In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
Stating the Obvious, Part 2: Americans Have Forgotten Why We're Americans
Some things need to be said, and here's one of them: Access to information is political power.
And the people in charge don't want you to have it.
The Freedom of Information Act is under assault and being dismantled, for that sole purpose.
Along with the Attorney-Client privilege and the right for journalists to protect their sources. In plain English, the press is no longer free, and if you're a lawyer defending an unpopular client, you get 30 years in prison.
That's what hate and fear has brought to our shores. Americans have forgotten why we came here in the first place. And it only took a couple of hundred years! Not bad. Well, it was an experiment, whose time has come.
- Michael 1:49 PM - [PermaLink] -
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I'll be offline today (maybe even until Monday), but I'm sure Michael and the Penguin will be posting.- Thursday, February 17, 2005 -
In the meantime do as this link says - check this out -
Daily Kos :: Want 4 more years of GWB? Check this out...
- rob 1:11 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Not that it's a surprise to any Democrat with half a brain, but it has been officially confirmed that Secretary Tom Ridge exploited the Department of Homeland Security for political purposes. See?
Excerpt: Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge met privately with Republican pollsters twice in a 10-day span last spring as he embarked on more than a dozen trips to presidential battleground states, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.
Ridge's get-togethers with Republican strategists Frank Luntz and Bill McInturff during a period the secretary was saying his agency was playing no role in Bush's re-election campaign were revealed in daily appointment calendars obtained by the AP under the Freedom of Information Act.
"We don't do politics in the Department of Homeland Security," Ridge told reporters during the election season.
Yeah, and we don't commit grave crimes at Gitmo either.
"We did not discuss homeland security in a presidential campaign context," said Susan Neely, a former assistant homeland security secretary who attended the May 17 session with Luntz and Ridge. "We asked him his impression of how well we were explaining whatever the issues were of the day. There was no follow-up meeting."
Neely said the discussion took place after Ridge and Luntz ran into each other and the homeland security secretary expressed an interest in hearing Luntz's assessment.
McInturff, who has done the polling for all of Ridge's campaigns for Congress and Pennsylvania governor, said the two meet every few months to "shoot the breeze."
Homeland security officials said the May 26 conversation between Ridge and McInturff was personal and the secretary did not discuss any homeland security-related issues.
"When you've got Secret Service protection it's a heck of a lot easier for me to meet the secretary of a major agency at the agency than it is for him to come to Old Town and have lunch," McInturff said. Old Town is a neighborhood in Alexandria, Va., home of McInturff's company, Public Opinion Strategies.
"I have zero connection with anyone doing business with homeland security, zero connection with the Bush campaign," McInturff said.
Ridge's meetings with the pollsters occurred just before the first of 16 trips, from late May to late October, to 10 states important to the president's re-election campaign. During the same period, Ridge made 20 appearances in nine uncontested states.
It doesn't get much lower than this.
- ThePoliticalPenguin 10:42 PM - [PermaLink] -
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But what about the war on drugs?
But what about 'buying drugs supports terrorism'?
But what the hell does it matter anymore...
Ecstasy trials for combat stressAmerican soldiers traumatised by fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are to be offered the drug ecstasy to help free them of flashbacks and recurring nightmares.Actually I think this is a good idea. If it helps the soldiers regain even a little bit of their old selves then more power to the trials. But it just proves this whole drug war was just a PR operation invented during the Reagan years, and not a good idea. A "war" that aided defense contractors, druge dealers, and big pharma, but only increased drug use in America and left thousands of lives in its wake (and in jail) also limited research into legitmate uses for many of these drugs. Now bring on the coca tea!
The US food and drug administration has given the go-ahead for the soldiers to be included in an experiment to see if MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, can treat post-traumatic stress disorder.
Is our "war on terror" going to be the new "drug war" in which defense contractors will (continue to) make out like bandits, thousands will (continue to) die, and terrorism will (continue to) rise?
What do you think?
- rob 5:53 PM - [PermaLink] -
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This is pathetic
And I'm a fan of the true meaning of words: "Marked by sorrow or melancholy: SAD."
The end of freedom of speech and freedom of the press in America
How the hell do you think we got here in the first place? Fleeing tyranny. Is everybody dumb?It is a brilliant strategy. When the Bush administration isn't using taxpayers' money to buy its own fake news, it does everything it can to shut out and pillory real reporters who might tell Americans what is happening in what is, at least in theory, their own government.
"Jeff Gannon" had decided to give an exclusive TV interview to a sober practitioner of by-the-book real news, Wolf Blitzer. Given this journalistic opportunity, the anchor asked questions almost as soft as those "Jeff" himself had asked in the White House. Mr. Blitzer didn't question Mr. Guckert's outrageous assertion that he adopted a fake name because "Jeff Gannon is easier to pronounce and easier to remember." (Is "Jeff" easier to pronounce than his real first name, Jim?). Mr. Blitzer never questioned Gannon/Guckert's assertion that Talon News "is a separate, independent news division" of GOPUSA. Only in a brief follow-up interview a day later did he ask Gannon/Guckert to explain why he was questioned by the F.B.I. in the case that may send legitimate reporters to jail: Mr. Guckert has at times implied that he either saw or possessed a classified memo identifying Valerie Plame as a C.I.A. operative. Might that memo have come from the same officials who looked after "Jeff Gannon's" press credentials? Did Mr. Guckert have any connection with CNN's own Robert Novak, whose publication of Ms. Plame's name started this investigation in the first place? The anchor didn't go there.
I hate Wolf Blitzer. He's symptomatic of everything that's wrong with journalism. I used to see him all the time on 55th Street and Sixth: "The Avenue of the Americas". He's a poseur and out of his league in every way. I can't even quote any more of this piece because this subject sickens me.
- Michael 4:42 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Bush Administration: Let no evil go unrewarded
Bush Picks Negroponte as Intel Director
Current U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Would Be First to Fill New PostFeb. 17, 2005 — President Bush has tapped John Negroponte, U.S. ambassador to Iraq since June, as his nominee to become the nation's first national intelligence director.Oh, the killings he could buy with all that loot....
If confirmed by the Senate, Negroponte, 65, would be charged with coordinating the activities of 15 U.S. intelligence agencies — including the CIA — in a position created in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Negroponte also would control the flow of spy information and the purse strings for intelligence.
Negroponte's Dark PastPreviously, Bush had hired Negroponte to be UN ambassador and then US ambassador to the new Iraq. On each of those earlier occasions, I noted that Negroponte's past deserved scrutiny. After all, during the Reagan years, when he was ambassador to Honduras, Negroponte was involved in what was arguably an illegal covert quid pro quo connected to the Iran/contra scandal, and he refused to acknowledge significant human rights abuses committed by the pro-US military in Honduras. But each time Negroponte's appointment came before the Senate, he won easy confirmation. Now that he's been tapped to lead the effort to reorganize and reform an intelligence community that screwed up 9/11 and the WMD-in-Iraq assignment, Negroponte will likely sail through the confirmation process once again.Reality is not necessary anymore don't ya' know, so let him lie, whitewash, and mislead... he'll be a great asset to the Administration.
His previous exploits, though, warrant more attention than ever. He has been credibly accused of rigging a human rights report that was politically inconvenient. This is a bad omen. The fundamental mission of the intelligence community is to provide policymakers with unvarnished and valuable information-even if it causes the policymakers headaches. But there's reason to believe that Negroponte did the opposite in tough circumstances.
- rob 4:25 PM - [PermaLink] -
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How The GOP trains its young
GOP operative accused of theftThe young Nevada man designated to chair the upcoming 2005 Young Republican National Convention in Las Vegas has been accused of embezzling registration fees from around the country to pay off bar tabs, personal loans and credit card debts.
Nevada's national committeeman for Young Republicans filed a criminal complaint Monday with the Reno Police Department alleging Nathan Taylor received more than $25,000 in registration fees and donations through his corporation, YRNC 2005, and spent almost all of it in the past year for personal use.
- rob 3:55 PM - [PermaLink] -
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James Roosevelt Jr: Hume's "outrageous distortion" of FDR "calls for a retraction, an apology, maybe even a resignation"OLBERMANN: The argument is that Mr. Hume more or less twisted this entirely around. Can you explain it in layman's terms?
ROOSEVELT: I think I can. And it's really quite an amazing distortion. What they did was that they took a very simple statement that my grandfather made, which said that Social Security, when it was enacted almost 70 years ago, ought to first of all have a part that took care of people who didn't have time to build up a Social Security account. And the government should fund that out of general revenues.
Secondly, Social Security should have a self-sustaining portion that was funded by contributions from both employers and employees. That's what we know and have known for 70 successful years as Social Security.
And thirdly, those who wanted and who needed to, as many -- almost everybody -- did, to have a higher income and retirement, should have accounts where they could pay in voluntarily, in addition to the guaranteed Social Security benefit.
And then my grandfather said that eventually, the self-sustaining portion of the guaranteed insurance would phase out the government-paid portion. That's because we would have a fully functioning Social Security system as we do today.
What Brit Hume and others have done is take portions of that paragraph and rearrange it so that it says something entirely different from what he intended.
- rob 11:59 AM - [PermaLink] -
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Ha! Posted this before Michael (the Dowd fan)
Dowd: Bush's Barberini FaunI'm still mystified by this story. I was rejected for a White House press pass at the start of the Bush administration, but someone with an alias, a tax evasion problem and Internet pictures where he posed like the "Barberini Faun" is credentialed to cover a White House that won a second term by mining homophobia and preaching family values?
At first when I tried to complain about not getting my pass renewed, even though I'd been covering presidents and first ladies since 1986, no one called me back. Finally, when Mr. McClellan replaced Ari Fleischer, he said he'd renew the pass - after a new Secret Service background check that would last several months.
In an era when security concerns are paramount, what kind of Secret Service background check did James Guckert get so he could saunter into the West Wing every day under an assumed name while he was doing full-frontal advertising for stud services for $1,200 a weekend?
...
I know the F.B.I. computers don't work, but this is ridiculous. After getting gobsmacked by the louche sagas of Mr. Guckert and Bernard Kerik, the White House vetters should consider adding someone with some blogging experience.
Does the Bush team love everything military so much that even a military-stud Web site is a recommendation?
Or maybe Gannon/Guckert's willingness to shill free for the White House, even on gay issues, was endearing. One of his stories mocked John Kerry's "pro-homosexual platform" with the headline "Kerry Could Become First Gay President."
With the Bushies, if you're their friend, anything goes.
- rob 9:39 AM - [PermaLink] -
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Oh, God- Wednesday, February 16, 2005 -
No, not that one. This is the God of Retribution:The conviction of Lynne F. Stewart for providing material aid to terrorism and for lying to the government is another perverse victory in the Justice Department's assault on the Constitution.
Ms. Stewart, the lawyer who was convicted last week of five felonies, will be disbarred and faces up to 30 years in jail. She represented Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, not exactly a sympathetic character. He is the leader of the Islamic Group, a terrorist organization that plotted the assassination of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and masterminded the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. . . .
But if the federal government had followed the law, Ms. Stewart would never have been required to agree to these rules to begin with. Just after 9/11, Attorney General John Ashcroft gave himself the power to bypass the lawyer-client privilege, which every court in the United States has upheld, and eavesdrop on conversations between prisoners and their lawyers if he had reason to believe they were being used to "further facilitate acts of violence or terrorism." The regulation became effective immediately.
In the good old days, only Congress could write federal criminal laws. After 9/11, however, the attorney general was allowed to do so. Where in the Constitution does it allow that?
The Stewart conviction is a travesty. She faces up to 30 years in prison for speaking gibberish to her client and the truth to the press. It is devastating for lawyers and for any American who may ever need a lawyer. Shouldn't the Justice Department be defending our constitutional freedoms rather than assaulting them?
Shouldn't? I don't know the meaning of the word. It got lost in translation.
- Michael 2:49 AM - [PermaLink] -
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Nothing short of "moral cowardice" can better describe the chicken shitted manner in which the President has dealt with this.
Excerpt: Amid fanfare marking the enactment of the Kyoto global warming pact, leading proponents laid out their next goals Wednesday: persuading the United States to join the world crackdown on emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases and planning further steps when the current agreement runs out in 2012.
The Kyoto Protocol (news - web sites), adopted in Japan's ancient capital in 1997, imposes legally binding requirements on 35 industrialized states to cut emissions of "greenhouse gases" blamed for rising world temperatures to an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels. The treaty has been ratified by 140 nations.
But the largest emitter of such gases, the United States, has refused to go along with the restrictions, saying they are flawed and could hurt its economy. Washington's absence loomed large over celebrations Wednesday in Kyoto, where environment ministers from member countries said progress would be limited without American participation.
"Climate change is a global problem and it can only be dealt with with a global approach," said Joke Waller-Hunter, the Dutch chief of the secretariat to the 1992 U.N. climate change treaty, to which the protocol is an adjunct.
The United States signed the protocol in 1997 under President Clinton (news - web sites), but the Senate refused to ratify it. President Bush (news - web sites) renounced the agreement in 2001, and his government has expressed strong doubts about the link between gases believed to trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere and climate change.
Christie Whitman, his EPA Administrator for a while, believed in it, as did Paul O'Neill. You know how Bush dealt with them? By fucking firing them. What's it going to take before he looks his financial supporters in the eye and says, "I have to do what's right and tackle this problem?"
Global Warming can be slowed, and possibly stopped, if we we give it the good old American try.
I would only launch a war of pre-emption under very special circumstances (certainly not Iraq's). But, with the President banging his fist against the wall about how Social Security must be "fixed" before it hits crisis mode, don't you think it's bogus that he's fabricating that crisis while he ignores this real one?
Maybe we need to pre-empt global warming before it begins melting our ice caps. But maybe I'm just silly, you know? The Government's job isn't to solve problems. Nah, no way.
- ThePoliticalPenguin 6:22 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Oops... they discovered the neo-con master plan of world domination was accidently written down
Daily Kos :: CIA reclassifies Scoop Jackson's records.Last week the federal document security team spent three days in the special collections division of the UW Suzzallo-Allen library. The officials, which also included people from the Department of Defense and Department of Energy, combed through 1,200 boxes of material using a five-binder index to find the targeted papers.In the comments someone notes a Seattle Times article about the importance of Scoop Jackson (despite the seventies being long gone):
Carla Rickerson, head of special collections, said the team removed up to 10 documents.The list of former Jackson staff members reads like a who's who of foreign-policy experts.Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense and one of Bush's Iraq policy experts, never served directly under Jackson. But they had a long relationship that began when Wolfowitz, then a 29-year-old graduate student, helped Jackson prepare charts when the senator wanted to persuade fellow lawmakers to fund an antiballistic-missile program in 1969.
- Richard Perle is an adviser to the Defense Department and considered a major influence on Bush administration foreign policy.
- Doug Feith is undersecretary of defense for policy at the Pentagon.
- Elliott Abrams, special assistant to the president focusing on Middle East affairs, worked as special counsel to Jackson.
...
"The Rumsfeld Defense Department is as close to Jackson as any publicly identifiable group," biographer Kaufman said. He remembers a Henry M. Jackson Foundation dinner in Washington, D.C., three years ago attended by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Perle, Abrams and Wolfowitz.
Perle and Jeanne Kirkpatrick, former U.N. ambassador under Reagan, serve on the board of the Seattle-based Jackson Foundation, which provides grants to nonprofits and educational institutes.
- rob 3:40 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Iran, Iraq, North Korea, they don't only have nuke sites... they have the same one!
THE BRAD BLOG: "CNN's 'North Korean' Nuke Plant Shows Up Again at U.S. GOV FUNDED 'News' Site!"
(via Kos I think)One CNN story, from last Wednesday, was on Iran's purported nuclear program; the other, from last Saturday, was on North Korea's purported nuclear program.Hey, the "save as" function is very confusing in photo shop... but they'll get the hang of it soon enough... when you see the jpeg labeled "Syria-nuclear.jpg."
The satellite photos accompanying each respective story turned out to be the same facility despite captions below each photo claiming each represented an alleged facility in the respective countries discussed in each article.
Later in the day, after our report swept the net (topping out mid-afternoon at #6 on Technorati) CNN changed the photo in the North Korea article to a different satellite image of, apparently, a different facility purported -- as was the first one -- to be near Pyongyang, North Korea.
No explanation was given for the error beyond a statement by CNN, in a correction box, that "an image that was incorrectly identified..."
And now...thanks to some crack sleuthing by "EarlG", an administrator over at Democratic Underground, we've discovered yet another "news" outlet who used another photograph of that same facility -- which is apparently in Iran -- in yet another story on North Korean nukes!
The newly discovered story is from March of 2004 and found on the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty website!
RFE/RL is a U.S. government funded "news" organization broadcasting over Europe!
And to make matters even more troubling and/or confusing, the filename of the photo used in the RFE/RL story is "Iraq-nuclear.jpg"!
- rob 3:16 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Don't say the Iraq war didn't have an effect on international terrorism
U.S. Sees Threats from Terror, Iran and North KoreaIn his first public appearance as U.S. spymaster, CIA Director Porter Goss told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence there was an emerging terrorist threat from experienced fighters now battling U.S.-led forces in Iraq later joining international militants.If Big Pharma copies actually cured a disease rather than treated the symptoms, then their future earnings would be shot. If Bush actually worked to reduce terrorism, his pals would actually have to earn their living.
"Those jihadists who survive will leave Iraq experienced in and focused on acts of urban terrorism. They represent a potential pool of contacts to build transnational terrorist cells, groups and networks," Goss said.
"The Iraq conflict, while not a cause of extremism, has become a cause for extremists," he said.
- rob 2:46 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Because a big issue needs a big title page: Global warming, photography, pictures, photos, climate change, impact, science, weather, arctic, antarctica, climate zones, glacier, arctic warming, antarctica warming, documentation, effects, effects of climate change, ...
Click on the above very long link to see and learn why that "ocean view property in West Virginia" for sale on ebay isn't a lie as much as forward thinking.
- rob 2:29 PM - [PermaLink] -
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We own the air. Americans. The airwaves. The electomagnetic spectrum. In America, you as a citizen own it.
The government as your representative (the government is answerable to you too by the way... at least in theory) created the FCC to oversee the use of your air in television and radio broadcasts.
They have been doing a horrible job of it.
McCain waves stick at TV over news coverageWASHINGTON (Hollywood Reporter) - Lawmakers' pique over the networks' incredible shrinking news hole is prompting legislation that will both shorten the time broadcasters have between license renewals and require full commission review of 5% of all licenses.It wasn't always so.
The legislation was introduced by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on Tuesday after the release of a report by the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California found evening TV newscasts contained little coverage of local political campaigns last year.
I have by me a stack of TV Guides from the seventies (don't ask... maybe some day I'll explain), and there are a few things a quick look at them will tell you.Its been a long road that lead us to this horrible state in media. How do we dig ourselves out?
- The ads were funny, the cars were ugly, and the clothes... well, you remember.
- There were only just a few channels.
- And the despite the fact that there were just a few channels, every week there was a lot of local programming. There were primetime documentaries on local issues, there was local sports coverage, and there was a lot of local interest programming on all the channels during the weekends.
- The networks offered documentaries of national interest during prime time as well (okay off topic with the local angle but interesting nonetheless).
- rob 1:06 PM - [PermaLink] -
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A Ray of Hope, or of Despair- Tuesday, February 15, 2005 -
History has proven that Republics are formed through ages of enlightenment, forged in the crucible of reason, empiricism, and rationality; when Republics turn to Empire, as they eventually do, reason becomes unreason, science is overthrown, and reality turns upside down. It happens all the time. In the old days it took longer, but now it happens quickly. In the words of Shaw, in a toast made to Einstein at his Nobel Prize ceremony, "Ptolemy's universe lasted 3,000 years; Newton's universe lasted 300 years; Einstein's universe will last ... nobody knows how long." In other words, things are speeding up and falling down at the same time. If we're Rome, we're Rome for about 15 minutes. Bear that in mind, because it may come in handy. I know it's a cliche, but some things are worth stamping into your brain. You know a Republic becomes Empire when nationalism asserts its ugly presence, reason is thrown out the window, fundamental and well-established principles of law and government are overturned, the flag waves in every nook and cranny, hate and fear dictate law and policy, and the militarization of society becomes complete. The sacred nation-state becomes a territorial military confederation, ruled by a patriarch, who declares himself the son of God, and women are shoved aside, into subserviant roles. This is history. It happened all over the planet, for thousands of years. Lest you have any doubts.
Here's what I consider the ray of hope, or of despair: from a book review, of all places:[Heisenberg's] uncertainty principle specified the inability to be too exact about small particles. "The idea of an objective real world whose smallest parts exist objectively," he wrote, "is impossible." Oddly, his allegiance to an absolute state, Nazi Germany, remained unquestioned even as his belief in absolute knowledge was quashed.
Einstein and Gödel had precisely the opposite perspective. Both fled the Nazis, both ended up in Princeton, N.J., at the Institute for Advanced Study, and both objected to notions of relativism and incompleteness outside their work. They fled the politically absolute, but believed in its scientific possibility.
... Relativity doesn't imply relativism.
The conservative beliefs of an aging revolutionary? Perhaps, but Einstein really was a kind of Platonist: He paid tribute to science's liberating ability to understand what he called the "extra-personal world."
And Gödel? ... "If you have heard of him ... then there is a good chance that, through no fault of your own, you associate him with the sorts of ideas - subversively hostile to the enterprises of rationality, objectivity, truth - that he not only vehemently rejected but thought he had conclusively, mathematically, discredited."
Before Gödel's incompleteness theorem was published in 1931, it was believed that not only was everything proven by mathematics true, but also that within its conceptual universe everything true could be proven. Mathematics is thus complete: nothing true is beyond its reach. Gödel shattered that dream. He showed that there were true statements in certain mathematical systems that could not be proven.
The theorem has generally been understood negatively because it asserts that there are limits to mathematics' powers. It shows that certain formal systems cannot accomplish what their creators hoped.
But what if the theorem is interpreted to reveal something positive: not proving a limitation but disclosing a possibility? Instead of "You can't prove everything," it would say: "This is what can be done: you can discover other kinds of truths. They may be beyond your mathematical formalisms, but they are nevertheless indubitable." [Emphasis mine]
In this, Gödel was elevating the nature of the world, rather than celebrating powers of the mind. There were indeed timeless truths. The mind would discover them not by following the futile methodologies of formal systems, but by taking astonishing leaps, making unusual connections, revealing hidden meanings.
Like Einstein, Gödel was, Ms. Goldstein suggests, a Platonist.
Does any of this ring a bell? Heisenberg was, in the words of a famous quantum physicist, "120% Nazi."
And he was trying to make an atom bomb. Some people dispute this fact.
- Michael 10:34 AM - [PermaLink] -
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Hi, I'm Gregory R. Pratt. You read about me in Rob's post earlier today. Before I continue, I'd like to re-refer you to my site. Now, which am I? Shamelessly oppurtunistic or oppurtunistically shameless?
Whichever I may be, I would like to mention that no one is more shamelessly oppurtunistic, or oppurtunistically shameless, than Jeff Gannon. I'll stop with the word play, but I was merely trying to show you all the manner I'll use when posting, in general.
There are some interesting stories up that I believe deserve mention. Yes indeed. This is the first one. [I warn all readers that my style in excerpting and in posting is slightly different than that of Rob and Mike, but, hey, we're the Big Tent Party, no?]
Excerpt: Bush Administration displays "a stunning display of moral cowardice" dealing with Global Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. Former VP Al Gore to Give Speech Tomorrow on Significance of Kyoto Protocol, Global Climate Change and a Push for Auto Industry Compliance with State Laws Requiring More Efficient Vehicles.
I'm a big Al Gore fan, and am thrilled that he's back out there fighting the good fight.
It's well-known to everyone who didn't sleep through history classes (and even to some of those that did) that George Washington was offered the position of King but refused. Articles like this make me think Karl Rove wouldn't do the same.
Excerpt: Saudis thrive in the heat, but not the Washington kind. In July 2003, they were looking for protective cover. A congressional panel had issued a report on the roots of the 9/11 attacks, in which 15 of the 19 perpetrators were Saudis. The report contained 28 superclassified pages that described evidence of possible Saudi funding for two of the hijackers. In reaction, the Saudis descended on the capital, eager to dispute the charges and reassure George W. Bush and his administration. Prince Saud al-Faisal sat down with the president, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell. Later that same day, the prince met with national-security adviser Condi Rice.
But there was a third White House base to touch—up a narrow flight of stairs on the second floor of the West Wing. On July 29, according to lobbying records reviewed by NEWSWEEK, the Saudis' leading Washington fixer, Adel Al-Jubeir, met with Karl Rove to, among other things, "give a status briefing on the Kingdom's reform efforts and war against terrorism." The sit-down was arranged by former Texas congressman Tom Loeffler, an elite fund-raiser for Bush's campaigns who had been hired as a lobbyist for the Saudis. The meeting was Al-Jubeir's second with Rove; the first was three months after 9/11. A source close to the Saudis insisted that the sessions were a mere "courtesy." But since Rove's domain was politics—not foreign policy—why arrange them at all? "Isn't it obvious?" the source replied.
Somebody really ought to tell the Mayberry Machiavellis that the sausage makers shouldn't allow the sausage sellers to, in effect, control the making of sausage. And they wonder why people believe, at the suggestion of former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, that there is a broken policy process in the current White House.
- ThePoliticalPenguin 6:44 PM - [PermaLink] -
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The Little Scandal That CouldThe Defense Contract Management Agency --- bless their bureaucratic hearts -- saw fit to review 407 contracts touched by Darlene. Every Department -- yes, even the Pentagon -- has a little thing called an Inspector General's office which, if working correctly, is like a Star Chamber with an attitude, and if not, well, it's like the clowns at the rodeo. The Defense Contract Management Agency has sent, in addition to seven already being investigated, eight more contracts -- count 'em 8! -- on to the IG for investigation. Now it's easy to read this and think nothing of it, small potatoes, hell, tater tots even. But if you're Darleen Druyun, sitting in jail for doing the same revolving door polka as everyone else, and now they want to tack a little more on, and you don't really want to have that extra year or two tacked on, maybe there are a few little procurement tales of your own to tell. Who knows. A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money.Pentagon Probes More Air Force Contracts
- rob 4:19 PM - [PermaLink] -
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FBI Said Conducting Intelligence Abroad
Because no one can find any intelligence in the FBI locally?WASHINGTON - The FBI (news - web sites) is conducting intelligence operations abroad without notifying colleagues at the CIA (news - web sites) and State Department, current and former government officials say.Another Ashcroft success story.
Intelligence veterans say coordination is crucial, ensuring that the ambassador and CIA station chief in a given country can organize U.S. government activities and prevent diplomatic blunders or conflicting intelligence missions.
To quote a friend:Apparently, it's safe and we can all go home now:"The objective of securing the safety of Americans
from crime and terror has been achieved."
- Attorney General John Ashcroft
letter of resignation, November 2004
- rob 3:18 PM - [PermaLink] -
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The Liberal Igloo is a fine site with posts that actually required effort and thought, but despite such a different mode of operating Greg from there has offered to occasionally make appearances here as well. Excellent. Michael and I were getting lonely (We still miss B over in Oregon). We are honored to have him. And we at TCS look forward to reading his posts.
Here's a sampling of his fine work (go to his site for more): Misrepresentations of MorrisDick Morris has a new column up. Or, rather, a recycled version of one of his old columns, arguing, once again as he often has, that Condi Rice is the only person that can stop Hillary Rodham Clinton in four years. He, and many of his fans, argue that he's a smart, influential, brilliant consultant who knows what he's talking about. Which is why Hillary Clinton was picked as John Kerry's Vice Presidential running mate. It was virtually set-in-stone, at least according to him, remember? And, don't forget, Harold Ickes would be DNC chairman! Actually, to be fair to him, I don't recall him ever outright saying that, but I do remember watching him on FOX boast about Ickes connections to Clinton, the Clintons' secret plan to kill Dean's candidacy, and how Ickes would come out on top of the Chairman race. Want to know how that turned out?
Unless you've been living in Dick Cheney's underground bunker, then you know and understand that Dick Morris holds, firmly at that, the belief that Condi Rice is not only the best candidate against Hillary in four years, she's the only candidate.
...
The modern GOP base rose, from North Carolina with Jesse Helms to Georgia and the Confederate Flag to Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy, out of the ashes of Lyndon Baines Johnson becoming a civil-rights Democrat. Republicans moved right on that, and Democrats moved north. I'm not saying that all southernors (or Republicans) are racist, and I'm not saying that most of them are. They're not. But I don't think that the crowd which voted for Buchanon, Gramm, and Bush (especially seeing how sleazy and racist his South Carolina strategy was in the 2000 primaries) aren't going to happily hop into bed with a single black woman who is pro-affirmative-action and pro-choice, I don't think. But I might be wrong.
- rob 2:01 PM - [PermaLink] -
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White House Turns Tables on Former American POWs
Because he supports the troops don't ya knowWASHINGTON — The latest chapter in the legal history of torture is being written by American pilots who were beaten and abused by Iraqis during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. And it has taken a strange twist.Besides the money will be needed to pay off the Iraqi's tortured by us.
The Bush administration is fighting the former prisoners of war in court, trying to prevent them from collecting nearly $1 billion from Iraq that a federal judge awarded them as compensation for their torture at the hands of Saddam Hussein's regime.
The rationale: Today's Iraqis are good guys, and they need the money.
- rob 12:32 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Yesterday was Monday you know.
The Top Ten Conservative Idiots, No. 18610. Rick Roach
And finally, this is the kind of story that the Top 10 was made for. Rick "Aptly Named" Roach is a West Texas Republican district attorney who was elected in 2000 after running a "strong anti-drug campaign." According to the Washington Times, he was "once publicly praised for his efforts to stamp out narcotics in his part of the Panhandle." Since you can probably see this coming a mile off, I'll just cut to the chase: last week FBI agents confiscated two handguns from Roach's briefcase, before raiding his home and discovering "35 more guns, along with a cache of cocaine, methamphetamines, marijuana, scales and syringes." Turns out Rick once "borrowed" two pounds of confiscated meth from the Texas Department of Public Safety laboratory, supposedly to train drug dogs, and then apparently forgot to return them. So thanks, Rick Roach, for your efforts to free the Panhandle from drugs - by taking all of them yourself. See you next week!
- rob 12:09 PM - [PermaLink] -
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The fact that Gannon is gay (or bi or whatever) is not the story (because who cares really).
The fact that he was an active prostitute just weeks before given a White House press pass is the story.
The fact that he was allowed to ask questions of the President when he obvioulsy worked for a fake news "agency" (and used a fake name) is the story.
The fact that the rest of the press didn't seem to notice and has forgotten how to report is the story.
The fact that a bogus reporter from a bogus newspaper is given secret CIA memos is the story.
But the biggest story isn't yet fact (yet): How did he get the White House to provide him with all this access?
Here's an interesting bit from the heart of a very red red state: Salt Lake Tribune: - A Potemkin reporter for Bush's Potemkin AmericaGrigori Potemkin was an 18th century Russian general who is said to have built sham villages to impress Catherine the Great with his administration's good work. In an America hypnotized by Faux - sorry, Fox - News, President Bush and his Svengali, Karl Rove, have proven how easy the trick is.
After a campaign marked by rallies where right-wing credentials were the price of admission, they now want you to believe that a "reporter" for a Web site run by Republican political operatives wasn't given preferential access to the White House.
In George Bush's Potemkin America, we now have a Potemkin reporter.
...
But for two years "Jeff Gannon" was somehow granted successive day-pass access to briefings and press conferences - the only "reporter" to get such special treatment. Day passes are normally reserved for out of town journalists through an application process that bypasses the extensive security checks required for a hard pass. (JG says he adopted the pseudonym because it's easier to pronounce. I guess "James" is a little tricky.)
JG routinely lobbed softball questions to White House press secretary Scott McClellan and President Bush.
...
McClellan was vague about how long he has known about JG's pseudonym and connections. But he strenuously denied that JG was a plant and insisted that at the time of the press conference Bush didn't know who JG was. For many reporters, accustomed to this administration's rigid choreographing of the news, the denials didn't pass the duck test.
- rob 11:38 AM - [PermaLink] -
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Like father Like son:
No more midnight tours for prostitutes... now they get press passes!
Full Scans of the Washington Times story
- rob 11:23 AM - [PermaLink] -
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Google is the official search engine of TCS you know- Monday, February 14, 2005 -
Search engine is cash engine for DemocratsWASHINGTON, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- Employees of U.S.-based search engine Google gave $207,650 to federal candidates for the 2004 elections -- virtually all of it to Democrats.
- rob 9:52 AM - [PermaLink] -
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This is a repeat in that this site has said numerous times that the Bush Administration could have cared less about and did nothing to stop 9/11.
They were kids looking at the open cookie jar ignoring the warnings that mom was coming up the driveway. (wha?)
'01 Memo to Rice Warned of Qaeda and Offered PlanWASHINGTON, Feb. 11 - A strategy document outlining proposals for eliminating the threat from Al Qaeda, given to Condoleezza Rice as she assumed the post of national security adviser in January 2001, warned that the terror network had cells in the United States and 40 other countries and sought unconventional weapons, according to a declassified version of the document.
The 13-page proposal presented to Dr. Rice by her top counterterrorism adviser, Richard A. Clarke, laid out ways to step up the fight against Al Qaeda, focusing on Osama bin Laden's headquarters in Afghanistan. The ideas included giving "massive support" to anti-Taliban groups "to keep Islamic extremist fighters tied down"; destroying terrorist training camps "while classes are in session" and then sending in teams to gather intelligence on terrorist cells; deploying armed drone aircraft against known terrorists; more aggressively tracking Qaeda money; and accelerating the F.B.I.'s translation and analysis of material from surveillance of terrorism suspects in American cities.
- rob 4:11 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Give Dean a chance.
Donate to the DNC:
Code to donate via "actblue" taken from The Daily Kos.
- rob 3:46 PM - [PermaLink] -
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to quote any Jr. High student: Duh!
Iraq Winners Allied With Iran Are the Opposite of U.S. VisionWhen the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq two years ago, it envisioned a quick handover to handpicked allies in a secular government that would be the antithesis of Iran's theocracy -- potentially even a foil to Tehran's regional ambitions.
But, in one of the greatest ironies of the U.S. intervention, Iraqis instead went to the polls and elected a government with a strong religious base -- and very close ties to the Islamic republic next door. It is the last thing the administration expected from its costly Iraq policy -- $300 billion and counting, U.S. and regional analysts say.
- rob 3:36 PM - [PermaLink] -
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More proof that the media would print your laundry list verbatim if you told them it was a shopping list from Saddam's chief nuclear scientist.
This is just sad: THE BRAD BLOG: "CNN's Nuke Plant Photos - Identical - for Both Iran and N. Korea!"Two stories posted in the last week on the CNN website, one on nukes in Iran last Wednesday, and another on nukes in North Korea on Saturday, both use the same aerial photograph of the same purported nuclear power plant!
But one is supposed to be in Iran and the other is supposed to be in North Korea!vs.
Look familiar? Look very closely at both pictures if it doesn't.
In truth, if this wasn't so sad (and actually somewhat frightening) the irony of the sub-title for CNN's Iran story -- "Former weapons inspector: 'It's déjà vu all over again'" -- might be somewhat amusing. In the piece, U.S. chief weapons inspector David Kay is quoted urging the U.S. "not to make the same mistakes with Iran that he said it made with Iraq".
Déjà vu, indeed.
All of which begs at least these questions:
Who is the source for these photos? Was it the same person in both instances? Were they supplied by someone who may have an interest in ginning-up fears over the two so-far unconquered players in Bush's "Axis of Evil"?
Or will it be another CNN staffer who steps forward again to take the fall for this one?
And finally, a question that has been asked all too frequently here over the past year: What the hell has happened to the media in this country?
- rob 3:26 PM - [PermaLink] -
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The mainstream media might as well shut down. They can't investigate the weird smell in their refrigerator much less the destruction of America's checks and balances by incompetent losers.
The press reminds me of the CIA with Aldrich Ames in which a CIA agent suddenly had lots of money and all his spy colleagues can say is "gee his wife must have money." All the while he was getting millions from the soviets. Well here we have the press hanging out in the same room day after day saying "gee that's cool a guy from a fake news agency is allowed to ask lame questions." And they left it at that! Are they only questions they are allowed to ask handed to them ahead of time from Scott?
Then bloggers bust the story wide and the "press" goes, "gee it looks like some people are looking into his private life, that ain't right." Well what the hell was Monica about anyway, isn't that someone's private life? And besides have you ever heard about reporting? The issue isn't that he's gay (though the hypocrisy is obvious). The issue is that he was a whore, and not just a media whore at that.
If someone with access to the West Wing every day, access to the president, access to CIA memos is wide open to blackmail, wouldn't that be news worthy?
If this man with access to the White House was an active money making prostitute just months if not weeks before gaining this access wouldn't this be news worthy?
If the security of the White House is so pathetic that this man could get access simply because he was "conservative," wouldn't that be news worthy?
Does the security of the White House think that any terrorist or killer or madman wouldn't wear a pro-Bush tshirt, and thus if you are you are given keys to the private residence? Along Bush routes any protester is sent to a "free speech zone" while pro-Bush people are allowed to line the route... this is not to hide protestors from King George, no, this is for his "protection." Again this is because White House security has determined that it is physically impossible for a killer, a madman, or a terrorist from wearing a pro-Bush tshirt (funny many visitors of this site define any one wearing a pro-Bush tshirt as a killer, a madman, or a terrorist).
So the press is going to make this story not about how they are lame, but how fascinating this new thing (yawn) called the internet is.
Meanwhile Americablog has basically discovered the Jeff Gannon was indeed a male prostitute. (link contains nudity).
A Man Called JeffWhy does this matter?
So in the end, why does this matter? Why does it matter that Jeff Gannon may have been a gay hooker named James Guckert with a $20,000 defaulted court judgment against him? So he somehow got a job lobbing softball questions to the White House. Big deal. If he was already a prostitute, why not be one in the White House briefing room as well?
This is the Conservative Republican Bush White House we're talking about. It's looking increasingly like they made a decision to allow a hooker to ask the President of the United States questions. They made a decision to give a man with an alias and no journalistic experience access to the West Wing of the White House on a "daily basis." They reportedly made a decision to give him - one of only six - access to documents, or information in those documents, that exposed a clandestine CIA operative. Say what you will about Monika Lewinsky - a tasteless episode, "inappropriate," whatever. Monika wasn't a gay prostitute running around the West Wing. What kind of leadership would let prostitutes roam the halls of the West Wing? What kind of war-time leadership can't find the same information that took bloggers only days to find?
None of this is by accident.
Someone had to make a decision to let all this happen. Who? Someone committed a crime in exposing Valerie Plame and now it appears a gay hooker may be right in the middle of all of it? Who?
- rob 2:55 PM - [PermaLink] -
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It's Not a Conspiracy
It's a money fuck. Pardon my English, but desperate times call for desperate language. Conventional wisdom dictates that to state the obvious is considered bad form; well I've got news: People are out to lunch, we're all told what to think, which is not to think, plain and simple, so they can fuck us out of our money, in the worst way imaginable. I'll spell it out for you: The Bush administration, aided and abetted by Congress and the Supreme Court, who are all partisans beholden to their sorry asses, bought and paid for, has relaxed all the laws holding these corporate assholes accountable, and created a massive All-Seeing Eye, a.k.a. Big Brother, for the sole purpose of collecting every single piece of information on you and sharing it with insurance companies, banks, and a host of agencies and organizations that your life is entirely dependent on, because you have no choice. And what do these wonderful corporate altruists do with that information? They use it to fuck you out of your money, with a whole arsenal of devices, all of which used to be illegal, because once upon a time we had a society, with something called the common good, but not anymore. Ever hear about the Public Debate? It's quaint, it's the honest exchange of ideas, sort of related to the common good. But the me-first generation abolished it (some of you living in New York may have noticed the death of public space, New York's most valuable and precious commodity, a death coming to a theater near you), and Bush is our shining star, the luminary who dimmed the lights and pulled down the curtain on any kind of discussion having to do with the welfare of the community -- commoners, they were called, ordinary men and women, whatever they are, I'm sure he doesn't know, because he never met one. So his whole job, his entire purpose in life, is to fork over every scrap of information on you to his buddies, so they can fuck you out of your money.
It's not about religion. It's not about values or the family. It's about stealing every dime you ever made, every penny you ever paid into the system, which was supposed to be for your sole benefit, and now there isn't a goddamned thing you can do about it.
Sorry if I'm stating the obvious. When somebody hits you over the head with a hammer and robs you, it should be against the law. It isn't anymore, in Bushamerica.
- Michael 10:18 AM - [PermaLink] -
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"To announce that there must be no criticism of the
president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is
not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the
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- Teddy Roosevelt
"Government has a final responsibility for the well-being of
its citizenship. If private cooperative endeavor fails to provide work
for willing hands and relief for the unfortunate, those suffering
hardship from no fault of their own have a right to call upon the
Government for aid; and a government worthy of its name must make
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- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions, but laws must and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
- Thomas Jefferson
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"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain
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- James Madison
"I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves."
- John F. Kennedy
"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
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