoniously dragged forcefully of teh stage by Secret Service agents. All media reports after the event mentioned nothing about the incident.
Oops.
With all of W's talk of freedom, democracy etc. this incident has to be pretty embarrassing to the WH, but, of course, the obedient MSM will stay mum about the matter.

Well, I think you're an ***hole too:

Somebody's gonna get fired for this one ( maybe it should be Jo Ann). Missouri Rep.
Jo Ann Emerson (R) (!!) responded to a constituent with what seemed, at first, to be a normal, nondescript, spin-filled form letter response to the question from "Bill Jones" about high gas prices. Normal, that is, until the end of the letter.
Here's a copy.

"I am honored to serve as your Representative in Congress. i think you're an asshole.

Sincerely,
Jo Ann Emerson

Oh yeah, that's nice.

Jo Ann's response to her Response:

"We cannot determine whether the addition to the letter was made by someone within the office or by someone with access to the office, but it is on my letterhead and the responsibility for it lies with me. A valuable lesson has been learned and new procedures will be adopted as a result."

Now that's really treating your constituents well! The bottom line is don't insult the GOP's oil exec friends or you'll get a whupping (sarcasm alert. Sort of.) If you do, you'll be called a.... well, you know.

.............................................................................................................

Who's Mike Gravel?

Apparently, he's the first official Democratic Presidential candidate for 2008. He's also a former Senator from Alaska. Well, he's got 1 electoral vote, or how ever many Alaska has.

Funny, the Dems will have gravel and a man of stone (Kerry) running for Prez in 08.

2006-04-19T15:23:00.000-04:00

'Change can be helpful'

So says FORMER WH Press Secretary Scott McClellan at an appearance with Pres. Bush today, announcing his departure. Scotty was rather tearful as he bid farewll to W with these eloquent words:

"I have given it my all sir and I have given you my all sir, and I will continue to do so as we transition to a new press secretary,"

Yeah, whatever.
This move is no surprise, as speculation of Scotty's departure has been swirling for months, only increasing the last few weeks as he has had several poor showings at the mike while facing an especially testy (though still quite anemic) press. Interesting to hear the name of FNC's Tony Snow being tossed around as a possible replacement. No surprise there.
Hey, how about Hannity?

I'm the Decider!-GWBush

"I have strong confidence in Don Rumsfeld. I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the Secretary of Defense.''

Pres. Bush is now officially The Decider (with a capital D). That is what GWBush called himself while defending an embattled Rummy yesterday in a White House appearance. "The Decider"--sounds kind of like a wrestling nickname or something. ."And here comes George "The Decider" Bush!!" Hee hee. Oh well.
But this behavior can be excused though, for "Dr. Justin Frank" ("Dr.Justin"?), author of the book Bush on the Couch, explains that W might just be drinking again, and that he was drunk at the WH yesterday. Oh, and apparently W also like to torture cats as a youth.
Who knew?

2006-04-15T20:59:00.000-04:00

Heck of a job Rummy?

That's what Pres. Bush essentially said of Donald Rumsfeld yesterday, pledging full support for Rummy in the face of widespread criticism and allegations of personal responsibility of torture, and bringing back thoughts of Mike Brown and what happened to him after W praised his work. Rummy is definitely on his way out, although not due to anything W or the BA will do, bu because he is simply wilting under the bevy of bad press and scandals encircling him of late. Yeah, he might always seem aloof, arrogant, and feisty, but he does have s smattering of common sense, (common sense, not a conscience) and will step down before the week is up.
I think.

As for the torture, maybe Rummy was just trying to get a guest spot on "24"? Taking part in the torture of a detainee would enhance his tough guy image. I can see it now, Rummy standing alongside Jack Bauer, his idol, alternately plucking the eyeballs out of a group of terrorists with 10 minutes before Osama...I mean the terrorist leader, blows up a nuke in Yankee Stadium.
Maybe he'd win an Emmy.

Whiny righties

Meanwhile, the neo con Rumsfled/BA apologists are up to their usual antics, bashing the "blowhard former military leaders" (I don't know, considering these guys led U.S. forces into battle in Iraq and Afghanistan, is that being supportive of our troops?) that are urging Rummy to resign. I'm just waiting for the Swift Boat guys to show up, gather some poor battle scarred Iraq War veterans, and accuse these guys of deserting, being closet Communists, and helping Saddam and Osama or something.

These " six windbags" (can they count? It's seven now) " said nothing when it would have counted for something; who said nothing until they retired from the military -- pension and perks secured in their wrinkled hands."

Ouch.
What devilish hypocrisy I do observe. So when "liberals" legitimately criticize the handling and justification of the war they're traitors and Al-Qaida recruits. What about when righties call former U.S. generals that led most of the troops in the Iraqi war "windbags" and bash them like there's no tomorrow, then what's that?

2006-04-14T21:18:00.000-04:00

Rummy Torture:

Salon has conducted a thorough report on the role of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in the heinous crimes of torture that played out at Gitmo in 2002-2003. Apparently Rummy was, according to military documents, personally responsible for the interrogation and subsequent torture of a "high-value al-Qaida detainee" in 2002. He also set rules for the interrogation of this and other detainees at Gitmo that included the use of torture techniques.

Wow. It seems that this allegation may be taken seriously (finally) in the international community and the MSM, and may lead to some sort of rebuke for Rummy. But without any more proof than this the Bush administration will of course blow this off as a "liberal escapade" or something.

Personally, I'm waiting for a photo of Rummy, flanked by naked women, large snarling dogs, and plates of pork, standing triumphantly over a naked and terrified Gitmo detainee, eagerly brandishing an electric cattle prod.
That would be fun. Well, except for the detainee

2006-04-14T14:06:00.000-04:00

Breaking news on McCain:

Oh no J-Mac, don't diss ethanol in IOWA!!! That is what he did in that aforementioned visit to Iowa today, according to a story in the Quad City Times posted minutes ago. Dear God McCain, I thought you were a seasoned campaigner, and yet here is a fatal mistake, firmly opposing ethanol subsidies in THE etahnol state. Conservative, and probably all, Iowans ( is that what they're called? ) are spitting mad, at the ethanol remark and at some softie comments J-Mac made on "amnesty" for illegal immigrants and his opposition to a federal gay marriage ban. Even the newspaper journalist who wrote the story seemed a little harsh:

"If U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., came to Iowa to cozy up to Republican activists, he did it Thursday by giving a cold shoulder to ethanol subsidies, a proposed federal amendment banning same-sex marriages and the belief among some conservatives that millions of illegal immigrants ought to be shipped home"

Ouch. McCain on ethanol...

"McCain told reporters here he has not decided whether to run for president in 2008 or whether he will compete in Iowa. But he did not hedge when asked about ethanol. McCain has consistently opposed subsidies for the renewable fuel, and while he said ethanol makes more sense with oil prices rising, he added, “I was and remain opposed to subsidies.”

Props to J-Mac ( "hasn't decided"? Give me a break! ) for sticking to his principles, but isn't that what lost him the '00 primary? This is certainly a surprise, given McCain's recent outright pandering to the far right. Just trying to be all things to all people I guess. I'm afraif that won't cut it in this political climate however. Stay tuned.

Preview of the GOP in 08 is coming, I promise....

Looking for a 4/3 in Des Moines, with a yard big enough to park a large bus (i.e. the STE)...

John McCain is going to Iowa again today, trying to drum up some apparently faltering support in the Cornhusker State. Maybe J-Mac should just buy a house in DM, he certainly goes there enough. He has made oodles of campaign trips in the past year, yet I haven't heard any complaining from the GOP of J-Mac "shirking his responsibility as a Senator" like they did to Kerry in 04.

Ann Coulter: Convicted felon?

Ok, maybe it's not that bad, but it's close. It seems that the horned one herself registered to vote in Florida in the wrong precinct. This from a lawyer and general windbag that lampooned the serious voting troubles in Florida during the 2000 election and describing FLA voters as being stupid and inept for, among other things, voting in the wrong precinct. FLA voting officials are now demanding some answers from Ms. Coulter, who will probably shrug this incident off as a liberal conspiracy. All of her voting troubles would be over, however, if she were a convicted felon, because they can't vote in Florida.
Now there's an idea...

BO'R

Now Bill O'Reilly denies there is a "war on Easter", and claims that he said no such thing on his show.
Oh really? ( or just scroll on down )

2006-04-13T19:54:00.000-04:00

Some sense from the Bush administration, finally.
The Deputy U.S. Director for National Intelligence said this afternoon that Iran is "some years away" from making a nuclear bomb. Far cry from "16 days" that they blustered yesterday. Of course, Hans Blix mentioned that on April 3.

Nice analysis on the deja vu feeling brought on by the BA's blustering on Iranian nukes.

2006-04-13T12:40:00.000-04:00

Iran "Nukes":

The head of the IAEA, Mohammed el-Baradei, said today while in Iran that he "can't confirm" the Iranian boast they enriched uranium to the level needed to fuel power stations. This obviously puts a big fat dent in the charges by conservatives and the Bush administration that Iran can have a nuclear bomb in "16 days" and that an immediate air strike is the only option. Now they might not even have enough material for a nuke power station. Oops.

Here's a question: If Iran is a terrible regime that spews out lies about the West, Israel, the U.S. etc., then why does the BA believe them when they go around boasting that they have nuke capability?

And here's another blow to the air strike plans by the neo-cons, who have apparently thought an attack on Iran so thoroughly, that they have listed the amount of aircraft it will take, and they amount of strikes that those planes would have to accomplish. Way too much time on their hands.

Anyhow, top current and former military advisers dismiss claims that a rapid air strike will topple Iran in a day, and call the possibilities of a ground attack frightening. Even some Iraq war apologists are against an Iranian war.

"You have to be ready for an open-ended war with the Iranians. This is a very big deal. It's not a simple matter of an easy strike," said Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA analyst and National Security Council official who was an influential advocate of the Iraq invasion.

This is a good piece on the dire consequences that the neo-cons war on Iran will bring. Pretty scary.

St. Bernard Parish to hire Mike "heckuva job" Brown:
Are they serious?

Mike Brown, former FEMA leader and bungler extraordinaire, will attempt to win a contract for his consulting firm in a presentation to St. Bernard Parish LA today. This is the consulting firm Brown started when he was canned from FEMA for adding to the layers of federal bureaucracy involved in Katrina recovery and for not communicating with local officials that include, of course, St. Bernard Parish, after the storm. What would Brownie's consulting firm do to assist SBP?

"help businesses and communities negotiate the maze of federal bureaucracy".

Uh-huh. This is, thankfully, facing huge opposition from most local government officials and residents in SBP, and could still fall apart.

2006-04-12T13:40:00.000-04:00

Don't Nuke Iran Petition:

It's from Move On.
No one will care about this petition, but at least it will make you feel good. I hope.

Iran's gettin' nuked!

Actually, that petition sounds pretty good after reading the latest claim from the BA. It's that Iran can produce a big-time nuke in 16 days after their recent acknowledgement of producing nuke centrifuges and boasting that they may be able to enrich 54,000 centrifuges at a later date. The BA's response?

``Using those 50,000 centrifuges they could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in 16 days,'' Stephen Rademaker, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, told reporters today in Moscow.

If that's not a flashback to late '02 and the bombastic statements made about Iraq then I don't know what is. I wonder when GWBush, Cheney, and the rest of the gang are going to begins using this claim in their war speeches. "If we don't obliterate Iran within 16 days, they're going to have a nuke!" Uh-huh.

Meanwhile, Condi turned up the threat of attack with her comments those morning that "strong steps" must be taken to punish Iran. The parallels to pre-war with Iraq are getting really scary.

"Biological Laboratories"? I don't think so:

New developments in the story of those infamous "mobile bio-weapons labs" that Colin Powell, GWBush, and other top Bush administration officials touted as proof that Saddam was poised to nuke D.C. have clearly proven those claims false. Reports from U.S. bio-weapons hunters that were in Iraq were given to the BA on May 27, 2003, two days before GWB used the supposed discovery of these "mobile biological laboratories" as evidence that Saddam was going to nuke somebody.

Two days before W's speech. And yet he continued to parade this lie around for days afterwards, with Veep Cheney and other BA members reperaing it for months. Reminds me of the SOTU/Niger Yellow Cake incident. The debunking of the dozens of Saddam myths relayed by W, the Veep, and the rest of the BA goes on. Yet where is the outrage? Zip. Naw, everybody's to busy hyping a nuke war with Iran.

And that includes the MSM, who are, as usual, absent from the coverage of this breaking story. I found this article on the website for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. Not CNN, not the NYT, not TV, but the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. The MSM is instead reporting virtual propaganda from the BA on Iran. Well, just see the post above.

Most Ridiculous Story of the Day:

Bill O'Reilly continues his tirade against liberals for their "War on Easter", accusing them of banning the Easter Bunny. How desperate is he going to get? Is creating a war on Halloween next? Oh wait, there already is one, and it's being waged by the religious right. Oops!

2006-04-10T12:52:00.000-04:00

W fesses up:

Raw Story has the transcript from an appearance this morning in D.C. by President Bush where he finally comes clean about the whole Plame/Iraq intel leak situation. In answering a question, Bush admits that he was the one that authorized the leak of the previously classified Iraq intel.

"I will say this, that after we liberated Iraq, there was questions in people's minds about, you know -- about the basis on which I made the statements, in other words going into Iraq. And so I decided to declassify the NIE for a reason. I wanted to see people -- people to see what some of those statements were based on. That's what I wanted to see. I wanted people to see the truth. And I thought it made sense for people to see the truth, and that's why I declassified the document."
"It's a serious legal matter that we've got to be careful in making public statements about it." (Chuckles.)

But it's no laughing matter W.
What happened to "let's punish the leakers"? I guess if you're the prez it doesn't apply.
I realize that presidential leaks are a common occurrence and are generally harmless, but when they blatantly break the law, that's another story. So yeah, this is a big deal.

"Wild speculation"?

That's what President Bush, at the same D.C. event as mentioned above, termed the palpable and alarming rumblings of nuclear war with Iran. Bush dismissed all talk of an attack on Iran, even though most is coming directly from his administration, with this:

"What you're reading is just wild speculation."

I guess we'll have to just forget about the whole thing until Tehran disappears under a mushroom cloud.

The Malaysia Sun has a great report on comments by Don Rumsfeld from three years ago concerning the use of nukes against underground weapons facilities. Kind of like the ones Iran is "supposed" to have. This clearly shows that when the BA launches its attack on Iran, it's going to be nuclear.

2006-04-09T12:00:00.000-04:00

Sunday Talk Buzz:

This Week:

Republicans and their sympathizers (I'm talking about you Cokie) were really dishing out some laughable comments on today's edition of This Week. Let's start with GOP House Majority Leader John Boehner pulled a Dick Cheney and slipped on those infamous pink glasses, praising the "success" in Iraq and insisting that Iraqi insurgents are in only "a handful of places". Why not just repeat the Veep's "last throes" account and get it over with? This pattern of GOP ignorance of the disaster that is Iraq is even more pathetic in the face of a newly released Bush administration report on Iraq that shows the depths to which the security and stability of that country has fallen to. Only three Iraqi provinces are somewhat secure, and the situation is deteriorating every day with continued sectarian violence. And Boehner talks about "success".
Maybe it is a success, if anarchy is what the BA really wanted. Who knows?

Meanwhile, Cokie "GOP" Roberts was up to her usual antics again. In the roundtable with an unusually silent George Will and Co., Cokie naively stated that she "still takes the administration at face value" in regard to the real purpose of the Iraq war, which was "to spread freedom and democracy throughout the Middle East". Cokie says that "this is a (noble) vision", but that she feels "bad" that they're really spreading anarchy and violence, in light of the aforementioned government report which remarks that the Iraqi sectarian violence will spread to other Middle Eastern countries.

What kind of crap is this? Did she have GOP talking points under the table or something? She sounds almost as bad as Boehner. It gets worse though. Cokie went on to say that the "worst part" of the mess in Iraq is that it "precludes us from taking any other action in the region" such as "confronting Iran". Boo hoo. The worst part of the Iraq war is that now we can't nuke Iran right now. Good grief!

Meet the Press:

Where to begin...
Well, John Kerry was Russert's main guest today, and man was the resulting interview a doozy. Kerry's performance was a surreal flashback to 2004 and his stumbling and bumbling presidential campaign.

Nothing has changed with this guy. He's still throwing out poli-speak whenever asked tough questions ( which was constantly, in contrast to the softies lobbed at McCain last week). When Tim asked about the infamous Iraq bill "I voted for it..then against it" quip (Tim, that was 2004, get over it) Kerry launched into a vigorous defense of the comment that was identical to 2004, carefully documenting how Senate protocol works, and how he didn't really vote against it, but that he did vote against it. What?!
Kerry needs to get over this and quit the D.C. language. What he should have done was simply say that it was way back in 2004, he did vote against the bill, but that it was old news and that he has gotten over that flap and so should the press.

Kerry also "skillfully" dodged the "are you running?" question, saying "I don't know", but then launching into a literal campaign speech about healthcare, and national security, and the "optimism" of Americans, and leading "America forward".
Holy cow.
No, I don't think he's running.

"Media bias":

Conservatives are getting awfully desperate in their quest to uncover the soft, unseemly, liberal-biased underbelly of the MSM. Now Real Clear Politics and Blogs for Bush are counting how many words into an article before the NYT mentioned the word Democrat in a story about an ethics investigation of WV Democrat Alan Mollohan in the House. Are they happy with the NYT running this in-depth article on the severe ethics troubles of a Dem? Heck no, there must be some eveidence of liberal bias that they can find!

No mention that he's a Democrat until 315 words in -- yep, liberal bias!

Oh, one more thing. The story mentions clearly that Mollohan is a top Democrat in the headline beneath the photo at the top of the page. Oops.

Nuke attack on Iran?
It's coming sooner than you think

2006-04-07T11:06:00.000-04:00

Rudy:

It seems that Rudy Giuliani has not disappeared from the 08 GOP scence after all, as an article in today's NYT points out. Seems Rudy is desperately trying to shore up some sort of support from conservatives. That's a futile effort. Like any true righty is going to go for a guy who has display even an inkling of support for gay rights and abortion. His campaign is still very low-key compared to the other GOPers, McCain, Frist, Romney, who are in full time campaign mode. I doubt that this paltry effort will have any real effect on his chances in 08, which are rapidly falling.

Speaking of the GOP in 2008:
A full analysis of the many contenders and pretenders is forthcoming from LCL.

2006-04-06T18:19:00.000-04:00

Scooter Speaks:

Scooter Libby has finally spilled on the Valerie Plame leak. And this time it implicates President Bush in the scandal. Libby's revelation came in court papers filed Wednesday. This is pretty huge, for it could mean W's impeachment. He could testify in the case and probably the whole thing would go away, but you know that's never going to happen. Bush can't legitimizing the case by testifying, which would wreck his plan of letting the case disappear due to death by ignorance. If Bush ignores the case, the media ignores the case, and thus, the public ignores the case.

The media is following the Bush administrations plan to perfection right now, with virtually nothing being said about this important development other than a mention of it on top of the hour news and some AP stories on websites. ABC went so far as to debate if the Scooter papers, and thus the entire story, were even newsworthy at all. And I thought the mainstream media loved a good scandal. Apparently not when it involves W. Are they afraid Rush, Hannity, and FNC are going to trash them if they run this story? Grow up. Actually, the right is already trashing the media, event though they haven't covered this story in the least.

Bushism Alert!

"I'm going to start off with what you first said, if you don't mind, you said that I tap your phones - I think that's what you said. You tapped your phone - I tapped your phones. Yes. No, that's right. Yes, no, let me finish."

This deliciously hilarious episode occurred this morning at a Bush PR/Q&A session in Charlotte. One Harry Taylor veered from the approved script and went into a fairly long, but well mannered, tirade against GWBush and the NSA spying issue. Quite refreshing to see some real questions to come put of one of these phony events. The Secret Service probably tackled and 'cuffed him after he was finished though.

Ann Coulter Pays a Visit:
No, not to me personally, (thank God) but to my little region here in Florida: AC came toi Gainesville and the University of Florida for a rant...er speech. The local GOPers were no doubt happy to have her:

"Matt Dean, executive director of the College Republicans, said it was refreshing to see Accent invite a more conservative speaker to strike a political balance."

A "more" conservative speaker? More like a fascist. I think Hitler was more rational than Ms. Coulter. Go invite Bill Frist or something if you want a conservative. The whole event was hush-hush until the day before, probably to quiet any protests in this liberal oasis. Although I could not partake in what must have been a most joyful and serene presentation, I hear she screeched her usual vile filth, branding liberals as "traitors," "cowards" and "idiots," in her first five minutes. AC gave the folks that are paying her $32,000 a great little compliment when she spewed forth "A college campus is the last place you should send someone to teach them American values." 'Uh, can we get a refund?'

In a frightening scenario for my region, some students and local actually agreed with Coulter:

'Tessa Fughum, a UF sophomore, said she enjoyed the speech and agreed with many of Coulter's views."It's good to hear somebody who's that intelligent and is able to talk about what is going on," she said.'

Apparently there are some conservatives in collegearen'tare'nt cowering in fear. But don't tell that to David Horowitz.

2006-04-05T12:05:00.000-04:00

Tom DeLay Resigns
But was he "too liberal"?

That's what the right-wing blog Power Line thinks. Too liberal? I think it's just a matter of the right trying to console themselves after DeLay pulled out of his reelection bid. (I guess Michael Griffin did all that work for nothing.) His resignation should not come as a surprise to the right, with Abramoff about to uncork his many secrets of D.C., and DeLay's top aide being charged with fraud in a case directly related to the Abramoff scandal. Things just got too hot to handle for the Hammer, and he probably should have quit months ago. DeLay is till in quite legal quagmire despite his resignation

This does not help the GOP in any way, despite their frantic attempts to spin the matter that way before the fall elections. This does not show that the GOP is "serious" on ethics, because the GOP had nothing to do with DeLay's resignation. Boehenr, McCain, and the rest of the GOPers in D.C. are blasting "liberals" for forcing out the Hammer, and praising him for his "wonderful service to the country." This can't help the Republicans when Bob Ney is still in Congress, the GOP is pushing aside any attempts at ethics reform, and Katherine Harris (our own mini-Tom DeLay here in Florida) refuses to acknowledge her own slimy part in the Duke Cunningham bribery case.

Wow.
The deputy press secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Brian Doyle, was arrested last night for attempting to lure a 14-year old Florida girl over the internet to have sex with him. A pedophile in DHS? That's got to be bad PR. This isn't some low-level TSA screener or something, it's the deputy press secretary.

You'd think they'd do background checks on these people. Oh.....never mind.

2006-04-03T12:43:00.000-04:00

Most Ridiculous Story of the Day:

NASA director Michael Griffin is the latest member of the Bush administration to stump for the reelection of Tom DeLay.

That is against the law by the way.

Scott McClellan to get the axe?

At least that's what CNN is reporting. I guess Josh Bolten wants to flex his administrative muscle a bit as the new COS. Dan Bartlett, the expected successor, is closer to GWBush than even McClellan, so the spin from the PS will most definitely continue.

2006-04-02T15:15:00.000-04:00

Sunday Talk Buzz:

Meet the Press:
John McCain, on Meet the Press this morning, has officially fallen victim to the W faction of the GOP, and he seems to be the annointed successor, at least in their minds, to GWBush. Russert threw him nothin' but softies for questions, but the ones that bordered on substantive proved telling for J-Mac.Most notable was his language in steadfastly defending the President's handling of Iraq. It was as if Condi, Rummy, or, dare I say it, Dick Cheney (gasp!) were on the set.

"I'm pleased with the President./"The President has a plan./"Iraq is turning around./"There's no civil war."/There won't be a civil war."

This is definetly not the same McCain we saw in 2000, or even 2005. I realize that he's a candidate, but look at 200. He set himself up as moderate, a maverick, and nearly won against GWB and his slime machine. Karl Rove's not in it fro 08 John, relax. The pandering to the far-right got way out of hand with his Jerry Falwell comments, stating that is no longer an "agent of intolerance."
Don't even get me started with McCain's Iran remarks, which, once again, directly mirrored those of the Bush administration.
Talking Points Memo as a nice concise analysis of the interview.

Face the Nation:
James Sensenbrenner and Dick Durbin got a little heated over the immigration debate on FTN today, with Bob Schieffer looking rather overwhelmed. Sensenbrenner caught my attention with this beauty: We can't deport the over 11 million illegal immigrants the U.S. "because it might disrupt the economy." It "might" disrupt the economy? Sound like Jim's a little naive when it comes to this issue. And he mentioned nothing about the fact that deporting immigrants is both abhorrent and logistically impossible.

Late Edition w/Wolf Blitzer: CNN

Bill Frist was as bad as John McCain on LE, campaigning so hard I thought he'd fall off his chair. Wolf pulled a Russert, letting Frist off way too easy, saving the one question about Bill's mutual fund scandal until the very end, where Frist promply blew it off, repeating "no, no, no..." over and over again. Maybe he's lost it. Anyhow, he also pandered to all sides of the GOP, right, cenetr, far right, with pithy comments and overused talking points. The only news to come out of the interview was Frist's expected statement on the immigration bill.

More Frist on Slate

Jill Carroll Speaks:

Upon arriving in Germany on her way back to the U.S. yesterday, Jill Carroll finally brought some truth to the debate about her statements on video while she was held hostage , a debate that was so disgustingly hijacked by the right-wing blogosphere.

"During my last night in captivity, my captors forced me to participate in a propaganda video. They told me they would let me go if I cooperated. I was living in a threatening environment, under their control, and wanted to go home alive. I agreed."

Hopefully these remarks from Carroll will at last be enough to shut up the perpetually squealing right, and force them to stop calling her an anti-American terrorist etc. However, the fascist Debbie Schlussel apparently doesn't want to stop, and seems to have either not seen (yeah right), or ignored the comments from Carroll yesterday. Come on Debbie. You know what Carroll said, don't play dumb. Well, I guess you don't have to "play" dumb.

Most of the righties have vanished from the debate on the issue after Carroll's statement though, which is convenient for them. Even the all-powerful John McCain, on Meet the Press today, urged the right to knock off their heckling of her for the videos. He stated that Carroll was in "a terrible, terrible position" when the videos were made. He certainly should know.Thanks J-Mac.

2006-04-01T12:28:00.000-05:00

Carroll bashing continues:

Yet more right-wing attacks on Jill Carroll. The right isn't even talking about her going to Iraq in the first place, which is the only part of the whole story that is even close to being any sort of "issue" (and I don't think it is one). No, the slimy right continues to hammer away at the video Carroll was forced to take part in before her release. The comments on Red State about the Carroll video are just beyond sickening. Come on. To assume that the entire thing was an anti-American tirade that she wanted to put on before her beloved captors gave her a ride to freedom in their limo is absurd. Why is the right so angry about this? This is Cindy Sheehan all over again--only worse because Carroll is not, and should not be, a political figure. She was simply doing her job as a reporter, was placed in a situation of unimaginable horror, and survived. Shouldn't we all be thankful for that?

Has anybody on the right actually seen the video? Or any other video she was in while she was held? If they have, they are flat out liars (really?!?) to assume that she was being held willingly and got so chummy with her captors that they allowed her to film her own political tirade. Dan Murphy of the Christian Science Monitor ( you know, that liberal rag Carroll worked for) wrote an excellent piece yesterday detailing the circumstances of Carroll's forced appearance on the video, with Micah Green, a journalist once held captive in Iraq, stating:

"You'll pretty much say anything to stay alive because you expect people will understand these aren't your words."

Little did Jill know.

The right's solution to stop immigration protests:

Some thoughtful and constructive debate on the immigration protests from the right. Flunk out the student protesters... now that's a good idea!

2006-03-31T18:15:00.000-05:00

More Jill Carroll:

The right will just not stop its disgusting, mean-spirited, and horrendous attacks on Jill Carroll. Now they're focusing on the Carroll interview done while she was being held captive with, literally, a knife to her head.

"She's so in love with her theories that she doesn't realize regular Iraqi's are opposed to her beloved Mujahedeen. She's no different than the peace activists who still think the terrorists that killed their peers are better than the Americans who rescued them. Sick."

what's sick is that the ----ing right is making an issue about this video done while she was a captive. What about the other "pro-American" hostages, like Nick Berg, or the military contractors that made videos staing the same thing. It's simple-say nice things about the guys with the six-foot long scimitars or die. What would the righties do in that situation? Praise Bush and get their throat slit? I don't think so. The right is so desperate to trash liberals on Iraq that they'll latch onto this amazing story with, thank God, a wonderful outcome and spin it like hell.

Debbie Schlussel has even weighed in on the issue again with her ridiculous comments on "Hamas front group CAIR", and their "stooge" Jill Carroll. The right even trashing the Christian Science Monitor as "liberal", and as proof that Carroll is a "traitor".

Now that's sick.

2006-03-30T18:30:00.000-05:00

Jill Carroll

Most Ridiculous Story of the Day:

The Executive Producer for the"Imus in the Morning" program on MSNBC disses kidnapped reporter Jill Carroll on the day of her release.

"She strikes me as the kind of woman who would wear one of those suicide vests. You know, walk into the — try and sneak into the Green Zone."

Why does the right hate her so much? When it's Nick Berg or military contractors that are kidnapped and threatened with beheading they're whining all over the place about how "nobody cares about these American heroe, etc. etc." And how the "liberal" media is ignoring them.
Yet here's Jill Carroll, and there goes the right. All the other "patriotic" hostages are heroes and were brave and wonderful for going to Iraq, but not Jill Carrroll.

No, she's an America-hating wuss who should've stayed home and not forced the poor U.S. soldiers "risk their lives" (like they're not doing that every day anyhow) to rescue some lefty woman. All of this beacuse she opposed the war, truly cared about the Iraqi people, and was a represntative of the "Hamas front group" CAIR?

I would like to see Rush, Boortz, and apparently "Debbie Schlussel" head to Iraq and get kidnapped. Then we'll see if they don't want to bother the U.S. military to rescue their precious ---es

2006-03-29T09:11:00.000-05:00

Most Ridiculous Story of the Day:

Tennessee State Rep. Debra Maggart is against gay adoption because "...homosexual couples prey on young males and have, in some instances, adopted them in order to have unfretted access to subject them to a life of molestation and sexual abuse."
Yikes.

2006-03-28T15:48:00.000-05:00

Most Ridiculous Story of the Day:

I find all of the Hummers and other humongous SUV's that still have W 04 stickers on them to be obscene and disturbing. Does that mean they can be ticketed in DeKalb Co. too? I hope so.

2006-03-28T08:56:00.000-05:00

Breaking:
WH COS Andy Card Resigns:

And so it begins, the official lame duck status of Pres. Bush and this entire administration. White House Chief of Staff Andy Card has resigned this morning, after some growing rumblings last week. He is to be replaced by WH budget director and spinmeister Josh Bolten, who is definitely no Andy Card in terms of experience and skill. Remember, Card was one of the major players in strong-arming the NSA wiretaps into existence illegally, and he also assisted Al Gonzales in drawing up documents that suddenly made torture legal in the U.S.

Naming Bolten is simply another W loyalty binge. Loyalty is all W's got left, as his administration is surely crumbling around him. The many calls from moderate Republicans and even some right-wingers for real change in the administration have been ignored by W. Bolten has been with the BA from the beginning, and there's no chance that he'll do anything dramatically different. More of the same from W.

Here's some dirt on Josh Bolten from Open Secrets.

The Real Tal Afar:

Despite the attempts by Pres. Bush and the rest of the administration to spin it, the truth about Tal Afar, Iraq is coming out. Yesterday a bombing in Tal Afar killed 40 Iraqi army recruits. Interestingly, the U.S. military will only confirm the total as "less than 30". More spin I see.

This bombing follows increased violence in the past several months after the U.S. military destroyed most of the city in the much touted campaign last year. In fact, it was just last week in Cleveland that GWBush praised the "progress" in Tal Afar, saying "it gives me confidence in our strategy". This was already a dubious comment contradicting realities in Iraq, as shown in this Washington Post article on the violence that continued to rage there through last week. And now the latest bombing. Maybe this will convince the BA to stop lying about Iraq, because now they know that they can't get away with it.

Whoa... Did I really just write that? Let me get back to reality here.

Photo of Tal Afar courtesy Daily Kos user PeterPan

2006-03-27T13:05:00.000-05:00

Most Ridiculous Stories of the Day:

It was a tie today. First is the "War on Christians Conference", with a lineup studded with right-wing favorites; Sam Brownback, John Cornyn, and, of course, Tom DeLay.

The second ridiculous story is the book that is to be unveiled at the conference. Its title speaks for itself: 'Liberalism Kills Kids'.

I don't know, it didn't kill me.

2006-03-26T18:15:00.000-05:00

Sunday Talk Buzz:

Sec. of State Condoleeza Rice had quite an eventful visit on Meet the Press this morning. First, she essentially called Dick Cheney a liar by contradicting the Veep's infamous comments about the Iraqi insurgency being in its "last throes". The Veep then backed up that statement last week by calling his earlier analysis "basically accurate". Condi really threw that back in Dick's face with this statement to Tim Russert: "Well, the insurgency is still able to pull off violence and kill innocent children or kill an innocent school teacher, yes, they’re able to do that, and they might be able to do that for some time." Good job Condi, admitting the truth.

Whatever points Condi earned with the previous comments quickly evaporated with this: "Some Iraqis — most Iraqis in fact — are willing, and want, to keep coalition forces there until they can take care of this themselves." Nice try Condi, but let's look at the facts. A poll done in January shows that only 29% of Iraqis want U.S. troops to remain in Iraq. This line is one of the most repeated by neo-cons in their pathetic defense of the war. Just look at the polls guys. Or, more importantly, check out the number of explosions every day. That seems to be a good indicator of public opinion in Iraq.

Not much else that was interesting, besides Tom Tancredo and Arlen Specter getting into a mini-row on over the right-wing's unbelievably oppressive anti-immigration bill. Of course Tancredo had to bash Hillary Clinton for her "this bill would criminalize Jesus" statement.

George Allen
Interesting article in the NYT about George Allen and his presidential bid. He's further to the right then I thought. This guy's pretty scary. He's a contender though.

2006-03-26T09:15:00.000-05:00

More Bush/Abramoff ties

Another meeting between GWBush and an Indian tribal chief represented by the infamous Jack Abramoff has come to light. This was another case where the Indian tribe had donated $25,000 to Americans for Tax Reform, Grover Norquist's neo-con group, at the direction of Abramoff. This tribal chief, like the previous one, was able to meet privately with Pres. Bush. Of course the folks at ATR have nothing valuable to say on the mattter, insisting that "No money was ever collected for admission to these events." Of course not. "But it would be nice if y'all could drop 25 grand for Grover while you're here."

Meanwhile, Grover is being summoned to the White House in an attempt to patch up W's withering approval ratings. Grover Norquist? I thought that was Karl Rove's job.

2006-03-25T10:13:00.000-05:00

Apparently when Pres. Bush signed the revised Patriot Act into law recently, he added a secret amendment basically stating that he doesn't have to follow the revised law and that he can do whatever he wants. The new PA includes several revisions requiring increased oversight of FBI spying and searching of homes etc. But W doesn't have to follow them. Why? Because he's the President, and he can do whatever he damn well pleases. What is with all of the secrecy? The GOP and the Administration were both supposedly pleased with the new PA, so why the need to sign these secret postscripts that ignore it?

2006-03-24T13:06:00.000-05:00

Most Ridiculous Story of the Day: redux:

And no, it's not the picture of Heath Ledger. It's the story about Sen Conrad Burns and the fake lobbyist. It's amazing, but not really that surprising, that pols will devour money without even knowing who it is that's giving the cash.

At least the room isn't stocked with Quail:

Apparently the two things that Dick Cheney can't travel without are Diet Caffeine Free Sprite and Fox News Channel. It seems that the website The Smoking Gun has appropriated the "Downtime" hotel room requirements for Veep Cheney. The lsit is pretty mundane--except for the FNC request. So much for no bias. Anyhow, here's the list, which can be found in its entirety here:

Queen or King Size Bed (in a connecting room to the parlor)
Desk with Chair
Private Bathroom ( Private Bathroom? What a pompous jerk, who does he think he is!)
All lights turned on (So much for conservation. What is he, afraid of the dark?)
Temperature set t0 68 degrees (See above)
All televisions tuned to FOX News (Please let the Advance Office know if it is cable or satellite television)
Microwave
Coffee Pot in the Suite (BREW DECAF PRIOR TO ARRIVAL) ( Gotta have decaf--Wouldn't want the Veep to have another heart attack)
Container for Ice (and the location of where ice maker is located)
Bottled Water, 4-6 bottles
Diet Caffeine Free Sprite, 4 cans
Sparkling Water ( Calistoga or Perrier), 2 bottles-if Mrs. Cheney is traveling with The Vice President ( bottled isn't good enough for the Mrs. apparently)
Hotel Restaurant Menu ( please also fax a copy to the Advance Office, 202-456-7607)
Newspapers-The New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, local paper

Scrawled at the bottom:

Extra lamps. (Yikes. He is afraid of the dark.)

Most Ridiculous Story of the Day:

The results of the Duke Cunningham auction. The government only got $94,625 out of all the Duke's gifts.

2006-03-23T22:02:00.000-05:00

Could Tom DeLay be a long lost Bushie?

It seems that even when they appear to be generous the Bush clan just can't shake their skewered conscience. Barbara Bush donated a large sum of cash to a charity benefiting Katrina victims. Nice. The charity was helping Katrina victims in the Houston school system, providing educational software etc. Nice. Babs earmarked all the money to specifically go to her son Neil's software company, which made the educational software. Not so nice.

All of this funneling cash through unseemly channels to benefit family members reminds one of a certain top GOPer with the last name DeLay. What is wrong with the Bush clan? Can they ever not be secretive about things? Doesn't help that Neil Bush's company has its own sordid past.

2006-03-23T15:11:00.000-05:00

NewsBusters makes me sick

The latest rant from the right-wing blogosphere about the "liberal" mainstream media. This time they're antsy about an email from a producer for ABC's Godd Morning America in which the guy supposedly makes the comment " "Bush makes me sick." This does come from the Drudge Report, so this email even being real is very much in doubt. The NewsBusters post goes on to say "Once again, here's evidence of the bias permeating much of the mainstream media." Funny, when the bevy of allegations concerning efforts by Fox News to portray GWBush and the war in Iraq in the most positive way possible ("Homicide bombings") came out, no one on the right noticed very much. Of course, when a "lefty" supposedly "bashes" Bush, this means the entire MSM is crooked and biased.

2006-03-23T12:11:00.000-05:00

Most Ridiculous Story of the Day

2006-03-22T19:37:00.000-05:00

Most Ridiculous Story of the Day
Wonder if there are any gold-plated shower curtains in the auction. I found it a bit amusing that Cunningham can't even bid on his old stuff. Poor guy.

So much for John McCain being the maverick GOPer. Can't really blame him though. He's got to work on boosting his stalwart Republican credentials. Of course that includes blocking lobbyist reform.

2006-03-21T18:09:00.000-05:00

Neil Cavuto gives a wonderfully optimistic view on U.S. relations with Iran.

Here's the Bush link again. We'll see if this is better.

2006-03-21T12:53:00.000-05:00

BREAKING:

At a morning news conference, President Bush confirmed what was fairly obvious: U.S. troops won't be leaving Iraq any time soon.

REPORTER: Will there come a day, and I’m not asking you when — I’m not asking for a timetable — will there come a day when there will be no more American forces in Iraq?

BUSH: That, of course, is an objective, and that will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq.

GWB also continued his faltering and pathetic defense of the war in Iraq, saying that "If I didn't believe we could succeed, I wouldn't be there. I wouldn't put those kids there".
Sorry W, "trust me" isn't a viable strategy anymore.

2006-03-21T09:26:00.000-05:00

Most ridiculous story of the day

2006-03-19T20:37:00.000-05:00

Sunday talk buzz

Truly stunning comments from Chuck Hagel on This Week on ABC. He neatly trashed the war in Iraq by posing the very question that Democrats should be asking about the war. Are we better off for it? Sen. Chuck has a lot of sway in the GOP, even thought the far-right is trying to smear him as a "liberal", so its time to take his views on Iraq seriously. Chuck's right in acknowledging that the Bush Administration continues to say that if U.S. troops leave, Iraq will collapse into civil war and anarchy. What do they think is going on right now?

Dick Cheney, on Face the Nation, spouts off that his lies about the situation in Iraq, "greeted as liberators", and "last throes of the insurgency", were "basically accurate and reflect reality". Indeeed, in the reality of Darth Cheney they do. At least he didn't attempt to shoot Bob Schieffer with a shotgun. Bob's features are somewhat birdlike.

On Fox News Sunday, Dick Durbin continued the utter fear and incompetence that is the Democratic response to Russ Feingold's censure, stating about it that "I can't rule anything out until the investigation is complete. I don't want to prejudge it". I sincerely doubt that the Dems will come anywhere near the response to this that is needed, and will continue to dance around the issue and throw out garbage like this.

2006-03-17T18:08:00.000-05:00

The censure

When will the Democrats finally wake up and observe the amazing oppurtunity placed before them by Russ Feingold and the American public. Americans, Democrat, Independent, even Republican, are firmly in favor of censuring the President. 43% want him impeached. Yet the weak and spineless Dems are completely paralyzed with fear of the big bad GOP throwing this issue back in their face before the forthcoming elections. Dems, some advice: so what? A majority of Americans want GWBush censured, deal with it. The GOP has attempted to deflate this issue by accusing Feingold of "political grandstanding", and "treason". These arguments don't stand a chance of being accepted as truthful or effective. Not from the party rode that rode Bill Clinton out of DC on a rail for, well, you know. Of course conservatives are having fun with this, naively assuming that the right will brainwash the American public into viewing this as a "treasonous" left-wing conspiracy and organizing cute little "Censure Russ Feingold" campaigns. Sorry nuke-farmers, just take a look at the poll.

Let's get serious here. This is what the Dems have been waiting for. An issue where they actually stand for something, instead of just criticizing stuff without any real plan of your own. It took a maverick like Feingold but it still happened. For them to show more hostility to this plan then some GOPers (i.e. Lincoln Chafee) is disgusting. Iraq is in a civil war, GWB will bomb Iran before November, the NSA issue is still simmering, and people are ----ed off. These aren't the superficial scandals of last summer, Harriet Miers, Katrina, Cindy Sheehan. These are REAL issues. The Dems have a realistic shot of impeaching GWBush. They need to shove this down the GOP's throat. Get angry, get some real ideas, and play into Americans despair with the Bush administration. Even if the censure is defeated, which it will be, if it's even put up to a vote, it will give Dems a clear platform come November. Of course the Democrats will most likely not do any of this, continue to cower like wounded goats, and fling out garbage statements like Harry Reid's infamous "Let's cool our jets for awhile". And this is the leadership of the Democratic party.

2006-03-17T17:47:00.001-05:00

Where's the MSM?

Here's a story the "liberal" media almost completely ignored. Don Rumsfeld acknowledging that an increase in U.S. troops in Iraq is likely, ostensibly because of "Iraqi pilgrims" (!?). Weren't we told after the Iraqi election that U.S. strength in Iraq would be reduced to below 100,000 by summer? There are 133,000 there now.

Dirk Kempthorne: Gov. of Idaho, Interior Secretary nominee, and energy industry hero:

GWBush's nominee for Secretary of the Interior, current Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, is firmly in the back pocket of the energy industry, which just happens to be the exact industry that he'll regulate in the ID. Kempthorne has decimated what little environmental regulations existed in Idaho, virtually allowing the timber and energy industries to police themselves. Obviously, this setup has not been good for Idaho's environment. Kempthorne's policies have caused disturbing increases in Idaho pollution, and have stripped any protections from dozens of critically endangered species. Kempthorne's attitude is no surprise really, considering the huge amounts of donations given to him by the timber, mining, and energy industries. $86,000 to be exact. Yeah, Gale Norton was bad, with her close ties to Jack Abramoff, relaxing of environmental regulations across the country, and dedication to seeing the Gulf of Mexico opened for oil drilling. If it's believable though, Kempthorne sounds even worse. Yet another example of the Bush administrations firm policy of allowing industry cronies to be put in charge of the very departments that oversee them.

2006-03-17T17:47:00.000-05:00

Dirk Kempthorne: Gov. of Idaho, Interior secretary nominee, and energy industry hero:

GWBush's nominee for Secretary of the Interior, current Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, is firmly in the back pocket of the energy industry, which just happens to be the exact industry that he'll regulate in the ID. Kempthorne has decimated what little environmental regulations existed in Idaho, virtually allowing the timber and energy industries to police themselves. Obviously, this setup has not been good for Idaho's environment. Kempthorne's policies have caused disturbing increases in Idaho pollution, and have stripped any protections from dozens of critically endangered species. Kempthorne's attitude is no surprise really, considering the huge amounts of donations given to him by the timber, mining, and energy industries. $86,000 to be exact. Yeah, Gale Norton was bad, with her close ties to Jack Abramoff, relaxing of environmental regulations across the country, and dedication to seeing the Gulf of Mexico opened for oil drilling. If it's believable though, Kempthorne sounds even worse. Yet another example of the Bush administrations firm policy of allowing industry cronies to be put in charge of the very departments that oversee them.

2006-03-16T16:05:00.000-05:00

A 2008 presidential surprise: Tom Daschle re-emerges as a Democratic contender.

2006-03-16T08:40:00.000-05:00

The latest incendiary comments on Islam by the evangelical right-winger Franklin Graham. He's probably just trying to top Pat Robertson.

2006-03-15T19:30:00.000-05:00

BREAKING NEWS:

GWBush's approval ratings have hit an astonishing new low of 33%. A great little nugget from the poll is this: “Honesty had been the single trait most closely associated with Bush, but in the current survey ‘incompetent’ is the descriptor used most frequently.” It seems that the American people are finally coming around and seeing the train-wreck that is the Bush administration. Even his usual great numbers on terrorism are plunging, down to 42%. Wish this had happened in fall 04.

2006-03-15T13:46:00.000-05:00

There's actually some bipartisan support for Feingold's censure, something the mainstream media doesn't want you to know. GOP Sen. Chafee's a big score, for his support shows that this isn't some wacky partisan trick, despite what GOP lackey FOX News describes. They're just whining because they think that this might actually come to something.

Some dirt on Chris Matthews. You know, he's the Hardball host on "liberal" (to quote O'Reilly) MSNBC. Obviously this isn't an "Ah Ha; he's conservative!" moment; Chris is still somewhat moderate (though leaning further and further to the right every day). However, it's more evidence of the outright conservative fabrication of a "liberal" media.

2006-03-14T20:12:00.000-05:00

Please Dems, don't cower anymore:

I sincerely hope that the Democrats will come around and support Russ Feingold and his censure legislation instead of trashing him as a "far-left liberal". Who do they think they are, conservatives? If the Dems aren't careful, the 06 elections will turn into John Kerry an 2004 all over again. The American people are clearly getting tired of the Bush administrations continued arrogance and countless blunders. This is a perfect time for the Democrats to get ahead of the faltering GOP in time for November. Russ is right on target about the Democrats "cowering". I just hope they realize that before it's too late. LCL

Insect cyborgs?

2006-03-13T17:31:00.000-05:00

Nice job Russ! I hope this censure thing gets some support though. At first, of course not. But over time perhaps. I'm surprised that some of the GOPers in the Senate didn't try to take him down or something. Maybe Dick Cheney will try to shoot him.

A take on impeachment talk by CounterPunch and why the media is only focusing on it after Feingold's censure.

2006-03-13T13:06:00.000-05:00

Whining neo-con's
Apparently, some conservatives just can't handle the Feingold censure issue.

It's being reported by Raw Story that Russ Feingold will introduce his censure motion in the Senate around 4:00 today. Can't wait!

Russ Feingold has posted comments on his censure actions on Daily Kos

2006-03-13T10:45:00.000-05:00

Thank you very much Russ Feingold! I'm really glad that he didn't call for impeachment though. That would have made the whole thing a farce. I wonder how many pol's will latch onto this. Maybe some GOPers? Bill Frist is having none of it however. Running for president you know
Oh well, gotta love Russ!

2006-03-11T20:27:00.000-05:00

Maybe next time Claude can pick up a new shotgun for the Veep
Claude Allen, a close Bush aide, resigns weeks before he is officially charged with shoplifting.
Doesn't this sound like the kind of garbage that the conservatives keep spewing about the Clinton administration? I wonder if FNC said anything on the issue. Um, I don't think so.

Bill O'Reilly loses it once more.

2006-03-11T12:06:00.000-05:00

It seems that the GOP has grown tired of implementing lobbying reform even though they have done absolutely nothing to remedy the problem. So much for John Boehner the "reformer". I guess the GOP is preoccupied with the myriad crises going on right now, from GWB's alarming poll numbers, to the implosion that is Iraq, to the collapse of the UAE port deal. The GOP is in it so deep that they have to focus solely on keeping their jobs. And GWBush has most definetly acheived lame-duck status. Even FNC's Chris Wallace thinks so. But hey, It's still a long way to November.

The Pentagon is spying on peaceful war protests?. It can't be.

2006-03-08T11:34:00.000-05:00

More on Gitmo

Amidst the deluded zeal of the right about recent stories about Gitmo being a resort, and "Alain Grignard" of the OSCE quipping that now Gitmo is comparable to Belgian prisons (!!??), they seem to have ignored a stunning revelation in the Gitmo/torture case. The chief prosecutor of a U.S. military commission responsible for making cases against prisoners at Gitmo has acknowledged that forms of torture occurred at Gitmo. Even more disturbing, the officer thought that torture was "acceptable" in the U.S. military. Despite the bluster coming from the right about "torture" being made up by the UN and the "liberal" media the truth has come out.

The main point of the right in their crowing about the comments by "Grignard" of the OSCE was that Gitmo is now rid of torture. First, this was a scheduled visit by the OSCE, and who knows what the military cleaned up before their visit. Second, the OSCE comments are regarding right now. In a visit in July 2005, the same OSCE crew observed disgusting conditions and issued a report stating that it was clear that torture was a common occurrence and that Gitmo should be closed. The new information about Gitmo still does not clear up the alarming issues about the rendition programs the U.S. military runs, where "terrorists" from Gitmo and other prisons are sent to allied countries notorious for torture. AG Al Gonzales did nothing to help the administrations case when he made these comments. I wonder if the right will even acknowledge these facts. LCL

2006-03-07T11:56:00.000-05:00

Book a family vacation to Gitmo today, and we'll throw in an electric cattle prod!

Another poll showing the downward spiral of support for the war in Iraq. I wonder what form of spin that the right and Fox News will put on this after their incredible performance last week touting the civil war in Iraq as a great moment. Maybe they'll just come straight out and say that Americans are just plain stupid? I would have to agree, but for different reasons.

The most recent spin to come from the far right, or in this case the "Libertarian" Neal Borrtz, is that the torture center in Guantanamo Bay is a regular Caribbean resort, that the "terrorists" held there actually want to stay, that the Sesame Street performers from Sandals resort are thinking of moving their operation to Gitmo. Fist off, if Gitmo is so "fun", why doesn't Neal, Rush and co. go down on vacation there? Bring the relatives, bring the kids, bring everybody. Hey, maybe for an extra fee they can let the kids electricly shock the private parts of some terrorists? Sounds fun to me!

Boortz mentions that the "terrorists" are refusing release because they're afraid of what thier home countries, like China ( We're holding terrorists from China? Sure, that's a regular AQ hotbed. What did they do, chew gum or something?) Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Uzbekistan. First, the last three of these countries are close allies to the Bush administration in the "War on Terror" and the inmates at Gitmo are probably afraid that the BA will send them there to get their heads cut off or something. Remeber, it's been documented that "terrorists" from Gitmo have vanished after one-way flights to Yemen and other countries. Second, why should we compare ourselves to China and Saudi Arabia? What's next? "Oh, al-Zarqawi cut off somebody's head in Iraq. We've got to do it too!" Give me a break. "It's not as bad as Saudi Arabia" is not a valid excuse to torture people. The reason the the administration wants to dump the Gitmo prisoners is that the issue has become really embarassing. The best solution for them is to just fly them to an "allied" country where they can rip out their fingernails and do whatever it is torturers do. These "rendition" flights are now known to exist and are increasing as Gitmo prisoners are transferred. This is the stuff that's really alarming, and probably the real reason that "terrorists" don't want to leave Gitmo. LCL

Lobbyists? What lobbyists?
Oh, you mean the guys stuffing my pants with cash.

The supposed "point-man" for the Republicans on lobbying reform is certainly carrying it out in an odd fashion. Rep. David Dreier was seen cavorting about with dozens of tech lobbyists last week, despite his repeated pledges to clean up DC. Dreier even crowed about how he was in the "hip pocket" of lobbyists, and how he is the biggest recipient of tech lobby donations in the past few years.How can the GOP or the Democrats ever truly control the lobbyist problem when they're constantly chucking any real reform out the window? This is on top of the recent scandal involving Katharine Harris, the GOP candidate for Senator in Florida, where she has been implicated in the Mitchell Wade/Duke Cunningham episode. This is why the approval ratring for Congress is so pathetically low.

John Negroponte: Working hard to protect the American people.
Or is he just trying to give himself lung cancer?

It seems that the incomparable John Negroponte is shrugging off his apparent duties as GWB's head of intelligence and instead is spending unseemly amounts of time hanging out at swanky clubs in DC. Negroponte doesn't really have any authority over the myriad intelligence agencies that he heads, so why not take some time off and puff away on fancy cigars. JN's appointment as head of National Intelligence was just a front to make it seem that the Bush administration was taking the important and logical recommendations of the 9/11 Commission seriously. Yet another "tough on terror" moment for the Bush administration.

2006-03-04T08:16:00.000-05:00

The FRC: Once you're out of the womb, who cares?

There goes the religious right once again, Tackling "serious" problems that don't exist. Considering they want to nuke Iran, their ideology seems pretty similar. Can we please focus on REAL issues now? Between this and banning kids of gays from easter egg hunts, trying to ban gay adoption, and fabricating the "intellgent design" issue, the right's preoccupation with "moral" issues is getting out of hand. Isn't torture a "moral issue? Isn't the degredation of the environment a "moral" and even religious issue? Isn't lying a "moral" issue? And, of course, not a word.
No, they spout off garbage like this: Tom McClusky, Family Research Council www.frc.org: From an article in the Washington Post: "What is at the core of being Catholic is the life issue, and that's something the pope has never strayed from," he said. "While other issues are important -- such as helping the poor, the death penalty, views on war -- these are things that aren't tenets of the Catholic Church." These guys make me sick. LCL

2006-03-04T08:13:00.000-05:00

BO'R + Foot + Mouth = Moron!

What will Bill do next?

2006-03-03T10:42:00.000-05:00

Gonzo strikes back

You have to appreciate this "straight talk" from Al Gonzales. This denial of any more NSA-type spy programs comes a couple of days after he admitted the existence of dozens of programs that "could" be illegal. What's the truth? We sure won't get it from these guys.

How about this story that's been completely ignored by the "liberal" media.

2006-03-02T08:28:00.000-05:00

Here are some interesting blurbs that popped up yesterday:

First off, some amazing information regarding Pres. Bush and Katrina. Of course there's the big revelation about the tape of W meeting with "Heck of a job Brownie" and the crew from FEMA the day before Katrina hit that was "discovered " yesterday by the AP, even though the tape had been released to every major media outlet the day it was taped. Wait a minute, I thought the "liberal" media pounced on any bad news about Bush?

The tape shows Brown and NHC chief Max Mayfield warning Bush and his staff repeatedly about the imminent threat of NO's levees failing after the storm. And then W went on to lie about how "nobody knew the levees would fail." W said this a few days after Katrina, on his way to "visit" New Orleans; the same time he watched a compiled DVD of newscasts about the effects of the storm. Yes, that's right, a DVD of the news nearly five days after the storm hit was the only information that Bush had about the horrors occurring in Louisiana and Mississippi.

This had been a rumor since last year, but W finally owned up to the allegations in an interview with ABC. At least people are finally coming to their senses and realizing that W is simply an incompetent fool. LCL

UAE

How about this development in the UAE story?

Here's the document itself

2006-03-01T13:33:00.000-05:00

Don't we have more to worry about than this?

2006-02-28T16:54:00.000-05:00

Bush/Iraq #'s Nosedive:

The approval ratings for both the war in Iraq and President Bush himself are in a freefall. Bush is down to 34%, Iraq is at 30%, and, even more shocking, 72% of US soldiers in Iraq think that they should be pulled out within 6 months to a year. Finally, a little common sense arrives in America. A small drop in W's numbers were expected, considering the perfect storm of controversy that is encircling this administration once again: The Dick Cheney shooting fiasco, civil war in Iraq, the NSA spying issue, and the mind-numbingly stupid UAE port deal.But to go all the way down to 34%? He's losing even conservatives now.

The right-wingers, of course, aren't going to take this insult from the "liberal media" (the poll was done by CBS) lying down. Rush "Where are my pills" Limbaugh denounced the poll, arguing that "liberal" CBS fudged the numbers. And the "Libertarian" Neal Boortz did the same while also expressing confidence that W's numbers will get back to 50% (!!??) soon. LCL

2006-02-27T15:54:00.000-05:00

2008 Presidential Update: Democrats
Is it Hillary all the way?

It seems Hillary-phobia has struck the Democratic party. After desperately pleading with her to run in 2004, it seems in '08 that they want her to go crawl in a whole somewhere. Democrats might say publicly that she's "too polarizing", or too "well-known" (since when is that a bad thing?), but privately they are deathly afraid of her actually running and winning the primary for one reason only. Hilary's a woman. Newsflash! The Democrats are clearly worried that America isn't ready for a woman to be president and that voters, even many Democrats, will run away in droves to the sure to be moderate (McCain, Giuliani, Romney) GOP candidate. This is the same reason the GOP will never let Condi Rice run for Pres. or VP. Even worse for Condi is that she's a BLACK woman. There is no way that the influential right-wing religious groups comprising the majority of the GOP will allow that to happen.

Anyhow, back to the Democrats. The prognosis for Hillary at the moment is still good, even with growing trepidation amidst the Dem's. She is constantly polling at the top of the Democratic pile of candidates, and is nearly tied with some of the most lovable GOP candidates out there, including John McCain. However, recently Hillary's been losing a considerable amount of steam, and thus has plummeted in polls, including one done a few days ago in which John McCain and Rudy Giuliani beat Hillary. Condi was the only one who was behind "the great one".

Here's the numbers from that poll:
John McCain (R) 55% - 38% Al Gore
John McCain (R) 54% - 37% John Kerry
(R)John McCain (R) 52% - 42% Hillary Rodham Clinton
(R)John McCain (R) 47% - 41% John Edwards
(R)Rudy Giuliani (R) 53% - 42% Al Gore
(R)Rudy Giuliani (R) 48% - 45% John Kerry
(R)Rudy Giuliani (R) 47% - 44% John Edwards
(R)Rudy Giuliani (R) 48% - 47% Hillary Rodham Clinton
(R)Condoleezza Rice (R) 50% - 44% John Kerry (D)
Condoleezza Rice (R) 44% - 49% Hillary Rodham Clinton (D)
Condoleezza Rice (R) 42% - 51% John Edwards (D)

Interesting numbers for John Kerry in that poll, suggesting that perhaps he should formally state that he will never run for president again and then proceed to go on a lifetime exile to the Comoros Islands, where he may windsurf as much as he desires. JK, PLEASE DON'T RUN!!! If Kerry would run, I'm afraid that there are too many Dem's, especially in a primary, that will be beset by the "Al Gore syndrom." He who has run and been "cheated" out of an election by GWB must do some serious saber-rattling in the next election and, if practicable, run against the evil GOP and claim your rightful revenge. Thankfully, Kerry doesn't seem to be much of a player, yet, in the 08 race.

On the other hand, John Edwards' star is rapidly ascending. As seen from the poll described earlier, Good' Ol Johnny is polling with Hillary-esqe numbers, up from earlier in the year when he was behind even Kerry. Another sure sign of the resurgence and seriousness of the Edwards campaign is his staggering amount of visits to early primary states. I think he's behind only John McCain in visits, but of course J Mac started campaigning the day after the 04 election ( No, really). Edwards was in Iowa over the weekend, no doubt enthralling the crowd of those most rabid of Dem's.

So here's a simple breakdown of the polling numbers from www.pollingreport.com (great site) of some top Democrats in the hunt, and a look at where they'll be going in the days to come:

Poll : 2/13-15/06

Hillary Clinton
40%
It's Hillary. 'Nuff said.
Al Gore (!!??)
17%
He won't run, but the numbers
are interesting.
John Edwards
16%
A rising star. Watch closely.
John Kerry
11%
Headed for the Comoros Is.
No chance.
Joe Biden
4 %
Would win if Meet the Press
appearences counted for anything. Could be a player in the debates.
Wes Clark
4%
Went up after the 04 elections,
then went right back down. No chance.
Evan Bayh
3%
A moderate that will rile the
debates. No chance.
Bill Richardson
3%
Sordid past has done him
in. No chance.
Mark Warner
2&
Mr. Nextel is certainly a
dark horse to watch.
Tom Vilsack
1%
Hmmm. No chance.
Russ Feingold
Not polled, but he's my personal favorite. Is a viable anti-war candidate. But, unfortunately, no chance. !$%#

2006-02-27T10:33:00.000-05:00

Sunday talk goodies:

Some interesting comments were made by Mr. wiretap himself, NSA chief Stephen Hadley on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer yesterday. In yet another example of the toothless media, Wolf never mentioned the unconstitutional NSA spy program to Mr. Hadley, even though several Congressional investigations are ongoing and the issue is far from resolved, with dozens of serious questions yet to be answered. To his credit, Wolf asked Hadley about the implosion that is Iraq, but of couse he dodged any real answers, instead talking about "forensic investigations" of the mosque bombing like he's CSI or something. Both Wolf and Hadley completely ignored the real question of the civil war in Iraq; when will US troops be pulled from a war they obviously cannot win? No, Hadley gave pithy little quips about Iraq like, "well, there obviously have been sectarian tensions in Iraq." Really? Who knew?

But the biggest bombshell to come out of the interview was the amazing comments from Hadley concerning the UAE ports debacle. First, he admitted that he, as National Security Adviser to the President of the United States, did not know anything about the ports deal until "roughly at the same time that the president did." Which means Hadley didn't know about it until "all the fuss was made" ( Dan Bartlett's words once again) in the media. And of course Hadley played down the whole issue, saying that handing over security to a foreign country, especially the UAE was fine "Because a lot of things changed after 9/11. A lot of things changed in how we do business. A lot of things changed on how other countries conducted themselves." This is from the admininstration that urges that police-state measures be appled beacause 9-11 changed everything. So for the American public, 9-11 means senseless and near-draconian security measures have to be implmented. But for foreign businesses with close ties to the Bush administration, 9-11 means lax oversight and expedited approval of huge business deals with no concern for US security.

And fiinally, the best, or worst, part of the Hadley interview.

BLITZER: A lot of people are probably scratching their heads right now, listening to you, Mr. Hadley, because, while the UAE may be a good ally right now, it hasn't always been the case.

The 9/11 Commission concluded this: "The United Arab Emirates, the financial center for the Gulf area, also had a reputation for being wide open with few regulations on the control of money and a woefully inadequate anti-money-laundering program. The vast majority of the money funding the September 11 attacks flowed through the UAE." And the UAE was one of only three countries that had relations with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan before 9/11.So they're asking, how is it possible that you could conclude there were no national security considerations at stake that would have justified a more thorough investigation

HADLEY: Because a lot of things changed after 9/11. A lot of things changed in how we do business. A lot of things changed on how other countries conducted themselves. Wolf, all the things you said could have been applied to Pakistan. And as you know, the United States at this point has a very loyal ally in the war on terror against -- war against terror in Pakistan. Pakistan is involved in activities and operations against al Qaida. There have been several hundred al Qaida operatives that have been either killed or captured by Pakistani authorities. Pakistanis, large numbers of their security forces have lost their lives.The point is, I think, not withstanding what was done before 9/11, the kinds of things you could say with respect to UAE or Pakistan, these are two countries who have been good allies in the war on terror and whose support we're going to need if we're going to prevail in this conflict.

BLITZER: The leadership of Pakistan, President Musharraf, is a strong ally. But as you know, there are elements in the military, in the intelligence community who may not necessarily be all that supportive. Are you saying that if Pakistan wanted to operate ports in the United States that it wouldn't justify a national security investigation?

HADLEY: I'm saying if Pakistan wanted to operate ports in the United States, we would do exactly what was done in this case. We would get the agencies together. We would look at the applicable intelligence. We would have each of the agencies take a look. If there were national security concerns that were raised, we would deal with them. That's the process that we need to do.

Hadley wouldn't mind a bit if the country that is harboring Osama, Mr. Al Qaeda himself, that supplied nukes to North Korea, and whose government and large businesses are riddled with extremists, bought some US ports. So that means if, say, Iran or North Korea would want to buy some US ports, or better yet, maybe an airport or something, that this administration would approve it? Hey, it is a business deal after all.

And then there is John McCain, who belives that just because a country isn't as bad as China, it should be given preferential treatment. From ABC's This Week: "We got some very very big issues that I think are perhaps more important than whether a country that’s freer than China is, should have control of some of our terminals."I thought most everybody is "freer" than China. Venezuela is "freer than China", would McCain and the White House let them buy some ports? I wonder why he's pandering to the GOP? Perhaps he's, oh I don't know, running for president? LCL

2006-02-26T16:49:00.000-05:00

Yet another sign of the horrible situation in Iraq that is almost completely ignored by the "liberal" media. The level of ignorance in the media is rapidly reaching new lows. Iraq has been shoved to the back of the media frenzy while stories like the Bush/UAE ports fiasco is covered like crazy. Yes, the ports issue is important and should receive ample coverage - but to diminish the downward spiral into civil war in Iraq is lackadaisical and foolish. How the right comes up with "liberal media" I don't know. Another example is the recent report showing a strong conservative bias on Sunday morning news programs, like Meet the Press. I positively crack up whenever I hear that guys like Russert are "too liberal" Come on. Did anyone see those sofballs he lobbed at Mike Chertoff last Sunday even though Mr. Homeland Insecurity had just been excoriated by the Senate Katrina panel? Or how he seemed extra jovial with Ahnold today? The rubbish that spews forth from the vastly right-wing media is simply appaling. The latest is O'Reilly attempting to circulate a petition to get MSNBC's Keith Olbermann fired because he crticized Bill and FNC. Wah Wah. Give me a break. I do have to give BO'R and other conservatives credit for finally admitting that Iraq is a disaster. More than anyone can say for the Bush administration.

A look at the Democratic Presidential "candidates" for 2008 is coming tomorrow. LCL

2006-02-25T09:09:00.000-05:00

Another example of the pitiful desperation of the conservatives to spin the mayhem in Iraq.
They're simply following Karl Rove's playbook.